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“It is fashion show day!” Rocky announces eagerly, after banging at my door.
“I really wish I hadn’t taught you that phrase,” I reply, letting him in the house nonetheless. He’s carrying with him one of the storage containers from the ship, apparently full of my new clothing delivery.
The fact that Eridians don’t care about clothes, and that I honestly barely do either, means this was hardly a priority after arriving on Erid. But after a very small wardrobe being stretched to its limit over years of use, I’m in dire need of a few new things. And I will maintain a level of human modesty for the rest of my life, and I don’t care that Eridians can pretty much “see” everything anyway.
Rocky looks very excited to be delivering these. “Human clothing was a very enjoyable challenge for the team! Much research on thinking machines for designs, even think we have made many colors for you!”
“Alright, alright, exciting!” His enthusiasm is contagious, and though going shopping was rarely anything but a chore on Earth, my threadbare clothes were plenty of inspiration to make some requests. “Let me see, what have we got?”
“All in approved fabrics, do not worry. No heavy metals or scratching on your weak, leaky, baby skin.”
“Rude,” I say. “But thank you.” The first cloth prototypes felt more like sandpaper than fabric, so I was very glad when they managed to get them much closer in feel to cotton and even a silky smooth one. I’d also let them borrow a few of my current pieces so they could get shape and measurement right.
“Boring things on top,” Rocky says with a wave. I pull out two new sets identical to my current sleepwear, loose pants and a soft long sleeved shirt, but instead of white they are in a mottled sort of green and brown. This is followed by several plain pairs of boxers and socks. Excellent. The underwear and socks were practically falling apart at the seams after years of constant use.
“This is awesome, thank you so much!” I ran my hand over the fabric. It feels good, or at the very least not uncomfortable. I’ll send clearer feedback if I need to after wearing them. “Yep, they are very soft and look comfortable.”
“No need to try on,” he says, “identical to current clothing measurements.”
“Yeah I wasn’t planning to model the boxers for you, bud,” I say with a chuckle.
“Next thing is Adrian’s design!”
The next item I pull up is a jacket. I feel the material and it’s a little stiff and thick, similar in texture to denim. As I unfold it, I see that it is…covered in what I can only describe as rhinestones.
Something hits me very strange about that and it takes a moment to place it. I would never wear something this…showy on Earth. And another word pops into my head.
“...I don’t know, girly!” I tell Linda when she hands me her rhinestone jacket. It's patterned in hearts and is uncomfortably sparkly.
“Ry, who cares?” she says with a very familiar exasperated tone. “If you were worried about that, you would have brought your own jacket like I told you to!”
“I wasn’t cold when we left,” I grumble. It’s chilly and my favorite hoodie is a fifteen minute walk away in my dorm room. “And I’m not wearing girl’s clothes.”
“What’s the worst thing that will happen if you wear your girlfriend's ‘girly’ jacket? It’s oversized on me, it’ll fit you just fine. I don’t want you to be cold.”
“Uh, someone might see me?” I reply. Why is she not understanding the big issue here? “Why didn’t you just make me bring the hoodie, if you knew this would happen?”
“You’re impossible, Ryland.”
Hey, question for you, brain. Are we ever gonna call up any memories where I wasn’t a crappy boyfriend? So far the clearest memories I’ve got involve arguing with her about whether I’m “being a jerk” about not wanting to buy her a box of tampons, being kind of a giant brat about the amount of stuff she moved into my apartment, whatever this just was, and her leaving me.
I’m beginning to suspect now that she had some additional reasons for that beyond her stated one of me “not wanting to live in the real world”.
I shake it off. Maybe in fifteen years I’ll remember buying her some chocolates or something and get to bask in the glory of Doing Relationship Correctly. It must have happened at some point.
“Does the fabric have a bad sensation?” Rocky asks, his carapace tilted in concern. “This is thicker to bear the weight of the inscription stones. But I can take it back if it’s too heavy for you.”
“Oh, no! It’s great, sorry bud. Just remembering something.” I smile. “The, um, decoration is interesting? We had something kind of like this on Earth. It reflects light really well, actually.”
Rocky does an excited little jig. “Yes! We thought so but couldn’t be certain.”
The spacing of everything seems kind of random, I’m trying to place if it’s a particular design or they just speckled across the back in some auditory quality I wouldn’t get.
“It’s to wear to class! Pebbles will love it!”
“Huh? Why?”
Rocky makes an exasperated sound. “Read! Much better than dumb shirts you wear.”
“Hey!” I spread it out against the table. Sure enough, it is a sentence in written Eridianese. It takes a minute to parse. There’s the word indicating question, instead of the word for molecules, there’s an actual diagram for Oxygen and Hydrogen…Hydrogen is spaced higher than the rest of the sentence, so that means it’s a doubled word. ‘Interact’. The word ‘Wet’ is first spaced in the inverse position of the word question, so that means that’s the answer.
Then the word wet is repeated what looks like over a dozen times and shaped in the symbol of a downward arrow.
“I don’t get it.”
“Grace stupid. Grace knows how to read by now.”
“Okay, okay. So, um.” I try to translate it out into an English sentence. “Question: What happens when one oxygen and two hydrogen interact. Answer: Wet. Oh! Okay, that is kind of funny, H2O is water, so you get wet in water.”
“Grace continues to be stupid. Thinks one sixth of a joke is funny.”
“Eridian humor is an art I have unfortunately yet to master. Okay. What am I missing? How many times….ughhhhh.” I count. “Seventeen. Sooooo funny.” Alright additional context: kids have some dumb obsession with the number seventeen (flashbacks to six seven jokes are nearly as traumatic as all the Everything Else) so the seventeen mention makes it funnier. For some reason. There’s this meta thing with Eridian jokes where acknowledging that it’s a joke being spoken to you makes the humor potential increase tenfold. This is proven by Rocky’s additional burst of laughter at the inherent humor of discussing the joke.
“And shapes! Shapes are important, oh, okay okay the arrow also means disappointment, so it’s really more like ‘you get wet and also that’s a bad thing’, okay sure so I guess that’s funnier, and shape is also kind of a pun, it sounds like – Oh, my god is this a reference to Underwater Explorers?”
Rocky trills with laughter as if this is the funniest thing that’s ever happened. It’s very hard to craft an Eridian joke because they are very pun and octave and shape based, and my usual approach of self deprecating sarcasm just doesn’t land the way it does on Earth.
“Grace’s favorite show!”
There’s an incredibly popular children’s audio drama about a bunch of seafaring Eridians who encounter all sorts of beasts and go on adventures. None of my kids can stop talking about it, and they force me against my will and under duress to listen to it. One of the characters has a running gag about being afraid of getting wet, and for language reasons I can not adequately explain, I will be wearing a jacket inscribed with a pun on his catchphrase as delivered via chemistry joke.
“It is not my favorite show,” I grumble. I’ve just been forced to talk about it so often because my kids like it, and it’s important to get involved with their culture, and the cowardly character who’s afraid of getting wet is supported by the whole crew and becomes braver by the power of friendship, and that doesn’t mean anything to me at all, actually. It’s just a show.
“It’s great, Rocky. It’s a good joke.” I smile and fold it up to dig in further for the next clothes.
This is where the color experimentation happened, I guess. I have several new shirts, cut in the simple style of tee shirts, that look like they were used to mop up spills in a paint store explosion.
“Oh, wow! These are…these really are something!” What they are is basically rainbow colored tie-dye. Some every color of the spectrum, some just the cooler colors, some just the warmer, some combinations of colors that have no business being combined together.
“Are there many colors?” Rocky fidgets. “Still difficult to tell the best colors to put together, but everyone wanted to surprise you with the variety we can make!”
“It is…variety, Rocky.” I guess it really doesn’t matter if I’d wear these on Earth. I’m not on Earth and I don’t need to care about being too eye-catching– first of all, because there aren’t any eyes within light years of me. And secondly, it’s literally impossible for me not to be the center of attention wherever I am, being an alien and all. I realize I’m not sounding very grateful for this feat accomplished by a species who didn’t have a concept for color until they met me. “It’s amazing that you managed it, really. Please tell the team they did a great job. Do you want me to try them on?”
“Already used scanners to look at colors, and your upper clothing sounds the same as current upper clothing.” He shrugs. “Next clothing is different! Want to hear Grace in next clothing!”
“Okay, okay, next clothing, let’s see!” I’m not sure what’s going to be different about it, until I pull out– “A, uh, a skirt.”
“Yes, four of these! All different styles and patterns, try on!”
The first one has a similar waistband to my pants. But then the fabric flows outward and down to an ankle length. It is also…flower patterned.
“Did you, um…design this pattern?” I feel very odd about trying these on. I’m not sure why. Surely it’s silly to care about this? Men wear skirts. Kilts! Kilts exist. I’m probably Scottish somewhere down the line and this would be, uh. Representing my culture.
“Try on!” Rocky insists, and I flush with embarrassment as I pull down the flight suit pants I’m wearing and put on the…skirt. “Pattern was made by Marissa. Chosen from the thinking machine as popular Earth design. Is it correct?”
Alright there is a kind of interesting sensation to wearing the skirt. It has a nice sway to it when I turn and walk. It’s large and loose so it’s not as restricting as I thought it might be.
“Grace sounds very pretty! Air moves nicely around the fabric.”
Wearing a flower patterned skirt and being called pretty. Guess I can check that off my “things I never thought would happen” Bingo Card. Along with meeting aliens and owning beachfront property.
“Thanks,” I say and my voice feels a little tight. I should get through the rest of these, I think.
Next up is a very interesting design, it's like a collection of loose braids of rougher fabric than the last one all wound together along a waistband. This one is a dark greenish brown, and there’s a fun sort of shaky rattle to the way it moves when I–
“This is a hula skirt,” I say.
“Worn on Earth beaches and islands!” Rocky trills excitedly. “You love the beach, so…maybe you feel more connected to Earth culture with this?”
The honest sincerity of what my best friend just said stops the ‘this is ridiculous’ completely in its tracks and shoots right back to gratitude. “I do, pal,” I say and if the smile is a little watery that's probably just dust. “Hey, remind me to show you Lilo and Stitch sometime, okay?”
I do a little shimmy and swing my hips, and we both laugh, especially when he mirrors the actions best he can. “Hey, how do I sound?”
“Sounds very nice! Grace looks very good in the new clothes.”
“Thanks, Rock. You um. You maybe should know that this type of clothing is usually not…for men.”
“Why?”
Yeah, Ryland. Why? What’s the reason exactly? “We just…don’t. Wear them. Usually. Women wear these.”
Rocky seems baffled. I have attempted to explain gender to him before, a very fun conversation I definitely was super comfortable about the entire time, but he didn’t ‘get it’ in the way he at least was able to grasp the concept of sexual dimorphism.
“Male and female biology would have no effect on this style of cloth draping. This clothing damages the male reproductive organ somehow?”
“What? No, obviously not.”
“Seems better, actually. Reproductive organ less restricted in looser clothing than the bottom clothes you usually wear.”
“Alright and that’s the end of discussion on reproductive organs now, thank you.”
The next two are just as pretty, one is knee length and pleated and a soft blue, and one light red– you know what? Pink. It’s pink, actually and it’s very pretty and I’ll just admit it. The pink one flows out to calf level and has a ridge of more rhinestones along the edge. No puns in that one, just a pretty design in a rainbow of different colors. I take a moment to admire the way the light catches them, and stop pretending to care about if it’s weird for a man to wear skirts. I’m the only man on the planet, so I guess I can just decide for myself what that means now, huh?
“Last item is the best one,” Rocky says.
The last item is folded into a separate package at the bottom of the bin, and has a level of heft to it. There’s also a little jangle as I move it to open it. The way it’s folded I can see a row of little bells along what I think is the neckline. “Celebration clothes?”
“Rocky design for Grace,” he says, his tone and word choice reverting back to our Hail Mary pidgin. That means he’s nervous about my reaction, which given my little pushback against the skirts, means it’s probably–
“A dress,” I say, as it unfolds and flows down to the ground. And it is..quite possibly one of the nicest dresses I’ve ever seen. The coloring is gradient from top to bottom, colors that flow through several shades of green before ending in a soft orange.
“Hey, the color…this is the same color as the planet Adrian,” I say, wowed by the detail.
“Yes! If you like, wear it to the opening of the new mission museum next month!”
I’m very excited about the museum opening, detailing the Blip-A’s mission and Rocky and I meeting and solving the astrophage crisis.. I really hadn’t given much thought to what I would wear to it, and now I couldn’t imagine dressing up in anything else. “Alright, let me try it on.”
The fabric is silky smooth and it drapes over me as expertly as I imagined it would, being designed by someone who’s memorized my measurements and can make absolutely anything. It has a rounded neckline, high on my chest and cut from the edges of both shoulders, hem ridged with bells and strips of metal, sparkling in the light. There’s corresponding rows of gems and metal along the shoulders, the waist, and layered in patterns over the large, flowing skirt.
It doesn’t feel like I’m wearing clothes that are supposed to be for someone else, or that I’m anyone else at all besides me, I’m just Grace, wearing the dress made just for Grace.
I take in the sight in the mirror, the light, the sound, the flow, the texture, and I smile. I spin around, the air catching the skirts and ballooning it around, the jingle of the decorative bits singing through the room. I’m in something made just for me, by someone who loves me, and what looks better than that?
“Grace looks beautiful!” Rocky says.
“Thanks bud,” I reply. I tilt my head at my reflection, and for the first time in I don’t know how long, really loving who I see. “I feel beautiful.”
Rocky does a little swaying dance in celebration. “Success!”
I laugh. “Success! But hey, you’re gonna be right next to me at the museum, so you gotta match me!”
“Already made complementary celebration clothes for me!!” Rocky says.
Ha! Of course he did.
“Alright, buddy, good. Now we will both look beautiful.”