“You work for NASA. Why can’t he stay with you?”

“Chris, darling, we’ve been through all this before. You know Mother’s xenophobic. Just the thought of the Eahrrohhs being on Sony has given her terrible migraines. And you know Mr. Oghhifoehnnahigrheeh has to have ceilings at least twelve feet high for his vertical claustrophobia, and you were the only other person I knew who had ceilings that high. The Japanese didn’t design Sony for Americans. It’s hard enough to find buildings with even normal American ceilings, let alone twelve-foot ones. And with the Eahrohhs’ privacy fetish, we can’t ask them to double up with people.”

“I know, Stewart,” Chris said, “but…”

“The only twelve-foot ceilings on Sony are in the apartment buildings Misawa designed. Like your building.”

And your mother’s, Chris thought.

“It’ll only be for a few more days. We’re currently negotiating with the Japanese to transfer the Eahrohhs down to Houston. When that happens, you’ll have your apartment all to yourself again.” He pressed some buttons on his desk. “Darling, I’ve got a call coming in. Can’t we…”

The door to her apartment slid open, and someone said, “Hey, this is great!”

She looked back at Stewart. He had flattened out again, this time with a decidedly impatient look on his face.

“My room in here,” Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh said, and squeezed past Chris carrying two shopping bags, a bouquet of cherry blossoms, and what looked like a tent. The pockets of his long orange coat looked lumpy, too, but Chris hadn’t figured out yet which of the bulges and lumps were part of Mr. Ohghhifoennahigrheeh’s peculiar shape and which weren’t.

He looked a little like a sack of potatoes with short, wide legs and arms. His legs and arms were lumpy, too, and so was his head, except for the top, which was round and bald and surrounded by a fringe of fine pinkish-orange hair that extended down the sides of his face in wispy sideburns. “Except for he’s an alien, he’d never make it in the movies,” Bets had said the first time she’d seen him.