Althea and Oliver Read online

  “I’m about to leave for the goddamned airport to try to get a flight up there.”

  “Don’t bother. You don’t need to come up here and stomp around the city like Godzilla looking for me. I’m at some punk house in Brooklyn with some friends of Valerie’s, and I’m leaving tomorrow.” Oliver impresses himself by coming up with this lie on his feet.

  “To come home? Or to go back to the hospital?”

  “That part I don’t know yet.”

  “And when are you planning to decide?”

  “I’m going to flip a coin tomorrow, when the ball drops at midnight.”

  “Come on, Oliver, don’t be smart.”

  “I mean it, I really don’t know. To be totally honest, neither one sounds particularly appealing.”

  Nicky pauses to light a cigarette; Oliver can hear the Bic’s wheel sparking. “Why did you take off like that? You really scared the shit out of me.”

  “I felt like I was trapped in an elevator that was stuck between floors. I just wanted out. Bad enough I spent Christmas in a coma. If I had to do New Year’s with those gorillas, I think I’d open up my wrists.” He picks at some peeling rubber on the heel of his tennis shoe. “So do you have a boyfriend or what?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “When I was in the hospital, before I went down, you told me you had a date. So how did it go? Is he your boyfriend now?”

  Nicky laughs. “Oh, that guy. God, that feels like a million years ago. No, it didn’t work out.”

  “What happened? Didn’t he pay for everything? Didn’t he pull out your chair at the dinner table?”

  “He got all the little stuff right,” Nicky says.

  A lone deliveryman rides down the street on a bicycle, an insulated red pizza pouch strapped to his handlebars. “So what was the problem?”

  “I don’t know, Ol. The effort required at this point doesn’t even seem worth it. Sometimes it’s easier. To pretend this is the way it always was. Just you and me, the two of us.”

  “But why—”

  “I don’t want you to think of me as sad. Okay? I’m not, I’m not the sad mom. But when your dad was—I was—Look, maybe we just never got a chance to grow old and miserable like everybody else. We had a good run. Too good. It spoiled me for anybody else.”

  “So you’re shopping for housecoats?” Oliver asks. “Watching your stories with Mrs. Parker?”

  “Listen to me, you ungrateful wretch, if you’re not back at that hospital or headed for the airport first thing New Year’s Day, I’m going to shake Valerie down for that address, and then I really will be like Godzilla.”

  Godzilla versus the Natural Iceberg, Oliver thinks, and smiles. “What are you doing for New Year’s Eve?”

  Nicky snorts. “Are you kidding?”

  “I thought you might have plans.”

  “Actually, Garth invited me to some faculty party. Said he could introduce me to some adjunct history professors.”

  “You should go.”

  “New Year’s with academics? I don’t think so.”

  “Come on, Mom, shave your legs, pull something shiny out of your closet, and go.”

  “Can we get back to the topic at hand, please? Are you still making up your mind about the lithium?”

  “Do you want to decide? Lithium or not, home or hospital?”

  “I don’t exactly relish the idea of being to blame for the outcome, should you not be pleased with whatever it is. This one is really up to you.”

  “It’s complicated,” he says.

  “Yeah, isn’t just about fucking everything?”

  After he hangs up, Oliver makes no move to return to the backyard and rejoin the party, opting instead to remain on the porch thinking spiteful thoughts. Mostly he wonders how long he’ll have to sit here miserably before Althea tears herself away from the revelry and comes looking for him.

  Twelve minutes later, she opens the door. “Come on.”

  She leads him by the hand upstairs to the second floor.

  “Nobody leaves!” someone shouts below. Under Oliver’s hand, the banister shudders with the force of the house’s reply.

  Althea closes the door behind them. They sit on the bed, kick off their shoes. The glare from the streetlights turns the window into a hazy mirror; otherwise it’s dark.

  “You sleep in the kitchen?”

  “Usually. How’s your nose, by the way? Will really got you good. You’re lucky he didn’t break it.”

  “Speaking of broken noses, I talked to Coby today. He says—”

  Althea grimaces at the mention of Coby. “Is that what you came here for? To give me a message from Coby?”

  “I came to New York to go to the hospital. What did you come here for?”

  “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “Of course it matters. Aren’t you going to tell your father where you are?”

  “I guess I’ll have to.”

  “You’ve been living here for a month? In this house? With those people?”

  “They’re my friends, Ol.”

  This statement hits Oliver like a gutshot. He wants to throttle her. Friends? Friends? They don’t know the first thing about her—not her savage temper, not her fevered dinosaur dreams. Do they have any idea what she can do with a felt-tip pen and a paper napkin? Have they ever seen her tear down the street on roller skates or leap from a rope swing in the middle of the night? How could she possibly think these people are her friends?

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she says.

  “Oh, and what’s that?”

  “You think I’m like your imaginary friend. You think you’re the only one who can see me. You think I’m difficult and spoiled and you can’t understand why anybody else would want me around. But you didn’t make me up. You didn’t invent me. They can see me, too.”

  “And what about Coby? Does he see you, too? Just how much of you has Coby seen?”

  “You know,” she says thoughtfully, “when you’re sick, it’s the only time you and I have anything in common.”

  “That’s not true,” he says.

  “I’m not talking about history or anecdotes or shared experience. I’m not talking about height and eye color. I’m talking about what I am and what you are. I am nothing like you. But when you’re sick, I get it. I see myself in you. That look on the fat mouse’s face—you remember it? It was desperation. And then one day you opened your eyes and you were looking at me that way. Like it was me you were desperate for, not a fucking sandwich, for once. But I am sorry, Ol—I’m sorry I couldn’t wait until you were really awake and ready to look at me that way. I guess I was scared you never would.”

  “You think you’re more like Coby than you are like me?”

  “I don’t know. But I know I don’t want those to be the only two options. You know? On a scale of one to Oliver, I’m a Coby? I just want to be an Althea.”

  She’s managed to skillfully evade his question about Coby, but he doesn’t need her answer anymore. As usual when Althea is concerned, he’s well able to draw his own conclusions once presented with a certain amount of information, and it’s all starting to fit together now. She had slept with Coby, sure, probably right after Oliver had stood in her driveway and told her she was a terrible person. And afterward she had been sorry, sorrier than Oliver is equipped to understand, and she’d wanted a do-over, she’d wanted to take it back, but she couldn’t, so she did the next best thing and broke Coby’s nose so he’d understand she’d changed her mind. It made sense, in an Althea sort of way.

  “I did come all the way here for you. I came here to apologize and to ask you if you really meant it when you said you didn’t even like me very much. And now you’re here, so I’ll say it again, Oliver—I’m sorry. And if I had my way it would be me who was sick and not you and you
know that, so incidentally fuck you for throwing that in my face.”

  “I didn’t mean it, that bullshit about not liking you. You know I didn’t mean that.”

  “You love that I’m like this because it keeps you looking normal in comparison. You acted like you were upset because I took all the attention away from you, but that’s exactly what you wanted. You wanted to be the normal one, and thanks to me you still are. On a scale of one to Althea, you get to be Oliver.”

  “That is so stupid.”

  “Come on, Oliver, be honest. Which would you rather? Would you rather be the crazy person, or would you rather be the crazy person’s best friend? Would you rather be driving the fucked-up bus, or would you rather be the fucked-up passenger? Come on, Ol, don’t think about it for too long.”

  “The driver, okay? I’d rather be the driver.”

  “Right.”

  “And you’d rather be the passenger?”

  “Oliver, this is what I’m trying to tell you. I don’t want to play anymore. I don’t want to pick one. I’m opting out. Game over.”

  “You can’t just run away.”

  “I’m not running away,” she says. “I’m walking away.”

  “You always thought that I could get by without you easier, that you needed me more. You’re wrong. I can’t make a move without you. You’re the instigator, you always have been, and I’m just along for the ride. And after ten years, it turns out that I can be replaced by a bunch of filthy college dropouts and a few cans of Natty Ice.”

  “Of course they can’t replace you—”

  “But they get to have you and I get to—what, talk to you on the phone once in a while?” he snaps. “I don’t understand. Make me understand. Make me understand how you can do this so easily.”

  Althea rakes her hands through her hair. “It is not easy. None of this has been easy. I miss you so much, I miss you all the time. There are days that I remember, totally ordinary days when I was so happy just to be driving around in the car with you, just to have you there, and everything you said was funny and everything I said was clever and every song that came on the radio was exactly the song I wanted to hear. And on days like that I felt so fucking lucky just to have someone to feel that way about, just to feel that way at all, it didn’t even matter if you felt the same way. This isn’t easy for me. You have no idea how hard it is. That’s how I know I’m doing the right thing.”

  “What if we were together? Would you come back then?”

  “Together together?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t try to play that card with me. I finally stopped fooling myself. Don’t start fooling yourself now.”

  He knows she’s right. It’s not fair to bribe her with that kind of promise, but God, does he wish he could do it in earnest. Lying down, he pats his chest in invitation. She takes her place, and he wraps his arms around her and strokes what’s left of her hair. “It’s like we’re two sides of the same coin, and I don’t know which side I’m on.” Althea doesn’t say anything. “I remember those days, too,” he whispers.

  She places her finger gently in the nook at the base of his throat, playing with the few hairs that live there, her palm pressed against his chest. He traces his finger along her spine, first over her shirt, and then under it, and then he kisses her. This time, he thinks, it’ll be different. It won’t be like she said. When it’s over, she won’t have any bruises, and he’ll remember everything.

  There’s no jolt of recognition when they undress, even as he waits for some muscle memory to guide him. Whatever it was he did to her before, whatever it was she liked, he doesn’t know how to recreate it. He lays his hand over her concave belly, strokes her hipbones. They’d shared a bed so many times, swum the Atlantic together in their bathing suits, the Cape Fear in their underwear; he had seen so much of her, he never realized what a difference that last centimeter of fabric would make. And as she had known two different Olivers, the genuine and the impostor, he understands that what he’s seeing now is authentic. Here she is, the real Althea, no cargo pants or combat boots or cigarettes or messenger bag, no scalding cup of coffee, no jumble of black hair, no trace of that oft-practiced scowl, worn to perfection. Naked except for his hands and a shy smile. So what if he’s not seeing it for the first time, so long as it feels like he is.

  “Althea—”

  “Shush.”

  “Don’t shush me,” he says.

  Even in the darkness, her smile is brilliant. “You love it when I shush you.”

  He hovers over her, kneeling between her legs, pressing his lips to her neck. “I love it when you shush me.” She glows pale blue-white in the headlights of a passing car.

  “You don’t have to worry,” she says. “It’s supposed to be fun.”

  And she’s right. She always is.

  chapter sixteen.

  ALTHEA WAKES UP next to Oliver, but he’s still asleep.

  The room is cold, but he’s warm, as always, like a puppy, his face smushed against the pillow and a fist tucked under his chin. She presses her nose into his neck and closes her eyes, but she can’t fall back to sleep. Her cheeks are raw from Oliver’s stubble; her lips positively exfoliated. The house is alive beneath them, something sizzling in a pan in the kitchen, Matilda collecting money for a liquor run, someone strumming a guitar and making up a song about Mr. Business. Rolling over, Althea reads the walls. The phone numbers and grocery lists and song lyrics, the chaotic index to Matilda’s small and precious life.

  Management is downstairs in the hallway counting out a pile of cash, mostly singles, on a waist-high pile of newspapers. Her blonde hair is loose around her small face, thumbs sticking out of two holes in the sleeves of her sweatshirt. There’s a patch sewn onto the front pocket that reads PRAY FOR FOOD. Ethan is stumbling around blindly in his boxers.

  “I’m sorry I disappeared last night,” Althea says.

  “We forgive you,” Ethan says.

  “This halfwit can’t find his glasses again.” Matilda gestures to Ethan with friendly disdain.

  “They’re on top of the fridge,” Althea reminds him.

  Grunting, Ethan blunders toward the kitchen.

  Althea follows him. In the living room, their many house-guests are beginning to wake up; she can hear them coughing and lighting cigarettes and muttering to one another about their hangovers. The elastic of Ethan’s boxer shorts has carved a thin red line into the small of his back. His face brightens as he slips on his glasses and surveys the kitchen; she looks away as he wraps his brown blanket around himself like a cape.

  “And how was your night?” Ethan says.

  “None of your goddamn business.”

  “Did you have a nice time?” He leans against the sink, a smarmy expression on his face. “Was it a happy reunion?”

  “Stop.”

  “Does this mean you guys are going to prom together?”

  Matilda enters the kitchen with her pile of cash. “Ethan, quit taunting her. Althea, can we take your car to the liquor store so I don’t have to carry all this shit home?”

  Althea looks instinctively toward the stairs, thinking of Oliver.

  “He’ll be fine,” says Matilda.

  “Hang on.” Althea runs back up to Matilda’s bedroom and finds a piece of chalk on the dresser. Finding a blank spot on the wall, she scrawls a hasty note to Oliver—Went to buy booze, back soon—and surrounds it with a heavy border so he can’t miss it. She pulls the blanket up over his bare shoulder. For a second she’s tempted to wake him, just to make sure she can, but she thinks better of it and slips silently away.

  • • •

  Oliver wakes up a little while later and waits, naked and cold, for Althea’s return. He doesn’t know how long she’s been gone, but he’s afraid to leave the room without her. The edges of the bed are frigid, so he stays huddled in the cen
ter, in the space they warmed with their bodies. The minutes tick by and he doesn’t hear her voice amid the house’s chorus; she doesn’t open the door carrying two steaming mugs, wearing a sheepish grin, ready to dive back into bed with him. His head aches and he needs to take a piss, but beyond the relative safety of this room the house is throbbing with strangers slamming doors and shouting at one another in the hallways; already the air is weed-sweet and tobacco-musty, and he can’t remember any of their names.

  Finally his bladder gets the better of him. His clothes are strewn scattershot across the floor; he gathers them and dresses.

  The bathroom door is locked. Pressed into the wall, he waits, still listening for her voice.

  The red-haired boy steps out amid a hot cloud of steam, wiping the fog from his glasses with a corner of the faded purple towel around his waist. Water drips from his hair onto his bare shoulders, pooling a little in his collarbone. As he puts on his spectacles, he finally notices Oliver.

  “So you’re the guy from North Carolina,” he says.

  “Oliver.” He stands up straighter.

  “Ethan. I think we met last night. Briefly.”

  A girl moans in a bedroom down the hall. Distracted, Oliver clears his throat. “I think we did. Do you . . . Is this your house?”

  “It’s Matilda’s house. I just live here. If you’re looking for Althea, she went to the liquor store.” Ethan glances back toward Matilda’s room. “You staying long?”

  The girl moans again, louder. Bedsprings rasp beneath her. Oliver’s bladder strains against its contents. “I don’t think so.”

  “Is she leaving with you?”

  Though Ethan is the one wearing only a towel, Oliver feels bizarrely exposed. Despite his conviction that these people know nothing of Althea, suddenly it seems they may know plenty about him. What would their story sound like from her point of view? Maybe the Warriors all hate him. Although they seemed to be okay with him last night. The fornication down the hall is reaching its crescendo, a guy grunting in time with the shrieks of both girl and bedsprings, the tempo of all three increasing. Oliver wonders with horror if that’s what he and Althea sounded like. Was someone waiting for the bathroom then, listening the entire time? And even if no one heard, everyone knew what they were doing in there; if nothing else, this is a house devoid of secrets. Everyone knew. Matilda knew. The couple in the bedroom knew. This Ethan person interrogating Oliver knew. Was he picturing it right now? Was he imagining what Althea looked like naked, or doubting Oliver’s abilities? Was Ethan sneering at Oliver because he was certain he could do better? The bedsprings and cries cease abruptly; after a brief moment of quiet, there are soft giggles and whispers. Oliver doesn’t understand why they bother keeping their voices down now. “You never know what she might do,” he says.