Althea and Oliver

by Cristina Moracho

  “Yeah, no kidding.” Ethan returns to his bedroom, the soles of his feet already filthy again.

  The other bedroom door springs open and the couple dashes out, the curly-haired girl wrapped in a white sheet, the boy in his boxers, a soiled tissue tucked in his fist. Still giggling, they chase each other into the bathroom before Oliver can protest, locking the door behind them and starting up the shower. He tries to ignore the sound of running water. He thinks dry thoughts.

  • • •

  Matilda pushes a shopping cart down the aisle of the liquor store. “I was thinking about letting Dennis tattoo me tonight,” she says. “He’s been wanting to for a while. I don’t know. What do you think?”

  Althea picks up a dark green bottle of champagne with a fancy-scripted orange label. “I think that boy wants to do a lot more than tattoo you.”

  “No, no, no, put that back. Are you crazy? That shit costs forty-five bones. The magic number is eight.” She keeps going, stopping right before they reach the Boone’s Farm. “Here we go. One of everything that’s cheap and sparkling.” She pauses. “Really? You think so?”

  Checking the price stickers now, Althea loads up the cart. “That so hard to believe?”

  “Leala’s the one they usually go for. She’s like a mobile burlesque act. Everything she does. When she plays a video game, it’s like she might as well just take off all her clothes. But if there’s one thing that isn’t sexy, it’s being Wendy to the Lost Boys of Brooklyn. No one wants to fuck the girl who cleans the toilet.” Matilda holds a milky bottle by the neck, squinting at the label. “What is this?” The liquid inside is the color of a runny egg yolk.

  “I think it’s a premixed mimosa,” Althea says, reading over her shoulder.

  “I feel sick just holding this in my hand. Can you imagine what would happen if we actually drank it?”

  “It’s only four dollars.”

  Placing it in the cart, Matilda shakes her head. “Breakfast, I guess.”

  “Do you think you’d like to be, you know, tattooed by Dennis?” Althea idly looks over a bottle of blackberry merlot.

  “I haven’t been tattooed by anyone in a long time. It might be nice. Course, you’ll have to change my sheets first.”

  Althea looks at her shoes.

  “Don’t be embarrassed. Everyone should get tattooed at New Year’s. How was it, anyway?”

  At first, she had been waiting for Oliver to turn on her, to turn her over and push her head into the mattress or throw her to the floor. She kept watching his eyes, wondering if they would suddenly go blank and he would be gone. What if it was her touch that did it, brought the fat mouse back? What if she broke him? But Oliver had been there behind his eyes the whole time. “I think it was like it’s supposed to be.”

  Matilda lowers her voice. “Was it, you know, better? Worse?”

  “It was better, I guess. I mean, if I had to pick between being with Oliver or not-Oliver, I’ll take Oliver. But it doesn’t change anything. All it means is that I’m forgiven.”

  “It doesn’t change anything?” Matilda asks, casting a coy, sidelong glance Althea’s way. “Nothing at all?”

  “Do you know how closely I’ve watched him over the last couple of years for any sign that he suddenly saw me differently? I would know if something had changed. You know how? He would be relieved. He would be so relieved that he could finally make me happy, that he could stop worrying about disappointing me every goddamn day, and it would be written all over his face. The tattooing was inevitable, but it doesn’t change anything.”

  “So does that mean you’re still disappointed?”

  Althea runs her fingers over the script on the wine bottle’s label. “Of course I’m disappointed. But I used to feel like I would never be satisfied until he came around, like everything depended on me getting the answer that I wanted.”

  “That sounds miserable.”

  “Yeah, no kidding. And it’s still miserable. But now it seems, you know, conceivable that it won’t always be that way.”

  “It won’t.” Seeing the bottle in Althea’s hand, Matilda sighs. “God, I used to love that stuff. Drank it all the time in college. Come on, let’s go.”

  Matilda leads them to the register, pulling out the stack of bills held together with a thick purple band, the kind normally used to bunch asparagus and broccoli. “All these dollars, and we’re just going to puke them up in the morning.”

  “It’s your favorite holiday. Show a little enthusiasm.”

  “I guess. It’s so pathetic; I’m already dreading tomorrow, when everybody leaves.”

  Althea waits until they’re back at her car to respond to this. “Not everybody’s leaving tomorrow.”

  Matilda raises an eyebrow. “Oh no?”

  Althea shrugs, trying to be casual. “I mean, I just got the hang of alternate side of the street parking. Seems like it would be a shame to leave now.”

  Matilda considers this. “Are you sure that’s what you want? To keep on sleeping in the kitchen?”

  “What I want is for Oliver to wake up today and realize he’s in love with me. But that’s not going to happen, so yes, I want to keep sleeping in the kitchen. I like sleeping in the kitchen. I like it much better than sleeping in the basement.”

  “Well, you do make good muffins. And you don’t take any of Ethan’s shit. I’ll have to clear it with everybody else. And you’ll have to start coughing up for rent. Have you thought at all about what you’re going to do for money?”

  “I thought money was for people with money?”

  “We can probably figure something out.” Matilda looks up at Althea, squinting her green eyes thoughtfully. She laughs.

  “What?” Althea asks.

  “It’s funny. A month ago you were afraid to ask for a place to crash for the night.”

  “Look at me. I’m growing.”

  They nestle the bags in the trunk with Althea’s ancient beach blankets, crusty with salt and sand.

  “Your car smells like summer,” says Matilda.

  Althea pats the dent in her bumper affectionately. “‘North Carolina. First in Flight.’ You’re lucky I have a car. I don’t know how you would have gotten all this home otherwise.”

  “I told you. I’ve had good luck ever since that quarter turned up.”

  • • •

  By the time Oliver enters the shower, there’s no more hot water. It starts out lukewarm and tapers off to cold until he can’t stand it anymore, and he gets out before he’s even rinsed the shampoo completely from his hair. When he leaves the bathroom, the gray cat is scratching at the door, eager to get in and use the litter box. Is there ever a time in this house when someone isn’t waiting for the bathroom?

  Downstairs, he works out a cup of coffee. Most of the Warriors and their guests have bundled up and moved to the backyard to further craft the Natural Iceberg. The curly-haired girl wanders in from the living room, wearing a Sex Pistols shirt and socks that come up to her thighs. She refreshes her coffee, watching Oliver watch the others.

  “She drove Matilda to the liquor store,” she says, joining him by the window. “If you’re wondering where she is.”

  “Thanks. I know where she is.”

  “It looks like they’re going to be out there for a while,” she says. “Wanna play Tomb Raider?”

  They sit on the living room floor, their backs against the couch, the cords in a tangle at their feet. She hands him a controller, and he’s soothed by the atmospheric sound track and the mechanical hand motions that come back to him as he plays. It’s been a while. She trounces him repeatedly, with ease, but Althea has trained him to be a good sport about losing by refusing to ever do it herself.

  “How long have you lived here?” he asks.

  “About six months. I was living with some guy— Well, you don’t need to hear the
details. Matilda said I could stay here until I sorted out my shit.”

  “I guess it’s taking longer than you thought.”

  “I got together with Kaleb, so I stayed. But who knows, maybe I would have stayed anyway.” She gestures around the room with her controller. “I know it doesn’t look like much. It’s dirty and crowded. One time the toilet overflowed and there was water pouring from the ceiling, and I swear to God, Matilda just put her head down and cried. Said we were all living in a Superfund site. But there’s always someone around to talk to, and if you want to be alone you can go take a walk on the beach. And it’s cheap. Beats working for a living.”

  “You don’t have a job?” asks Oliver, surprised.

  “Most of us don’t. Not real ones. We pick up cash here and there.”

  “How do y’all get by?”

  “Off the fat of the land, that’s how,” she says, and a key rattles in the door.

  • • •

  Althea’s favorite mug is drying in the rack on the kitchen counter, the same mug Matilda handed her the first morning. THERE IS NOTHING EITHER GOOD OR BAD, BUT THINKING MAKES IT SO. There’s half an inch of burnt coffee at the bottom of the pot; she takes it, starts a fresh one. The only official rule of the house may be not to burn it down, but Althea’s learned some other courtesies. Take off your shoes in the front hallway. If you finish what’s in the coffeepot or the rice cooker, replenish it. If the trash stinks, take it outside, don’t wait for Matilda to do it.

  She brings her coffee and the cordless phone to the front steps. Matilda’s lucky quarter is still glued to the sidewalk. A sharp wind blows across the street, hard and cold, stinging the back of her neck, biting at her fingers as she dials.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “Althea. How’s it going out there? You getting ready to come home?”

  She can almost see him, sitting at the kitchen table, the house silent except for the ticking of the old grandfather clock, maybe the heat coming up through the pipes. “You know, it’s a lot better than I thought it would be.”

  “You’re not just saying that?”

  Althea can hear everyone in the backyard, throwing snowballs and insulting one another. She takes a swig of her coffee and then a deep breath. “Dad, I’m not in New Mexico.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I’m not in New Mexico. I never went to New Mexico. I’m in New York City.”

  “With Alice?” Garth asks, confused.

  “No. Not with Alice. I came here alone.”

  “Oh. To see Oliver?”

  “Yeah.” She presses her ear closer to the receiver and plugs the other ear with a finger, trying to block out all the noise in Brooklyn and anticipate his reaction.

  Garth pauses, presumably to collect himself. When he speaks, his voice is oddly tight, his words clipped. “Althea, I don’t even know what to say. Did it really seem more reasonable for you to concoct an elaborate cover story about going to see your mother than to just tell me you wanted to visit your best friend in the hospital? And you left over a month ago—what have you been doing this whole time? Have you been living in your car, in a shelter somewhere?”

  Althea has a harder time staying calm; her words come tumbling out in a rush. “Oliver was already asleep when I got here, but I found a place to stay with these kids in Brooklyn and I sort of, like, fit right in. I made friends with them. It’s not a shelter. It’s a real house, with a cat, and a kitchen, and a coffeemaker.”

  His chair scrapes against the floor as he stands up; he’s on the move, she can tell, probably pacing across the kitchen. “Althea, I don’t give a good goddamn about whether you have access to fresh coffee. I want to know when you’re going to get in your car and come home.”

  She reaches for a lock of hair to gnaw on before she remembers Matilda cut it off. “It’s going to be a while, I think.”

  “What are you talking about?” Exasperation is creeping into his voice. “You’ve already been there for a month. You can’t just stay there, waiting for Oliver to wake up.”

  “He’s already awake. He’s here with me now.”

  “He’s not at the hospital? Does Nicky know where he is?”

  “He talked to her yesterday.”

  He pauses, trying to process this. “I don’t understand. If you went up there to see Oliver, and you’ve seen him, then why aren’t you coming home?”

  “Look, Dad, I know you were probably hoping that I would finish high school and go to college, and I don’t know, maybe eventually I will,” she says, trying to sound reasonable, like she’s thought this all out and it’s totally logical. “But right now I just want to stay in the place where I seem to do the least damage. You said I’m almost eighteen and I could decide for myself.”

  “I was talking about North Carolina or New Mexico,” Garth says, not yelling but as close as he’s come to it in a long, long time. “Staying in New York City with a bunch of strangers was not an option.”

  “Alice is more of a stranger to me than anyone,” Althea snaps. “She’s just DNA and a voice I hear every six months on the other end of the telephone. What has she ever done to make you think I’d be better off with her?”

  “So everything you said about snowshoeing and red chiles—”

  “I’m sorry, Dad. There was no showshoeing. I’m sorry I had to lie—”

  “You didn’t have to lie. You chose to lie. Over and over again, for a month. What would possess you to—Althea, are you on drugs?”

  “Not even a little,” she says, trying to be reassuring. “I promise. No drugs. I barely even eat meat anymore.”

  “So I’m supposed to believe you’re living some kind of ascetic existence in New York City?” Garth asks sarcastically. “What, did you meet a boy up there?”

  “Why does it have to be about a boy? Give me a little credit.”

  “What about Oliver?”

  “I can’t gush blood over him forever, Dad. If I stay here, I have a chance.”

  “A chance to what?”

  “To get over him. If I go back to living four houses down from him, I’ll be done for.”

  “So it is about a boy.”

  She takes a deep breath, because she’s still figuring it out herself. “It’s not that simple. It’s not just because of Oliver. And it’s not because of you, if that’s what you’re worried about, or anything you did. You didn’t do anything.” The words hang there uncomfortably. In the most literal sense, they’re true. Garth hadn’t done anything, which was part of the problem.

  “I know that this hasn’t been an easy few months for you,” he says. “Maybe this seems like a good idea now—a change of scenery, some new faces. Some kind of adventure. But have you thought about what you’re going to do for money? What kind of job you’re going to get without even a high school diploma? How well do you know these people you’re staying with? You might think you’re doing some brave, exciting thing, but there’s a difference, you know, between courage and stupidity.”

  “You said you wanted me out of the basement, remember?”

  “You know damn well this isn’t what I meant. And don’t pretend like this phone call is about asking me for my permission to stay in New York, wherever you are. We both know that’s not what you’re doing.” There’s a loud bang on the other end of the phone—a cabinet slamming shut, it sounds like. Garth going for the scotch, no doubt.

  “You’re right, it’s not,” she admits. “Are you mad?”

  “When have you ever seen me mad?” he asks.

  “There was that time with the Jell-O,” she reminds him.

  Garth pauses for a moment. “I made a grown man cry last week.”

  “You did what?” Althea asks, confused. She reaches for her mug, but the coffee inside has gone cold.

  “I suppose he was more of a man-child,” Garth continues. “A senior. I ca
ught him plagiarizing his final paper. He came to see me in my office and I made him cry. I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t even fail him. I was disappointed and understanding and I gave him a chance to rewrite the paper for a lower mark. The nicer I was, the harder he cried. By the time I was finished, he felt three times worse than he ever would have if I’d shouted. I don’t go in much for all the drama, Althea. I leave it to the Greeks. But what am I supposed to do now? Call the police? Go up there and drag you back by your hair?”

  She considers telling him that she cut off all her hair, that there wouldn’t be much for him to grab hold of, but it doesn’t seem like the right time for jokes.

  “I can finish high school here, or get a GED. There’re a million art schools in New York.”

  “You can come home to North Carolina and finish school at Laney. If you want to be in New York so badly, you can be back there by the fall.”

  Althea takes a stab at speaking Garth’s language. “It’s the Cortés thing, Dad. When you hit the shore, burn the ships. There’s no going back.”

  “I can’t believe you lied to me. For weeks.” Despite his protests that he is not mad at all, Althea can hear the anger in his voice. Not just anger; something worse. A painful dejection running underneath his words, threatening to surface. “I was going to take you to the ruins of Tenochtitlán. I made appointments with colleagues down there, planned for two weeks of research. If I cancel now—”

  “There’s no reason for you to cancel. I want you to go. It’ll be better if you go alone, anyway. You’ll get more done without me there. Oliver’s going home tomorrow. You ask him when he gets there. Ask him if I’m doing okay here, if I’m better than okay, if I’m happier than he’s seen me in years. Ask him if I’m safe. Ask him if this is the right place for me. He’ll tell you.”