Althea and Oliver

by Cristina Moracho

  “I’d be a lot more comfortable if I could get you out of the house. If art school will do it, I’ll happily throw some of the family’s old lucre at the problem. There’s also the matter of what you’re going to do between now and the start of next semester.”

  She makes a sweeping gesture that encompasses the basement.

  Garth gets up from the recliner and sits next to Althea on the couch, slipping underneath the blanket with her. “Isn’t this cozy? It smells like wet sponges down here.”

  “I expect that’s the mold.”

  “It doesn’t bother you?”

  “I don’t really notice it anymore.”

  Althea nibbles a few strands of spaghetti. Piercing a meatball with her fork, she splits it into two pieces, then halves those pieces, then halves them again, until there’s nothing left but mush. There was a math theory they learned last year, that you can divide something in half and divide it in half again and go on and on, reducing it to smaller and smaller pieces, but it would never disappear completely. It’s one of Zeno’s paradoxes.

  Garth lays a wide, tangled swath of Althea’s hair, rife with split ends, across the flat landscape of his palm and shakes his head. “I still don’t understand why you had to dye it black.”

  Annoyed, she pulls away. “Did you come down here for a reason?”

  “For someone who says she doesn’t care about getting expelled from high school, you seem to be taking it pretty hard.”

  “It’s so humiliating. Everyone knowing my business. God, it was so public.” She has to cover her face with her hands just thinking about it, the hallway filled with people watching her pummel Coby. Why couldn’t she have at least waited until they were outside in the parking lot?

  “Mortification fades. I promise.”

  “How do you know?”

  “After your mother left.”

  Althea looks at her father’s legs, stuffed into the small space between the sofa and the coffee table. He must have been a great dancer once; she’s seen the wedding photos, knows he wore the hell out of a three-piece suit. He must have been a lot of things before he was married, before he was divorced, before he was a single father to a spoiled, petulant teenager.

  “Have you talked to her?” Althea asks.

  “I thought I’d let you have the pleasure of filling her in on your latest debacle.”

  “You seem to be taking it in stride.”

  Garth grows serious, always a disturbing turn of events. “You know, after talking to the school and everything, I’ve noticed that no one seemed particularly surprised that Coby was on the receiving end of your anger. He’s not very well liked, is he? Even Oliver doesn’t like him, and Oliver likes everyone.”

  Not everyone, Althea thinks. Not me, not anymore. “I think Coby’s going for that lovable asshole thing. He’s got the asshole part down, for sure,” Althea says, trying to keep the mood light, but Garth isn’t biting.

  “Al, listen. Obviously, I’m upset you got expelled. I’m disturbed that you lost control and hurt someone so badly. It’s scary. I’d even guess that you scared yourself. And everyone who was there that day said that you and Coby were just talking and then . . . well. But if something happened, if Coby did something to you, maybe not right then, but if he—”

  “Dad, are you asking me if he deserved it?”

  Garth leans his head back against the sofa. “I don’t know what I’m asking. I guess I’m asking why you did it. I’m clinging, here, to the hope that you at least had a reason. Although the idea that he hurt you in some way—”

  Althea snaps to attention. “Oh God, Dad, no, he didn’t—it wasn’t—no. He’s a creep, but not like that.”

  “So he didn’t deserve it.”

  “I didn’t say that, either.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Althea shakes her head. “I’m still working it out myself.”

  “Just do me a favor. Call your mother tomorrow,” Garth says.

  She squishes part of the meatball between the tines of her fork. “Why?”

  “It’s a bit much to keep it to ourselves. Just call her.” He pulls a few strands of spaghetti off her plate and dangles them into his mouth, licking the sauce from his fingers. “Did I use too much sugar?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Do you want something else? Ice cream or popcorn?”

  “I don’t want anything. I don’t think anything’s going to help.”

  Garth settles in, finding the remote control under his thigh and pointing it at the television. “What is it tonight? Monsters or weather?”

  “Dinosaurs.”

  “Perfect.”

  • • •

  In the morning she wakes rolled in her quilt like a burrito. Face pressed into a cushion, she notices for the first time how much the couch smells like a waiting room.

  Upstairs, next to the coffeemaker, Garth has left his address book. It’s an ancient thing, a miniature three-ring binder filled with tiny gnarled pages, held together by a rubber band. Althea finds the most recent phone number they have for her mother, listed under A for Alice. A dozen others are crossed out.

  At the table with her coffee and the cordless, she punches in the numbers, holding each one down so that it makes a loud, satisfying beep. Then she waits, listening to the static of the long-distance connection, imagining the pigeons perched on the wires that are transmitting this call to New Mexico.

  Alice answers on the second ring. “To what do I owe this honor?”

  “I guess you have caller ID now,” says Althea.

  “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

  They haven’t spoken in six months.

  “Why would I call you if I—never mind. I’m not pregnant.” Already restless, she paces the kitchen.

  “Are you in trouble?” Alice asks.

  This gives Althea pause. Retreating to the basement, she finds her messenger bag, rifles through it for her cigarettes. “Why don’t you define ‘trouble’ and we’ll go from there.”

  “Did you get expelled?”

  “How did you know that? Have you talked to Dad?” Fishing for her lighter, a pack of matches, anything.

  “Of course you got expelled. I knew your father should have sent you to public school. It’s practically impossible to get expelled from a public school. You just about have to stab a teacher. You didn’t stab a teacher, did you?”

  “Is it still called stabbing if I used a shiv? Or is that shivving someone? Or shanking? I can’t remember. I’ll have to look it up.” The only book of matches she can find, at the bottom of her bag with a handful of pennies and crumbs, is empty.

  “It’s only shanking if you use something you carved from the heel of your shoe. A shiv you can make out of anything.” There’s music in the background, playing somewhere in Alice’s house, a sincere voice and an electric guitar.

  “How do you know that?” Althea asks.

  “I know things. I have cable.”

  “Are you listening to Bruce Springsteen?” Althea climbs back upstairs. In a kitchen drawer she finds the orange barbecue lighter.

  “Thea, seriously. What’s going on?”

  Taking her cigarettes and coffee out onto the gazebo, Althea lies down on the bench, staring up at the wooden frame her father built himself. “I got expelled.”

  “But for what?”

  “At the time I thought it was an act of retribution.”

  “And now?”

  “And now I’m not so sure.”

  Althea imagines Alice in her house in Taos, wearing turquoise jewelry she made herself, surrounded by homespun clay pots filled with handpicked flowers. When she married Garth, she loved the idea that he was a professor, picturing a series of teaching positions that would allow them to move every two years, being set up in a different university apartm
ent each time, a constant parade of new people to entertain. Instead, Garth got tenure, bought a house, and Alice kept moving, choosing to pursue what Althea envisions as a life of basket- and blanket-weaving, cruise vacations for singles over forty, a medley of eight-week workshops and book clubs packed with women who incessantly discuss self-actualization and holistic methods for treating perimenopause. Althea finally lights her cigarette, not bothering to cover the phone’s mouthpiece.

  “You’re smoking now, too?” Alice asks.

  “I guess things aren’t going very well.”

  “Someday you’re going to end up in therapy, paying someone a lot of money to tell you this is all my fault.”

  “I can get someone to tell me that for free.”

  “I’m sure your father says it all the time.”

  This isn’t actually true, but Althea doesn’t say so. The opposite of those kids who yearn for their divorced parents to reunite, she’s often disappointed by how little enmity Garth shows toward Alice. “How are things with you?”

  “Getting ready for the winter. I bought a new pair of snowshoes. Thea, you don’t sound okay.” There are breakfast sounds on Alice’s end, maybe a pan scraping against the stove, or a fork whisking egg yolks in a dish until they’re frothy. “Where’s Oliver?”

  “He expelled me, too.”

  “That won’t last,” Alice says quickly.

  “I don’t know, Mom. He seems pretty for sure about it.” Althea stubs out her cigarette on the heel of her shoe, wondering if it would, in fact, be possible to fashion a shank out of the hard rubber.

  “Did things finally, you know, progress? Romantically?”

  “No comment.”

  “Honey, it was bound to get complicated. He’s a teenage boy. Give him a few minutes; he’ll get distracted by something shiny and forget whatever you did to make him so mad.”

  “How can you tell the difference?” Althea asks. “When someone calls ‘game over,’ how are you supposed to know if it’s for real or not?”

  “If it’s only the first time they’re saying it, then they don’t really mean it. The fourth time, maybe the third, that’s when you start taking them seriously.” Alice chews in Althea’s ear.

  “How many times did you have to tell Dad?”

  “Your father did not give chase, Thea. In the end, I only had to tell him once.”

  I was only five, Althea thinks. Was I supposed to give chase, too? “You got any boyfriends out there?” she asks, sipping away at her coffee.

  “A couple. Garth seeing anyone?”

  “A steady procession of nubile undergraduates.” Surveying their backyard, Althea tries to picture Garth in a smoking jacket, holding court for a seraglio of coeds in tight jeans and bikini tops while he secretly wonders when he can return to his study and finish reading his latest mystery novel. “So if Dad had chased after you, you’d still be married?”

  “Who the hell knows? Maybe the guy upstairs. Maybe not even him.” Another big sigh. “Look, you know if you wanted to, you could come out here for a while. I’ve got a spare bedroom. Some extra snowshoes.”

  Alice might be a perfectly good mother, if Althea would only give her a chance. But Althea sees dream catchers, unfinished wooden rocking chairs, Native American–themed bedspreads. Some kind of weird healing tea that tastes like the ground; too many paintings of wolves and coyotes. Ten minutes on the phone with Alice is one thing; ten days in her adobe house would be quite another, and if there’s an Alice-shaped hole in her life somewhere, it’s safely in Althea’s blind spot. Still, as often happens during these rare conversations with her mother, Althea feels herself softening unwillingly.

  “Just so you know, Dad never blames anything on you,” she says. “He doesn’t talk about you like that.”

  “I suppose that’s nice to hear. Look, Oliver loves you. Have you tried apologizing?”

  “I don’t think he’ll listen. I did a really bad thing. If I were him, I wouldn’t talk to me.”

  “You make him listen,” Alice says, like she really believes it’s that simple. “Just trust me. Talk to him.”

  • • •

  Mrs. Parker has her work cut out for her today, sweeping autumn leaves into the gutter even as they continue to jump ship from tree branches above her. As she stands in front of Oliver’s house, Althea can hear the chiding sound of bristles against concrete, tsk tsk tsk.

  The house looks different. The curtains are drawn and the driveway empty. The latest Sunday Times is wedged between the screen and front doors, still wrapped in wet, filmy plastic. Althea can’t imagine a clearer sign that something is not right. Looking over her shoulder, she can see Mrs. Parker shuffling a small pile of leaves from one end of the sidewalk to the other, her lips pressed into a thin, mirthless line. If she knows where the McKinleys have gone, she certainly isn’t telling. Althea will have to find her answers elsewhere.

  • • •

  Valerie opens her front door, not looking too surprised to find her there.

  “Hey,” Althea says, hovering awkwardly. On the other side of the threshold, the house smells warm and spicy, like ginger.

  “Hey.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “Okay, I guess.” Valerie glances back inside. “Look, I’d invite you in, but—”

  “Is that Althea?” Minty Fresh shouts from the kitchen.

  “Yeah,” Valerie says.

  Minty comes down the hallway, wiping his hands on his apron and nodding hello. “Figured you’d be by sooner or later. Don’t know what took you so long.”

  They’re not cold, exactly. Whatever uneasiness they’d shown at school, in those moments when they were helping Coby to his feet and she felt weirdly euphoric, is gone. Disinterest, more than anything, has replaced it. No one is better equipped than Althea to understand how superfluous other people can seem when you are convinced you already have the only ones you need. Still, it stings to be on the other side.

  “I went by Oliver’s house today, and there’s nobody there, and it looks like there hasn’t been for a while. I thought you might know where he is. I just wanted to know if he’s okay.”

  “He’s okay,” Valerie says.

  Althea tries on a friendly smile. “Good, that’s good. So where is he?”

  Valerie and Minty Fresh exchange one of their impenetrable looks. Finally Minty speaks. “We’re not supposed to tell.”

  Her smile falters. “What do you mean?”

  “We promised,” says Valerie. “I’m sorry.”

  “You promised? Who did you promise?” Althea asks.

  “Oliver.”

  “He left town and made you promise not to tell anyone where he went?”

  Minty shoves his hands into the pockets of his apron and stares at the floor, scuffing his boot along the doorframe. It reminds Althea of how he used to be, just another awkward, too-skinny guy who was trying to teach himself three guitar chords and thinking about starting a band, sometime, maybe. She glares at him. I knew you when, you little shit, she thinks. I remember when you were Howard and nobody thought you were cool.

  “Not exactly,” says Valerie. “Look, we know you and Oliver are in some kind of fight, and he asked this one thing of us before he left, and we don’t want to get in the middle.”

  “So just me, then. I’m the only one who isn’t allowed to know where he is?” Althea is incredulous, and so ashamed. Standing here, begging these acquaintances for information about her only friend in the world, who had apparently denounced her to them before he left. Somewhere inside the house, a toilet flushes, and a few moments later Coby appears. His black eyes have faded to yellow patches; his split upper lip is fused together with a mealy scab. A new bump rises in the middle of his already-broken nose, which has been pushed over to one side of his face. “Careful,” he says to Val and Minty. “She might try to beat
it out of you.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Althea says.

  “That’s why I didn’t want to invite you in,” Valerie explains.

  “Thanks?” She can’t take her eyes off Coby’s face. He smiles at her. As always, he seems to be enjoying the discomfort of the people around him.

  “She’s freaking out,” he says to Valerie and Minty. “You’re really not going to tell her?”

  “We promised,” they say.

  “Well, I didn’t promise him shit,” Coby says. “Come on, Carter, let’s go have a smoke.” He steps outside, brushing past her in the doorway.

  She follows him to his truck, stopping when he gets in the driver’s seat, not quite believing he would willingly share an enclosed space with her. He reaches across and opens the passenger door. “Come on.”

  “You’re really going to tell me where he is?”

  “Carter, don’t be a pain in the ass. Get in the truck and I’ll tell you.”

  Althea listens to Coby talk. He relays what he knows about the sleep study in New York, that Oliver will be gone for months and no one knows when he’ll be back, that it hadn’t been an emergency but had probably been in the works for some time.

  “What do you mean?” she asks.

  “After he left, Valerie and Minty Fresh asked Nelson whether they should be passing on their assignments, but the tutor from St. Victor’s had already arranged everything with his teachers. Even before you two had it out, he was already planning to leave.”

  “Did he tell anybody what our fight was about?”

  “Althea, news flash: Nobody gives a shit what your stupid fucking fight was about.” He puts the truck into drive and starts to pull away from the curb.

  “Stop,” Althea says. “I didn’t say we could go anywhere.”

  He brakes. “Why can’t you even try?”

  Inside his oversize sweatshirt, Coby looks insubstantial. It’s so obvious it was never a fair fight. It was never even a fight at all. Still, she can’t quite bring herself to be sorry. He had drawn the first blood, after all.

  “Because it worked out so well last time?”

  “We could have fun, and you know it.”