Althea and Oliver (29 page)

Gray Wolf smiles. “You got it.”

After he leaves, Ethan turns to Althea. “That's why we stay, even when it's freezing and we think no one's coming.”

She nods, chastened.

“Now we can leave.” He covers the aluminum trays, carefully sealing all the edges.

Althea detaches the banner from the front of the table. “I could draw it. The diamond story. If you wanted to write it, I could do the drawings.”

Ethan dismisses the idea with a quick shake of his head. “I don't think so.”

“Why not? You saw my sketchbook. I'm good.”

Going around to the other side of the table, he takes one end of the banner and meets her in the middle so it folds smoothly in half. “Do you have any idea how long something like that would take? How involved it would be, working out the story and the panels and doing all the art?”

“It's not exactly like I have a dearth of free time to fill.” Angrily snatching the sign away from him, she finishes folding it herself.

“And what about when you leave? What then?”

“Who said anything about leaving? Look, I talked to Matilda. I know you called people back in Wilmington, I know you asked around about me—”

“Tough shit. This isn't witness protection.”

“You want me to leave, right? You were pissed from the minute I walked in the door and you can't wait for me to go. Am I cramping your style? Have I inconvenienced you somehow? I'm trying to contribute and be helpful, but you just can't stand having me around.”

“I'm saying that you won't stay. That you'll get tired of not having your own room and having to stand here in the park with me—”

“That part I'm getting pretty fucking tired of already.”

“It's a matter of time before you get on the phone with your dad and tell him you want to come home. It's happened before. It happens all the time. You'll want things to go back to normal.”

Even in the middle of this ridiculous fucking argument, when she would like nothing more than to put her hands around his pasty little neck and squeeze, a warm glow spreads through her stomach and she laughs.

“What's so funny?” he asks, sounding strangely unsure of himself, like he thinks she's laughing at him.

“Nothing,” she says. She can't tell him because she knows how bizarre it will sound if she says it out loud.

It just feels so good to have someone to fight with again.

OLIVER'S PLAN STOPS HERE.
Standing on this porch, confronted with the house where Althea's been staying, while Will is swaying on his feet, barely able to keep his eyes open.

“We've got to get you back to St. Victor's,” says Oliver.

“I'm not leaving until I know you've found her.”

“We know she's here. I can take you and then come back.”

“We don't know what's waiting for us at the hospital. If you take me in, you might not be able to leave again. You can't just drop me off and say that you have errands to run. For all we know, your mother could be there by now. Go knock on that door. We'll take it from there.”

“Goddamnit.”

“I told you it wasn't finished with me. It was just waiting until I was finally having a good time.”

“I'm sorry.”

“I'll live. Now go on.”

Oliver takes a tentative step toward the door. Inside the house, someone is haltingly arranging chords on a badly tuned electric guitar.

“‘Oh, Mr. Business, if you'll be my baby, I promise, I won't give you scabies,'” the singer proclaims, then stops himself short to call out a question. “Hey, what's the patron saint against scabies?”

“Saint Radegunde,” someone answers. “Good luck finding something that rhymes.”

Oliver looks back at Will, standing on the snow-covered lawn below him.

“What?” Will asks.

“I just realized I have no idea what I'm going to say to her.”

Marching up the steps, Will rings the bell in three short bursts. “Think fast.”

Oliver can hear the house take a collective breath—“Is someone at the door?” “Go see who it is.” None of the voices sound like Althea. “Maybe this wasn't such a good idea,” he says.

“Too late.”

A girl answers the door. She's short and blonde and wearing an oversize Replacements shirt as a dress. Oliver pegs her as a handful of years older, and despite her diminutive stature she has an air of authority that reminds him of Nicky. Something in the way she's sizing him up with her sharp green eyes makes him extremely aware that this is her house, and he's standing uninvited on her porch. She doesn't say hello or ask what she can do for him; she just stares and waits for him to speak.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hello,” she replies. She doesn't even look at Will, keeping her eyes fixed on Oliver.

“I'm looking for Althea.”

“I'm sorry, who?”

“Althea Carter.”

The girl smiles tightly and shakes her head. “I'm sorry, I think you have the wrong place.”

The narrow hallway behind her is filled with piles of shoes and newspapers, and a row of coats and jackets hangs on hooks sunk into the wall. Althea's puffy down vest is among them. “I'm sorry, I don't think I do,” he says.

“Look, there's no Althea here,” she says, and starts to shut the door.

Oliver braces it open with his hand. Leaning in, he looks down at the girl. “I know she's here. I know because her car is parked across the street and her favorite vest is hanging three feet behind you. I just want to talk to her. And I know she wants to talk to me.”

A girl with curly brown hair and bright red lipstick swoops in from the end of the hallway, quickly flanked by two guys and followed by a pissed-off-looking cat. “Matilda, what's going on?” the other girl says, looking at Oliver, wedged in the doorway. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Oliver?”

Oliver turns and there's Althea, standing on the sidewalk with some guy in glasses. She's carrying a folding table like a suitcase, wearing a worn leather coat and a ridiculous green hat, her cheeks bright red with the cold. She looks the same, but completely different.

They stand there, staring at each other. Oliver forgets about their audience, forgets he even had anything to say. He just wants to look at her. She's so beautiful and it's really confusing but she's here and he found her and he's stupidly proud of himself.

“Hey,” he says.

“How did you find me?” she asks.

“Remember outside Lucky's at Halloween? When I said I felt like solving a mystery?”

“Yeah.”

“I wasn't fucking around.”

She takes off the frog hat. All that black hair is gone; she's a blonde again, her angular face laid bare in its surprise at his arrival. She looks wonderful, even if the haircut is shocking. He thinks she's grown an inch or two taller, until he realizes she's just standing up straight. Slowly, her bewilderment fades, and one corner of her mouth turns up in a half-cocked smile. He searches that expression, trying to divine it, determine if she's self-conscious because of all these people or just overcome at the sight of him. Every second that passes with neither Althea nor Oliver crossing the few feet between them serves to call more attention to the fact that they have not yet embraced.

“What happened to your hair?” he asks her.

She makes a face, pretending to be hurt. “What?” she says, fluffing the shorn blonde locks movie-star style. “Don't you like it?”

She's flirting with him. In front of an audience. It's Oliver's turn to be astonished, and that electricity he felt on the street last night returns, that sense of possibility that only happens when you strip away everything familiar. Althea and Oliver are at the center of this spontaneous porch assembly, and it's strangely excellent. These people he doesn't even know are watching this scene unfold like they are actually invested in what happens, and of course that's why Althea and Oliver are paralyzed. Because what happens next matters. So Oliver forfeits and starts to reach for her.

“Jesus jumped-up Christ,” says the guy with the glasses, angrily grabbing the table from Althea and making for the door. “Matilda, you're letting all the heat out. And who the shit is that?” he shouts, pointing at the far corner of the porch where, curled in the fetal position and shivering violently, Will is asleep.

Althea gives Oliver a deadpan look that evokes Garth so vividly, Oliver can almost hear the ice rattling in his glass.

“Let me guess,” Althea says. “He's with you.”

• • •

When Oliver imagined getting his wish, to return to his rightful place in the world, to ride shotgun in Althea's car once more, this is not exactly what he had pictured.

“Will! Come on!” he shouts, hanging over the back of his seat and shaking his friend's limp arm. “Wake up!”

“It's too late,” Althea says. “His plug's already pulled. Trust me, I can tell.”

“He has to stay awake until we get him to the hospital.”

“What difference does it make?”

“I can't take him up to the clinic myself. I don't know what's waiting for me up there.”

“Then I'll take him in.”

“No!” Oliver shouts. “You're supposed to be in New Mexico. Will and I left yesterday without telling anybody. They called our parents. If Nicky flew up, she could be there. And if she sees you—”

“Why did y'all run away from the hospital?”

“Althea,
focus
!”

“Okay, okay, I understand, we have to send him in under the radar.” She punches the gas and changes lanes without signaling. The other driver gives her the finger, which she matter-of-factly returns. “So get back there and wake him up.”

“Your driving's gotten worse.”

“No, it's just that everyone in this city drives the same way,” she says, leaning on her horn. “It's actually kind of amazing. Now get back there.”

Oliver squeezes himself between the two front seats and hunches on the floor near Will. Slapping his face lightly, he tries to coax him awake. “Hey, Will, wake up. Stella's here and she's naked.”

Will groans softly but doesn't open his eyes.

“You're being too gentle,” Althea says impatiently.

“You have any suggestions?”

“Try pinching him. That always got your attention.”

Oliver reaches up Will's sleeve and pinches the soft, tender skin inside his elbow. Without opening his eyes, Will hauls off and slaps Oliver across the face.

“Fuck!” Oliver cries.

“Stop it!” Will says, and rolls over.

“Ol, are you okay? That sounded bad,” Althea says, watching him in the rearview. The car bounces, hard, tossing Oliver around on the floor. “Sorry. Pothole.”

“Whatever.”

“Keep trying.”

“Maybe you're right, maybe it's too late,” he says.

“Do you want me to pull over so we can switch? Because I will bet you anything that if I get back there, I can wake him up.”

“Everything has to be a competition,” Oliver mutters.

“Seriously, I can do it. I did it for you, remember?”

“No, thanks, I don't like the idea of being the only driver on the road who feels invested in getting to his destination safely.” Oliver slumps against the door. “Maybe we can just leave him outside the hospital with a note pinned to his chest or something. Or pay some homeless guy ten bucks to take him to the clinic.”

He watches Will sleep, envying his oblivion. Althea keeps driving like an eight-year-old behind the wheel of the race car game at the arcade. “You can slow down, you know. It's not like there's any rush,” he says. He is no way eager for this ride to end, since when it's over, he'll either be contending with his irate mother or alone in the car with Althea, a prospect he suddenly finds as scary as her driving.

“Maybe
I'm
in a rush,” she says.

“To get where?”

“Um, back to the place where I live?”

“Oh, you mean Wilmington, North Carolina?” he says archly.

She's quiet for a minute. Oliver silently cheers, knowing he's scored a point. “You know that's not what I meant,” she says softly.

Will's foot twitches in his sleep. Inspired, Oliver unties Will's tennis shoe and pries it off, then removes his sweaty sock.

“Christ on a cross, what is that smell?” Althea says, opening her window.

“Just drive,” he says. Holding his breath, Oliver lightly tickles the bottom of Will's foot.

The effect is instantaneous. Will opens his eyes and starts screaming. His limbs jerk wildly, his bare foot catching Oliver directly in the face and slamming him back against the door. Althea nearly loses control of the car, swerving momentarily into the adjacent lane and inciting the significant rage of every other driver on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. She hastily rolls up her window again to block out the honking horns and colorful profanities.

Will sits up and clutches his chest. “Oh my God, oh my God.”

“What the fuck just happened?” Althea screams. “Is he having a heart attack?”

“Will, are you okay?” Oliver cries. His eyes are filled with water, and Will is too blurry for a visual assessment.

“McKinley, I'm going to fucking kill you,” Will says, panting.

“I'm sorry, I needed to wake you up.”

As Will's breathing becomes less panicked, he reclines across the backseat again.

“Keep him awake, Ol,” Althea says.

Oliver pulls on Will's arm. “Will, listen to me. We're almost there. We're taking you back to the hospital. Just—please. You have to stay awake until we get you there. Please.”

“Holy shit,” Will says, sitting up gingerly. “We found her.”

“We did,” Oliver says. “We found her.”

“Your nose is bleeding.”

Oliver swipes at his nose with the heel of his hand and, sure enough, it comes away red. “Yes, it is.”

Will gives Oliver an apologetic look. “Did I do that?”

Oliver pats Will's bare ankle reassuringly. “Don't worry. I'll live.”

When they pull up in front of St. Victor's, Will is still conscious, but barely. Oliver opens his door, spilling himself out onto the pavement, silently marveling that they've arrived unscathed. Leaving the engine running and her hazard lights on, Althea leaps out of the car. Two women are smoking cigarettes on the sidewalk. One has pink hair and a nose ring; the other sports a sleek black bob and an IV. They stare openly, curious and amused. Oliver nods at them. “Evening,” he says, then turns back to the car. “Come on, Will,” he says.

“She put too much relish on my hot dog and now I can't eat it,” Will says mournfully.

“He's dreaming,” Althea says. “We need to get him on his feet.”

Reaching into the backseat, he takes Will gently by the waist. “I know, but it's okay, we're going to get you another hot dog. Just get up.”

“Cookies?”

“Hot dogs and cookies, yes. All you can eat.”

Together, Althea and Oliver coax Will out of the car, balancing him precariously on his feet. “Will, do you know where you're supposed to go?” Oliver says. “Do you remember how to get back to the clinic?”

“I don't want any sprinkles on mine,” Will shouts.

“Put his arm around your shoulder,” says Althea. “He's not going to make it on his own.”

Oliver shakes his head. “I'm not going up there.”

“We can't leave him out here.”

“Fine. The elevator, then.”

“Leave him in the elevator?”

“We'll put him in the elevator and send him up to eight. It's the best we can do.”

The girl with the pink hair finishes her cigarette, grinding the butt under the heel of her combat boot. “Where does he need to end up?” she asks, gesturing to Will.

“The sleep clinic,” Oliver says. “Eighth floor.”

She looks at her friend and shrugs. “We can get him there.”

“Really?”

“Sure. You guys look like you're having a rough night.” She runs a finger along her upper lip, and Oliver remembers his is covered in blood.

“Thanks,” he says.

Althea and Oliver hand Will over.

“Wait,” Will says as the strangers arrange his arms around their shoulders.