Althea and Oliver (17 page)

“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.”

“Fun? Seriously? I beat the shit out of you in front of the entire school. That's the most fun we're ever going to have.” There's a peculiar freedom in sitting here, talking to Coby. He's impossible to alienate, but Althea is careful not to mistake this for loyalty or love. How unfair that Coby is the one ready to pick up where they left off, while Oliver continues to shun her, even from another part of the country.

“You can sit in your basement and wait for him, but he's not coming. He's gone,” Coby says. “And I'm the one who had to tell you where he went, so what do you make of that?”

“That you're trying really hard to make a case for what a good guy you are.”

“I wouldn't bother. You never liked me because I'm a good guy, and I'm not pretending to be one. I'm just like you.”

The cozy numbness that's enveloped her for the last two weeks is wearing off like anesthesia, and here she is, back in her own head, the most dangerous place for her to be. What will happen when she wakes up tomorrow and has to face another long, angry day, every hour marked by the worst kind of claustrophobia? Coby's unspoken invitation—
Stick with me, kid, and we can give each other what we both know we deserve
—is looking less like a worst-case scenario and more like her only option.

“What you are,” says Althea, opening her door, “is a hate crime waiting to happen, and I never liked you at all.”

• • •

Later, Althea ventures upstairs to her bedroom to ferret out some clean clothes. She sits on her bed and studies the photographs and sketches on the wall. As a child, when she imagined the transition into adulthood, she saw an older version of herself emerging from the toy chest at the foot of her bed to take over the task of actually
being
Althea. Young Althea would retire to a combination heaven/surveillance station to live the rest of her life vicariously through Adult Althea, who would conveniently arrive fully equipped with good judgment, a high school diploma, and large breasts. Now she looks down at her small chest and sighs. It's clear that Adult Althea isn't coming, she's not in stasis somewhere, shimmering in a golden chrysalis while her curvy adult figure is perfectly crafted by a series of hardworking angels, preparing to unleash a sharp-witted Amazon into the world. This is it. Flat-chested and prickly and sad, smart enough to know when she's being stupid but too stupid to act any smarter—this is what she's got to work with. She stares at her pictures and thinks of her parents and wonders whether some histrionics from Garth could have made the difference.

• • •

That night, Garth serves dinner in the kitchen and they perch on stools at the counter. Beyond the doorway, the mahogany table in the dining room gleams, vast and empty.

“I saw you moved your car. Did you go for a drive today?” he asks.

“It killed an hour.” She spears a pearl onion with her fork.
Now eat it,
she thinks. Staring at her hand, she tries to will it to obey, but she can't bring the tines to her lips. Instead, she ducks her head, bringing her mouth to the small, boiled vegetable.
Now chew.

Garth swiftly dissects his entire steak, slicing the meat into evenly sized pieces, extracting the bits of fatty gristle and setting them on the rim of his china plate. Only when the labor of his meal is completed does he take his first bite and set about enjoying it. “I think I like this marinade.”

She waits until he's finished. “Tell me that story again, about Castor and Pollux.”

Of all the ancient myths, this is her favorite. Castor had a gift for taming horses; Pollux was an able boxer. Twin brothers, inseparable. Lord Macaulay had written about them in
Lays of Ancient Rome
: “So like they were, no mortal might one from other know.” Famed adventurers, they fought with Jason and the Argonauts. “Back comes the Chief in triumph, who, in the hour of the fight, hath seen the Great Twin Brethren in harness on his right.” Eventually Castor was slain in battle, and the heartsick Pollux begged to give his own immortality in exchange. He struck a compromise with Zeus. The brothers would alternate—one day in the underworld, the next with the gods. As Garth finishes his story, he fetches his bottle of scotch from the cabinet above the sink.

“It's like the ultimate Would You Rather,” says Althea, watching as he pours his ritual two fingers over the same number of ice cubes.

“I suppose now we know which twin you'd be,” he says with a faint smile.

“I was thinking about what you said, about going to visit Mom,” she says.

Silently, Garth corks the bottle and replaces it, then stands on the other side of the counter with his drink. “Suddenly we're a long way from the Greeks. What made you change your mind?”

“When I go outside, I feel like I'm in one of those science fiction movies where something's wiped out all the people and I'm the last person on earth.” Althea is surprised by her honesty, but her father's expression doesn't change; he just looks at her like they're in his office having a student-teacher conference.

He takes a sip of scotch. “And how long are you planning to visit?”

“Just a few days. I was thinking I could spend Thanksgiving with her.”

“Have you talked to her about this idea yet?”

“I wanted to talk to you first.”

“You were the one who didn't want to be landlocked in the desert with your mother. If a change of scenery sounds appealing, I'm not sure I can blame you.” He carries their plates to the sink, rinsing them off with his back to her.

Althea hates lying to him, hates making him believe that she actually needs her mother, but it's the only way. “I just don't see how it could be any worse than staying here.”

Drying his hands on a dish towel, Garth holds her gaze, his poker face flawlessly intact. “Althea, you're almost eighteen. You can decide for yourself. It's up to you.”

She has months' worth of solid evidence to the contrary. She wants to tell him about the toy chest, about the version of herself with good judgment who has yet to arrive. Instead, she slides off the stool, surprised that her legs still support her. “I guess I'll go start packing.”

“Wait,” he says. She pauses in the doorway. “I'm thinking about going to Mexico over winter break to do some research. You're always saying I never take you anywhere. Maybe this time you'd like to go with me?”

“Seriously?”

“I think you'll find the rituals of human sacrifice quite fascinating. We can work out the details after you get back.”

Althea blinks at him, confused. She got herself expelled from high school and is apparently being rewarded with a trip to Mexico—although in truth she suspects that Garth doesn't trust her alone anymore. “Okay. Human sacrifice. It's on.”

OLIVER IS HAVING
a hard time.

Studying in his room is proving difficult. He pushes aside his books to trace the marred desk with his fingertips, searching for the words of a vandal who had something other than bodily functions and sex acts on his mind. There's not one initial-filled heart scratched into the wood, not one misspelled declaration of affection. Just a fully illustrated series of
Fuck you
s and
Suck my cock
s and other statements in the same unimaginative vein. He misses his desk at home, the collage of album covers Althea had shellacked onto an old plank of wood, the sawhorse she had stolen for a base.

Kentucky sticks his head in the door. “It's therapy o'clock,” he says.

Abandoning his work, Oliver returns to the lounge, where the regular furniture has been pushed aside and a bunch of plastic chairs are arranged in a circle.

The therapist is late. The guys fidget in their chairs. Two more have gone down. Minnesota and the boy known to shit on his bed are among the missing; Oliver fears for the orderlies. There are about six of them left, sitting impatiently, staring at the clock on the wall, shooting one another irritated glances, all except for Kentucky, who had the foresight to bring a book to read.

“It seems like all we ever do here is sit and fucking wait,” AK-47 grumbles. “I'm sick of waiting to go to sleep so they can hook me up to the machines and figure out what the fuck is wrong with me. What they should really do is give us booze. That's what did it for me the first time.” He looks for someone to encourage him to tell the story.

It's New Jersey who obliges. “Oh yeah?”

“First time I ever got wasted—I mean, really wasted. Not just beer wasted. Wild Turkey wasted. My parents found me in the bathroom, wrapped around the toilet. They couldn't wake me up. Thought it was alcohol poisoning. They took me to the hospital, I got my stomach pumped and everything. That's what they told me, anyway; I don't fucking remember. But after, I still wouldn't wake up.”

“How long did it take them to figure out it wasn't alcohol poisoning?” Kentucky asks.

“I actually did have alcohol poisoning. It just confused things. And then I woke up, except I wasn't really awake”—here the others nod, understanding implicitly—“and I started freaking out, throwing shit, tearing out my IV, cursing at the doctors.” AK-47 chews a thumbnail. “My little sister was there. I pissed on the floor and went back to sleep. So anyway, they should bring in a few bottles of Wild Turkey, we'll have a real good time, and that'll be the end of the story.”

The room is silent. No doubt everyone is imagining a small girl watching her older brother urinate on the floor of his hospital room. No doubt the image is different in everyone's mind—maybe she's seven in one, eleven in another, hair in braids or straight down her back—but the effect is the same. Even though AK-47 has black hair, Oliver pictures his little sister delicate and blonde, hugging a nubbly stuffed dog and squeezing her eyes shut as her brother unzips his pants, their father too distracted to usher her out of the room.

“That happens a lot, you know,” says Kentucky. “A lot of initial KLS episodes are triggered by alcohol.”

“So what, it's, like, our fault?” AK-47 says. “You're saying if I hadn't gotten shit-faced, I never would have gotten sick?”

“That's bullshit,” says another guy. “I didn't do anything and it happened to me anyway. I just thought I was coming down with the flu.”

“Look, I've never been drunk in my life and I'm still here. I jerked off in front of my mom once,” Kentucky says.

“Seriously?” Oliver says.

“Not to, like, completion or anything. But I whipped it out, apparently.”

“How do you know?” AK-47 asks. “She didn't tell you, did she?”

“The doctors told her to keep a log. Of all my behavior and shit. I read it one day when she was at work.”

“Are you fucking crazy?” NJ shouts. “You
never
read the log! My mom has one, too. You
never
read that shit!”

“Don't you think I know that now?” Kentucky yells back. “I can't even look her in the eye anymore. But I picked it up and I couldn't stop reading.”

“You read the whole thing?” Oliver asks. He has no idea if Nicky had kept a log. In any case, the house is such a mess that he wouldn't even be able to find it.

“I read the whole fucking thing,” Kentucky says mournfully. “God, it was so cringeworthy.”

“Was the jerking off the worst of it?” AK-47 asks.

“I don't know, it depends on your point of view. Would you rather jerk off in front of your mom or call her a fat cunt?”

“Fat cunt” is the unanimous response.

“I wandered into my neighbors' house because I ate the gallon of ice cream in our freezer and I was still hungry, and I almost got shot. After that my folks kept closer tabs. And every time I was in the hospital—every fucking time—I got in trouble for grabbing the nurses.” Kentucky shakes his head. “Fucking humiliating.”

The group therapy session hasn't even started yet, and already for Oliver it's taking on the flavor of a hostage situation.

“My girlfriend dumped me,” NJ says, picking up the thread. “She came over one day when I was sick, and when I woke up she wouldn't even talk to me. I still don't know what I did. Also, I tried to fuck the Venetian blinds in our living room. My brother told me about that one.”

Oliver is sweating, his heart beating enthusiastically. His foot jerks, and he pulls it onto the chair, stilling it with both hands. “Id without the lid,” he mutters.

“What's that, NC?” Kentucky asks.

“Just something a friend of mine used to say. About what I'm like. When I'm sick. ‘Id without the lid.'”

“What's that mean?” NJ asks.

Kentucky answers for him. “It means no internal censor. It means no impulse control. I mean, that's the question, right? If all teenaged boys want to do is eat, sleep, and jerk off, then maybe when we're sick we're just ourselves times a million.”

AK-47 looks closely at Oliver. “What about you, NC? You ever wander into your neighbors' house in the middle of the night and raid the fridge?”

A boy who has embraced the nickname AK-47 is not someone to whom Oliver wishes to confess feelings of violation and lost innocence. “Not exactly,” he says.

“Come on, I bet
something
fucked-up happened. I can tell just by looking at you.”

Oliver squirms in his chair. “There was an incident at Waffle House. I'd rather not get into the particulars.” He thinks back to his earlier conversation with Dr. Curls. “Do you guys ever feel, I don't know, hopeless?”

“I stopped looking forward to things.” Another guy speaks up. “Because I didn't know if I would be around when they happened. Holidays, parties. I'd hear about a movie coming out that I wanted to see and then I'd tell myself not to get too excited, because if I got sick I'd miss it. It's like everything is just a big question mark now. None of it's up to me.”

“My best friend tells me to look on the bright side. Like I'm being forced to live in the moment,” says AK-47. “That I should just accept it.”

“I don't see how that helps me go to college,” Oliver says.

“Nope,” NJ says. “I'm not accepting shit.”

“Seriously,” Kentucky adds. “This isn't an AA meeting. I'm not here to recite the Serenity Prayer. I'm here to make it stop.”

The therapist finally arrives, a balding man in black jeans and cowboy boots. He takes his seat in the circle, puts his hands on his knees, and looks around at the group.

“So, how's everyone doing?” He's greeted with silence. “Who'd like to start?”

The guys look at one another, wordlessly closing ranks.

“Oliver? How about you?”

Irritated at being singled out, Oliver crosses his arms and shrugs. “I got nothing.”

• • •

The session ends after an exceedingly uncomfortable hour. As the therapist leaves, Stella enters in his wake, clipboard in hand, wearing a long-sleeved thermal under black scrubs covered with dozens of tiny pink guitars. Instead of lining her charges up against a wall, she comes around to each one, popping a fresh plastic cap onto the digital thermometer with admirable expertise. She visits Oliver last. One particularly springy curl dangles in front of her eye, and he resists the urge to pull it taut and watch it bounce back into place.

“Hey, handsome,” she whispers. “What's doing?”

“I'm okay.”

“Missing home yet?”

“Not really.”

Stella slips in the thermometer. “I'll bet you miss your girlfriend.”

“I don't have a girlfriend.” With a foreign object inside his ear canal, his voice sounds hollow and distant. The thermometer beeps and she removes it, her smile turning distracted as she checks the readout. “What is it?”

“Ninety-nine. Point nine.”

He never imagined he'd feel relief at the thought of an episode, but he does now. Althea had referred to his sickness as a time machine that would only take him into the future, and that idea has never appealed to him more. Let the KLS catapult him forward three weeks, a month this time. If it's his ticket out of this awful room, well, then, he won't complain. “I guess I'm on my way, then.”

“You gonna check out, leave me with all these guys?”

“Sorry, Stella. It's what I came for.”

“I guess I'll have to pick a new favorite once you're gone.”

He wonders if this is what Althea's done. “I think you'll find me difficult to replace.”

“I'm sure I will. Let me ask you something: Do they make all the boys this sweet where you come from?”

“Nope. Just me.” He's sure his smile has turned goofy and ridiculous now.

“Well, hang in there another day or two if you can.”

“I'll do my best,” he says, and for her, he will.