Althea and Oliver (22 page)

Matilda and this guy must be close if she can yell at him like that. It's comforting to be witness to that sort of intimacy again. “How long have you been doing Bread and Roses?” Althea asks, just to keep the conversation going.

“A couple of years. It's— it's good. It's sort of— I guess it's sort of simple. Hungry people are easy to help. You just show up with food and they eat it. Most people really hate to ask for anything. But when they're hungry, they're a lot less likely to let pride get in the way.”

“I guess if there's anything worth sacrificing your dignity for, it's something to eat. “

“You know what the great thing is about dignity?” Matilda asks, turning to Althea. Her cigarette smolders between her fingers, dangerously close to her hair. Smoke halos her head, and Althea watches her small mouth carefully. “Dignity regenerates. It's like a starfish. You can tear it apart, and it grows all its little arms back.”

“I think I'd prefer sea-monkey dignity,” says Althea. “Just add a little water and watch my dignity grow.”

Matilda chuckles. “You could set it on a coffee table next to your Chia Pet pride.” Standing, she brushes tobacco crumbs from her pants and tucks the pouch away in the inner pocket of her jacket. “I have to get going. It's my turn.”

“Turn to what?”

“Scavenge for food.”

“You want a ride?”

“Thanks.”

Embarrassed by the condition of her car, Althea scrambles to eliminate the evidence of her trip and predicament, tossing the tinfoil flowers into the back with her ragged quilt and empty coffee cups, plucking at the air freshener strung from the rearview in an effort to enhance its odor-masking capabilities.

“Your gas light is on,” Matilda says as they pull away from the curb.

“That's okay. You can get about another forty miles after it comes on.”

Matilda is strangely at ease riding shotgun with a stranger, telling Althea when to turn and where to pull over. She pulls the seat up a good six inches, erasing the space normally filled by Oliver's legs. At a shuttered corner bakery, Matilda hops out and rings a bell at the side door; she's greeted by a tall black man wiping his hands on an apron, his face smudged with flour. Even with the windows rolled up, the yeasty smell of fresh bread seeps into the car, engaging the scent of stale cigarette butts in a spirited competition. The baker gives Matilda a trash bag filled with bread that's still good, just too old to sell. Matilda reaches up to kiss his cheek, wiping away the stray flour.

They make several stops like that one, Matilda running into the alley entrance of a restaurant and emerging with another bag of food. “I'm not a princess or anything,” she says as they drive, “but I'd rather get the goods before they're thrown in the Dumpster instead of fishing them out. Standing waist-deep in refuse does nothing for me, but I guess some people like Dumpster diving as a point of pride.”

“Like Chia Pet pride?”

Matilda grins. “Exactly. So what are you doing in New York, anyway?” She leans into the back, opening one of the bags and taking out a Kaiser roll. “You want one?”

“I came on a reconnaissance mission.”

“You a government agent?” Matilda asks through a mouthful of bread.

“I'm a fucking prize joker, is what I am.” Althea bangs her fist against her dashboard and groans. She pulls up her sleeve and watches fresh blood soak through the shirt-bandage. “Oh, fuck everything.”

Matilda says nothing, but after a moment starts to give her directions.

Back on Matilda's street, Althea parks the car and lets out a very deep sigh. Matilda hands her a roll. Althea considers it, but instead rests her head on the steering wheel, exhausted by the idea of having to accept somebody's help.

“Do you need a place to stay tonight?”

The temperature in the car is already dropping. Althea doesn't care if she has to sleep underneath the sofa with the dust mites, as long as it's warm. “For serious?”

“I'm a big fucking sucker, what can I say? I also find riding around in your car very handy.”

“I will drive you to every bakery in Brooklyn if you want.”

“Tremendous. Get your shit and help me with our loot.”

They stagger onto the porch under the weight of the night's bounty. Matilda drops her bags and turns to her, suddenly dead serious. “Just one thing.”

Althea braces herself for some terrifying revelation about the house's residents, although at this point there's very little, be it sexual proclivities or criminal activities, that could stop her from following Matilda inside and passing out on the first flat surface she can find. “Sure.”

“If you turn out to be a liar, a thief, or a junkie, you and I will tangle. There's only one rule in this house, and that's because it's a given that standard human decency applies.”

“What's the rule?”

Matilda looks affectionately at her home. There are a few ears of Indian corn on the door in anticipation of tomorrow's holiday. “Don't burn it down. Please.”

“I can abide by that,” Althea says.

The house smells like a Bloody Mary full of cigarette butts. Paint is peeling off the walls, dusting the carpet in the front hallway, and the banister of the stairway to the second floor is covered with scratches and scorch marks. There is a waist-high stack of newspapers—not the
Times
, but the
New York Post
. Althea glances at the top of the pile. The headline reads, simply,
AWESOME
, over a picture of the Yankees celebrating their World Series win from atop a parade float. The entryway is filled with literally dozens of pairs of shoes—mostly tattered Chuck Taylors and Vans and combat boots so shabby the leather has worn away at the tips, exposing the steel toes. Matilda kicks off her green tennis shoes and Althea follows, tossing her shoes on the pile, wondering briefly if she'll ever be able to find them again.

“Warriors, we have company,” Matilda yells.

“Warriors?” Althea asks.

“Like the movie
The Warriors
? About the gang from Coney Island? Can you dig it?”

Althea shrugs. “You lost me.”

Matilda starts to hang a left around the staircase, toward what Althea assumes is the living room from the sounds of video games and the grunts and profanities typical of their players. When was the last time she walked into a room full of people she didn't already know without Oliver at her side cracking wise or singing a song he made up on the spot or putting an arm around her and telling her to stay close? If he were transported into this house just long enough to whisper one thing in her ear before he disappeared again, what would it be? She imagines him, in his JFK suit for some reason, his hair slicked back, leaning against the staircase. Oliver, taking it all in, mouthing something at her as she turns the corner, trailing behind Matilda.

Non. Stop. Party. Wagon.

Althea can't believe that's the best she can do.

Glasses Boy is curled up on a Papasan chair in a corner by the window, reading a graphic novel Althea recognizes. The curly-haired girl from before is sitting on the couch next to a black guy who wears only gym shorts, presumably the aforementioned dilettante boyfriend, and they're each leaning forward and clutching a controller. Yet another boy is sprawled out on a teal velour recliner, earnestly following the game while cradling a skinny gray cat in his arms. The girl is the only one who notices Althea and Matilda enter; everyone else looks up just to see why she hit pause. Glasses peers at Althea over the top of his book, throwing it to the floor as he recognizes her. He groans, exasperated, and turns to Matilda.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he says.

She points at him, stabbing the smoke-filled air with her finger as her earlier ferocity returns. “You belay that shit right now! I mean it.”

Matilda makes the introductions—Leala and Kaleb on the couch, Glasses is Ethan, and Gregory is the one whispering to the cat. He holds it above his head.

“This is Mr. Business,” Gregory says.

Mr. Business yowls. Althea murmurs hello to the cat, to everyone.

“She's going to crash here,” Matilda tells them.

“How do you do that, Management?” says Kaleb. “How do you take out the garbage and come back with some girl who needs a place to stay?”

“It's my special gift.”

The living room might be large, but it's hard to tell with so many people and so much stuff. There are comic books and old VHS tapes littering the rug between the couch and the television; the cables for the video games and the stereo lie there in a tangle. Bunches of dried flowers hang upside down over the window. An enormous potted ficus towers over Ethan, nested in his chair. There's a full ashtray the size of a dinner plate on the coffee table, and everyone has a can of Natural Ice at their feet. A lone snare drum sits in the corner, an acoustic guitar propped against it. A sewing table is set up next to the TV, with a quilted box spilling thread and buttons and scraps of fabric around an old Singer. Above the couch hangs a tapestry, a portrait of some saint. Althea's eyes linger there.

“That's Saint Cajetan,” Matilda says. “He's the patron saint of the unemployed.”

“I never realized there was a patron saint for the unemployed.”

“There's a patron saint for everything,” Leala says. “Did you know that Saint George is the patron saint for people with syphilis?”

“Yeah,” adds Gregory, “that's why Ethan lights a candle to him every night.”

Kaleb shakes his head. “Please, you gotta get laid to catch the syph. Ethan will never need to pray to Saint George.”

“And when you had crabs,” Ethan says, “who did
you
pray to?”

Gregory whoops with laughter while Leala looks at her boyfriend with angry, slivered eyes.

“I got that shit from a toilet seat,” Kaleb protests. “Baby, it was before I even knew you.”

“Don't talk to me. Unpause the game so I can hand you your ass.”

“That wasn't right, Ethan,” says Kaleb. “That was not correct.”

Ethan snickers without remorse. “You know what you can do if you don't like it.”

Leala and Kaleb resume play, Gregory continues his conversation with Mr. Business—“Are you my business kitty? Yes, you're my business kitty”—and Ethan retrieves his book. Other than his irritation, her presence has barely registered with Matilda's housemates. Is it that commonplace? Does Matilda do this all the time?

“Let's get your stuff upstairs,” Matilda says. “You're probably exhausted. You can meet everyone else tomorrow.”

“Everyone else?” Althea asks, trying to imagine even more people packed into the cramped, filthy house.

“It's sort of an ensemble cast type of thing around here. We need as many housemates as possible so we can make rent. Ethan and Gregory actually share a room; they sleep in shifts a lot of the time. Kaleb and Leala share a room, too. There are a couple of people who crash in the living room, or wherever they can. People come and go a lot. Do you have a big family?”

“I'm an only child.”

“You get used to it. The chaos, I mean. You can sleep in my room for now.”

Althea doesn't even bother to turn on the light. Pitching facedown onto the bed, she wraps her arms around a pillow that smells like spent matches. Her quilt is still in the backseat of the car, but she falls asleep anyway, too tired to care.

• • •

In Wilmington, it was easy to forget where she was waking up. She slept at Oliver's so much, and he at her house, that she often had to rely on the sound of the alarm clock to clue her in. Oliver preferred a shrill ringing bell, Althea the dulcet tones of NPR. But when she wakes up in Matilda's house for the first time, there's no disorientation. There are loud voices downstairs; Althea can already tell some of them apart. Leala's and Kaleb's rise above the others, engaged in a fiery debate about whether they should serve mashed potatoes or a yam casserole in the park for Thanksgiving.

Compared to the mess downstairs, Matilda's bedroom is minimalist. No piles of clothes or books, no towering stack of CDs threatening to topple. But the walls—the walls are a different story. All four have been painted with green chalkboard paint and covered with names and telephone numbers, a clumsy calendar with days marked for cooking, collecting rent, and serving food; notes about whose turn it is to buy toilet paper and when Mr. Business last got his shots. There is a series of lists:
Bands That Might Play at a Fund-raiser
,
People I Owe Phone Calls
,
People I Owe Money
, with a great deal of overlap between the last two. Around all of this are song lyrics and movie quotes, only some of which Althea recognizes. A few of the notes are in different colors and handwritings, cryptic messages:
Tell Steve not to give up on me
;
Non excidet
;
Where is a dumpling?

Althea is still trying to decipher these when there's a soft knock on the door and then Matilda slips in, holding two mugs of coffee. She gives one to Althea. There's a Shakespeare quote on it:
THERE IS NOTHING EITHER G
OOD OR BAD, BUT THINK
ING MAKES IT SO.
Part of the handle is broken off. She takes a solid slug of the coffee and flinches.

“I know,” says Matilda. “It's got legs. Come smoke with me.”

She leads Althea to the bathroom, where she turns on the shower and sits on the floor with her back against the tub. “It's a neat trick. You fill the room with steam and let it open up your lungs, then you smoke a cigarette. It's like mainlining the nicotine.” She quickly crafts a roll-up and seals it with a pointy pink tongue. Then, pulling today's issue of the
Post
from a rack next to the toilet, she flips until she finds the horoscopes. “What's your sign?”