Althea and Oliver Read Free Page B

wrong. It isn’t over, and she doesn’t have her Oliver back. He’s come by in the midst of some strange intermission, and the lights are about to go down for the second act.
    Althea snatches the check off the table. “Let’s go.”
    â€œI’m fine right here.” Lying down in the booth, he rests his head in her lap, tucking his fists under his chin.
    â€œNo way, come on. Get up.”
    â€œI said I’m fine here,” he says, loud and peevish.
    She can’t get to her wallet with Oliver sprawled across her thighs, pinning her. “Get up,” she says. Behind the counter, the waitress is beginning to stare.
    He still won’t move, so reaching down and taking hold of his collar, Althea yanks him upright, propping him against the window.
    â€œI told you, I’m tired,” he shouts, slapping her hands away.
    The space between her shoulder blades tightens like a bolt is being wrenched into place. A mortified Althea watches the other patrons in the window’s watery reflection, their chatter suddenly muted. The college students forget the cigarettes smoldering in their ashtrays, and older men in trucker hats with potbellies and thick wrists brace themselves against their tables as they contemplate intervention. Behind the counter, the grill is sizzling with home fries and bacon fat, but the cook has forgotten, holding his spatula in front of his grease-splattered apron as if he’s wondering whether he might need to use it as a weapon. A harmless country song is playing on the jukebox.
    Althea is shaky from too much coffee. Her body has lost the ability to regulate its temperature—heat radiates under her armpits, dampening her sweatshirt, but her hands have gone icy—and her stomach feels like it’s disappeared altogether. She fumbles for her canvas wallet, embroidered with a skull and crossbones and several unraveling red roses. The sound of uncoupling Velcro is impossibly loud inside the small, hushed restaurant. People are whispering as she counts out her limp dollar bills. Oliver’s head lolls back onto the booth’s cracked red vinyl.
    â€œDon’t do it,” she says sharply, but his eyes flutter shut anyway. She kicks his shin, hard, and he starts awake, abruptly at attention.
    â€œWhat the shit?” he yells. Flailing his arms, he knocks over the ketchup and the hot sauce; the maple syrup clatters to the floor, leaving a sugary ring on the faux-wood Formica. Althea hastily retrieves the pitcher from under the table, but before she can set it back in place, Oliver wrests it from her sticky hand and hurls it across the restaurant. She watches helplessly as it sails into the open kitchen, landing on the grill in a clatter of singed plastic and maple steam. The cook drops his spatula and leaps back, covering his face with his arm as a billow of purple-black smoke erupts, cloying and sweet and toxic. Althea mutters a profanity, her heart rabbiting wildly inside her chest. Leaving her pile of damp money on the table, she grabs Oliver by the wrist and together they bolt for the exit, past students she prays are not her father’s. Inside their booths, the truckers shrink away.
    She runs, and this time it’s Oliver struggling to keep up with her long, desperate strides. The sky is getting light on the other side of the highway. Keeping a firm grip on his wrist, she tows him behind her in the wake of headlights and exhaust from passing cars. The sound of traffic fades behind them as they turn off the main road and wind through the narrow suburban streets, silent save for their sharp breaths and the rubbery smack of their shoes against the asphalt. Only when they get to their block does she let their pace slacken to a walk.
    Althea bends double in his driveway, trying to catch her breath. Her ponytail has come unmoored and her mess of blonde hair falls over her face.
    â€œWhy did you do that?” says Oliver unkindly, panting