Read Online Althea and Oliver by Cristina Moracho - Free Book Online Page A

beauty of this disaster. There’s no doubt that this, this is the mirror’s finest moment.
    Althea covers her face with her hands, peeks at him from a crack between her fingers, and catches him staring at the sink. “See?” she says softly.
    â€œShush.”
    â€œDon’t shush me.”
    â€œYou love it when I shush you.”
    Someone knocks on the door. “Who’s in there?”
    Althea chooses this moment to begin laughing uncontrollably.
    â€œHello? Okay, seriously, you aren’t supposed to be in there.” It sounds like Jason.
    Althea can’t stop herself, clutching the windowsill, holding her stomach, and shaking from head to toe. Jason pounds on the door.
    â€œCoby? Is that you? I swear, if I find you fucking in my parents’ bathtub again, I’m gonna mess you up like a goddamn car crash.”
    This new piece of information incites a fresh fit of hysteria. Jason keeps banging on the door, and Althea turns on the faucet in the bathtub.
    â€œCoby, you motherfucker! I’m serious!” Jason shouts.
    It sounds like he’s ramming the door with his shoulder. A voice speaks up from somewhere behind Jason. “Coby’s not in there, he’s at the beer pong table. He just kicked my ass.”
    â€œThen who the hell is fucking in my parents’ bathtub?” Jason hollers, slamming the door with his fist for emphasis.
    A siren wails in front of the house. At once, it seems, the entire party erupts with a cry of “Cops!” and everyone starts running. The bedroom instantly clears. Screen doors slam shut. The music cuts off abruptly, leaving the house feeling hollow as its occupants flee. All the noise is coming from outside now, and it seems like Althea and Oliver might be the only two people left when they hear heavy footsteps on the stairs. A dispatcher’s voice crackles on a radio. Althea gives a nervous titter, and Oliver claps a hand over her mouth.
    The bathroom window opens onto the slanted roof of the back porch. “It would seem,” he whispers, “that we are out of options.”
    â€œI’m not going out that window,” says Althea. The radio sputters again, closer, in the hallway this time.
    â€œNon-Stop Party Wagon. You can’t say no.” He climbs out. Reluctantly, Althea follows.
    In the backyard, kids are stashing their drugs under potted plants so they can return and find them later. The red and blue lights in the driveway sweep rhythmically over the scene. Cops burst out the back door telling everyone to stay where they are. Hand in hand, Oliver and Althea scoot toward the edge of the roof until their feet are dangling below the gutter. They ease themselves off, falling briefly through space until they land, crouched, in the wet grass. They run through the dogwoods and the shallow creek that borders the property, then across the neighboring backyards, climbing fences and setting off motion sensor lights. With the sirens behind them, the sense of urgency fades. Slowing to a walk, they catch their breath.
    This late hour has always been like their living room, the temporal equivalent of Althea’s basement, whether they were reading to each other in a pup tent in his backyard, building a fort of blankets and cardboard boxes in her basement, or whispering to each other via two-way radios while they lay in their respective beds, sending schemes for future mischief across the airwaves between their houses.
    The sky is still dark, the moon like a curved piece of broken glass, and a bird sings above them in a young sugar maple. They look at each other with gauzy surprise. Althea sidles up to the tree, peering into its branches, but the bird is hidden in the early summer leaves. It waits a beat and then begins again, a different tune but the same somehow, like the next verse in a torch song. Enraptured, they squint through the mess of buds and leaves as the bird trills on.
    After who knows how long, Althea