And then, because of the adrenaline and the extra gift bags burning a hole in the backseat, we went out again. We dropped off more bags, hitting Greg O.’s house last.
“See you tomorrow,” Val said afterward with a big grin.
“Uh. Great. Yeah. Can’t wait,” I said sarcastically.
“Can’t wait for what?” Gordie called out from the car.
“Javi’s friend Mike likes Sadie. We’re going on a double date.”
“Have fun with that,” Gordie said.
“Oh, I will,” I said.
The next morning, the morning of the dreaded date, I was sifting through cherries out back at the farm stand when Daniela brought me my phone. “It’s driving me crazy,” she said.
I had a bunch of texts from Gordie. They all said the same thing.
Just left my grandmother’s “friend.” They’re real.
An hour later Gordie and I were sitting hip to hip on my willow tree crate, brainstorming how to deal with the buttload of real diamonds that were stuffed in my closet behind my prom dress and my old field hockey sticks.
“If this one diamond was worth over seven thousand dollars, how the hell much are we talking here?” I said, holding the stone between my thumb and finger.
“A lot.”
Maybe a normal person would have gotten excited about all those diamonds, about the possibility of poaching a few for a trip to California or a new phone or a cute outfit. But all I could think was, Why me?
“Let’s just tell the others,” I said. “I need help figuring this out.”
We decided we’d tell them after my date.
I spent the entire day at work trying to process the fact that Mr. Upton was not deranged. He knew perfectly well that he had stashed a fortune in Raggedy Andy’s legs. He knew he was dying. And for some reason, he believed I was the one who could redeem his father’s evil deeds. The problem was I had no idea where to even begin.
Mom called just when I was leaving to go home and shower before Val picked me up for the date.
“Hey, Mom. I’m driving.”
“Where are you?”
“Bridgehampton.”
“I need you to come home. The victim advocate is calling in a half hour.”
I pulled into a parking lot. “Does it have to be today?”
“Yes. And she wants me with you when she calls.”
Even cutting through all the back roads, I got stuck in traffic. When I got home, Mom was on the porch frantically waving me toward the phone in her hand.
The victim advocate talked to me for forty-five minutes. She was nice enough, and I understood it was her job and she was trying to help me, to protect me, but the last thing I wanted to do was dredge up a play-by-play of the incident while my mother interrupted me every five seconds with “Don’t forget the part about where he smashed your head” and “Don’t forget the way he behaved when the cops arrived.” I told her everything as I remembered it, but I wasn’t sure if I truly remembered any of it, or if I was just rehashing what I saw on the video.
The worst part wasn’t on the video. It was a five-second mental video, running on repeat. I took a deep breath and described the terror on baby Ella’s rosy, tearstained face.
Mom chimed in to talk about my scars and which ones would probably be permanent. I had no idea the permanence of my scars would be a factor in determining his punishment.
“What about emotionally, Sadie?” Mom had put the phone on speaker and the woman was addressing the whole kitchen. “Any nightmares? Flashbacks?” Her voice was sweet but her questions were jarring.
“No.”
Mom leaned toward the phone.
“Sadie’s been coming down to our room a lot, sleeping on the floor. That never happened before the incident.” Mom was skilled at the art of embarrassment.
“Well, that was fun,” I said after we hung up.
Mom hugged me gently. And I let her.
After my shower, I waited for Val while my parents balanced plates of chicken and lemon rice on their laps in the Adirondack chairs.
Mom stopped eating and stared at me. “Daddy and I would like to talk about things, Sadie.”
That was my least favorite sentence.
“Okay.”
Mom began with “I had said all along we should have gotten you therapy after the incident, but your father and grandmothers pooh-poohed me. You do know there’s no shame in therapy.”
I had asked for this talk. I was the seventeen-year-old migrating down to the nook in my parents’ bedroom with my stuffed harp seal.
“Sadie,” Mom continued, reading the utter misery on my face. “You went through a trauma. And sometimes it takes a while for the mind to process that. There’s only so much running around with your new friends you can do before you crash. I’d like you to see Willie Ng’s therapist in Sag Harbor. The Ngs swear by him.”
Mr. Ng’s son Willie was addicted to Internet porn.
“How about I just don’t sleep in your room anymore?” I smiled and batted my eyelashes.
“How about just one visit, hon?” Dad said with his mouth full.
“Fine. I’ll go to Willie Ng’s friggin’ therapist.”
“Shh,” Mom hissed, looking over at the Ngs’ house.
Val drove up then, just in time to save me.
“Have a good friggin’ time,” Dad said, smiling.
Val’s car was stuffed to the brim with school supplies. I could barely find space for my silver-sandal-clad feet.
“What’s wrong?” she said. “You look upset.”
“Oh, my parents think I need therapy to deal with the incident.”
“Do you? I feel like we never talk about it.”
“I hardly ever think about it during the day. And then sometimes I get a flash of the scene, which was pretty horrific. And then I’ll have some freaky dream and wake up all clammy and frozen in fear, at which point I go down and sleep on my parents’ floor.”
“Aww. Sadie, I’m sorry. Any time you feel like talking about it, I’m here.”
“Thanks, Val. That’s really sweet of you.”
I ran my finger over the monster tail scar. It was still tender and slightly swollen. I understood my parents’ concern, but I had a feeling rehashing the incident to Willie Ng’s therapist would force me to relive something I was better off putting out of my mind. Forever.
The date was at a little seafood restaurant on the bay where people wore plastic bibs to catch lobster butter dribble. Mike had drenched himself in cologne. He wore a crisp button-down shirt with too much exposed patchy chest hair. He kept looking at me, but he didn’t say a word.
“Does he speak English?” I whispered to Val on our way to the bathroom.
“Seriously, Sadie?” Val laughed. “He’s American.”
I hated myself for agreeing to go to dinner with Mute Mike. Val and I talked too much, to make up for Mike’s mutism and Javi’s lackluster personality. Val bragged about how my mom was Persian, which was very cool, and my dad was Woody the ice cream man. I told a story about the time a little kid crawled into the back of the truck and rode around for fifteen minutes gorging himself on ice cream before my dad found him.
I had no idea what sweet, smart, overachieving Val saw in Javi, who was a bump on a log with permanent resting bitch face. And his logmate wasn’t much better.
At least the shrimp scampi was pretty good.
Val and I got a text from Alice just as the waiter was delivering dessert menus.
At the hospital. Izzy might be dead. Please come.
Mute Mike and I sucked on peppermints and stared at each other while Val and Javi fought in the parking lot until Val finally stormed away and we were off to the hospital. We were terrified for Alice and had no idea what to expect when we got there.
I almost didn’t recognize Alice biting her fingernail on a bench next to Gordie in front of the hospital. Her red face was bloated and full of anguish. She twisted her long white braids in her hands and gave us
a weak smile.
“What happened, Alice?” I slid next to her and wrapped my arm around her shoulders.
She shrugged. “Izzy’s my best friend.” She could barely get the words out. Her body bent forward.
“We know, sweetie, we know,” I said, rubbing her shoulder.
“It’s okay. Take a breath,” Val said, sitting on the other side of Gordie.
“She OD’d. Who overdoses on a Tuesday afternoon?”
Groups of nurses and people carrying coffee cups and tote bags walked past our bench. A little girl with butter-colored hair and a teal dress bounced through the parking lot carrying a BABY BOY balloon. All the while, Alice’s best friend, her Shay, clung to life in the ICU.
“I just let her go. I let her go away with that hideous dealer.” All the pain and guilt, grief and regret poured out in rapid, quivering breaths.
Jean ran through the parking lot and stopped short in front of us.
“Alice’s friend OD’d,” Gordie said. “She’s in the ICU.”
“Let’s just pray,” Jean said.
We sat on the bench, holding on to Alice and praying for Izzy.
Please, please, please, please, please, I said to myself over and over again. I couldn’t imagine Izzy, the bubbly horse lover from Girl Scouts, dying. I couldn’t even begin to think about the grief that would come of it. I blocked out the thoughts with pleases.
Alice’s mom came outside. She was tall and blond and wearing a strapless black pantsuit, wedge heels, and lots of diamonds. She didn’t look like she belonged to Alice.
“Come, Alice, let’s go up.” She eyed us suspiciously, the way a woman like her might eye a Middle Eastern–looking girl, a bearded black guy, a pigtailed Hispanic girl, and a disheveled white guy fawning all over her distraught daughter.
“Please wait,” Alice said to us as she walked away.
We waited on the bench for three hours, talking about anything but what might be going on in the ICU. Gordie made fun of my date with Mute Mike. Val recruited us to help her with her growing school-supply empire. Gordie invited us to his Turtle Trail camping trip. Jean sketched out mascots, which were well done but still not quite right. We talked about how many people we knew who were doing Oxy and how Oxy was easier to get than weed. A doctor stood behind us eavesdropping and smoking cigarettes. It got dark and the lights around the parking lot popped on and made annoying buzzing sounds.
“Oh my gosh, Sadie. Is everything okay?” Hannah S. appeared out of nowhere. She was carrying a vase of carnations tied with an obnoxious shimmery pink ribbon.
“Hey, Hannah. I’m waiting for a friend.” I wasn’t about to give Hannah S. any more information than that.
“I hope he or she is okay,” she pried, eyeing Gordie. “Oh, hi, Gordie.”
“Hi, Hannah.”
“My aunt had gallbladder surgery.” She looked at me and then Val and Jean and Gordie. Confusion spread over her sunburned face.
“Oh. That sucks. I hope she’s better soon,” I said, hoping she’d get the hint.
“Thanks. Your friend, too.” She walked away, clearly dazed by the rush of hypotheses that must have been flooding her gadfly brain.
“She’s going to be sticking her head into every room in that hospital to see what friend Sadie Sullivan and Gordie Harris have in common,” I said.
“It’s a good activity for her. Keeps the mind sharp,” Gordie said.
I remembered Andy’s canaries, as Gordie and I were now referring to the stones. It still didn’t feel real. But then again, having a friend who had a friend who had just overdosed on heroin didn’t feel real either.
Alice seemed surprised to see us when she finally shuffled through the automatic doors, draped in a man’s burnt-orange cardigan. The night was hot and sticky and loud with insect sounds and streetlight buzzing and constant ambulance sirens.
“I can’t believe you stayed,” she said with a wisp of a voice.
Nobody said a word. We were all so afraid Izzy was dead.
“I think she’s okay.” Alice sat on the edge of the bench. Val handed her a half-drunk iced coffee and she sipped it through the straw.
“I only saw her from the doorway. She looked like a corpse. In addition to nearly dying from the overdose, she got some rare blood fungus from the needles. So she’s really sick.”
“How are her parents reacting?” Val said.
“Her parents had no idea she was doing heroin. No clue. Like what planet are they on?” Jean took Alice’s bony hand. She rested her head on his shoulder, then picked it up again.
“My parents grilled me. They demanded to know when we started doing drugs. When we started hanging out with dealers. When we turned bad.” She lowered her head to her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs. “I lost it. I told them I tried everything to stop her, but she wouldn’t stop. I should have stabbed that fucking dealer, Hector, in the face with his own needles.”
A man came through the hospital doors. I saw him out of the corner of my eye looming like a stalker. “Alice.”
We all turned.
“Daddy.” She crumbled. “These are my friends from the homegrown hero lunch.”
The tall, straight-backed, sandy-haired man walked quickly around the bench and held out his hand. Alice took it, and he pulled her up. They embraced as we watched from our bench, feeling like Alice’s voyeur friends.
TWELVE
GORDIE DROVE ME home from the hospital. We parked in my driveway and I asked him what he would do with the diamonds. He said he’d have to think about it.
“I need a better hiding place,” I said. “And then we need to call a meeting of the Unlikelies, when Alice is feeling better. And then I’ll take suggestions.”
He smiled. “You’re being very businesslike right now.”
“Yes. This is serious, Gordie.”
I wanted to kiss him. I couldn’t tell if it was a Pavlovian reaction to being in a dark car with a very attractive male, or some way to distract myself from the horribleness of Izzy, or if my old flame was rekindling against my wishes and common sense.
Gordie humored me. “Didn’t old Stewy give you any clues about what to do?”
I tried to relay everything Mr. Upton had said on his deathbed, about the shady stealing from widows and the bootlegging and prostitution. I told Gordie Mr. Upton didn’t have any heirs except Sissy, who had happily relinquished the suitcase and who Mr. Upton didn’t think was up to this task. But other than that, I had no clue what to do with a shitload of diamonds.
The porch light went on and Dad opened the door.
“To be continued,” I said and jumped out.
I texted Alice before I went to sleep. It’s going to be okay.
She texted back, This is hell. Some guy she’s sleeping with called 911 when she turned gray and her lips went blue and she choked on her own vomit.
I had seen my share of the dark side. Shawn Flynn’s parties were notorious. There were the stomach pumpings and the paranoid freakouts. There were fights and that time a kid from the city had wandered into Shawn’s parents’ room and tried to hang himself. But Izzy’s world was darker than the dark side. She was lodged in a blacked-out corner of that place where even hope had turned gray and blue-lipped.
Again, I woke in a panic. Again, I froze in my bed. And again, as much as I didn’t want to, I made my way down to the nook in my parents’ bedroom, where I slept like a baby in a seventeen-year-old body.
The next day, Alice and I waited for Val on the rusty swing set outside her apartment building. At some point that morning, Alice had chopped off most of her hair and colored it violet. She looked younger with cropped hair, like a pale, rosy-cheeked child.
Alice told me about her mom’s conversation with a lady from the golf club.
“‘This is what happens when immigrants infiltrate our communities. They shove drugs down our children’s throats and leave them for dead.’ She’s assuming Hector is an immigrant. Which he is not. He’s a blond kid from Nas
sau County.”
“They’re going to bring her back, Alice. That’s what they do at these rehabs. They figure out how to fill people up again.”
“They’re not taking her to rehab. They’re taking her home. I’m sure that will turn out just fine.” Alice shook her head. “So she texted back.”
Val bounced across the browning lawn in her white Converse high-tops, faded jean shorts, and blue-sparkle tank top.
“Any word from Izzy?” Val ran her hand gently over Alice’s spiky hair.
“Oh, yes. She texted me to tell me to leave her alone because she is fine and I am a bad friend. And then she somehow blamed me for her getting caught. Because in her twisted mind, almost dying is getting caught.” She paused. “I just texted her to hang in there and that I loved her,” Alice said. “I told her to get better because we have a senior year to look forward to.” She stood up. “I can’t deal with this right now. Let’s just go to Gordie’s.”
When we got to Gordie’s, his mom greeted us with strawberry shortcake and a very long story about how Gordie’s brother missed his plane from Vienna to London.
“Does she know anything about our night at the hospital?” I asked Gordie, nodding toward his mom, who was raving about Alice’s newly cropped purple hair.
“No. It’s better that way.” He gave me a look that said My mother lives in strawberry-shortcake land.
We waited for Jean in the basement theater seats.
“Go to the slam pages,” Val said.
“No. Not tonight,” I said. “Alice doesn’t need more stress.”
But Alice wanted us to open up her school’s page. She needed to see what was out there about Izzy.
It was all there, how Izzy OD’d and what a whore she had become and how she used to be sort of cute but now she’s disgusting.
Gordie replied to every slam with:
Cyber trolls, bullies, and miscreants—come to the light. Join us. It’s beautiful over here! —The Unlikelies.
“Nobody knows what a miscreant is, Gordie,” I said, shaking my head.
The Unlikelies Page 9