The Unlikelies

by Carrie Firestone

  “Why us?” I said, glancing at Val.

  “They think some good, clean, homegrown hero fun will be good for Izzy.” Izzy’s parents truly believed they could nurse her back to health with chicken soup and gossip magazines like she had a nasty case of bronchitis.

  Val and I agreed to go, but I could tell by the look on Val’s face that she was as uncomfortable with the idea as I was.

  “Nice bobblehead,” Alice said, shaking Shay and me. “Hey, let’s text Shay.”

  Alice took a close-up of her silver nose ring with my phone and sent it to Shay, captioned with the classic Girl Scout mantra Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other’s gold.

  Shay didn’t reply.

  We waited for Jean, who was late because he was creating and later because he decided to take Dad up on his invite to sit and hang out for a few. By the time he got upstairs with his mysterious bag, the rest of us were over hearing about how Val and Javi were in a great place and he took her to dinner at Red Lobster and they had crazy great sex in Javi’s car.

  “Okay, vomit,” Alice said, taking down a photo of Seth from my bulletin board and holding it up. “He’s really hairy, huh?”

  Gordie laughed, turned over on his side, and hugged my Flopper.

  As Jean fumbled around his duffel bag preparing his big reveal, Alice texted, How does it feel having Gordie Harris lying on your bed?

  OMG. Stop, I texted back.

  Let me guess… it rhymes with buttery. Or sluttery?

  I texted back, Fluttery fluttery fluttery fluttery.

  “I’m going to be royally pissed if you don’t like this. I’ve been working my ass off in the studio trying to get it right,” Jean said.

  “Show us. Show us,” we all chanted. I jumped up and locked my door.

  Jean reached into his duffel bag and brought out our new mascot.

  At first, we didn’t know what to think. It was beautiful and bizarre at the same time.

  “I took the Civil War dolls from Mr. Upton’s shed and made miniature custom masks,” Jean said as we examined the five smiling masked Union soldiers joined together at the hands.

  There was the bearded Ulysses S. Grant Haitian carnival mask with curved horns, the wooden Salvadoran goddess mask in pigtails, the metal Persian warrior mask interwoven with intricate Celtic symbols.

  “This is a perfect Sadie mask,” I said, moving in to look more closely.

  Gordie’s Scottish mask was made of wood and painted bright blue and white. Jean had fastened a tiny kilt around the soldier’s waist. And Alice got her many-colored smiling dog carved from a coconut shell.

  “This is brilliant. Not only did you capture the essence of the Unlikelies, the masks somehow look like us,” Gordie said. He got up and half hugged Jean, who nodded and broke into a huge smile.

  “Phew, I was nervous.”

  We positioned the line of tiny-masked soldiers in all different kinds of light, making sure there was nothing near them identifying my bedroom. Alice got her camera from the car and shot until we caught the right angle.

  And our mascot avatar was born.

  Gordie promptly uploaded it and blasted every single site we had ever anti-trolled.

  Kinky 3, Cakes, Hermanita, Pierre, and Cecil were gone forever, replaced by smiling, hand-holding masked soldiers standing five in a row.

  It was the perfect blend of mysterious, powerful, and weirdly inspiring.

  “Everybody get comfortable,” I said. “We have a lot to discuss.”

  Things got real when I unearthed the pink barf bucket of yellow diamonds.

  Alice, Val, and Jean stared at the polished stones layered at the bottom of the bucket while Gordie arranged the masked soldiers, Flopper, and my bobbleheads on the window seat.

  I Googled yellow diamonds. “They do call them canary diamonds,” I said, surprised.

  “Why do you think I’ve been calling them that?” Gordie said, laughing.

  I studied the screen. “They were so rare in the nineteen twenties there were well-known smuggling networks going from Africa to Canada to major US cities.”

  Gordie let out a howl. Jean was staging a bobblehead and masked Civil War doll orgy.

  “Is anyone listening to me?”

  “I am,” Val said.

  “I’m playing with diamonds,” Alice said.

  “Shh,” I hissed. “My mother has bionic hearing. Call them canaries. Now we know why the lizard spent his time in Nova Scotia. He was smuggling,” I said, closing the laptop. “Come on, can we focus?”

  I had to threaten to kick everybody out before they agreed to help me brainstorm legitimate ways to redeem the lizard’s evil deeds. I passed out green index cards and we sat in a circle on the floor, hunched over with pensive expressions.

  Five minutes later, we each dropped a stack of folded cards into the middle of our circle. I gathered them up and drew the first folded card:

  Start a homeless shelter for vulnerable youth.

  “That’s Val’s handwriting,” Jean said, grabbing the card. I slapped his hand and drew again.

  Hotel for old, drunk hookers. I threw Jean’s card at him.

  Bed-and-breakfast for old, drunk hookers. I threw Gordie’s card and punched him.

  Humane Society. (They need a new facility.) “Nice, Alice, but Mr. Upton already gave a lot to the Humane Society.”

  They wrote another batch of cards, but we found a reason to veto each idea.

  “In all seriousness, I’d buy land,” Gordie said. “Just stretches of open land that developers could never get their hands on. I’d be like the modern-day Teddy Roosevelt.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Alice said.

  “Although we wouldn’t be able to get much. Maybe in Siberia,” Gordie said. “But that’ll be prime real estate when global warming ramps up.”

  Frustrated and exhausted, I got up and ripped the green index cards into bits. We stuffed the diamonds back into the cheesecloth bags and into Andy’s legs and groin, prompting more annoying jokes from Jean and Gordie.

  “Love you guys. Bye, now,” I said, pushing the Unlikelies out the door.

  I flung my exhausted body facedown onto my bed.

  My pillow smelled like Gordie Harris.

  SIXTEEN

  VAL’S CRAPPY CAR was immaculate on the inside since she’d gotten rid of the school supplies. “You’re so orderly,” I said, moving the dried-out Palm Sunday palm leaf so I could check myself in the mirror. There it was, the monster tail, curled tight under my brow line. In the early afternoon light, it looked like a slightly lighter tongue color.

  “Are you dreading this, too?” Val said as we set out for Izzy’s house.

  “I don’t want any part of this. But Alice would do it for us.”

  We merged with the endless procession of impatient cars.

  Val sighed. “Can I just tell you, Sadie, I’m reaching the end of my Javi rope.”

  “I thought you just had a great night. What happened now?”

  “It’s not one thing. It’s all the stuff I’ve told you. He doesn’t talk about anything interesting. He’s pissed at me half the time we’re together. He takes too many naps. He doesn’t want to go to the beach or to concerts or do any of the activities I like. He wants to binge-watch his shows and play video games and take hookup breaks. That’s it.”

  “Is it possible he takes naps because of the lupus?”

  “You’re not helping, Sadie. At all.”

  “What does Mute Mike do during the hookup breaks?”

  “He makes us something to eat.”

  “Okay, that’s weird.”

  “There’s a new lupus medication that’s supposed to help a lot, which means Javi might have more energy to do things with me. But it’s not covered by his insurance and it’s a thousand dollars a month.”

  “How is that even possible?” We passed the farm stand. “I wish I could be like all those rich people buying twelve-dollar hunks of cheese,” I said.
<
br />   “People pay twelve dollars for cheese?”

  “Yes, cidiots do. And then they throw eleven dollars’ worth of the cheese in the trash can and take off in their BMWs while your boyfriend suffers on the couch,” I said. “He’s not too sick to hook up, though, huh?”

  “Is any guy too sick to hook up?”

  I thought about the diamonds, lying there in the back of my closet. I almost said something about slipping a couple to Javi. But I didn’t have time to process that thought.

  Throngs of hydrangeas greeted us in front of Izzy’s gray-shingled house.

  “What is with these mega houses?” Val said. We got out of her dwarf car, parked next to twin SUVs. “Can you imagine trying to clean this place?”

  “These people have staff.”

  A lady wearing a white tennis skirt and a lavender V-neck top waved from the open front door. “Girls, we’re so glad you came. Alice told me all about your homegrown hero projects.”

  “Thanks,” we said in unison.

  “Thank you for being there to help Izzy,” she said, pouring iced lemon water from a pitcher on a tray. “It’s been quite an ordeal,” she said, handing us glasses.

  She didn’t seem to realize that the ordeal had been a year in the making.

  We found Alice sitting on the floor at the top of the spiral staircase. “Look what I brought Izzy,” Alice said with a baby voice. Three puppies ran between Alice and Izzy’s brother, Tanner.

  “They’re fresh off the streets of Jersey City. I’m giving their foster mom a break.”

  “Ew. It pooped, Pooch.” Izzy’s brother pointed to a load of puppy poop on the hardwood floor.

  “Tanner, go get paper towels.”

  “That’s nothing compared to Izzy’s massive diarrhea situation. She’s been going for days,” Alice whispered when Tanner was downstairs.

  “Can you poop out heroin?” Val said.

  Alice laughed. “Only if you swallow it in bags and smuggle it across the border.”

  “Hey, guys,” Izzy said as we entered her room. “Come here, puppies.”

  Izzy looked nothing like the scraggly-haired girl wrapped in the filthy sheet. She was clean and dressed in sweatpants and a black-and-white-striped shirt. Her long strawberry-blond hair hung in waves down her back.

  We hung out on Izzy’s bed, making fun of Alice, telling Gordie and Jean stories. We didn’t talk about that night or heroin or the way Izzy’s legs twitched or the way her face glazed over every so often, in between sweet smiles.

  We showed Izzy Instagram pictures we had taken of Gordie’s basement movie theater. “He’s hot,” Izzy said.

  Alice looked at me and smiled. “He is hot. He’s also gay.”

  “Or not,” I said before I could catch myself. I felt the heat rise up through my face.

  Alice and Val pressed me until I told them the Keith story.

  “Well, this is an interesting turn of events,” Alice said.

  “Speak of him again and I’ll say the F word a thousand times,” I said.

  “Fuck?” Izzy said.

  “No. It’s a way more irritating word than that.” Alice flipped through an old photo album and showed us pictures of her and Izzy on horses, on sailboats, rolling down grassy Hamptons hills, smiling toothless smiles.

  “Here’s the one I was looking for,” Alice said, pulling out a faded photo of two little girls standing in front of Dad’s truck. “It’s us with Woody the ice cream man.” Dad grinned in the background, giving a thumbless thumbs-up through the window.

  “That might just be the coolest dad job in the universe,” Izzy said.

  “I like to think so,” I said, studying the picture.

  There were moments of awkward silence, moments we might have filled with words of encouragement or support. But we chose to avoid the real reason we were there: to try to keep Izzy out of trap houses.

  “I want to be a homegrown hero,” Izzy said after we told her about the Rotary luncheon. “I don’t know if I have it in me.”

  “Everyone has it in them, Iz,” Alice said firmly.

  “I got my hero status by doing something really stupid,” I said. “But then again, my great-grandmother, also named Sadie, lost both her feet saving children from a burning building.”

  “Do you think she was ever sorry she did that?” Val said. “It must have been tough getting around.”

  “My grandma Sullivan, her daughter-in-law, calls her the family fool.”

  “My grandma drinks a fifth of vodka every day before lunch,” Izzy said with a strange smile. “It doesn’t seem to affect her golf game, though.” She got under the covers. “God, I’m exhausted.”

  Izzy gave me the photo of them in front of Dad’s truck. She hugged Val and me and told us to come back and hang out again. We left her surrounded by sleeping puppies and Alice.

  “That went well,” Val said, right before a text came in from Alice.

  Maybe someday you’ll meet Izzy when she isn’t using. I guess she had a secret stash. I can’t do this anymore.

  “What?” Val said.

  Neither of us had a clue.

  “Why have we not called the cops on the trap house?” Val said as we sat in my driveway trying to figure out how to help Alice.

  Why have we not called the cops on the shrink’s house? I texted Alice.

  Because I didn’t want Izzy to get arrested.

  I wrote back, We need to try SOMETHING.

  Later that night, the five of us met in front of Jean’s work for a five-minute powwow. Val and I had typed a letter wearing latex gloves, because paranoid Val didn’t want the cops to find fingerprints. We wrote down the dealers’ names, and the psychiatrist’s address, and a detailed description of the trap house and what was going on there. We signed the note The Unlikelies under a photo of our avatar and dropped it in a Bridgehampton mailbox.

  We would have to wait. Hope. And wait.

  SEVENTEEN

  I THREW THE last few heads of romaine out back and husked the butter-and-sugar corn for the people who were too lazy or busy or entitled to do it themselves. A black Mercedes pulled into the lot. I wiped my hands on my shorts and squinted in the bright sun.

  “Well, if it isn’t Sadie Sullivan,” Gordie said, getting out of the passenger side. His mom jumped out and propped her designer sunglasses on top of her sassy bob. She opened the back door and pulled out reusable shopping bags.

  “Hi, Sadie. Nice to see you. We are on a quest for peaches. Gordie makes a mean cobbler.”

  “Oh, yeah? Gordie, when were you going to make me some cobbler?”

  “You want cobbler? I’ll make you cobbler,” Gordie said, examining the peaches as if he were old Mr. Upton himself.

  “My whole side of the family is heading down from Maine this week,” Gordie’s mom said, shaking her head. “They’re assuming I’ll have a big Hamptons meal ready upon arrival.” She was one of those moms who talked to everybody like they were her best friends. She was fresh-faced and very perky.

  Gordie packed containers of cheese curds and strawberry jam into a reusable bag. His mom asked me to help her choose flowers for her basket.

  “Steven and I are beyond thrilled Gordie’s been hanging out with you and the other kids. Reid ditched him last summer for that nutty Claire. And it’s taken Gordie a long time to get over Sylvie. He was a mess for a while.”

  Sylvie. Sylvie. Who was Sylvie?

  I knew Gordie would be mortified by his mom’s oversharing. But I wanted more Gordie Harris dirt.

  “Yeah, I’ve been there,” I said.

  “She strung him along for a year. I told him not to get involved with an older woman. Anyway, good riddance. She was a flake. You kids are welcome at the house anytime. I mean that.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Harris.”

  “Call me Bonnie.”

  “Mom, you all set?” Gordie called from the register.

  They piled two hundred dollars’ worth of stuff on the counter. I wouldn’t mention the mul
tiple bricks of twelve-dollar cheese to Val.

  “How’s Izzy?” Gordie said as his mom chatted with Daniela about her impending company and how she still needed to get all the guest rooms ready and buy the steamers and God forbid they didn’t have wine from a local winery.

  “I thought she was okay when we went to see her, but then Alice said she was strung out the whole time we were there. I feel so bad for Alice. She just sat there looking through photo albums of her and Izzy from when they were little.”

  “The whole thing sucks,” Gordie said.

  “Those dealers are lizards,” I said.

  “Evil lizards. Hey, I’m taking Keith and his friends from Turtle Trail to Speakeasy tomorrow night for Keith’s birthday. You want to go?”

  “What about your relatives from Maine?”

  “I’ll ply them with cobbler and make a quiet exit.”

  “I want cobbler.”

  He smiled. “I owe you for those damn good biscuits.”

  I waved to Gordie and his mom as the Mercedes drove off. Sylvie. Sylvie. I remembered the beautiful blond Shay clone singing onstage that night at Speakeasy.

  You’ll never guess who Gordie used to date, I texted Val and Alice right away. I couldn’t resist.

  I asked everybody to meet at the duck pond before we went to Keith’s birthday night at Speakeasy.

  We sat on the faded lawn, dried out from days of cloudless sun, and picked at the brown blades of grass and our mosquito-bite scabs. I had been thinking a lot about Mr. Upton’s words, about his wishes.

  I scooted back and faced the others, took a sip of warm seltzer water, and cleared my throat. “Let me just get this out.” They looked up. “I was thinking I would like to send a diamond to the baby from the incident. Her name is Ella. Her father, clearly also a lizard, is in jail and hopefully will be for a while. Her grandmother started a NeighborCare page, which is not doing well. I want them to have a diamond.”

  They all thought it was a great idea, and I felt relieved, until things got complicated.

  We argued over logistics, the details of the operation. We agreed it would be pretty obvious if we sent only Ella’s family a diamond. So we would choose a few families from around the country on NeighborCare. We would wrap the canaries in simple packages, with a personalized note, and send the packages from various spots on Long Island.