The Unlikelies

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The Unlikelies Page 13

by Carrie Firestone


  “Nobody sends loose diamonds in the mail,” Alice said.

  “Do you have a better idea?” Gordie said.

  She didn’t. Besides, even if a couple of diamonds got lost along the way, there were more. Plenty more. It wasn’t a grand plan, but it was a beginning. And most important, it felt right.

  We sealed the deal with ten hands piled in the middle of our circle.

  “I can’t believe I’m missing tonight. I’m literally sick to my stomach,” Val said. She had given in to Javi’s guilt trip and promised she’d hang out with him. She got in her car, and the rest of us left to pick up Keith and his friend David and Keith’s girlfriend, Zoe.

  I jumped out of Alice’s Subaru when we pulled behind Gordie and Jean in Keith’s driveway. “Happy birthday, Keith,” I said, rummaging around my bag for a wrapped gift.

  “We were supposed to bring gifts?” Alice said.

  Gordie made the introductions.

  “Twenty-seven years young,” Keith said.

  “Impressive, dude,” Jean said.

  “Can I open it?”

  “Of course,” I said as Keith took the gift and ripped off the tissue paper.

  “I have to show my mom. Thank you. This is awesome.” Keith put the Woody’s Ice Cream hat on and ran into the house.

  “Can I get one of those?” Zoe said.

  “On your birthday, Zo,” Gordie said. “Sadie’s a good gift giver, huh?” He smiled down at Zoe, who was under five feet tall, and seemed like half of Keith’s size. Keith’s friend David stood next to the car with his hands in his dress pants pockets. He looked older than Keith, with the slightest hint of gray dusting the ends of his shaggy black hair.

  “Can we go?” Alice shouted out the window. “It’s hot as balls out and I refuse to let my car idle.”

  “She has purple hair,” Keith announced, running down the steps.

  “Yes, yes she does,” I said.

  Speakeasy didn’t feel right without Val. Gordie was busy introducing Jean to the throngs of girls fawning all over him. Keith had a minor freak-out when we couldn’t find his headphones, but we recovered them from deep in Gordie’s cluttered trunk.

  “He’s really sensitive to sounds. He wears the headphones and then he’s good to dance,” Gordie said as we followed Keith, Zoe, and David into the ballroom. The infamous Sylvie practically attacked Keith.

  Alice and I went out to the back hill, where a few people sat around a bonfire.

  Val texted, I feel like I’m in prison. Send pics. What am I missing?

  I texted her a picture of Alice lying in the grass. The boys ditched us to flirt with women. You’re missing nothing.

  “I stopped by Izzy’s this morning,” Alice said. “She was outside playing badminton with Tanner.”

  “That’s great,” I said.

  “Maybe, except I’ve known Izzy her whole life. She’s never played badminton and she’s never hung out with Tanner. It’s almost like she was putting on a show. And she was abnormally nice. Another red flag.”

  “People change. Maybe she’s trying to get a new lease on life.” I didn’t even believe what I was saying.

  “Maybe.” Alice rummaged around her vegan leather satchel for gum. “Izzy’s mom cried when she saw me. She’s really unhinged, that one. I’ve never seen an ounce of emotion on her Botoxed face. Now she can’t stop blubbering.”

  “Can you blame the woman?” I said. “Her daughter is being stalked by lizards.”

  “There are lizards everywhere, Sadie. Swarms of lizards.”

  “I know.”

  “I just know in my heart if Hector’s out of the picture, it’ll be so much harder for Izzy to get the shit.”

  “Keep stabbing the poppet.”

  “I will.”

  When we went back inside, Jean was dancing with a group of girls. Keith and David were jumping up and down in the middle of the dance floor, and Zoe was swaying near the stage. Gordie played harmonica next to Sylvie, who was singing a song in Spanish. Of course perfect Sylvie spoke Spanish.

  I sent a recording of the beautiful moment to Val with the caption Mucho barfo.

  Val texted back immediately: Jealous?

  Maybe I was a little jealous of Sylvie. The night wasn’t nearly as magical as our first night at Speakeasy. But the energy of the room crept up through my soul and pulled me into the swarm of thumping, moving, gyrating bodies. It was only when Gordie called Keith up so the whole room could sing “Happy Birthday” that I noticed the smile on Sylvie’s face droop ever so slightly. Part of me wondered if it was because Keith had grabbed the mic and was telling everyone about the Woody’s Ice Cream hat Sadie had bought him.

  When we were all standing around Gordie’s car, waiting for David to find Keith and Zoe, who, according to David, were definitely making out, Gordie whispered something to Jean.

  “Why are you whispering?” Alice said. “That’s rude.”

  “Can’t we have any guy things?” Gordie said. “You’re like my mom.”

  “If you must know, he asked me if I got any chicks’ numbers. And I did not, because I’m into Umi.”

  “Wow. This chick must be pretty special,” Gordie said.

  “Can you stop saying chick? You sound ridiculous,” I said.

  “Oh, okay, Political Correction Officer.”

  “Umi gets me to the core,” Jean randomly announced.

  “Dreamy,” Alice said as David, Keith, and Zoe came from behind Speakeasy.

  “Were you right, David?” Alice winked. He nodded and rolled his eyes.

  When I got home, I collapsed onto my bed fully dressed and still damp with sweat. I played with Flopper’s whiskers, fell into a deep sleep, and didn’t wake until Mom flicked me with her clawlike nails and threatened a ten o’clock curfew if I couldn’t get myself up for work.

  EIGHTEEN

  JEAN’S CAR FLEW into the farm stand parking lot so quickly adrenaline shot through me. It ushered in a flood of images: the sedan, the baby’s cries, my head crashing down on the toolbox.

  “What the hell, Jean? You can’t drive like that,” I yelled when he flung open his dented car door.

  He ignored me. “Why do you never check your damn phone?”

  I motioned toward the truck of crates I was helping unload behind the farm stand. “Uh. I’m working.”

  “Sadie, the cops busted the trap house.”

  “Wait. What?”

  “Yeah, I got a news alert and I rushed over there. They have the whole property taped off. There are, like, twenty patrol cars—unmarked cars, DEA, I think.”

  I was shocked.

  “I can’t believe they took our note seriously. Do you even know how amazing this is?” I shoved Jean.

  “Who knows if it was the note? Maybe the cops were watching that house for a while.”

  “Whatever. It’s done. They busted that awful place,” I said, grabbing Jean’s hand.

  I had missed dozens of texts.

  Take that, you soulless lizards, Val texted.

  Did they nab Hector? Alice texted.

  We had no idea.

  That night, Mom and Dad had the news on in the background. They didn’t even notice the news lady standing in front of the Westhampton rental house, her back to the yellow police tape. Hers was the headline story about how the East End task force and multiple other agencies had worked in tandem to take down the psychiatrist turned drug lord. The news liked that angle.

  I hummed with adrenaline, attached to the newsfeed on my phone, as I spent the night on the porch with my parents and the neighbors.

  “Oh, Dad, I have a cute picture to show you.” I grabbed my bag from the front hall table and riffled around for the Izzy picture. “Look, it’s Alice when she was little. She’s with her friend Izzy. And look who’s smiling in the background.”

  Dad studied the photo. “Well, I’ll be damned. I had a lot more hair back then.”

  “You’re not balding, Woody,” Mom said, looking at the picture.
<
br />   “No, but it’s thinning. Look how thick it was. That was before the new truck.”

  I almost told them Alice’s best friend was mixed up in drugs and that she was supposedly healing in her perfectly appointed house. I would have told them the light version of the story and left out the part about me risking my life to go into a trap house. But even the light version was too heavy for my parents. I didn’t want them to think I was going to get mixed up in drugs, or that Alice was, in some way, a bad influence.

  Alice texted us, Almost time for eleven o’clock news. Somebody watch channel seven. Want to see if they give Hector’s name.

  I went inside and sat in front of the TV, mindlessly overeating salted almonds while the newspeople reported on a massive fire in an abandoned lot. How is this nonsense news? Jean texted.

  The headline popped up before they showed the video of the heroin house. FORMER NEW YORK PSYCHIATRIST ARRESTED IN MASSIVE EAST END DRUG BUST. There was nothing about the drug dealer known as Hector. There was nothing about the people rotting away in that house, or their festering scabs.

  Fuck the news, Alice texted. Hector slipped away like the slimy piece-of-shit worm that he is.

  I’m thinking of signing onto all our anti-trolling sites with our avatar, like streamlining, taking it to the next level, Gordie texted.

  Well, get on it, nerd boy, I texted. I had no idea what he was talking about.

  Alice disappeared from our thread. I imagined her stomping around in her attic, stabbing the little Hector poppet with pins as the candles cast creepy shadows on the walls.

  I signed on to Ella’s NeighborCare page. Nobody had donated.

  Still awake, huh? Gordie texted. I had moved on to Ella’s grandma’s Facebook page.

  How did you know?

  I can see you on FB. Why are you on FB?

  I’ve developed this weird obsession with the baby from the incident. Her grandma posts pictures sometimes.

  You are sweet, Sadie Cakes.

  Don’t fucking call me that.

  Okay. Okay. I’ll stop.

  Thank you.

  Come over.

  Why?

  Just come over and hang out.

  My stomach dropped. Gordie was obviously bored and nerding out with his Unlikelies avatar project and wanting a friend to keep him company. But I couldn’t help that fluttering, that stupid fluttering. I’d spent two full years of middle school running away from that feeling. I would stand behind him in the cafeteria line or unexpectedly turn the corner and run into him, and my face would get hot and he would look away and I would, too.

  Can’t (obviously). Go to sleep.

  It happened again that night. I woke with such a rush of terror I thought I was screaming. But I wasn’t. At least not out loud. Flopper and I made our way down to the nook in my parents’ room. Within seconds, I was back to sleep.

  “Sadie. Sadie, your phone is buzzing,” Dad yelled. “Why the hell did you bring your phone down here?” My heart raced. I hadn’t even heard the phone.

  “Sorry.” I jumped up, went into the living room, and read a long, drawn-out drunken text from Seth. First he rambled about how he was hanging out with a group of Australians and one of them reminded him of D-Bag. Then he cut to the chase. I miss you so much. I’m thinking we should try. North Carolina isn’t that far, Sadie Cakes. Can we talk?

  I stood on the tufted wool rug, a relic pulled from an uncle’s warehouse stash. I noticed Mom had changed out the pillows. She had a pillow obsession. That and trays. She loved serving trays. And teacups. I blinked a few times and reread the text.

  Seth hardly ever entered my mind. Still, it would be so easy to be pulled in, even if it was obvious he was drunk and lonely and having a moment of weakness.

  I miss you, too, Seth. But I think it’s better if we just don’t do this right now.

  We could try, Sadie.

  My stomach turned. There was only one way out.

  I’m sort of seeing someone.

  He wrote back immediately. Who?

  A friend’s boyfriend’s friend. You don’t know him.

  I omitted the fact that Mike was mute, odd, and the only thing resembling a date that I could muster since Seth left.

  Good luck with that, Sadie.

  I almost texted Shay. But I didn’t want to get another Sorry, Sadie. Dealing with camper stuff.

  So I curled up on the couch with my Flopper, pulled up NeighborCare.com on my laptop, and scrolled through dozens of fund-raising pages. There was too much need. I could see how Mr. Upton had become paralyzed. As many lizards as there were in the world, there were even more people, animals, communities in need. We were meeting at Gordie’s the next night to select our “recipients,” but it seemed impossible to choose which ones were worthy of our found diamonds. The family with the house fire? The dog with the congenital eye condition? The badly beaten horse? The funeral costs for a man who was murdered?

  I rolled over on my side and closed my eyes.

  I slept half the day and spent the other half watching movies on my phone.

  “My head hurts bad, Mom,” I called down the hall. “Can you get me something to take?”

  “Maybe we should mention this to the victim advocate,” she said, handing me Advil and water.

  “Mom, we don’t need to mention every single thing to the victim advocate.”

  “Sadie, every little thing may add time to his sentence. Remember that.” It struck me that the entire time I was running around with the Unlikelies, he was in jail waiting for a trial. Or at least I imagined he was. I didn’t really want to know.

  My phone buzzed. I ignored it. It buzzed again. And again.

  It was Alice.

  At the hospital. Izzy OD’d. Tanner found her in his bathroom. Can you guys please come?

  I stared down at the text, trying to figure out how Izzy OD’d in her own house.

  I went into the kitchen, where Mom was back to cooking chickpeas in front of the small TV. She jumped when I walked up behind her.

  “Can I take the Prius after dinner?”

  “Not tonight, Sadie. I have to take Grandma Sullivan for lotto tickets.”

  “She can’t miss one night of lotto?”

  Mom tapped the wooden spoon on the side of the pot and drizzled olive oil over a plate of sliced tomatoes. “Oh, sure! And then the one night she misses, her numbers come up. I’m not having that on my head.”

  The news guy with the heavy, shellacked hair was reporting from in front of the trap house. I barely recognized the wooded lot in the daylight. “And now more on that bizarre psychiatrist-drug-dealer case out on the East End. Investigators found a massive stockpile of heroin, cash, purportedly stolen merchandise, and drug-related paraphernalia at the Westhampton home rented by Dr. Ward O. Nelson. According to officials, the public was instrumental in cracking this case.”

  “‘If you see something, say something’ works,” an officer said, looking into the camera. “Together we’re working for a drug-free community.”

  I laughed out loud.

  “What’s so funny?” Mom said, licking salty oil off her fingers.

  “Nothing.”

  I texted Gordie, Pick me up.

  “I’m at the hospital more than my grandmothers,” I said, climbing into the Range Rover. Gordie was freshly showered, and I could smell his spearmint gum from the passenger seat.

  We passed the big blue H sign and parked near Alice’s car. I remembered lying on the stretcher in the ambulance while a guy with coffee breath applied pressure to my head, and the blood from my knees stuck to the thin blanket.

  Alice looked up at us from the bench with rage in her puffy red eyes. “They blamed me.”

  “What? Blamed you for what?” I said, eyeing the mean-faced nurse smoking nearby.

  “They said we were the only ones who visited her, that we must have smuggled in the heroin.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Gordie said.

  “Do you want us to talk to them?”
I put my arm around her trembling shoulders.

  She shook her head and rested her face in her hands.

  “Tanner kept trying to get their attention and, as usual, they blew him off. He was finally able to tell them about some guy who pulled up while they were playing badminton. Remember I was like, why the hell is Izzy playing badminton with Tanner?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, now we know.”

  “Was it Hector?”

  “No. Apparently this time it was a dark-skinned guy in an Audi. Hector is white with friggin’ floppy blond bangs and blue eyes. And he drives a BMW.”

  “Hector’s blond?” Gordie said. “Hector doesn’t sound like a blond-dude name.”

  “Yes. He’s blond. I have no idea who stopped by in an Audi.”

  “So did her dad apologize for blaming you?” I said.

  “No. He just shook Tanner and asked him why he hadn’t said anything earlier.”

  The hospital wanted to let Izzy out after she was “stabilized.” Izzy’s parents convinced them she was a danger to herself and if anything happened to her, they’d sue the hell out of every doctor, nurse, and roll of toilet paper in the building. Then Izzy’s mom called all the residential rehab places on Long Island, trying to bribe them to open up a bed for her daughter.

  “It’s easier to find a friggin’ trap house on Long Island than a rehab bed,” Alice said.

  She was probably right.

  Jean brought brownies to Gordie’s basement, where Alice sat in a movie theater chair with a washcloth on her head. Val had laid it there, insisting her mother cured everything with a damp washcloth.

  “I cannot deal with the lying and bullshitting anymore,” Alice said. She took off the washcloth and bit into the brownie Val was holding up to her mouth. “It makes me sick. It’s so obvious that the more normal she acts, the more full of shit she is.”

 

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