The Unlikelies

by Carrie Firestone

  “They’re probably sick of all the women flirting with you.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Seriously. You’re Mr. Popular at Speakeasy. The girls were flocking the other night.”

  He laughed. “It’s the harmonica.”

  We climbed up a mini sand dune and sat between tufts of sea grass. I pulled my knees up to my chest and rubbed coarse sand on my ankle bites. Gordie shined his flashlight in my face.

  “Stop. You’re blinding me.” He turned it off and stretched out his legs. They were lean but strong and perfectly hairy, so different from Seth’s mass of fur.

  “I can’t imagine what people from school would think if they discovered Gordie Harris and Sadie Sullivan on a deserted beach, huh?” Gordie said.

  “They might not be that surprised. You know, I had a huge crush on you in middle school.” I felt strangely at ease confessing the secret that had once consumed middle-school me.

  He smiled and flicked a bug off my leg. “I heard rumblings about that.”

  “You did?”

  “People told me you had a crush on me. I didn’t actually believe them. I assumed it was another asshole conspiracy to aggravate me, so I ignored them.”

  “Wait.”

  “What?” He leaned closer, trying to gauge my expression.

  “Nothing. I don’t even know why I brought up middle school.” He knew I liked him and didn’t do anything about it. Clearly he wasn’t interested.

  “So do you want to talk about that fireproof box you thought we should get for the diamonds?” I said, turning away from him.

  He reached over and pulled my ponytail. “I liked you, too, dumbass.”

  Middle-school Sadie would have died right there. She would have exploded, releasing giant balls of pent-up longing into the sea. Almost-senior, Shawn-Flynn-party-veteran, incident-survivor, recent-visitor-to-a-trap-house Sadie remained calm.

  “Oh, really? Nice of you to let me know.”

  He laughed. “Uh. I wanted to. Shay was not having it.”

  “What do you mean?” My stomach flipped.

  “It’s stupid now, but I saw Shay in CVS one night, a long time ago.”

  “Okay. And?”

  “I asked her if I should invite you to that ridiculous Valentine’s Day party at Parker’s house where you weren’t allowed to show up without a date. She literally turned around and ran away. So I took that as a no and said screw it.”

  I squinted up at the moon, thinking hard about that party and whether I had gone and who with. It came back to me, how Shay and I were scrambling for dates. How Shay made me go with her neighbor’s dud friend because we were not going to miss that party. And the party sucked, because everybody felt beholden to the dates they had scraped up. And I only had eyes for Gordie Harris.

  Why would Shay have done that to me?

  “Well, this is awkward,” Gordie said.

  I wanted to text her, to ask her what kind of friend did that? She never mentioned CVS.

  I turned to face Gordie and took a breath. “I still feel it, you know?” I said quietly. I did. I still felt all the middle-school feelings. And I felt bigger, deeper, high-school-and-beyond feelings.

  “You do?”

  “I do.”

  And then his lips were there, against my cheek, pressed on my neck. His lips were on my mouth. His tongue was in my mouth. His hand was on the back of my head. My hand was under his T-shirt, feeling the ripples of his back muscles, his chest muscles, pulling his shirt over his head.

  Every hair on my body stood on end. Every skin cell woke up. We were practically naked before I could even remember where I was. It was that fast and that inevitable.

  “Gordie! Gordie!” a voice called from down the beach.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Gordie shot up and pulled on his clothes.

  “Gordie, help me.” The woman’s frantic voice got louder. A dark figure hurried down the beach.

  I yanked up my shorts and threw on my leprechaun T-shirt. I still felt a quiet buzzing inside.

  “It’s Zoe.” Gordie grabbed my hand. I turned on the flashlight and tied my hoodie around my waist.

  “We’re here, Zoe,” I called.

  “What’s wrong, Zoe?” Gordie said, rushing ahead of me.

  “I’m scared. Mom usually tickles my back at night. I can’t sleep without back tickles, and the ocean is too loud.”

  Gordie took Zoe’s hand and led her toward the campsite.

  “If I find you some milk, do you think you could sleep?” he said sweetly. “Come on, wipe your feet on the towel.”

  “Do you want to sleep in my tent?” I said. Gordie’s head whipped around. I smiled and reached out to grab his arm. I pulled him close to me and whispered, “Oh. My. God. Gordie.” I kissed his earlobe and left him standing there.

  I spent half the night tickling Zoe’s back while she held Flopper. I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened on the beach.

  And I couldn’t stop the fluttering.

  TWENTY-TWO

  IT TOOK A while for the photos, the posts, the cheering kitty GIFs to start appearing, but we eventually called phase one of the Upton Promise Project a huge success. The woman from Florida with all the foster children posted photos of her kids and praised God. The woman from Alaska posted a photo of herself in front of the FOR LEASE sign on the building she wanted to house escaped prostitutes in. She had made a giant LEASED sign and was holding it with a THANK YOU, BENEVOLENT ANGEL sign. The parents of Marigold, the five-year-old with the rare cancer, had posted pictures of her in her hospital bed holding up the care package with a sign that said THANK YOU, SPECIAL FRIENDS. I LOVE YOU.

  Nothing yet from Ella’s family. But I knew it would only be a matter of time.

  The Gordie beach encounter had left permanent waves inside me. I thought about it all the time—in the shower, as I sat drinking lemonade with the farm stand guys, as I hung out on my willow crate fielding the-hunt-for-Hector texts from Alice.

  It was a busy day at the farm stand with two tourist buses swallowing up all our good produce, and a bunch of locals and city people grumbling about the slim pickings the rest of the day. Daniela had to bring her son to work, and her son was a whiner. He wanted a lollipop. He wanted the iPad. He wanted to get on the tour bus. I was relieved when Dad showed up to take me to therapy.

  Dad drove me to the appointment in the ice cream truck, which was embarrassing. He waited in the truck with his Daily News and his bag of pistachios while I went in to bare my soul to Willie Ng’s therapist. Or half bare my soul.

  “I know the victim advocate mentioned you may be entitled to weigh in on the ultimate sentencing decision. Are you comfortable writing the statement about how the incident has impacted you, both physically and emotionally?” He sat upright, his purple pad in his lap, his glasses propped on his white tangle of hair. “Because we can work together if it feels overwhelming.”

  I stared at the crack in the glass of the framed Monet’s waterlilies print that hung over his head. “I haven’t been thinking much about the incident lately. But I can definitely write something on my own.”

  He tapped his pen against his cheek. “How about the night wanderings? Have those subsided?”

  “Not really. It’s easier to calm myself down now, though.”

  “Had you ever had sleep issues like this before the incident?”

  I thought about it.

  “Actually, when I was little. When we first moved out to the East End, I slept with my parents almost every night for a long time.”

  He nodded. “Lots of transitions happening this summer, too, huh?”

  He was right. There were lots of transitions happening. Maybe more than I wanted to confront during the waking hours.

  More pen tapping. “How about when you’re at the farm stand? Any feelings of dread? Physical reactions? Anxiety in general?”

  I stared at the Monet crack again. I remembered the flood of fear I had felt when Jean tore into the p
arking lot, but didn’t feel it worthy of reporting. And then I thought of the snapping. Every time I walked past the spot where I hit the gravel, I snapped my fingers twice. Every single time. It was just a thing I did. I wasn’t going to tell the guy that either. That was just crazy.

  “No. Things have been going really well.”

  “Good. Good. You’re doing good, Sadie.”

  I felt like I was holding a balloon and releasing a tiny bit of air, just to get through the session, because if I released the balloon, if I let it fly around the room and blow the shit in my head all over this guy, he wouldn’t know what hit him. And the truth was, most of the shit in my head had nothing to do with the incident.

  “How’d it go?” Dad said when I finally got out of the stuffy office.

  “Good. Good,” I said. “Really good.”

  Dad dropped me at the barn, where Val was waiting with a carload of backpacks and her clipboard. It was the big night, the school-supply pickup picnic.

  Gordie showed up late with Keith and Zoe after Alice, Val, Val’s two uncles, and I had loaded box after box of sorted supplies into the Subaru, Uncle Juan’s pickup truck, and Uncle Milky’s Mustang. We stuffed the rest of the heavy bins into the back of the Range Rover and made our way to a church not far from Riverhead, where a group of men had gathered near the church steps.

  “Limonada!” Papi from the farm stand shouted when I got out.

  “No way! Hey, Papi!” I ran over and high-fived him.

  “And how do you know Papi?” Gordie said.

  “I know a lot of people, Gordie,” I said.

  He put his arm around my waist and leaned in close. “I need to see you,” he whispered.

  “You’re seeing me right now,” I whispered back, the waves rolling through me.

  “You know what I mean,” he said, walking away. “Limonada.”

  The men drank beer from cans and laughed raucously. We followed Val to the back of the church, where a group of kids played soccer in an overgrown lot.

  “Valeria,” somebody shouted. The kids swarmed.

  “Come on, chickies,” Val said.

  The kids stood in two lines and waited patiently for us to lead them to the bins. Each chose a brand-new backpack stuffed with school supplies. I glanced over at Gordie, who was bent down and smiling at an adorable little girl in a floral sundress.

  “Gracias,” she said shyly.

  “De nada,” Gordie said.

  “Have fun in school. Work hard,” Keith said to each kid.

  Val marched around with her clipboard, answering parents’ questions and talking with grateful grandparents, many weathered from long years in the fields.

  When we were finished, Val’s mom invited everyone down to the cool, brightly lit church basement, where the crowd was greeted with salsa music and platters of tamales and plates of cakes and cookies. I grabbed a soda and some tamales and sat on a folding chair between Alice and Zoe.

  “Do you have enough tamales, Alice?” I said, pointing my plastic knife at her obnoxious stack.

  “Maybe,” she said, chewing.

  “You could make a Mayan temple out of those,” Jean joked from across the table.

  “Nice of you to show up after all the work is done,” Alice said.

  “Hey, I gotta earn a living,” Jean said. “I’m setting up for the epic Tiny Art Show. You’d better be there.”

  “Of course I’ll be there,” Alice said. “I’ll even take pictures.”

  Parents and grandparents danced on a stage above the crowded tables. Packs of kids ran around playing tag and popping cookies into their mouths. Every last kid, even the older ones, carried their backpacks.

  “Limonada, baile!” Ramon, one of the other farm stand guys, came up behind me and grabbed my hand.

  “Uh. No, gracias.”

  “Go dance with the guy,” Alice said.

  I reluctantly climbed the steps to the stage turned dance floor and let Ramon attempt to teach me how to dance. My friends made fun of me from their table, until they were all dragged up there. I felt like I was finally getting the hang of it when the lights blinked on and off and a tiny lady with long braids asked everyone to be seated.

  “Where is Javi?” Gordie said on the way to the table.

  “Val said he’s been really sick the past couple days,” I said.

  “I’m not saying he had to lug boxes into truck beds. The dude could have shown up to be nice.” Gordie had a point.

  A bowlegged man in jeans and work boots turned off the music and the crowd finally quieted down. The woman onstage was a social worker at the migrant center. She talked in Spanish and Gordie translated for us, because even though we were in the same Spanish classes, Gordie Harris was proficient and all I could say was Do you like to play tennis or football?

  “Gracias,” the woman said.

  “That means thank you,” Gordie said slowly.

  “Yeah, just wait until we’re in a room full of Farsi speakers,” I said.

  Val was a different person than she had been in front of the homegrown heroes luncheon crowd. She thanked the community for supporting her grandparents and her parents through difficult circumstances and credited the true heroes in the room, the men and women who worked so hard to make a better life for their children.

  “Now what is she saying?” I elbowed Gordie, who was smiling and saying, “Aww.”

  He stopped to listen. “And now she’s thanking us for our help and support.”

  We all blew kisses up to the stage.

  “Do you think her dad likes us yet?” I whispered to Alice when he shook our hands enthusiastically after the event.

  “He should,” she said. “We’re a hell of a lot better than Javi and Mike.”

  As much as I wanted to take Gordie up on his invitation to hang out in his basement, I resisted a final Just come over already. I can’t stop thinking about you text and stayed to help Val break down boxes and organize her clipboard for the next collection.

  Alice left early to visit Izzy, and Jean had to finish getting ready for his Tiny Art Show. It was just Val and me on the steps of the church, sipping soda and resting our aching feet under the dim light of the cloud-obscured moon.

  “You did it, Valeria, goddess of school supplies.” I clapped my hands. “I’m so proud of you.”

  She bent down and played with her shoelace. “It wasn’t enough. I could have done so much more,” she said softly.

  “Oh, Val, don’t say that.”

  I tried to read her face. Her lips twitched back and forth like a rabbit’s nose.

  And then the tsunami came. She sobbed and sobbed and couldn’t get words out. I put my arm around her petite frame and handed her clumps of receipts from a box to wipe her nose until the tears finally stopped.

  “These families are my friends, my community, and they’re struggling so bad.”

  I nodded.

  “They get threatened, treated like garbage. They can’t earn enough to get ahead, and they’re constantly worried about their families back home.”

  “You know, Val, we could use some of the diamonds to help the community.” I knew it was an impulsive thing to say. But I meant it.

  She looked at me and smiled. “That’s so nice of you, but let’s wait, okay?” She took my hand and squeezed it. “I think we need an actual plan, not just to throw diamonds at random people here. But thank you so much for offering, Sadie. That means a lot to me.”

  She stood and picked up her clipboard. “Sorry. Tonight was just really emotional for me.”

  “You’re an amazing human being, Valeria.”

  “It takes one to know one, Sadie.”

  I stood up and took her hand and hugged her for a long time.

  We were quiet on the way home, drained and ready for sleep. Right before she dropped me off, Val said, “Sooooo. When were you going to tell me you’re sleeping with Gordie?”

  “I’m not sleeping with Gordie.”

  “Yet.”

&
nbsp; “Okay, yet.” I smiled and closed the door behind me.

  I didn’t know what possessed me to check Ella’s mother’s Facebook page at midnight after a very long day. I should have taken a shower, painted my scraggly nails, slathered vitamin E oil on the monster tail, and gone to sleep. But instead, I logged on to NeighborCare. The same sad little dollar amount sat there, stagnant, next to the picture of Ella and her weary grandma.

  I logged on to Ella’s mom’s Facebook page. At first, it didn’t register. Then I felt sick. And the sick feeling stayed with me deep into the night.

  There was a picture of Ella’s mom in a tight dress and heels holding shopping bags from a clothing store with the caption Momma goin’ out tonite! And a picture of Ella’s mom in front of the liquor store holding two bottles of expensive tequila with the caption It’s goin’ down! And a picture of a group of women, clones of Ella’s mom, sticking their heads out of a cheesy white limo with the caption In yur dreams!

  How could she? How could she spend that money on shitty clothes and liquor? How was she not saving it for Ella? I felt violated. And furious. And so, so sad.

  The next morning I sulked around the farm stand mad at the world. I couldn’t stomach the endless stream of city people throwing credit cards at me like I was invisible and then running off with their flowers and twelve-dollar hunks of cheese.

  I couldn’t believe how delusional I had been, thinking Ella’s mom would shower her baby with baby things.

  I probably shouldn’t have called Shay when I was in a miserable mood.

  “Hey, Sadie. What’s up?”

  “I have a random question and can you just answer it honestly, please?”

  “Yeah. What is it? You’re making me nervous.”

  “Why did you let Gordie Harris think I had a date for Parker’s Valentine’s Day party when you knew how much I liked him back then?”

  Silence.

  “Shay?”

  “I’m trying to remember what you’re even talking about. Where is this even coming from?”

  I took a deep breath.