“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 Nassau 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.