“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.
“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.