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 multiple 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.
“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.