Alice recounted her parents’ conversation with the cops.
“No, ma’am,” the cops had said. “Your jewelry was found at a drug dealer’s house.”
“I had no idea Olga was a drug dealer,” Alice’s mom had said.
“Mom, it wasn’t Olga. Izzy stole your jewelry,” Alice had said. “Now excuse me while I puke.”
And she did. Alice puked her guts out.
“Why did she need to steal? Izzy has tons of money,” I said.
“Dealers don’t take AmEx Platinum, Sadie.”
To get the canary packages delivered before Gordie’s upcoming camping trip with the Turtle Trail Recreation people, I had to call in sick to work.
“How’d you get out of work?” Gordie set the bag of care packages on the backseat.
“I told Farmer Brian I had a migraine. I feel really bad. Let’s hope my mother doesn’t need cucumbers or something.”
It was just the two of us, headed west toward the wealthy towns of Long Island’s North Shore. I thought it made sense to play things safe by mailing the packages from Roslyn, Great Neck, and Manhasset, where we figured people probably had loose diamonds lying around.
We had typed the message, printed it out on bright yellow cardstock, and stuck it on top of the tissue paper that covered the tiny sealed baggies, each containing two stones. These are real yellow diamonds worth many thousands of dollars. We are sending them on behalf of a wealthy benefactor who wanted to help others. We saw your NeighborCare page and were touched by your story. Best of luck to you.
We didn’t get the Unlikelies involved in Mr. Upton’s promise. It wasn’t about the Unlikelies. It was about righting the lizard’s wrongs.
Gordie confided in me that his parents contributed generously to the Turtle Trail Recreation Center and always had, and that his father had a form of autism.
“What are you talking about? Your dad is a gazillionaire.” I glanced back at the packages on the seat behind Gordie.
“Yes, and he’s also on the spectrum, as they say. He couldn’t talk until he was almost seven.”
“Wow. And he built a software empire.”
“He and my mom are about as mismatched as two people could be. And yet they work.”
I laughed. “I get it. My mother fled the Iranian Revolution only to meet my father, an ex–New York City cop, after his stand-up comedy routine offended her and she hit him.”
“No way.”
“Yeah. He made a joke about Muslims having four wives, and she chased him down after the show, hit him, and told him he had no idea what he was talking about. It was love at first sight.”
“Woody was a cop, huh?”
“Yeah. He lost his thumb on the job and quit. My uncles kind of pressured him into the family ice cream business. But he loves it.”
“Does he still do comedy?”
“He thinks he’s doing comedy. Every night. On our porch.”
We talked about colleges and our dysfunctional class and Alice’s terrible predicament.
I turned up the music, and we car-danced until we got to the first post office. Before I handed Ella’s package to the guy, I kissed it three times for good luck. At each post office, when the person asked, “Is there anything fragile, liquid, perishable” or whatever, we said no. We tried not to look at each other, because even though there were no questions about cut or clarity, we felt like we were doing something very, very shady.
When it was all done and we had stopped for Mexican food at a strip mall somewhere between the fancy towns of the North Shore and the fancy towns of the East End, I asked Gordie a question.
“Are you glad you went to the homegrown hero luncheon? Like, are you glad you got involved in all this?”
He crinkled his eyes and chewed his burrito and wiped his mouth and said, “It’s better than watching Reid feel up Claire all summer.”
I nodded. “That must be how Mute Mike feels.”
“And David. Keith and Zoe are getting hot and heavy.”
So Gordie preferred the Unlikelies to being a third wheel.
That was something.
“Sadie? Uh. Can you come here, please?” Mom got that high-pitched tone only when there was an issue.
I had been napping on the couch, waiting for Alice to pick me up. Mom took off her gardening gloves. “I just got a call from Farmer Brian asking me how your head is,” Mom said.
I froze.
“Sadie?”
“Yeah, Mom?”
“Have you been keeping your headaches from me so I don’t bug you?”
She didn’t know I missed work. I had dodged a massive bullet.
I resumed my nap position. “Not really. My head hurts sometimes, but it’s not a big deal. I think this one is menstrual.”
Mom sat on the edge of the couch and rested her hand on my ankles. “Do you think maybe you should take it easy with all the late nights and running around?”
I turned and stared at her. “The late nights and running around are exactly what I need right now, Mom.”
She sighed heavily. “Suit yourself.”
I did actually have a headache, and I was exhausted from getting up early to mail the packages. But I had promised Alice I’d do errands with her because she said she really needed moral support. Of course, the “errands,” like everything else we did, were not normal.
Our first stop was Izzy’s house to pick up things for Izzy, who was still in the hospital. Izzy’s mom had refused to leave the hospital waiting room until a rehab bed opened up and the hospital agreed to transport Izzy directly to the rehab center. She was afraid Izzy would jump out of the car if her parents tried to drive her. She was finally realizing Izzy’s heroin problem was more than a passing phase.
Alice sped up Izzy’s sloped driveway and slammed on the brakes.
An elderly woman with a distressed expression let us in. “Thanks, Beverly,” Alice said. “We’re going to get some stuff for the hospital.”
Izzy’s room felt haunted, like the specter of happy, horseback-riding Izzy was smudged on the walls, sobbing into the pink floral fabrics. It was stuffy and smelled slightly of sour vomit. Somebody had gone through the drawers and closet, probably in a desperate search for hidden heroin. Izzy had lined up her nail polish bottles from brights to pastels. I picked up a silver-framed picture of Izzy and Alice when they were all smiles and freckles and Alice didn’t have any of the hardware or paint obscuring her face. I noticed a quote Izzy had written in pencil and pinned to her headboard on pink lined paper. No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path. —Buddha. It made me want to cry.