“If they won’t let her out, how is she going to get the money?” Val said meekly.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Why are you so stupid? Why don’t you go to another sweet fifteen party at the church, Val? You’re driving me crazy,” Alice yelled. Val shrank against the bricks behind her. “She’s probably going to have sex with some disgusting guy, okay? Lots of disgusting guys, maybe.”
And then Alice puked. She knelt down and puked all over the brick wall. The puke splashed on my blistered feet.
Val turned away and held her head in her hands. Tears dropped to the ground.
Jean and Gordie froze in horror.
I waited until the retching stopped and handed Alice and Val each a tissue from Alice’s bag, then wiped my feet with more tissues.
We all inched away from the vomit and stood against the wall for a long time.
A group of twentysomething gadflies, the kind who blew into the Hamptons and expected everyone to hold the doors for them and part the seas so they could eat a meal, stopped in front of us to decide whether or not to Uber to their stupid party. They were loud and obnoxious and I wanted to trip them and stick them with medieval bone daggers.
“Gross. It smells like barf,” one of them said before they scurried away.
“Okay, last idea,” I said. “I’m pulling out all the stops.” I reached back to unbutton the back pocket of my shorts. I dug down to the bottom of the deep pocket, pulled out a perfectly shaped yellow diamond, and held it up between my thumb and forefinger. I had forgotten about the in-case-of-emergencies canary until that very moment.
Alice closed her eyes and rocked slightly. For a second, I thought she was going to pass out.
“We are not giving anything to anyone,” Alice said calmly. “I’m sorry I yelled, Val. And I’m sorry I puked.” She took a deep breath. “This was a stupid idea. I can’t believe I dragged you guys into this bullshit.” She closed her eyes again, marched down the block, and sat on the steps of a brownstone.
“We’re done,” she said. “I’m going to fix this right now.”
Alice texted Izzy’s parents from Izzy’s drug phone. She told them the address and that their daughter was with dangerous people armed with Uzis, so they should call the police. She signed it, Good luck. —The Unlikelies.
Everything moved in slow motion for a while. I noticed a heap of garbage that had been ripped open and left exposed. I noticed a phrase somebody had spray-painted across a sidewalk square: the gilded life. My feet hurt. Every step was a struggle.
Alice marched in front of us, staring down at the phone. Gordie and Jean followed. Then me, the pitiful limper, then Val, arms crossed, heart bruised by Alice’s words.
“Guys, can we stop a minute?” I summoned everyone to a dark storefront. The streets were still hopping with drunken college kids, who had probably just moved into NYU for the semester.
Gordie stopped. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t walk.”
Out of nowhere, Jean threw up his arms. “Can you stop whining about your damn feet? I can’t take it.”
I was exhausted and in pain and more scared than I had ever been. And Jean’s comment filled me with fury. I took a step back. “Oh, I’m sorry I’m whining, Jean. Why don’t you hide in your sketchbook and draw some dead arms, you freak?”
His eyes got wide. And then he left before I could take it all back. He bolted down the street and texted Gordie that he was taking the Long Island Railroad all the way to the end and could Gordie drop his stuff when he had a chance?
I felt like I wanted to puke on a brick wall.
TWENTY-SIX
GORDIE HAD BEEN excited to wrap up the Izzy rescue in a timely fashion so he could have a night alone in the brownstone guest room with me.
That wasn’t happening. It was late by the time we got to Gordie’s, and I collapsed on a bed with Val for a few hours before Gordie woke us all up to go home.
Val was furious at Alice. Furious Val still smiled, but she walked around with her arms crossed in front of her. Alice was mad at the world. She locked herself in one of the rooms and didn’t emerge until Val and I were in the car and Gordie threatened to leave her in New York. Jean, of course, was gone. Because of me. I couldn’t tell anyone what my comment even meant, because I didn’t want to betray Jean more than I already had.
The car trip home was full of awkward silence. Alice’s parents called to tell her Izzy had been found, hallelujah, she was safe and sound, but Oh dear, what a mess that it had all unfolded on the New York news stations.
I texted Jean SORRY no fewer than fifty times. He never responded.
The buildings and the billboards blurred by as we drove through Queens. I couldn’t separate the images that rushed through my mind, elbowing one another for space. I thought of the people we called street urchins, but somebody else called sisters, brothers, children, friends. I wondered how Izzy felt when the police showed up. Was she scared? Was she relieved? Or was she just pissed they were taking away her drugs again?
Our eyes were glued to the social media headlines: MYSTERIOUS GROUP BUSTS HEROIN RING; THE UNLIKELIES NAB ELUSIVE DRUG NETWORK. Unlike the East End cops, the New York cops had no problem telling the media about us and our text to Izzy’s parents. By the time we reached Val’s, the bust was on every major tristate online network.
“I want to see Jean,” I said to Gordie.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Sadie. Just let him have some time.”
“Gordie, please stop at Jean’s.”
“No, Sadie. I’m beat. I need sleep.”
He dropped off Val, who waved weakly and walked toward her building without looking back. I hoped she wouldn’t go looking to Javi for comfort. I hoped she would stay strong.
“We never did find that ornate gate or the gargoyle, huh?” Gordie said right before we pulled up to Alice’s.
“Yeah, right? That was a clusterfuck of a wild-goose chase I started,” Alice said. “Thanks, Gordie. You’re awesome.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. And that left the two of us.
“Are we in a fight?” I said.
“No, Sadie.”
“Do you know how bad I feel?”
“I know. Everybody was unhinged. Let’s go home, sleep, regroup, and we’ll talk tomorrow, okay?”
“Tomorrow?”
“I don’t know? Later?”
“Whatever you want.” It was all unsettling. Gordie was right. Everybody was unhinged and it felt awful.
Mom was pulling weeds when Gordie dropped me off. I climbed out of the backseat and grabbed my stuff from the trunk. I almost took Jean’s stuff, too, so I could hold it hostage and force him to talk to me.
“How’d it go?” Mom briefly looked up from the flower bed below the mailbox.
“Great. It was a little overstimulating for some of the people, but everybody had fun.”