“She thinks that the Unlikelies is a scam.”
Grandma Hosseini gave Grandma Sullivan a thumbs-up. “That’s what I thought, too,” she said in Farsi.
You know you’ve made it big when Grandma Hosseini and Grandma Sullivan accuse the Unlikelies of being a scam, I texted everyone.
“She’s texting her boyfriend, Gordie,” Grandma Sullivan said with a mouthful of pizza.
“Gordie’s gay, Ma,” Dad said.
“He’s not gay.” Grandma Hosseini spoke perfect English when she felt like it.
I cleared my throat. “Soooo. I have an announcement.”
They all stopped midchew.
“I kind of discovered Gordie isn’t gay. It was all a mix-up. And then I discovered we like each other.” They stared at me.
“Told you,” Grandma Sullivan said.
“Wait a minute. I let you do overnights with this punk and he’s not gay?” Dad’s face went purple. “I can’t believe that little shit pulled this.”
“He didn’t pull anything. He’s a perfect gentleman, okay? He’s a really good guy and you don’t even have to threaten to cut off his penis and serve it on a cone with sprinkles.”
Mr. Ng choked on his soda. “You said that, Woody?”
“That was supposed to be a man-to-man talk between Seth and me. Kids today are pricks.”
Mom took a sip of water. “Stop cursing, Woody.” She looked at me with an I’m really skeptical about everything expression and then surprised us with “He’s going to be valedictorian. We’ll take him.”
“No more overnights,” Dad said sternly.
We finished eating in virtual silence, except for the giant belch that erupted from Mr. Ng.
That night, I had an epiphany about the promise I made to Mr. Upton.
We hadn’t all been together since Jean ditched us on the New York street corner. After work and nonsense and drama and family commitments and no fewer than seven thousand texts, the five of us were finally meeting.
But this meeting was all business.
We gathered on Jean’s girlfriend’s dock in sweatshirts and jeans on the first cool night of the summer.
Alice took the purple collar off the unnamed puppy and dipped her tiny paw into the water.
“I feel like Sissy has given you an out, like you can really do whatever you want with the diamonds,” Alice said.
“Canaries,” Val said.
“Okay, we’re sitting on a dock. Nobody can hear us. I think we can safely call them diamonds.” Alice threw a half-eaten rice cracker in the water.
I opened my Woody’s Ice Cream tote bag and took out four small packages wrapped in brown paper and tied with yellow ribbons.
They tried to cut me off with jokes and speculation, but I held up my hand.
“Let me just get through this,” I said, lining up the packages on the dock in front of me. “This was my promise to Mr. Upton. And it’s my decision. So here’s what I’ve decided: Most of the diamonds will go into a safe-deposit box until exactly four years from now, when I will summon you all back to share what you’ve learned about life and money. Hopefully, we’ll all have more wisdom after college and I will take it all into consideration and have my answer about what to do with them. That being said, the one rule is that if any one of us is in danger of not finishing college because of money, we dip into the diamonds, no questions asked.”
“That’s awesome, Sadie,” Alice said.
“Except that’s probably not going to be you or Gordie,” Jean said, flicking Alice on the arm.
“Oh, please, Gordie could get disowned any minute now,” Alice said.
“That’s it,” I said. “Pretty simple. Oh, and these are your end-of-the-summer care packages.” I handed each of them a wrapped box. “You can open them.”
Each box contained the same three items: a candy necklace to remember how it started, a tiny plastic lizard to remember why it started, and a miniature stuffed Raggedy Andy, a tribute to our creepy doll friend.
“Where did you find this, Sullivan?” Jean said, holding up his Andy doll.
“Online. They were very reasonable,” I said.
Alice leaned over to hug me. We fell over, and soon we were a pile of Unlikelies with one adorable nameless puppy.
We knew that diamonds, as changeless and prized as they were, had limits. They couldn’t ever really begin to redeem the lizard’s evil deeds, any more than they could bring Hector back to his family, or guarantee that Izzy would never crave heroin again. They couldn’t make Javi nicer or take away Frances’s cancer or make baby Ella’s parents love her the way she deserved to be loved.
The truth was, we didn’t need college to know that there would always be lizards. There would always be diamonds. And there would always be people willing to start unlikely revolutions.
When Gordie dropped me off, he walked me up to the porch, where my parents were sitting under blankets listening to Springsteen.
“Springsteen again, huh? Good choice,” Gordie said.
“He’s the Boss,” Dad said.
“Yes, he is.”
“So I’m guessing we’ll be seeing a lot of you?” Dad said.
“I hope so.” Gordie smiled.
“Good.” Dad stood up and gave Gordie one of his firm thumbless handshakes.
Before bed, I texted Jean and Val and Gordie and Alice. As soon as you’re home, go someplace private, take scissors, snip Andy’s crotch, and stick your finger up in there.
Excuse me? Val wrote.
Just do it.
I pictured Mr. Upton’s ghost laughing with me as my friends dug into the seams of their miniature Andy dolls and extracted two yellow diamonds each and a tiny rolled scroll.
Each scroll simply said Do something noble.
Val’s Andy doll had a second scroll and a second pair of diamonds. That scroll said For Javi’s medicine.
But Javi’s an asshole, Val texted.
Then it will be our last asshole care package.
They all graciously accepted the canaries. That night, I didn’t wake up once.
Daniela must have told the farm stand guys it was my last day of work because they showed up with candy and flowers and a handmade card that said Gracias, Limonada!
I hugged them and got teary-eyed.
“I can’t believe you’re abandoning me,” Daniela whined. She worked the farm stand until it closed after Thanksgiving. I wanted to say, You abandoned me for Candy Crush months ago, but there was no point.
“Thank you for being so good to me that day. What would I have done if you weren’t there to catch me when I went down?”
She laughed. “It was my pleasure. God, that seems like so long ago.”
“Doesn’t it? Give the kiddo kisses for me. I’ll visit,” I said.
“I’ll save the good pumpkins for you.”
I walked out to the spot where the incident happened.