The Unlikelies

by Carrie Firestone

  “I’m CAKES,” I said. “My ex used to call me Sadie Cakes.”

  “Aw. How endearing. My ex used to call me KINKY 3.” Gordie smiled at me and scrolled through Greg’s blog.

  I was curious to know if Gordie’s ex was from our school. The only guy I ever saw him with was Reid, and Reid was straight. I knew so little about Gordie Harris since I’d stopped stalking him.

  “Why are you staring at me?” Gordie said. “Do I not look like a KINKY 3?” His smile was much straighter since he’d gotten his braces off.

  “Look, somebody wrote ‘OMG! I’m obsessed with the Mayans. Can you PM me? Kaycee from Seattle,’” I read.

  “Our little plan is working,” Jean said.

  Val finally showed up well after eight. “Sorry. I had to entertain Javi so he didn’t get pissy.”

  “Okay. TMI,” Jean said.

  “Not that kind of entertain, you pervert.” Val went over to Jean and flicked him on the arm. “This is the most amazing house I’ve ever seen, including in magazines.”

  “Okay, Val is here. Come on. Let’s do this,” Gordie said.

  I unhooked my necklace, pulled off the key, then paused. When I’d asked them all to help me, I had welcomed the moral support, but now I almost didn’t want to open the suitcase. It meant sharing the contents with four people I barely knew. It also meant unleashing a promise I had no idea how to keep.

  “Open it, open it,” they all chanted.

  I slid the key into the rusted metal keyhole and turned it to the right until we heard a click. Gordie grabbed the leather handle and pulled upward. My heart pounded.

  We stared down at a pile of neatly stacked items: a men’s pin-striped suit, a satin robe, a wooden umbrella with a metal tip, an ancient pack of cigarettes, a leather shaving kit.

  “So you said the old dude was adamant about you getting this suitcase?” Jean said.

  “Yes. But he’s ninety-seven years old and hooked to a morphine drip. Clearly, he’s a little delusional.”

  We sat on the floor and removed the items one by one.

  Alice pulled out the suit and rummaged through the pockets. She found a striped handkerchief and a book of matches from a restaurant on Thirty-Fourth Street in New York.

  “Handkerchiefs are gross,” Alice said.

  “Nice suit, though,” Jean said.

  I picked up a small metal box tucked between the robe and a folded cloth garment bag and opened it quickly. “What the hell is this?” I sifted through dozens of hairpins like the ones the Gatsby women wore. There were silver ones, gold ones, ones shaped like feathers, like flowers, adorned in pearls.

  I dumped the hairpins onto Gordie’s thick beige carpet.

  “Why would a guy have a tin of hairpins?” Val said, examining a long, pearl-studded one.

  I shivered. “I don’t want to know. I. Don’t. Even. Want. To. Know.” It was as if these simple objects were channeling the evil-lizard energy.

  Jean held up the folded cloth garment bag, the last item in the suitcase. Alice undid the leather buckles and pulled open the bag.

  An oversize rag doll with button eyes and red yarn hair tumbled out.

  “Okay, this is too disturbing. I can no longer deal with this level of creepiness.” Jean dropped the bag.

  I took a deep breath. “Okay, well. I’m glad I’m now the proud owner of vintage men’s clothes, hairpins, and a freakish doll.” I was sort of relieved that the contents of the suitcase hadn’t been more insidious. I still intended to honor my promise to Mr. Upton. Maybe I’d donate the suitcase to the Smithsonian or something.

  Gordie stored the badly repacked suitcase in his furnace room behind the Christmas boxes. I needed some sea air to get the lingering smell of mothballs out of my nose.

  I took another breath. “Anybody want to go to the beach?”

  It was Jean’s idea to build a Mayan temple out of sand and post a picture of it on Greg O.’s blog. He announced that sand castle building was his domain and we needed to follow his instructions. We dutifully obeyed and, upon unearthing a hardware store in the back of Gordie’s Range Rover, we got to work.

  “Shovel,” Jean yelled. Gordie went to get it.

  “Bucket,” Jean yelled. Val went to get it.

  We couldn’t stop until our temple was immense and perfect.

  The sky was white with stars when we finished digging the moat.

  Jean wouldn’t let us look at the front of the temple until he had finished it.

  “Done,” he said as the rest of us scavenged in Gordie’s car for snacks.

  Jean revealed the incredibly detailed, smiling Mayan face he had carved into our temple with just a pencil and an eyebrow brush.

  “Genius” was all we could say.

  I took pictures and posted the best one on Greg O.’s website with the caption We built this for you. Hope you like it.

  I took another picture of the five of us smiling in front of the moonlit sea and sent it to Shay with the caption Portrait of Randomness.

  Gordie stood over the sand temple shaking his head. “I’m sorry, people, but I really want to roll on this.”

  “No way. You can’t roll on our masterpiece,” Val said.

  Jean and Gordie exchanged glances.

  “It’s either we roll on it or the ocean rolls on it. Somebody’s going to flatten this thing. It might as well be us,” Jean said.

  In a split second, Jean and Gordie face-dived into the temple. Alice followed. I looked at Val and shrugged. We dived and punched at the sand and rolled over the damaged structure. Alice started to sing, “Roll, roll, roll your boat, gently down the stream.” We all laughed and sang and rolled until there was hardly a trace of our sand temple left.

  We collapsed on our backs and stared at the sky.

  “Ow.” I turned on my side, wincing from the battering I had just inflicted on my tender rib cage.

  “Sooo, is anyone thinking what I’m thinking?” Jean said, sitting up.

  “You mean, naked in the ocean?” Gordie said.

  “Precisely.”

  “Not happening,” Val said. “No way. No how.”

  “Oh, come on, Val, let’s do it.” Alice stood up. “It’ll be invigorating.”

  They all looked at me. I had to think fast. Did I want to be naked in front of these people? I had skinny-dipped before, with Shay in her pool, and with Seth in his pool, but never in the ocean with strangers.

  “I’ll go in my underwear.”

  Alice already had her clothes off and was running toward the water in her bra and underwear. Gordie threw off his LIFE IS GOOD T-shirt and khaki shorts and ran after her in his boxers.

  “Come on, Val.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her up.

  “Javi will kill me, Sadie. He’s really possessive. He’ll lose it.”

  “Javi will never know.”

  She stood alone as I followed Jean, already stripped down to his black boxer-briefs, toward the sea. I looked back and she was behind me, flinging off her blue-flowered sleeveless blouse.

  It felt like the start of a whirlwind five-person romance, like we were running into something deep and exciting, something magnetic and abnormally comfortable.

  “Let’s do it as a round,” Alice shouted when we were all in, neck-deep, fighting the pull of the cold, exhilarating Atlantic. “Roll, roll, roll your boat…”

  “Roll, roll, roll your boat…”

  In the morning, Greg O. responded to We built this for you. Hope you like it with Yeah! That’s pretty good.

  It was pretty good.

  Shay, on the other hand, hadn’t responded at all. When I texted her How’s it going? Did you like my picture? she wrote back immediately. Yes. So cute. Sorry! Camper duty. Xoxo

  Her response seemed fake, like she wasn’t interested in my picture or my story.

  EIGHT

  MOM DROVE UP in the middle of my shift. The wind had picked up and sheets of rain pelted the farm stand roof. Daniela and I had spent the morning dragging things
inside, and my entire body ached. I was wet and cold and hungry for tortilla soup and hot chocolate.

  “Mom, are you the best mom ever? Did you bring me soup?” I called out as she hobbled through the muddy parking lot in her gold high-heeled sandals.

  “No. I don’t have any soup. Sorry.” She shook her umbrella. “Sweetie, I got a call from a Barbara somebody this morning. She’s a victim advocate. She wants to talk to you about the case.”

  “Like what about the case? I already told the officer everything.”

  “She didn’t say.” Mom picked up a melon and sniffed it. “But I suspect it’s pretty standard for her to check in. She suggested it might be a good idea to type up the story as soon as possible, just so it’s clear in your mind.”

  It wasn’t clear in my mind. It was a wet, stuck-together nest of smells and sounds. I didn’t want to deal with any of it, not the incident, not the thoughts of him getting out of jail and going after baby Ella again.

  Or coming after me.

  “Fine. I’ll start writing it tonight,” I said, knowing full well that would not be happening.

  A few minutes after Mom left with a canvas bag of strawberries and peaches, Farmer Brian and Daniela arrived with fresh eggs.

  “Did you hear about Mr. Upton, Sadie?” Daniela said.

  I stopped and turned. “No?”

  “He passed away this morning. Poor old guy,” Farmer Brian said.

  “Oh.” That was all I could say. I stood there wondering if Mr. Upton had had a chance to eat any of the peaches before he died. And then I started to cry. Farmer Brian and Daniela had no idea why I was so upset, but for ten minutes straight I was inconsolable.

  I would have texted Shay, but it dawned on me that Shay had no idea who Mr. Upton was. I hadn’t told her anything about him or his suitcase.

  So I texted the homegrown heroes.

  I’m sad. The suitcase guy died this morning. Can we meet at Gordie’s basement tonight?

  They all said yes.

  “It’s not like he was my grandfather or anything,” I said when we were sitting in a circle on Gordie’s basement floor, eating pizza and talking about Mr. Upton. “I don’t know why this is bothering me so much. He was just a customer who happened to bequeath me his weird suitcase.”

  “We can’t help where our feelings take us,” Val said.

  “Wow, Val. That’s profound,” Alice said sarcastically.

  We helped Val come up with comeback texts after Javi called her a bitch for leaving him alone again.

  “How about It’s over?” Alice suggested. “I’d say calling you a bitch is a deal breaker.”

  Val laughed nervously. “You’re not wrong. He and Mike are probably blasting me on the slam page right now.”

  We added some comments to Greg O.’s blog and logged on to Val and Jean’s school’s slam page. It was the longest, ugliest slam page I had ever seen. It was even more disturbing to read the comments in large font on Gordie’s movie screen.

  Has anyone noticed how ugly Carly looks with bangs?

  Why would Miles date that fat pig?

  She’s not as fat as you, Kels. We know you’re writing this.

  Nikki D. was wearing long sleeves at the beach. WTF?

  She’s a cutter. Like Swiss cheese.

  Freak.

  “Wow. I thought my school sucked,” Alice said.

  I didn’t even want to see my school’s slam page. It was bad enough reading and rereading the comments about me and the incident. I could only imagine what else the gadflies and the ruffians would say about me behind my back. Sadie’s always going to be a senior wannabe. Sadie wasn’t good enough for Seth. Sadie’s scar is disgusting.

  Gordie logged on as KINKY 3. He was a computer genius at school, the guy all the other guys called upon to encrypt their porn. He wrote:

  I actually like Carly’s bangs.

  Then he wrote:

  Nikki D. has always been really nice to me.

  PIERRE wrote:

  Wow. If she’s fat, what does that make me?

  “Good one,” Alice said.

  When we logged on to Alice’s school’s slam page, we found threads and threads about Izzy and the heroin, and horrible things about how she’s sleeping with guys for drugs.

  Alice got quiet.

  “What should we say, Alice?” Gordie said. “I’ll say anything you want.”

  Alice stared at the velvet curtain wall. “Don’t say anything. The trolls are right.”

  I felt sick to my stomach. I couldn’t begin to imagine what Alice was going through.

  We tried to agree on a movie. But that never happened. So we went back to troll-slamming.

  It was addicting.

  I learned a lot about Stewart “Stewy” Upton, ninety-seven, from his obituary. I read it to Dad on the way to the service. Sissy had chosen a photo of him dressed in a tuxedo and smiling through the same eyes but with a much younger face. I learned he was an avid collector of Civil War artifacts. (Alice was right. Old men did like Civil War stuff.) He loved music and travel and had been a lifelong Rotarian and supporter of various animal organizations. He was predeceased by his beloved mother, Ingrid; his sister, Tabitha; and a nephew named James. There was no mention of the lizard. Donations were to go to Rotary International or the Humane Society.

  I had asked Dad to take me to the funeral. I felt like maybe I’d get a clue, some postmortem breadcrumb that would help me understand what Mr. Upton wanted me to do with the contents of the suitcase.

  On the way to the service, Dad told me Mr. Upton had been a regular.

  “Oh, yeah. Stewy was one of my old-timer customers. I’d drive the truck right up to his front door. He’d come out in his floppy sun hat and Bermuda shorts, always had exact change. And always got an ice cream sandwich.” Dad smiled. “I’m gonna miss him.”

  A crowd of mourners filed into the Presbyterian church. We sat near the back and listened to Sissy get emotional as she tried to read a passage from the Bible. Her sister had to go up and help her finish. Sissy’s whole family, decked out in all sorts of elaborate funeral hats, took up the first pews.

  I kept thinking about how he said I was the one for this job. Of all these people in Mr. Upton’s life, he chose me to do something noble with that bizarre old suitcase. It hit me that while I thought the contents of that suitcase were boring and creepy, it all meant something to Mr. Upton. And he chose me to do what he never could.

  Dad dropped me off at work in my funeral dress and flip-flops, which made it a little tricky to sit on the crate directing Ramon and Papi and the other farm guys as they unloaded the trucks.

  During my lunch break, I went onto Val’s school’s slam page after she texted, Check out the slam page. It’s blowing up!

  Other people were troll-slamming. Somebody named GANDHI-ISH wrote:

  Who cares about bangs, fatness, or other people’s issues? Be kind, people!

  Somebody named FLORAL ARRANGEMENT wrote:

  Go back to your caves, trolls. We’re done here.

  After work, Daniela drove me to Val’s apartment complex, a cluster of three-story buildings surrounding a courtyard full of hanging laundry and a broken swing set. Daniela and Val’s mom spoke Spanish while Val and I ate tamales and watched the six o’clock news. Unlike the previous summer, which had been a predictable four-point trek (work to home to pizza place to Shawn Flynn’s, with occasional deviations to the beach), this summer was a wild card. Who knew I’d end up at an apartment near a strip mall, surrounded by statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary?

  “Five years of Spanish and I only know how to say, Do you like to play tennis or football?” I said to Daniela.

  “Alice is downstairs,” Val announced just after Daniela left to pick up her son.

  Alice stormed in, red-faced and furious. She had found Izzy, temporarily at a psychiatrist turned drug lord’s trap house in Westhampton. Izzy had run out of the house barefoot and jumped into the elusive dealer Hector’s car. “Screw it
. I’m done. I can’t babysit her anymore. I guess she’s going to have to hit rock bottom on her own. These are delicious, by the way,” Alice said, in between wolfing down tamales.

  We sat on the double bed Val shared with her ten-year-old sister and scrolled through the slam pages while I told them about Mr. Upton’s funeral and Val told us how she was in a huge fight with Javi because he’d found pictures on her phone of the five of us from the night of the sand temple.

  “He seems like a giant prick. I get he has lupus, but maybe this guy is not for you.” Alice told it like it was.

  “It’s not like that. I’m… I’m just tired. I’ve been through it so many times with him. In the two years we’ve been together, I’ve lost a lot of my friends.”

  “So why are you with him?” Alice said.

  She flashed a weak smile. “He has good qualities. He can be really affectionate. And he’s funny, like when the two of us are alone together. And I love him. And yes, it’s kind of hard to leave when he’s sick. I feel bad.”

  Alice shot me a raised-eyebrow What the hell? glance when Val wasn’t looking.

  Val’s mom brought us delicious coconut-flavored desserts. They reminded me of Grandma Hosseini’s rice pudding.

  “I feel like we should do some real-life troll-slamming,” I said.

  “Such as?” Alice licked her plastic spoon.

  “Well, don’t judge, but I’m kind of famous for my care packages.”

  “Wow. Okay, Grandma.” Alice shook her head.

  “Stop. I was thinking, what if we put together cute little care packages and hand-deliver them to the victims of trolls from Val’s school? We’ll do it anonymously.”

  Val tilted her head and thought for a minute. “Aw. I like it, Sadie. It’s a really nice gesture.”

  “Maybe a little too nice,” Alice said.