The Secrets of Peaches (13 page)

M
urphy parked her bike in the driveway and crunched across the gravel to the dorms. She rubbed her hands together, feeling the cold through her cheap acrylic gloves, and looked around. The sky hung over the orchard like a fuzzy gray blanket and rained a fine drizzle. The air smelled like water and brown grass. Without their leaves to soften their crooked limbs, the peach trees looked like broken umbrellas stripped to their metal skeletons. One yellow light in the dorm house was on—the others were all dark and empty. Murphy picked some pebbles from the road and threw them at the window.

She waited. Nothing.

She walked up the steps to the dorm and pulled on the door handle. Locked. She looked up at Leeda's window. She knew she was in there. “Leeda, let's make up!” She expected a face to appear in the window, a reluctant smile. But it stayed blank. Murphy breathed on a downstairs window, then drew a frowny face. It was almost Christmas, for God's sake. How long was this going to last?

Finally she crossed the driveway and made her way up the spongy green lawn toward the house.

Before she was halfway there, Birdie appeared on the deck, wrapped up in scarves and a bunchy raincoat, and stood as still as a snowman. She was still in mourning—black raincoat, black jeans crusted with work dirt, black turtleneck peeking above her collar. Only her cheeks were bright from the misty cold air. Majestic's butterfly ears stuck out of her collar too.

“Is Lee inside with you?” Murphy asked.

Birdie shook her head. “She's in the dorms.”

“She wouldn't even open the door for me.”

Birdie shrugged.

The truth was, Murphy felt like the only way to get any of the heaviness off her soul was to tell Leeda and Birdie about it. Being deferred from NYU still didn't feel real. It had never even occurred to her she wouldn't get in.

Without deciding where they were going, Birdie and Murphy walked past the dorms again, stared up at the yellow window forlornly for a while, and then kept on walking to the edge of the property, climbing over the sagging wooden fence into Balmeade Country Club.

The short-hewn, wide expanse of grass was empty of golf balls and carts and people. Birdie turned her face to the sky occasionally and caught drizzle drops on her cheeks. Finally they came upon the shed where the carts were kept. Even though they hadn't talked about where they were going or what they were planning to do, they moved like one unit. Murphy picked the lock with her Swiss army knife and they both heaved the shed door open, heading for one of the green-and-gold carts.
Murphy felt around for the key while Birdie climbed in beside her. The cart lurched into motion, and they jostled over the green.

“I heard back from NYU,” Murphy finally told her. “I got deferred. I'll find out in April.”

Birdie looked concerned. “You better get some safety schools, Murphy.”

“Yeah.” It wasn't agreement, but an acknowledgment that Birdie thought so. Murphy had no intention of settling for anything other than exactly what she wanted.

When they pulled out onto Orchard Road, Murphy turned right, going the long way toward town, studiously avoiding the scene of the accident. Birdie cradled Majestic under her coat, as if the dog's body were a pregnant belly. Only the dog's head and casted front legs hung out from where she'd half unzipped her coat. She rocked slowly back and forth, as if she were riding a camel.

They craned their necks toward the pecan grove as they puttered past it. Methuselah stood a few feet from the road, looking tired.

Murphy was happy to motor away from the whole forlorn picture of the orchard. It was like the place was groggy on sleeping pills. But town was no better. All gray walls and gray sky and empty sidewalks and red lights and the occasional debris blowing out of a trash can and across the road. They drove to the Dunkin' Donuts drive-through and ordered two strawberry frosteds to take to Leeda as an offering, a wheat bagel for Birdie, and one large coffee for Murphy. Murphy had been hooked on their coffee ever since she had worked there, before she'd gotten fired for doing whip-its in the closet.

They parked in the side lot and sat, watching the cars go by and the trash blow around soggily. They ate and sipped and watched the people come through the drive-through while Murphy made fun of them. One woman had three kids in the back, all fighting, and Murphy pretended to strangle herself. Usually Birdie would have laughed while trying not to, but she was quiet and thoughtful, barely there.

“Are you excited about Mexico?” Murphy asked finally.

Birdie nodded. “Yeah.”

It was the most underwhelming
yeah
possible. Murphy gazed at her, wondering what was going on in Birdie world. She remembered a book she had read about a dog named Fletcher. In the illustrations, Fletcher was so sad that he actually took the shape of the steps he was lying on. Murphy could picture his body perfectly—all accordioned along the stairs, his jowls hanging down. The whole world seemed like Fletcher today. They were both Fletchered out.

Pretty soon, Murphy ran out of people to make fun of. Her heart hadn't been in it anyway. There was no sound between them except for sipping and chewing. The scent of strawberry frosting hovered and stuck to their coats.

Finally Birdie seemed to rouse a little and straightened up. She turned to Murphy. “Murphy, are you ever going to talk about Rex?”

Murphy tapped her heels against the floor of the cart. “We already talked about it.”

Birdie stared at her earnestly. Murphy hated when Birdie gave the earnest look. It made you feel like you had to be earnest too. “I mean really talk.”

“Well,” Murphy said, searching her mind for something she was willing to say. It had to be something that wouldn't knock open any holes. Suddenly she had an idea. The idea had been there all along, but she pretended it was the first time she'd thought of it. “Let's drive by his house.”

Though Birdie and Majestic both looked uneasy, Murphy hit the gas. A few minutes later, she slowed down to a stealthy crawl. The golf cart crept slowly past Pearly Gates and past the house. Murphy pulled to a halt just beyond it, past the edge of the trees where they could be half hidden a few feet from the bluebird mailbox, and looked back over her shoulder. Rex's truck was in the driveway, and she could hear the radio coming from his room.

“He's just sitting home alone,” Birdie said. “I bet he misses you.”

Murphy was suddenly irritated. “You're supposed to hate him for me, Bird.”

Birdie looked apologetic. “I do.” It was like Birdie's
yeah
from earlier. It was only words.

“You wanna know something about Rex?” Murphy said, annoyed. “He was born bowlegged.”

Birdie sank slightly.

“Yep,” Murphy went on. “They had to do that thing where they straighten out your legs.”

Birdie looked down at her bagel, sending the signal that she didn't want to know. They both knew how private Rex was.

“And let's see, what else can I tell you? He opens his mouth so wide when he kisses. It's disgusting.” Murphy wanted to stop, but she couldn't. “And he wet the bed until he was nine.”

Birdie stared, looking over Murphy's shoulder, and Murphy turned. Rex's dad was standing there. He had a hand on the mailbox.

“Hey, Mr. Taggart,” Birdie said.

“Hey.” He nodded to Birdie. “I…just came out to get the mail.” He didn't look at Murphy. And Murphy knew with a fiery sinking in her gut that he had heard the whole thing. He reached into the mailbox and pulled something out. Then he waved the papers at them once, turned, and started back up the drive toward his house.

Murphy watched him, her heart pounding with shame. She felt like cold liquid metal had been poured down her throat.

She slammed on the gas, and the golf cart sped off into the dusk.

As December worked its way toward Christmas, the same old holiday stories began to make their way around Bridgewater. A favorite was an old English legend about Joseph of Arimathea—uncle to the Virgin Mary—who laid his walking stick down on a hill in Glastonbury, England. According to the legend, it blossomed into a tree known as the Glastonbury thorn.

But the people of Bridgewater had their own version, with this twist: Joseph had actually lent his stick to a cousin of his, who passed it on through his descendants, who moved to Georgia to farm pecans. And the theory was that upon being laid down on a lazy walk, the cane had sprouted into a holy tree somewhere in Kings County. But as to what kind of tree it was and where exactly it stood, no one dared to guess.

T
he afternoon of Christmas Eve, Leeda sat on the couch in the Darlingtons' den, curled in an afghan Poopie had made, filling out college applications. She hadn't told a soul at the Darlington house about getting into Columbia. And she kept the papers in front of her now, tilted up like she was guarding her test answers, as if they all wouldn't find out eventually.

The cold, wet draft coming through the windows fought with the heat from the fireplace. The Darlingtons' decrepit old stereo played a quiet selection of Spanish and English music that Poopie had mixed together on a CD. The fire was roaring, and Poopie was stringing popcorn. Birdie sat in a rocking chair across the room, reading a book on Mexico and scratching Majestic's ears, her back turned to Poopie. Uncle Walter sat on the nubby, rust-colored carpet, looking through a box of old photos he'd pulled out from the built-in bookcase, where it had probably sat for five years.

The tree was strung—not with the familiar white lights of the Cawley-Smith house but with bulbs of every shape and size and color, some of them fat seventies Technicolor, others tiny
blinkers. There was tinsel, popcorn balls, old ornaments, tiny mother-of-pearl angels, crosses made of shells and wire, glass balls, some of them with holy scenes of the manger. The tree was a true reflection of its surroundings—lopsided, pell-mell, messy.

Birdie came over and sat next to her. “Do you want to go for a walk?”

“No thanks.”

Birdie moon-eyed her. She had been moon-eyeing her for weeks, ever since the day in the pecan grove. Leeda had been polite every time they ate together, every time Birdie appeared at the dorm door with cookies she'd baked or bags of extra toiletries she'd picked up on her errands. But Leeda had frozen Birdie out. It was more subtle than with Murphy, but Leeda knew what she was doing. At school, Leeda avoided Murphy in the halls and Murphy avoided her. At lunch, they sat at separate tables anyway—Leeda with her friends, of which she had several—and Murphy with hers. When Murphy arrived at the orchard through the front door, Leeda traipsed off out the back. They had always inhabited such separate worlds anyway. It was easy to separate them almost completely now.

“Do you want your present early?” Birdie asked.

Leeda looked over at the lopsided present Birdie had already placed under the tree, wrapped in red-white-and-green paper covered in little Santas. Clearly it was something she'd knitted, just by the lumpiness of it.

“I can wait,” Leeda answered. It was slightly painful to watch Birdie stand up, crestfallen, and slink back over to the rocking chair. But it felt right for Leeda to stand in her place—proud and
removed. She felt like, for the first time in a long time, she was holding her ground.

Leeda's mind drifted, from time to time, to what the scene would be like at her house. The family would be in the home theater, probably, lounging on the La-Z-Boys, watching some movie. They definitely wouldn't be sitting in the quiet with one another, doing nothing. The tree—which always stood in the sweeping foyer—would have been professionally decorated (Lucretia hated getting sap on her hands) with some kind of color scheme. It was sort of an empty vision, but a tiny part of Leeda missed it. She had never been away on Christmas.

Her grandmom had called three times, hoping to catch her, but Leeda had waved her hands to show Poopie she wasn't there, much to Poopie's obvious chagrin. Her dad had come by early that afternoon to deliver her presents: two suitcases for school, a thousand-dollar Simon gift card to the mall in Atlanta. Nothing that went in a wrapped box the way the presents under the Darlington tree did.

The sound of the rain coming down outside made her nestle deeper into the afghan. Through the room's twin windows, the empty peach trees were visible, drooping and bouncing under the raindrops and looking so thin and frail they seemed like they should break. Poopie hummed along with the music and shot occasional looks at Birdie's back that Leeda couldn't quite understand.

“Look at these, girls,” Uncle Walter said. Leeda got up and lay on her stomach on the floor beside him. Birdie got off her rocking chair and sat on the other side. Majestic hobbled over and lay on her side next to Birdie, her butterfly ears flopping back.

Leeda looked at the top picture on her pile. In it, a much younger Uncle Walter had puffy brown hair. There were lots of photos of the house and the orchard.

“Look, Poopie, it's you.” Leeda pointed to one that Uncle Walter had just uncovered, but Poopie just smiled vaguely, rethreading her needle. In the picture, Birdie and her mom were standing several yards in front of the barn, smiling, and behind them was Poopie, carrying a sack of peaches on her front. Her forehead was crinkled up from the sun and she was squinting—looking almost exactly the same as now—same hair, same type of clothes, though the hair was darker and shinier, less gray in it. It looked like she'd just been passing by when she'd noticed she'd wandered into the photo and grinned dutifully. Like she was part of the photo but not really. The sack of peaches slumped against her belly like a baby. Leeda wondered suddenly about Poopie and kids. Had she ever wanted them?

They flipped through more boring photos of people Leeda didn't recognize and a few she did. Birdie lit up when one of the workers from the summer appeared. “God, they've been working here forever.”

Leeda squinted at one of a bunch of the kids in bathing suits and shorts standing by the lake, their feet and lower legs muddy. A little girl with white-blond hair sat on a lawn chair to the left like it was a throne, shielding her eyes from the sun.

“Your mom was always perfect, I guess,” Birdie said.

Leeda studied the photo. The other kids together and her mom too precious to get dirty.

In all of the photos where her mom appeared, it was the same. Lucretia always looked better. Her hair was neater, her
clothes were prettier, her smile was more majestic. She was always her own special and superior island.

“Her smile never reaches her eyes,” Birdie said.

Leeda smiled sardonically. “That's because she's a robot.”

 

When Leeda came back to the dorms, the dim winter light lay soft shadows on the springy old green couch and rust-colored easy chair. It felt empty, but the vague smells of summer life—cinnamon, chilies, sweat, grease, slow-baked peach tarts—floated off the wallpaper like ghosts. Through the nearest window, the peach rows waved in the breeze, as if they were trying to get her attention. Her eyes drifted to the water stains on the walls, the place where the floor was sinking in, the rust springing up around the faucet fixtures. She had never noticed the dorm was disintegrating.

Suddenly possessed, she walked over to the sink and opened up the cabinets underneath, pulling out a bottle of Windex, one of Mr. Clean, and a pair of yellow rubber gloves. She worked well into the night, scrubbing the sinks, wiping down all the windows, scrubbing at rust stains. When she finally put her hands on her hips at about ten o'clock and looked around for what else there was to do, the downstairs was pristine, but it didn't look any better. It was still falling apart.

Discouraged, Leeda peeled off the gloves and dropped them in the sink. She climbed upstairs, took a shower without washing her hair, and pulled on her silky pajamas, climbing into bed. She fell asleep so quickly that she was completely disoriented when she heard the door downstairs open a few minutes later. And then footsteps climbing the stairs.

Her door was opening a moment later. Murphy pulled off her shoes and padded across the floor, crawling under the covers at the foot of the bed, her knees pulled up to her chest. Cool air came with her under the blankets. Her cold feet butted against Leeda's toasty ones.

“What are you doing here?” Leeda didn't know why she whispered. There was no one else in the dorm.

Murphy was quiet for a while. “I don't know. I was just lying on top of the trailer today, thinking, I've never even been on a train. And I was thinking, isn't that weird? And I just wanted to tell you.”

Leeda was quiet.

“I just…
needed
to tell you. It made me feel…worried or something. That I've never been on a train.”

Leeda pulled the covers back against her chin.

“I miss you, Lee.”

Leeda rolled over onto her side, facing the wall.

“And I want us to talk about New York and how great it's going to be. Because sometimes, I don't know…” She laid her hands on her knees. “Sometimes I almost forget.”

Leeda looked at the wall in front of her. She felt a mixture of shame and triumph as she opened her mouth to speak.

“I called my aunt,” Leeda began, still whispering. “I'm going to go out there in May, right after we graduate. And I'm gonna go to school in California. I'm applying now.” Murphy was silent, taking it all in. Leeda could feel sharp heat running up her belly. “I'm not going to New York.”

Murphy didn't say anything for a long time. And then she just slid out of the covers. In the dark, Leeda could hear her
picking up her shoes and her coat. And then she slipped out the door.

Leeda felt a million explanations pop up that she didn't owe Murphy. She didn't plan on telling her any of them. She didn't need to explain herself to anyone anymore. But if she had, she would have said that California was the obvious—the only—choice for her. She didn't know why she hadn't thought of it, seriously, before.

It was as far away as she could go without falling into the ocean.