The Secrets of Peaches (24 page)
Read The Secrets of Peaches Online
Authors: Jodi Lynn Anderson
There were traces left behind.
At the Darlington Orchard, a garden began its slow decline back into wilderness. Weeds sidled up to the flowers, cautiously at first. The kudzu began, slowly but not that slowly, to climb the trellis, intending to cover it completely.
In the Darlington house, a little crayon Poopie drawing hid behind the pasta jar in the pantry, looking for all the world like the Virgin Mary. A silver gum wrapper dropped on the porch sat balled up and wedged indefinitely in a corner of the doorjamb. A red notebook covered in exuberant handwriting and messy black stars sat at the bottom of a trash bin. It would stay there for twenty-three years.
In the pecan grove, Methuselah's offspring grew taller. At the Balmeade Country Club next door, a peach tree began to grow on the ninth green. In the house next to the Pearly Gates Cemetery, Rex Taggart went to bed with a hole in his heart. Over the years, it wouldn't heal, or shrink, or weaken. That night, it would only begin a slow journey to a place where it could hide.
In a dorm room in New York City, Murphy and Leeda lay on Murphy's bed, studying. The room screamed Murphy. She'd flung CDs and notebooks on every surface that was hers. Her dirty clothes hung
from the corners. And a postcard sat stuck in the frame of the mirror above her desk. Occasionally Murphy or Leeda looked up at it, like it needed to be included. On the front was a photo of the campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. On the back were the words: School here is amazing. Mexico is amazing. You are amazing. It was the only postcard they ever got from Birdie. She preferred to send letters.
For a while, Poopie Pedraza swore she could see the ghost of a little girl walking around the orchard property, age seven or eight, with an auburn ponytail and chicken legs. It was the way Poopie would always see Birdie even though she saw the grown Birdie too.
And as fall turned to winter, the Darlington peach trees started dropping their leaves again, gently, like they were letting them go. It wasn't the same as giving them up.
It wasn't the same as losing them.
I would like to thank Sara Shandler for her dedication, insight, and all-around loveliness. I would also like to gratefully acknowledge Kristin Marang, Elise Howard, Josh Bank, and Les Morgenstein, as well as my wonderful agent, Sarah Burnes. I wish to thank my friends Lexy James, Erika Loftmann, Jennifer Bailey, Liesa Abrams, Nancy Giarraputo, and Bud Paytas for their kindness and generosity. Finally, I would like to thank my family, who make me feel constantly blessed.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
is the national bestselling author of
PEACHES
and
THE SECRETS OF PEACHES
. She has lived in Georgia, Costa Rica, and New York, but she currently hangs her hat in Washington, D.C.
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Cover art © 2006 by Howard Huang
Cover design by Sasha Illingworth
THE SECRETS OF PEACHES
. Copyright © 2007 by Alloy Entertainment and Jodi Lynn Anderson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition FEBRUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780061855207
Version 11282012
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