Peaches (18 page)

She stopped just a few feet before Enrico’s open door, her heart thumping so loudly she could hear it. And then she had a brief talk with herself. She was confident. She was brave. She was all the other things Murphy and Leeda had told her she was.

She took the last few steps to the doorway and turned the corner.

The room was empty. The sheets and blanket had been rolled up at the foot of the bed. The mini TV was gone. The books were gone. Everything was gone.

Enrico was gone.

Murphy swirled a fried mushroom cap around in a tiny tub of white sauce. Richard was feeding her mom a buffalo wing, which hardly made the special permission Murphy had gotten to leave the orchard worthwhile. Murphy would have begged to skip the free day and go back to work rather than watch the two of them act like teenagers. But she was already occupied thinking about Rex.

She loved him. That was the conclusion she’d arrived at sometime between the picnic last night and waking up this morning. Only
she
could have managed to get in her own way like this. It was the crappiest, stupidest thing she’d done yet. Murphy lifted the mushroom to her lips and ripped off the cap with her teeth, sucking the juice out of the little pool of it under the cap. She looked up to see the TGI Friday’s waiter, who was staring at her suggestively, and frowned at him.

“Honey?”

“Yeah.” Murphy stuffed three more mushrooms in her mouth and washed them down with a swig of sweet tea.

“Richard and I want to tell you something.” Jodee twined her fingers through Richard’s and stared at Murphy nervously. Murphy felt the mushroom caps congeal into a sickening glob in her stomach.

“I don’t wanna know,” Murphy said.

“Murphy.”

“Look, I gotta go to the bathroom.” Murphy fled the table. In the bathroom she rubbed at her tight throat, took a few deep breaths, and then washed her hands compulsively twice. She looked in the mirror and shook her head. “Please, God, don’t do this to me.” Then she rolled her eyes bitterly, immediately realizing she hadn’t racked up enough good karma to ask God for much of anything.

There was a pay phone in the vestibule just outside the bathroom door. Murphy had painted over the tiny holes of the receiver in black nail polish once, so people could hear through the phone but not be heard. Now she ducked out of the bathroom and picked it up, praying that someone had fixed it since then, and that today wasn’t the day her karma had caught up with her. She dialed information and got them to dial the Darlingtons’ home number.

“Hello?”

“Poopie,” she croaked. “Is Birdie there?”

There was a silence on the other end. “Honey, I haven’t seen her in a couple of hours. You okay?”

The lump in Murphy’s throat was so big that she couldn’t
speak. She shook her head until she finally got the words out. “I’m okay. Thanks. Bye.”

“Honey…”

Murphy held on to the receiver after she’d placed it on the hook, thinking of who else she could call. The only way she could reach Leeda would be through the phone by the barn. She tried that number, but it rang and rang. How had she lived in this town her whole life without racking up one person she could really talk to? Leeda and Birdie felt like a life raft that was floating too far away. She wanted to scream.

If either of them had been there to hear her, she would have told them that Jodee had done a lot of stupid things with stupid guys, but she’d never married one of them. She would have said that it felt like the last measly surviving thread of the rug under her and her mom’s life was being yanked out from under her.

When Murphy finally emerged into the dining area, she had managed to paste a look of cool indifference on her face. Jodee had paid the check and she and Richard were both waiting just outside the front doors. They climbed into the car.

“Murphy…”

“Let’s just act like you already told me, okay?” Murphy croaked, then cleared her throat.

Jodee looked across at Richard in the driver’s seat. He just shook his head. Then she looked back at Murphy, her eyes big and sad. “Okay, baby.”

Murphy spotted Birdie on the porch when they pulled up the drive and headed in that direction. She almost sprinted across the grass. But she made herself walk, and the closer she got,
the more sure she became that something was wrong with Birdie. The area around her eyes was all puffy, and she was stroking her dogs like her life depended on it. Immediately all of the things Murphy had been waiting to spill sank under the surface.

“You okay, Bird?” Murphy asked, climbing the steps.

“Yeah.” Birdie’s voice came out thin and warbly.

Murphy put her hand on Birdie’s knee and shook it. She knew she should ask what was wrong, but Murphy wasn’t that kind of girl. She didn’t really know how. “Hey, Walter let you out?” she said instead, trying to sound cheery.

Birdie turned her big eyes to Murphy, her breath fluttering between her teeth. “Enrico left.”

Murphy’s heart gave a heavy thud. She crouched down beside Birdie’s rocker and laid her arm on the armrest, not knowing what to do. Being a shoulder to cry on was something Murphy had never done in her life.

“It’s okay. It’s not a big deal,” Birdie was saying. She stood up from her chair and plopped down on the deck beside Murphy. Honey Babe planted her two paws on the side of Murphy’s leg and licked her arm. Murphy barely noticed.

“When?”

“Last night.” Birdie sniffed. “Poopie got Dad to let me out early, and I was gonna come to the garden, but…” Birdie didn’t finish.

They stared out at the grass for a while.

With a long sigh, Birdie spoke. “It’s not just Enrico. It’s just I’m such a coward. I let everything pass me by. I don’t know if I’ll ever…not…do that.”

Murphy patted her back awkwardly. “That’s not true, Birdie.”

Birdie’s silence said she didn’t want to be coddled. Finally she dropped her head softly on Murphy’s shoulder.

“I should have gone for it.”

“Well, how could you have known the dummy was leaving?”

“That’s no excuse. I suck.”

“Everybody sucks,” Murphy offered.

“Oh, Murphy.” Birdie lifted her head, smiled at her, and rolled her eyes. They were quiet again. And then Birdie sat up straighter. “You know what? Can you change the subject?”

Murphy nodded. The words about her mom rose to her lips. But then, that wasn’t exactly a pick-me-up. She tried to think of something else, interesting but not heavy. Something they were both invested in.

“Hey, Bird, what do you think about Rex and Leeda?”

As soon as it was out, Murphy wished she could take it back.

“They’re cute together, huh?” Birdie asked, rubbing the back of her hand along the bottom of her nose.

Murphy considered. “Yeah.” She told herself not to say it. “Do you think she loves him?”

Birdie considered. “I think they’re good friends.” She pulled back, resting her hands behind her on the deck and tilting her head. “Why?”

Birdie’s face was so open and sweet that Murphy thought for a minute she really could tell her about Rex and she would understand. Didn’t she at least deserve that? Wasn’t Birdie her friend as much as Leeda’s?

Murphy shook her head. “It’s just I was thinking the same thing. I think I’d like that kind of thing someday.”

In the end, it seemed disloyal to Leeda to say anything at all.

Loyalty was a funny thing. So was love. They both bit you when you least expected it.

At age seven, Enrico Fiol found a peach blossom blowing across his front yard in Northern Mexico near the Texas border. There wasn’t a peach tree within eight hundred miles. Knowing his friends would make fun of him for admiring the flower, Enrico snatched it up and hid it in a book. It sat there forgotten, dried and mummified, for the rest of his life.

L
eeda’s two huge suitcases lay in the middle of the floor, half packed. She’d taken down her curtains and folded up her blankets, stowing all her breakable knickknacks inside. Sitting on the bed and looking around, she couldn’t believe how different the room felt. She couldn’t believe she’d lived here for a whole summer. It just looked so unlike anyplace she would spend her time.

In the hallway the women were packing too, dragging things down the stairs and piling them up outside for the bus. Poopie would shuttle them in the bus to the Greyhound station and help them get everything on when the bus arrived. Leeda watched boxes and boxes of stuff go by and smiled. Greyhound didn’t know what it was in for. If Leeda were from Mexico, she mused, she would have done the same thing.

She began pulling her clothes out of the dresser, packing them carefully: shirts on one side, shorts on the other. But her limbs felt heavy.

Across the hall Murphy was blaring her music and lying on her bed. The last time Leeda had peered in, she hadn’t packed a
thing. Now Leeda ripped a piece of paper out of the notebook on her desk and folded it into a paper airplane. Then she unfolded it, wrote on it, folded it again, and sent it sailing across the hall.

A few seconds later the airplane came back. Leeda unfolded it.

In her writing it said,
Get to work, slacker.

In Murphy’s it said,
Come over here and do it for me. Pretty pleeease?

A second later Murphy herself appeared in the doorway, her eyes sorrowful.

“Poopie’s here with the bus.”

They walked out toward the drive, where everyone had gathered, including Birdie. Poopie had already taken a load of the men over, so already the group seemed small. The rickety white door of the bus hissed open, and suddenly everyone was piling on Murphy and Leeda and Birdie, hugging them.

Next to Leeda, Emma squeezed Birdie’s chin and kissed her cheek. “Thank you, Birdie.” A tear trickled out of her eye. This was not like other good-byes at the orchard, though Leeda had never witnessed one. This was people saying good-bye forever.

As the bus pulled away, Leeda gently patted Birdie’s back. They watched it disappear down the long drive. Birdie turned, smiling, but with tears in her eyes.

“Oh, honey.” Leeda hugged her, and Murphy stood behind her, rubbing her shoulder. Birdie pulled back and swiped at the rims of her eyelids.

“It just feels like the world’s ending,” she said through a smile.

They walked back to the barbecue pit.

“Where will you go?” Murphy ventured, cupping her hands thoughtfully. “If you guys…have to sell?”

“I don’t know. Dad talks about moving to California.”

“California?”

“What about Aunt Cynthia? She’s moving here, isn’t she?”

Birdie shook her head. “Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know how we’ll work it out.”

Leeda began ripping apart a long blade of grass. “Well, maybe you won’t have to sell….”

Birdie let out a long sigh. “We can’t keep up with other farms with better equipment, more land, better connections to the grocery chains. Dad was never good at any of that stuff. He’s just good at growing peaches.”

“But couldn’t you get all those things?”

“We don’t have the money.”

She was interrupted by the sound of a car pulling up the drive. All three girls turned to see Horatio Balmeade’s black Mercedes slinking its way toward the house.

“Buzz kill,” Murphy said.

Leeda too felt like it was a total reality check. But Birdie didn’t look fazed. For once she looked excited.

“Do you guys know we have a huge freezer in the back of the house?”

“Are we gonna put his body in it?” Murphy joked.

Birdie looked at her mysteriously.

“Not quite.”

Squid was Birdie’s dad’s favorite. He liked to buy it fresh from a guy who caught it in the Gulf and then freeze it in the giant
freezer out back. Murphy gave Birdie a boost above the toilet seat as she took a handful of the frozen fish and stuffed it into the ceiling tiles of the Magnolia Lady’s Lounge at Balmeade Country Club.

“Birdie, be careful.”

“Blah blah,” Birdie said, sliding the foamy square of ceiling back into place. She’d never done something this bad, ever, but she felt like an old pro at it. Her heart was racing but in a good way. This, she figured, must be what Murphy got off on, and now she understood why.

Leeda had explained to the girls that there were actually four lounges, the Magnolia, the Jasmine, the Bougainvillea, and the Rose. Murphy had thought it was hilarious that they were called lounges and had said she had drunk too much water and that she had to lounge right then and could they please excuse her.

They finished with the Rose, which they’d chosen to be last because it was the most remote, in the back of the fitness hall. By that point the fish had started to melt already and was giving off a slight odor.

They chose to crawl over the fence back into the orchard a few minutes later. Birdie and Murphy had to hold the old barbed wire open for Leeda to crawl through slowly. Once they were across the property line, Birdie jumped up and down a few times, giddy and breathless. She couldn’t believe they’d done it.

“I wish we could see his face,” Murphy said, also moving around restlessly. It was just dusk, and it gave the whole event a surreal glow.

“You two stink,” Leeda said, holding her hand over her nose and then yanking it away. “So do I.”

“You guys are going home tonight?”

Murphy and Leeda looked at each other. One more night wouldn’t hurt.

“I guess not,” Murphy said, waggling both of her hands in the air. “How about the lake?”

One last time.
Birdie didn’t say it, but she knew that was what they were all thinking. They could pretend it was just another night.

Up ahead of them Murphy had begun stripping off her clothes, and suddenly she was down to nothing.

“Murphy, please put your clothes on,” Leeda called ahead. “Nobody wants to see that.”

Once she reached the edge of the lake, Murphy looked at them over her shoulder. “I love this lake. I plan to honor it this last time by swimming in it naked.”

Leeda and Birdie exchanged looks, turning when they heard the splash of Murphy jumping in.

Leeda had been skinny-dipping before at a couple of parties, but only when she’d had a bunch of drinks. Somehow swimming naked with just girls seemed more intimate. But she stripped off her tank top anyway, and then her bra.

Naked, she toyed with the idea of dipping her toes in first.

“Oh, what the hell.” She dove, the water blanketing her softly. It felt like bathwater. When she surfaced beside Murphy, Birdie was standing on the shore, looking nervous.

“C’mon, Bird.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Okay, fine, just don’t look.”

Leeda and Murphy giggled but treaded water, turning their backs.

There was a
swish swish zip
and then a splash as Birdie too got into the water.

Leeda swam on her back. They gathered and splashed around for a while, talking in low voices as it got darker.

“It’s night,” Murphy whispered, looking up. Sure enough, a couple of stars were peeping out above them and the crickets had started in singing without anyone noticing. “Can you smell peaches?”

They were far away from the trees, but Leeda sniffed the air, thinking she did too.

“I smell peaches in my sleep,” Birdie offered.

Leeda sank onto her back and backstroked away, then rested her arms and let herself float out into the middle of the lake. She couldn’t remember anything feeling more gorgeous. And maybe it was partly because this was the last of it, and it would never happen this way again.

Splash.
Leeda righted herself. Murphy had climbed out of the water and, without any self-consciousness whatsoever, was skirting the lake to a high rock on one side. She went in with a splash, disappearing underwater for several seconds. And then Birdie let out a whoop and went plunging under.

When they surfaced, they were both spitting water and laughing. Leeda was struck by just how stunning her friends were. They looked like mermaids, treading water and splashing around.

Murphy climbed onto shore again, her skin glowing.

And then she stopped. “Oh.” She stood stock-still for a second, then threw her hands over her breasts and her crotch, walking backward. “Hi.”

Leeda paddled up to the side of the lake, where a figure had emerged. She felt her heart sink into her abdomen. “Rex?”

Rex was looking at the grass at his feet very carefully. He glanced up again at Murphy.

“Rex!” Leeda cried, her voice cracking with jealousy. “Turn
around.
”

Rex obeyed, and Leeda and Birdie scrabbled out of the water. All three girls yanked on their clothes.

“I thought I’d find you guys here,” Rex explained when they let him turn back around. “I saw your stuff back at the dorm.”

“I bet you say that to all the naked women,” Murphy said, like she was trying to sound casual. She didn’t sound casual at all.

“I seem to be seeing a lot of you lately,” Rex replied.

Leeda didn’t laugh. She felt like a statue. Paralyzed.

Rex kept staring at Murphy. And frowning. And still staring. And Leeda felt all the blood drain out of her feet. Because his eyes weren’t heavy lidded right then, like they always were with her—heavy lidded and sleepy and kind and reassuring. They were wide open and unguarded. And all over Murphy.

Tweet tweet tweet.

Murphy sat up in bed and looked at the window. It was only barely light, but there was her little friend, sitting on one of the branches of his tree and staring at her with his beady eyes.

She closed her window, then fell back in bed and pulled her
pillow over her head. But it was too late. She was already awake and too fully aware of the day. And the night before.

She rolled out of bed and pulled her boxers on over her bikini underwear, her curly hair so heavy on the side she hadn’t slept on that she felt her head might flop in that direction. She pulled it into an elastic so that it lay in a lopsided bun at the nape of her neck and shuffled into the hall.

Birdie had gone to sleep in the newly vacated bedroom at the end of the hall the night before. But Murphy could see now that the door was open and the bed was empty. She slid her slippered feet up to Leeda’s closed door and tapped on it gently, scratching it with her fingers. “Leeda,” she whispered. “Lee?” Nobody answered.

Murphy sighed. She wanted to see Leeda, to reassure herself that they were still good. She’d been so quiet on the way back from the lake. Murphy knew she hadn’t done anything wrong, but the moment with Rex had been palpably tense. She felt like Leeda might have somehow seen into the deepest, darkest part of her heart and seen that Rex was there. She just needed to know that wasn’t true. But she guessed she’d have to wait for her to wake up first. The old Murphy would have pounded on the door anyway. But this one shuffled back into her room.

Without bothering to change, Murphy slipped into her Dr. Scholl’s sandals and walked outside, turning left to go visit her blue jay. He stared at her from his branch, a wriggling worm stuck under his skinny black foot.

“Look,” Murphy said, “I know this should be where I tell you that all those times you annoyed me, you were actually growing on me, and that I’m really going to miss you.”

The blue jay tilted its head as if it could actually understand her.

“But it’s not going to happen. I actually just came by to say that I hope the winter takes you.”

Murphy turned and started back around to the other side of the dorm, toward the garden. She was fully aware she was moping along like somebody with an extreme hangover. She was also aware that it was sort of an act, for her own sake. It felt good to walk like she felt.

At the edge of the clearing she surveyed her work, looking at it with a fresh eye. It really was stunning. The yellow roses were in full bloom and majestic. The azaleas were vibrant and healthy.

Murphy took a deep breath of satisfaction and ducked under the trellis, then came to a stop.

There was Rex, kneeling in front of a wooden bench that sat back against one of the rosebushes. He was looking up at her, surprised.

“Hey,” Murphy whispered.

“Hey.” Rex stood up. “I thought you’d be sleeping. I wanted to just leave it here.”

Murphy swallowed, then looked behind him at the bench. She didn’t want to look at his eyes. “You know that’s a terrible place for that. Right up against the prickers.”

Instead of coming back with some remark the way Murphy expected, Rex’s eyebrows descended. “Oh yeah.” He tapped his forehead.

“I’ll help you move it,” she offered, walking up to one side of the bench and lifting it. “How about under the cherry tree?”

Rex nodded, lifting his end, and they moved it the few feet and put it down. Then stood back.

“Wow. Thanks, Rex. That’s…really cool. Did you make it?”

Rex nodded. “No problem. It was supposed to be a surprise. I finished it a couple of days ago.”

“It is a surprise.”

“I actually thought about not bringing it after the weirdness…last night….”

Murphy didn’t want to acknowledge last night. She clicked her sandals back and forth against her feet.

“You get any fruit off that nectarine tree?” Rex asked finally, covering up.

Murphy shrugged. “Nope. The damn bugs. I haven’t gotten one nectarine.”

Rex laughed. It hurt Murphy to hear his laugh come so easy when she felt so tense. He was always so easy. He was the only guy she’d ever known who acted like she thought a guy should be.

Rex scanned the tree up and down. “Well, there’s that one up top.”

Murphy was about to tell him he was full of it when she caught sight of it too. “Oh my God, you’re right.”

She and Rex looked at each other, and Murphy’s smile grew huge. “I grew a beautiful nectarine.”

“The tree had nothing to do with it.”

“Nothing.”

Rex walked up to the tree and hoisted himself, reaching for the nectarine with a leap.