Peaches (11 page)

Birdie could have been knocked over with a feather. “Oh. Oh yeah. Sorry.”

Enrico’s dark eyebrows descended worriedly over his pretty eyes. “I am just suddenly tired,” he said, smiling nervously. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Birdie said, blushing. “Sure. Good night.”

Enrico closed the door behind her and Birdie walked down the hall, feeling like her body might sink into the cracks in the cool, creaky wooden floor and drip down into the dirt underneath.

When she stepped out onto the porch, she put her hand to her forehead and muttered, “Why?”

When she looked up, her dad was at the bottom of the stairs.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

Birdie froze. “Um, just…making sure everybody has what they need. What…are
you
doing?”

Walter relaxed a bit. “I came to look for you. I need you to come up to the house at five tomorrow morning. I need some help in the office.”

“Okay, Dad.”

“Birdie, I don’t want you in the men’s dorm. It was all right when you were a kid, but…” His mouth settled into a thin, awkward line. “I’ll take care of it from now on.”

Birdie swallowed. “But I wasn’t…”

“You should be in bed.”

“Okay.”

Walter turned his cheek for Birdie to kiss. She did and then headed toward Camp A. But she didn’t go to sleep.

She flopped into every angle, hoping to find one that would send her off to sleep. She turned so that her head was at the foot of the couch.

She’d never felt more desperate for someone to talk to. And there was no one. Not her dad. Definitely not her mom.

It seemed like whatever had been building in her since the spring was making it impossible to stay inside herself. It was too big to contain.

Leeda was lying on her bed, her feet up on the wall with the door open to catch the breeze. She was resting her sore muscles and facing the facts. She was never going to make it this summer. That was the facts.

The day had been hell, picking peaches all morning, dropping them into her harness basket, carrying them, dumping
them. She hadn’t seen Rex all day. She’d gotten a fifth of the work done that anyone else had, and she’d actually
tried.
She’d wanted the workers to start being nice to her again, like they had at the beginning of spring break. But at this rate, that seemed impossible.

The air was so sultry that she was covered with sweat. She’d never felt so hot and miserable. Leeda rolled off her bed and pulled on her turquoise silk robe. It was almost ten. Not too late to call home and ask them to come get her. Leeda got up, feeling the ache in her muscles, and decided it was the only way.

By the time she made it down to the front stairs, she could already feel the softness of her huge pillow-top bed and the little plastic straps of the pool lounger pressing gently into her suntanned skin while she sipped a sloe gin fizz brought up by the help. She tiptoed past the couch, where Birdie appeared to be already sleeping. The dogs perked their ears at her as she creaked out the door.

She forgot to think about critters lurking in the grass as she rushed across the lawn toward the supply barn. It didn’t even occur to her someone else would be on the phone until she saw Murphy hunched over the box in the dim glow striping the grass from the light on the Darlingtons’ porch. Leeda came to a stop and waited for Murphy to turn around, but apparently she hadn’t heard her.

“It’s
our
house, Mom. I live there too.” Murphy had the phone tucked between her ear and her shoulder, and with her free hands she was scratching at the soft skin on the insides of her forearms with nervous energy. Her voice crackled and cracked, like someone on the verge of crying from sheer frustration—contradicting her body language, which was strung out and defeated.

“I don’t want him using my stuff,” she said coldly.

Silence. And then, “Fine. Whatever.”

Murphy slammed down the receiver and, to Leeda’s shock, plopped down on the grass and began ripping up handfuls of grass, throwing them over her left shoulder.

Leeda felt like a voyeur, like she was seeing Murphy naked. She tried to take a silent step backward.

Murphy jolted and looked in her direction, swiping quickly at her eyes. She took so long to gather herself that Leeda thought she should say something.

“Are you okay?”

“How long have you been standing there?” Murphy finally growled.

“Um, just a second?”

“Ha, right.” Murphy snatched up another handful of grass, gripping it this time instead of throwing it. “Don’t you have a life?”

Leeda scowled and crossed her arms. “Don’t flatter yourself. This phone’s for everybody.”

Murphy rolled her eyes. And then she began sifting the grass between her fingers, almost seeming to forget to be mad.

Leeda softened again. “What’s wrong?”

Murphy ignored her. She reached into her pocket as if looking for something, then pulled out her empty hand and sighed. She looked up at Leeda. “Jodee’s having a guy move in.”

“Oh.” Leeda didn’t know what to say. Jodee McGowen had always sounded like an exotic creature to her—someone definitely not of the same species as the Cawley-Smiths. It was hard to think of any sort of comforting words about somebody like that.

But Murphy didn’t seem to be hoping for any. “I can’t believe it. Every time I think things can’t get worse, they do.” Murphy shook her head.

Leeda searched for something to offer. “How long have they been dating?”

Murphy laughed under her breath. “Like, two seconds.”

Leeda didn’t know what to say. She wanted Murphy to know she wasn’t too sheltered to get it. “God, I know, my sister and her fiancé only dated for six months. And now they’re getting married. It’s
so
weird.”

Murphy stared at her incredulously. “I’m talking about my
mom.
”

Leeda stiffened. She was only trying to help. “Well, maybe you should try to be happy for her,” she shot back.

Murphy laughed. The laugh sounded like rocks in a rock tumbler. “It’ll crash and burn like everything else. My mother is so predictable.”

“You don’t know. Maybe it’ll work out.”

“You don’t know my mom.”

Leeda felt like she did, a little, from everything that she’d heard. She certainly knew Jodee better than Murphy knew Lucretia Cawley-Smith, but what could she say?

“It sucks, Murphy. I’m sorry.” She waited for Murphy to come back with something rude, but instead she just slumped over. Again, Leeda got the voyeur feeling. She never would have imagined that Murphy could look so defeated or that she would want anyone to see her that way. It was like seeing a hermit crab without a shell. Rex had shown Leeda one once at the pet store, which he’d dragged her into, and it had looked all wrong.

“God, I hate this. I hate her. Life is not enough for her unless
there’s some jerk around to treat her like crap. And she rolls over for them. A guy comes in, and suddenly it’s his house, and…” She looked up like suddenly she realized she was talking out loud, and her eyelids drooped. And then she leaned to the left, peering beyond Leeda’s calves. Leeda turned to look.

A shadow was crossing the grass toward them.

Birdie stopped several feet away, her dogs at her feet, her hair down from its usual ponytail and all ratted up around her face. Leeda’s first instinct was to check her watch, knowing they were out past curfew. She started to pluck up an excuse.

“I’ve been looking for you guys.” Birdie swiped the ratty hair back, but some of it stuck to her temples wetly. She looked very serious and nervous, and her chest rose and fell unevenly. Which made what came out of her mouth next sound out of place, and funny, and formal. “I was wondering if maybe you’d take me to sneak out.”

Leeda looked down at Murphy, who stood up and brushed herself off, eyeing Birdie suspiciously but also with a slight smile creeping onto her lips.

“I know you think I’m a spy,” Birdie said. “But it’s not my fault.” Her big brown eyes scanned their faces. “If I don’t do something…I don’t know….”

Leeda didn’t know why, but she felt the decision was Murphy’s, as if some kind of unspoken agreement had already been struck between them, and they were two against Birdie’s one, and Murphy was the boss of the two.

“I’m going to explode,” Birdie blurted, making them both look at her again. She blushed. “Seriously,” she added. “I thought you guys might…help….”

It took a few seconds, but Murphy’s face took on an amused, eureka expression. Like of course Birdie was here to sneak out. And of course she, Murphy, got that. Murphy transformed in front of Leeda like a hermit crab getting its shell back. She was suddenly the girl from that night they’d gone swimming, tough but irresistible. “I told you,” she said, pointing to Birdie but looking at Leeda, “this girl is a powder keg.”

“I know where we can get some booze,” Birdie offered. And then her eyes widened in surprise, as if a lightning bolt might strike her. But it didn’t. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

“You guys, I’ve gotta take them. They’ll start barking if I try to lock them up.”

“Oh God,” Murphy said. “Let’s go.”

They had already made it halfway across the orchard when Murphy realized Honey Babe and Majestic were still trailing them. The dogs had stopped when she’d turned, while they were still several feet behind, and now they both tilted their heads at the same exact angle, looking at her woefully as if they sensed her hatred.

“They look like cartoons.”

Birdie smiled sappily. “I know, aren’t they cute?”

“Damn yippers,” Murphy said. She glanced at Leeda, embarrassed about her little breakdown by the phone. But Leeda seemed to have forgotten it, and already she felt she was recovering impressively. With her mom, mental distance was best. Sometimes her guard went down, but it never took long to resurrect it.

It helped to have a distraction.

“We have bichons,” Leeda whispered, “because they’re
non-allergenic. Danay’s allergic. I don’t like dogs because they lick.”

Murphy and Birdie both looked at Leeda quizzically.

The orchard smelled thick, even thicker than it had in the day, maybe because what little breeze there had been had died. Murphy felt like she could get a toothache from breathing the air, it was so sweet. Leeda, who’d insisted on going back to the dorms for a flashlight this time, shone her Maglite on the trees and the ground, searching for danger. It looked to Murphy like a disco.

“Can you stop with that thing? You’re gonna get us caught.”

“Hey, look!” Leeda hissed.

The beam had paused on one of the trees, lighting a section of it in a big white circle. A tiny brown bird sat on the branch, but it wasn’t moving. They all stepped closer.

“Is it dead?” Murphy asked.

Birdie laughed. “It’s sleeping.”

“Sleeping?”

They all crept right up to the tree, Birdie leading the way. The bird was perched on one foot with the other tucked into its belly, its eyes closed.

“Shouldn’t the flashlight wake him up?” Murphy looked at Birdie. She felt like she had to be careful—like a thin thread was holding Birdie with them and she didn’t want to break it.

Birdie shook her head. “They sleep through noise and light but not motion. So if a snake or something comes after them, they wake up.”

“Wow.” Murphy’s hand shot out and shook the branch slightly. With a squawk the bird shot off the branch and flapped away. Birdie and Leeda looked at Murphy, who looked between both of them for a moment and shrugged. “Sorry.”

Murphy skipped ahead of them toward the lake, peeling off her tank top and then stopping to take off her shorts. She felt like she hadn’t seen the lake in a hundred years. She hadn’t realized that it had become epic in her mind.

“Ah, it’s great.” Leeda quickly stripped down too, to her silky hip-slung boy shorts and demi-bra, and walked up to the edge to dip a toe in. Birdie hovered self-consciously behind her.

“Watch this,” Murphy said, climbing the tree from before.

“Oh, Murphy, please…”

Murphy ignored Leeda. There was nothing she could do to hold her energy back. The feeling of the lake she’d gotten the first time she’d come seemed to have intensified exponentially in the heat of summer, and Murphy couldn’t contain herself. And maybe it was partly that all the energy of being angry had to be transferred somewhere.

She cannonballed.

Birdie walked up beside Leeda, making sure not to compare herself to either her willowy cousin
or
curvy Murphy, who had surfaced onto her back, breathing hard.

“Thank God. This feels incredible.” Murphy sighed.

“Did your feet touch the bottom?” Leeda asked. “Is it slimy?”

“Was it slimy last time?” Murphy asked. Leeda frowned at her.

Underneath her clothes Birdie wore a tankini she’d changed into at the dorms. She pulled off her shirt, then shimmied out of her knee-length dungarees, glancing at Leeda and Murphy shyly.

She felt dazed and hopeful and happy. Birdie couldn’t believe that she had just foisted herself on her cousin and Murphy, and that it had been so easy, such a nonevent. She had
sought them out once she’d seen Leeda sneak out of the dorms, with her pulse pounding. And now she couldn’t understand why it had seemed so risky.

She looked around to make sure Honey Babe and Majestic were settled and accounted for (Honey Babe was itching his back on the grass, Majestic was biting at invisible bugs), and then she jumped in.

When she popped up again, spitting water, Murphy was doing laps, and Leeda was sitting on the edge of the lake, letting her legs loll so that the water was up to the bottoms of her knees. Honey and Majestic had both come to the edge of the lake and were sniffing at the water.

Honey put a paw to the water gingerly, then pulled it out and shook it.

Murphy paddled up and rested her elbows on the grass beside Leeda’s thighs.

“Come on, Leeda.”

“Mm, I don’t think so…. If Rex were here…”

“Are you guys together?” Birdie asked, feeling left out. She knew Rex was the guy her dad had hired part-time for odd jobs. She knew he was very meticulous and very easy on the eyes and that was about it.