Peaches (22 page)

A
t dusk Birdie took a long walk through the orchard, walking up and down the rows, looking at each peach tree, occasionally running her fingers through the leaves, occasionally rubbing her fingers on the soft fuzz of the peaches. It was truly amazing. Not one of the trees had been hit. Not one. Birdie’s wonder grew the longer she walked.

Occasionally her mind turned to Enrico, and even though she was alone, a huge blush unfurled across her face, and then an ache of loss throbbed in her chest.

After covering every row, Birdie went down to the lake and threw rocks in the water, thinking about all the times she’d gone swimming there, and smiling when she thought about being there with Leeda and Murphy.

Birdie had never felt so empty and so full. She guessed it was because there was so much she would be leaving behind and because she knew that she had so much to leave in the first place. It seemed like her world had grown hugely. And there was more to love and more to miss.

As it got a bit darker, her legs carried her back along the
pecan grove and along the property line. There, Birdie came to a halt and stared. On the other side, the Balmeade Country Club had been leveled. The water was in the sand pits and the sand filled up the water holes. Just over the rise she could see that a roof or two had been ripped off the condos. And strewn across the grass were tables, chairs, even doors—all mutilated—and a toilet bowl. It was amazing nobody had been hurt.

There wasn’t a sign of life except a duck waddling across the grass, quacking away happily.

Seconds later Birdie found herself standing outside the entrance to Camp B. She pushed through the creaky screen door. She made her way down the hall to Enrico’s room.

His room looked extremely empty and barren now that the rest of the house was empty too. Birdie sat on the bed gingerly and then sank onto her back. Her heart ached, but it felt good to be there, remembering her time there and how happy it was.

She closed her eyes, pulled her hands up beside her face, and drifted off to sleep.

When she woke, Birdie noticed two things immediately. It was dark. And there was someone else in the room. Birdie sat up in bed and stared down at the figure lying on the floor.

“Enrico?” She knelt beside him and put her hand gently on the back of his shoulder, shaking him gently. He stirred and rolled onto his back.

“What are you doing here?” Birdie whispered, as if there was anyone else around.

Enrico let out a sleepy sigh and sat up. “She is just a girl. Not my girlfriend.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, Birdie. I am not good at…I was not sure. I thought, but then…” He paused and smiled shyly. “You are always running away.”

Birdie watched his face as he thought through how to say what he wanted to say. Finally his expression settled on a worried but tender look.

“I told her I will not see her again. Am I late?”

Birdie stared at him, unsure, trying to fit the pieces together. But before she could, Enrico put his hands on either side of her face and pressed his warm lips against hers. She responded immediately, kissing him back.

“I am not late?” he asked, grinning, looking at her lips, stroking her cheek. Birdie breathed in the amazing smell of him and feel of him and smiled back.

“You’re not late.”

She leaned forward and kissed him again.

The next morning, for the last free weekend of the summer, Leeda was going to Tybee Beach with Rex. Tonight she was relaxing on the white leather lounger in the Cawley-Smiths’ home theater, running her hands over her soft skin. She’d gone to the hotel spa that afternoon, where they’d scrubbed her and rubbed her and slathered her with all sorts of lotions and muds, getting her back to the old Leeda. The softness of her skin felt foreign to her.

Alicia was sprawled out in the next lounger over.

“What do you wanna watch?” Leeda asked, nodding to the big screen.

“I don’t know. What about you?” Alicia had come to get body
wrapped with her and see her off for her trip. Only Leeda wished she hadn’t invited her. It just made her feel more alone.

“Why don’t you pick something?” she said, standing up irritably and ducking into the minibar for a club soda. The door to the theater cracked open, and Mrs. Cawley-Smith stood in the doorway. “It’s Danay, for you.”

“Really?” Leeda hadn’t expected to hear from her sister for at least another week, which was how long she and Brighton would be in the West Indies. She took the cordless from her mom and walked into the living room, sinking down on the couch.

“Hey.”

“Lee,” Danay said through static. “What’s going on?” She sounded exuberantly happy, giddy.

“Nothing. Just getting ready to leave for Tybee in the morning.”

“With Rex?”

“Yeah.” She braced herself for a lecture.

“Oh, well, I just wanted to thank you. For your speech. I didn’t get a chance to the other night.”

Leeda plucked at the beads on her sundress. She was still a little sheepish about her speech. “You’re welcome.”

“It’s funny, you said it was easy to be jealous of a sister like me. I’ve always felt the same about you.”

Leeda let out a half laugh. “Jealous of what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You’re just different than me and Mom. I feel like a clone sometimes.”

Static cut in again and then out. Leeda didn’t respond. She didn’t know what to say.

“I talked to Rex at the wedding,” Danay said, seeming awkward. “He’s actually not such a bad guy.”

Leeda breathed into the receiver. “I know.”

“Lee, I have to go. Have fun at Tybee, all right?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Byeee.” Danay’s voice was punctuated with a laugh as she hung up the phone. Leeda held it for a minute, then hung up too.

The next morning, Leeda was sitting on the stairs of the verandah when Rex pulled up. They were going to the beach, but he looked like he was on his way to a funeral. As soon as he saw her face, he lowered his head and walked up to sit beside her.

They sat like that for a long time, Rex finally reaching out and taking her hand.

“Don’t say it,” she said, pulling her hand away gently and clasping her fingers in front of her. “You don’t have to break up with me.”

“Leeda, we can’t…”

“I’m not going with you to Tybee. I don’t think it’s working out, Rex. I don’t think I can be with you anymore.”

Rex looked at her, then down at the stairs beneath their feet.

“I don’t think you were ever really in love with me. Do you?” Leeda asked.

He let out a long sigh. “I do love you, Leeda.”

“I know, but that’s different than being in love, isn’t it?” She looked up at him. His eyes were wide and sad. “It’s a lot different, right?” she pushed.

He nodded very slightly.

“Rex, I’m not in love with you either. And the thing is, I don’t think I need you anymore, the way I did. I think I can take my family. Or myself. Or whatever it is I need to take.”

Rex looked a little hurt. But she didn’t really have much sympathy for him right now.

“The fact is, you’re the guy who broke up me and Murphy. And I think that makes me angrier than anything.”

Rex clasped his hands in front of his mouth and ran his thumbs along his closed lips thoughtfully.

Leeda kept her eyes steadily on his profile. “I know I’m not perfect. But I deserve better.” Rex didn’t answer. Looking at him now, she marveled at the idea that she had turned to him so long for some kind of strength, and she was so much stronger than him.

“Look,” she said, her voice cracking. “I love her too. But you should have told me. You owed me that.”

“I know. I wanted to. I thought maybe it wasn’t the right time. And then what happened at the orchard…”

Leeda held a hand in the air in a stop motion. “I’m not that evolved. Please don’t tell me.”

“Sure. Sorry.”

She shook her head, her curls wafting around her ears, using her own breath to calm herself down. “You’ve acted like such a dumbass.”

“Yeah,” Rex said.

“Say it.”

Rex looked at her. “Say what?”

“Say, ‘Leeda, I’m a dumbass.’”

Rex raised his eyebrows at her. She couldn’t keep a tiny
smile from playing at the corners of her mouth. She shoved her knee into his, forgetting that she might bruise.

“Go on, say it.”

Rex rolled his eyes, pulled his hands from his mouth, and spoke flatly. “Leeda, I’m a dumbass.”

“And you are a goddess.”

He smiled slightly. “And you are a goddess.”

“And from now on I’m going to do anything you say.”

Rex looked at her like he’d had enough. But she continued. “And I’m going to make it up to you.”

Rex shifted uncomfortably, then managed to blurt, “Ditto.” It was good enough.

Leeda nodded once decisively. It gave her a sadistic pleasure to see Rex looking so uncomfortable and so desperate. She knew that it wouldn’t last—his discomfort and her pleasure in it. She cared about the guy, after all. But she milked it anyway.

“Now,” she said, her chest pinching a little at the thought of what she was about to do but pinching in a satisfying way, like she was overcoming a small part of herself and leaving it in the dust. “Are you ready to make it up to me?”

B
irdie couldn’t believe that it was light out. She curled instinctively against Enrico, pulling his arm tighter around her. It tightened gently and she felt his warm breath on her neck. “What is it?”

“My dad,” she said, sitting up. “He’s going to kill me.”

They both got up, readjusting their clothes, patting down their hair, staring at each other. Quickly Enrico walked Birdie to the front door, then out onto the porch. She pivoted and kissed him quickly, breathlessly. “Will you be here later?”

Enrico beamed. “Of course, Birdie.”

“Kiss me,” Birdie said boldly, and he kissed her one more time. Then she hurried up to the house. Walter was sitting on the porch.

“Where were you, Birdie?” His voice was deadly angry.

“Um, I fell asleep in the dorms, Dad. I’m sorry.”

“Fell asleep?”

Birdie nodded, her heart racing. “Go on inside and get cleaned up,” Walter said. “We’ve had good news. Balmeade is going to buy.”

“No.”

Walter snapped his head to look at her. “Birdie, this is a good thing. Now go on and get cleaned up. I want you to be polite to him. He’s on his way over with his lawyer. The man has lost a lot this week, so he’s not in a great mood.”

“But if he’s lost so much, why is he buying? I don’t…”

“Birdie, this is for adults to figure out.”

Birdie planted her feet where she stood. “I am an adult.”

Walter shook his head. “You don’t know what that means.” He stood up to walk off the porch. Birdie blocked his way.

“I know it means carrying the load with Mom gone. I know it means all the work I did all summer, doing your office work, directing the harvest, making sure the tractors were running. I know it means picking up the slack and all the things you weren’t doing.”

Walter shook his head at her. “Birdie, shut your mouth….”

“Does it mean giving up? Because that’s what you did, you know.” Her voice broke all along the syllables of the words.

Walter’s hands shot out and grasped her shoulders. “Go up to your room. I don’t want to see you….”

“You don’t
see
me anyway. You know, I spent the night with a
guy,
Dad. Is that adult enough for you?”

Walter let go of her shoulders and sank back on his chair, stunned. Birdie knelt beside him and put her hand on his. “And I want to be with him. And I want to stay here. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to do just what you and Mom want.”

When her dad looked at her, it broke Birdie’s heart. He was crestfallen.

“I exist, Dad. It’s my life too.”

Murphy hated to be interrupted when
Days of Our Lives
was on. With the remote still in her hand, she slunk to the door and peered outside. Rex stared back at her.

Murphy turned the lock and walked back to the couch.

Knock knock knock.

“Murphy, let me in.”

Murphy held the remote slackly and raised the volume. Bo was just about to say that the case Hope was on was too dangerous. And Hope was going to assert that he would never let personal feelings get involved with being a good cop. Murphy had the whole formula down.

“Murph, come on.”

“It’s Murph-y,” she muttered, upping the volume another few bars. But not loud enough to drown out Rex’s voice when it said Leeda had sent him.

Murphy walked up to the door and peered out at him again.

“I have something from her for you….” Rex was holding a brown paper bag and what looked like a little manila envelope.

“You can slide it through the cat door.”

The McGowens hadn’t had a cat for many years, but their trailer had always had a cat door. Rex frowned at her, then stooped and disappeared. A second later the package came creaking in.

Murphy sank down beside it on the ground and picked it up. It was a large, square envelope and it was blank on the outside. She ran her index finger into the seal and ripped it open, then turned it over. Out fell a folded piece of paper and a CD.

Murphy examined the CD. In neat purple marker it read THE BLUH MIX. She unfolded the letter.

Murphy kept reading.

I. Show-off

A. show off boobs

B. show off things you can do

C. can’t let anybody else get attention

II. Selfish

A. about who gets the most attention

B. about Rex

III. Evil

A. no need to elaborate here

Murphy sucked in her breath, unsure whether to be offended or not.

Murphy took a long deep breath.

Leeda hadn’t signed her name. She’d just drawn a little swan at the bottom of the page.

“Murph?”

“I want the bag she sent me too.”

“It won’t fit through the hole.”

Murphy stood up and rubbed away the tears gathering in her eyes so Rex wouldn’t see and unlocked the door. He pushed it open and held out the bag. “It’s from me anyway.”

Murphy took it and looked inside. It was filled with nectarines. Messed up as it was, she was suddenly pissed off at Rex on Leeda’s behalf. He looked so vulnerable, though, and so in love with her that the anger evaporated and didn’t come back.

“You should have brought peaches. These are only my second favorite.”

Rex smiled unsurely. “If I brought you your favorite now, what would you have to look forward to?”

She glowered at him.

“I can’t help it, Murphy. You’re the coolest girl I’ve ever met.”

Murphy knew that people only recognized parts of each other. But also, she
was
very cool.

Murphy couldn’t help smiling. Rex leaned toward her, and she pressed her nose into the softness of his cheek, tilting her
head forward so that their faces fit like a puzzle, and her eyelashes fluttered against his skin.

“I gotta go,” she whispered, keeping her face there.

“Please don’t.”

“I’ll be back,” Murphy said, pulling away. She grabbed her purse and her keys while Rex stood in the doorway, wounded.

She rested a hand gently on his shoulder. “You’re gonna be my boyfriend, right?”

He smiled, his body relaxing. “Yeah. That’s what I was thinking.”

“Great. I’ve never had one.” Murphy pressed her lips against his, softly. And then she turned and walked toward her bike. Yellowbaby had died for good.

Even in cases where she was extremely nervous, Murphy liked the element of surprise. She didn’t call Leeda to let her know she was coming. She just showed up at Breezy Buds Plantation, only to be told that Leeda had gone out and that they didn’t know where.

Murphy hopped back on her bike. It was over ten miles to the orchard, and there was no guarantee she was there. But Murphy was impatient. She couldn’t go home and wait. So she pedaled. Thankfully, the air had started to get cooler.

The orchard already felt different when she pulled onto the drive. Like a person, even a little bit of time had changed it a little. It was the first day of September, and on cue the leaves had started to turn slightly brown; the peaches had all disappeared. It felt like the orchard was curling up on itself to wait for the winter, hoping to keep warm.

Murphy was sweaty and exhausted when she pulled up in
front of the house in a cloud of driveway dust that had been churned up before her arrival. She parked her bike at the foot of the porch and hopped up, rapping on the door. Poopie answered.

“They’ve gone walking, Murphy,” she said, grinning. “Maybe there are still some berries left for pie.” Poopie was fondling her necklace and her grin was from ear to ear. “Why don’t you sit and wait?”

Murphy shook her head. “Why do you look like you ate the canary, Poopie?”

Poopie squinted at her. “Canary?”

“Why do you look so happy?”

Poopie laughed. “It’s a great day,” she answered, shaking her head. “You missed it. Balmeade come over and yelled and yelled about how people don’t keep their words. And something about squid that made no sense. But Walter kept saying he is keeping the orchard. First time that man ever surprised me in my life.” Poopie laughed, and her eyes danced.

“Are you serious?” Murphy grinned. In reply, Poopie hugged her and kissed her on the cheek.

Energy zinged from Murphy’s fingertips to her toenails. “Birdie knows?”

Poopie nodded. “She knows.”

“I’m gonna go look for them. Thanks.” Murphy skipped out onto the porch, and noticed on her way down the stairs that the statue of Saint Jude was gone.

As she walked down the rows of trees toward the lake, her heart thrummed. She couldn’t wait to see Birdie now. But she also had the urge to turn and run, like Birdie had run in Texas.

She heard them laughing before she saw them. They were
jumping around playing Frisbee with a guy. For a moment Murphy thought it was Rex, and her breath caught. But then she realized it was someone who looked like Enrico. All three turned toward her at once.

“Hey,” she said, walking slow now up to where they were standing, hurting slightly that they were all here without her. And breathing easier because she was here now. She squinted at Enrico, feeling self-conscious. “Enrico?”

“Murphy.” Birdie leaned forward and hugged her tightly. “He chased me from Texas. Isn’t that sweet? And did you hear about the orchard? Did you hear we’re staying?”

Murphy blinked a few times, then smiled. If she hadn’t been so nervous, she would have jumped up and down, but she shoved her hands into the pockets of her cutoffs. “I’m so happy for you, Birdie.” She looked at Enrico. “Welcome back.”

“Thanks.” Enrico nodded, looking around like he recognized he was in the middle of a weird moment he didn’t belong in. “But actually, I have to go.”

After they all exchanged good-byes, Birdie walked him up toward his car, her dogs trailing behind them as Leeda and Murphy stood watching them. They disappeared into the trees, and then Leeda and Murphy had nothing to look at anymore except each other.

“That’s great about Birdie, right?” Murphy said awkwardly.

“Yeah.” Leeda smiled, but nervously.

They nodded and Murphy shoved her hands deeper into her pockets.

“You wanna go for a swim?”

Leeda looked over her shoulder at the lake, considering. “Yeah.”

They both stripped slowly and awkwardly to their undies and waded in, Murphy too unsure to dive. They swam around each other carefully, Murphy watching to make sure she didn’t swim too close to Leeda or too far away. Without Birdie, it all felt lopsided, and when Birdie returned, looking slightly crushed, they were still swimming circles around each other.

Birdie looked from one to the other, her brown eyes dancing. “You guys are idiots,” she finally said, sounding very much like Murphy. Murphy and Leeda looked at each other. Leeda smiled.

Then she dove under and grabbed Murphy’s ankles, yanking her under. When they both spluttered their way up, Leeda was laughing. Murphy dunked her back under the water, Murphy opened her eyes, and a stripe of afternoon sunlight lit up the particles and the tiny water bugs that spun and ducked and dove around them. She heard the splash of Birdie leaping into the water. They were, finally, complete.