Love and Peaches (16 page)

F
rom where Murphy, Leeda, and Birdie sat in the tree house, the bonfire looked like a small burning sun, casting orange light and shadows onto the white siding of the dorms. To Murphy, it appeared as though the workers were having some kind of pagan ritual.

All around the orchard that week, people had been saying their good-byes. Picking had slowed to a crawl. The workers pulled peaches from the trees as if it were an afterthought, distractedly daydreaming, talking to each other in low voices that still carried through the rows as tiny murmurs.

Murphy hadn't exactly realized she had favorite trees, but she did, and she imagined the others did too because she sometimes saw them running their hands along certain trunks or holding branches in their fingers gently, like hands.

The girls had hung back from the bonfire, as if going would make tomorrow—when the bus came to gather everyone up for Mexico—come faster. From here the crickets were extra loud, talking from all their little homes in the tree's branches. Leeda was stretched out next to Birdie's mattress with her arm dangling
off the side of the platform, as if she were in a boat and letting her fingers loll in the water.

A few tiny lights began to blink below.

“Hey, Bird,” Leeda murmured. “Aren't those the synchronous fireflies?”

Birdie nodded.

“Don't you think they're magic or something?” Murphy asked.

“I don't know,” Birdie said. She fondled the foamy top of one of her crutches, which she had stopped using when she'd gotten back from Mexico.

“I'm hungry,” Murphy finally said. “C'mon.”

She jumped up then turned to pull Birdie up by both hands. Leeda disappeared down the ladder ahead of them.

The group around the fire welcomed them with smiles. Poopie forced a giant plate of food into Murphy's hands: rice wrapped in corn husks, peach chutney, mashed black beans in a spicy brown sauce. She sat on a log next to one of the guys and dug in.

It was obviously a party that would last long into the night. Stories were exchanged, some in English so Leeda and Murphy could understand better, although by now their Spanish was passable. Everyone had a story about the Darlingtons or the orchard, some that even made Walter laugh from where he sat, tucked between Poopie and Luis.

About an hour after they'd sat down, Murphy went to the house to use the bathroom, because it was easier than making her way through the crowd to the door of the dorm. When she came out, she got to the edge of the driveway before she stopped.
She took in the scene before her, everybody laughing and occasionally wiping away their tears.

She suddenly decided she didn't want to sleep near the others tonight. She wanted to remember everyone like this, when she could still picture them sitting at the fire enjoying each other. She pulled her bike off its kickstand.

 

Orchard Road smelled like honeysuckle and was full of frogs warming themselves on the concrete that still held the sun's heat. Murphy swerved to miss them as she rode home and pulled into her driveway.

She immediately hit the brakes with her heels, staring at Rex's truck, which was parked in front of her trailer.

There were people on her front stoop, and she took them all in at once: her mom, Rex, and Judge Abbott, in the process of parting. Murphy could only blink at the scene, trying to make sense of it. They were talking in tense tones.

“…won't help anything. She doesn't need…”

Murphy couldn't make out more. She climbed off her bike and stepped forward, her insides swirling.

The three on the stoop turned in surprise. Her mom's look of anger turned to one of guilt. Rex's brow furrowed, and he met her eyes directly.

“Hi, Murphy,” Judge Abbott said first. There was a strange tone in his voice. “We were just talking about you.”

Murphy didn't say anything. She knew it was coming whether she asked or not now. Judge Abbott came down the stairs. Murphy had the strangest feeling. She didn't want to know
anymore. She knew that whatever he was going to say was going to hurt.

“Your mother doesn't think it's good for you and that you don't need to hear this. But it's really important to me—”

Rex was suddenly down the stairs. “Leave it alone, please,” he said, standing in front of Murphy. Judge Abbott looked at him, confused, and then he went on.

“I ordered a paternity test about three months ago. I knew you'd be coming home from school—”

Rex's fist shot out of nowhere. He got in one good punch before Jodee yelped and ran forward to grab his arm. Murphy couldn't believe her eyes. It was like a cartoon. Rex Taggart fighting Judge Abbott in the parking lot of Anthill Acres. Jodee's touch seemed to bring Rex back to his senses, and the two men pulled away from each other, panting.

“Murphy,” Judge Abbott said between labored breaths, “I'm your dad.”

Murphy didn't know why, but the only thought that went through her head was of Darth Vader in
Star Wars.
She tried to imagine Judge Abbott saying, “I am your father,” all breathily. She thought he must be joking.

But this was no joke. She could tell, because Judge Abbott was no joker. And because everyone was looking at her as if they were waiting on her next move.

Murphy took a deep, frantic breath. She felt what she imagined a person would feel if they'd just walked in on someone cheating on them. Utterly shocked. Utterly betrayed.

Her eyes wandered to Rex.

“You knew?” she asked.

Rex, still breathing heavily, looked too distraught to speak.

Murphy didn't look at Judge Abbott. She didn't care to look at him. She looked at her mother and at Rex, back and forth between them, seeing something in both of them she'd never imagined.

And then she got on her bike and took off.

L
eeda hung up the phone in the kitchen and stared at it, relieved. In a few short days of nonstop work, she had finally managed to do what she hadn't been able to do all summer. She had found a place for the ponies.

It was going to take a while to sink in. It was a place in Tennessee. She'd have to make three trips with the trailer. But it was a done deal. It felt like the day she'd finished her last exams at school in the spring. Like she couldn't believe all that stuff she'd pored over was suddenly off her hands.

The other animals were a different story. Leeda felt buried. She hadn't found a place for them and didn't know how she would. She had talked to the people at the ASPCA, but they couldn't vouch for the future of the animals or whether they would be put to sleep or not. So she was holding on to them, hoping for some lightbulb to go off in her head.

The animals were all wide awake and talking to each other. Leeda had almost gotten used to the constant barking and meowing and antics of the most rambunctious ones. Minxy the cat—like most of the animals, named by Birdie—liked to do little rolls
on the carpet, showing her belly to get Leeda's attention whenever she passed her pen. Tufty howled as if his life was ending, until Leeda stopped and pet him for a few minutes, resuming the moment she walked away.

Leeda ducked upstairs amid the clatter and into her grandmom's room. She was half packed, busy clearing out all the things that had migrated over the summer from the orchard and from her parents' house to the cottage. She hovered in front of her grandmom's open closet, trying to pick out what was hers among the stuffed clothes bulging from the hangers. Her eyes wandered up to the box of letters on the shelf. She still hadn't decided what to do with it.

A commotion downstairs distracted her. She hurried down to the living room. One of the cats had snuck out of the cat room and was hissing, his back arched, at the dogs, who were going crazy in their pens trying to get at her.

Leeda groaned and put her back in the cat enclosure that she'd made out of Eugenie's dining room. “Bad cat,” she said, looking at Minxy sternly. “How are you getting out?” Then she got to work.

First there were the indoor animals. Leeda took all five dogs out on their leashes, letting herself be dragged along as they sniffed at this rock, trotted to that tree, and wrestled with one another exuberantly. She smiled, watching them. They were like clowns. Constantly ridiculous. Once she managed to drag them back inside and foist each dog into its pen, she filled all the food and water bowls. She cleaned the parrot cage and managed not to feel like gagging. She rubbed the parrot on the back of his head, which she'd discovered was his favorite spot. She thought about
Birdie catching impetigo from her chicken. She could see now how one might not be totally disgusted to kiss a bird. The parrot looked at her with such human curiosity. Birdie had named him Chiquito and had nuzzled her nose to his. Now Leeda tried it, half afraid she'd lose her nose. But Chiquito nestled into her and made a low sound of contentment in the back of his throat.

 

Outside, the weather had shifted. The edge was off the heat. Leeda could feel it on her way to the corral.

The ponies looked mopey today, their ears down with no signs of friskiness. It was as though ennui had caught them all like a cold. They needed feeding, watering, brushing, cleaning. Leeda lugged bucket after bucket from the spigot to the water troughs, the muscles behind her shoulder blades pulling and stretching. She shoveled the manure out of each stable, occasionally swiping at her brow. Still, the ponies only stared pensively at her from their knot by the fence.

Sneezy especially seemed melancholy and needy. She broke away from the others and shadowed Leeda's every move—through the dusty stables and out to where the farthest trough sat under the shade of the trees. Leeda absently stroked her muzzle from time to time during her work. She fell into the rhythm of the shoveling, the carrying, and the pouring. It was almost meditative, like picking peaches. She felt her hands on the metal of the buckets and the wood of the stable doors. She felt Sneezy's breath as she petted her and breathed in her smell. Time boiled down to her immediate surroundings, and she forgot about Grey, Eric, New York, the future, and the upcoming day when she'd take the ponies to Tennessee.

She stopped only at midday, when the sun was at its highest, for some shade and a sandwich. Then she tackled moving one of the feed troughs out from where it had been catching rain. She tried to drag it. No luck. She tried to push it from the back. Still nothing. She fell back in the muck, exhausted. Sneezy eyed her, looking half amused.

She stood up again, tried again. Frustration pulsed through her body. Finally she fell forward with a grunt. And then she lost control. She started kicking the trough and jumping up and down. When she ran out of breath, she sank down cross-legged on the hay. Sneezy walked over and stood next to her, sniffing her cheek.

“I didn't tell him to leave,” she said ruefully, with a sense of how comically sad the whole thing was. She was on her own, and inept, and her entire body was covered in mud. How had she gone from a year at Columbia University to this?

Sneezy snuffled. Leeda smiled and pressed her nose against the pony's. And then, from the direction of the house, she heard a bloodcurdling scream.

She was at the porch in an instant, taking the stairs two at once and rushing through the open front door, then skidding to a stop before she slammed into her visitor.

Lucretia was planted in the middle of the living room, gaping and grasping for words. All she could do, it seemed, was point. Point at the Oriental rug covered in feathers and fur and mud and bird poo. Point at the metal crates full of barking, meowing, whining animals. Point at Minxy, who had managed to get out again, lounging across the back of the piano like a songstress from the forties.

Feathers flew through the air. There was a mysterious trail of
small muddy prints that could have belonged to any of the animals.

“Mom, I can explain.”

“Ruined!” Lucretia said. “You've ruined your grandmother's house.”

She turned to Leeda, and Leeda was shocked to see tears in her eyes. “My mother's house! Oh, Leeda, how could you? How could you show so little respect?”

Leeda swallowed. Never, in the whole time she'd been taking in the animals, had she even considered she was doing something that would hurt her mother. But now, looking around, she could see why she was so upset.

Thelma Lou let out a yip.

“Mom, I'm so sorry. I didn't think.”

Lucretia shook her head in awe, devastated.

“What is this? Why?” she asked.

“I was just trying to help,” Leeda said.

“Help who?”

“The animals.”

Lucretia nodded, clearly collecting herself and becoming reasonable. “Leeda, this is out of control.”

“I know.”

“They need to go—immediately.”

“I know.”

“Within the week.”

“It's taken care of, Mom.”

“And then you need to fix this.”

Leeda nodded. But Lucretia was raising a finger, pointing to a place on the shelf across the room.

“Where's your grandmother's egg?” she asked.

Leeda looked at her. She bit her bottom lip, and tiny tears welled up in her eyes. “It's broken, Mom. I'm sorry. I broke it.”

Lucretia stared at her for another minute, and then walked to the door, shaking her head.

“I don't want to see this place again until it's perfect.” She looked incredibly disappointed.

“Okay.”

Leeda watched her mom leave, then closed the door behind her. She sank against the wood.

After a few minutes, her eyes drifted to the stairs. She suddenly stood up and walked to her grandmom's room.

She looked up again at the letters on the shelf. She thought about the messy, chaotic feelings they held. She had the wild urge to protect her grandmother, especially the parts of her that hadn't been perfect or pristine. She pulled the box down and poured its contents into the mesh pocket on the inside of her suitcase.

She would be the keeper of Eugenie's secrets.