The Secrets of Peaches (2 page)

I
n the photo of Leeda Cawley-Smith's eighth birthday party that sat on the parlor banquette, Leeda was invisible. It wasn't easy to see—she
looked
visible. There she stood in her white Ralph Lauren Kids dress. Her white Ralph Lauren Kids boots. Her white-blond hair and her white barrettes. Against the green and blue of the summer background, ready to blow out her candles, she looked like Alice in Wonderland. But if you looked closer, you could see how invisible she was. It was the way her mom's back was turned at the crucial moment. Not that it was just that moment. It was a permanent state of being.

As a kid, Leeda had often wondered if she were at least part ghost. It was the way she was always trailing behind her mom like she was on some kind of invisible leash. Lucretia would drift from school function to social event to the beautifully appointed dinner table, and it always seemed Leeda could never quite catch her attention. The photo was like hard evidence. It showed a perfect kid. A kid surrounded by other kids who always wanted to get on her good side. A kid who was allergic to dust, to dirt, to second best. A kid whose invisibility was perfectly invisible.

Leeda stepped outside her family's house onto the emerald-green yard of Breezy Buds Plantation. Standing with her arms crossed, dressed in daffodil yellow, anyone looking on would have said Leeda Cawley-Smith was hard to miss. She had the kind of fine looks that weren't just admired but were held in a sort of awe. Her first couple years of high school, she was always looking in the mirror, checking if it was still there—the thing that made people want to be next to her without her having to lift a finger or flex a mental muscle. Now, her face glowing in the soft September sunlight, she looked more beautiful than ever. What had changed was that Leeda didn't care anymore.

Above her, a magnolia arched crookedly, its big waxy leaves rustling, rubbing against one another like paper. Some of the leaves had turned yellowish around the edges. It was one of those days—light and shady and breezy and cool—that made Leeda feel inexplicably, utterly free.

Two weeks ago, for a first-day-of-school present, Murphy had presented Leeda with a notebook titled (in black marker)
Notes for a Truly Leeda Leeda
. It was full of all sorts of stuff Murphy had compiled. Thoughts on life. Thoughts about Leeda. Bits of advice. Doodles of peaches. The book had said nothing about climbing trees. This was Leeda's idea.

Looking behind her to see that no one was watching, she began to climb. From a distance, she must have looked like a wet rag being thrown up into the limbs, hurling herself from branch to branch, her long legs dangling limply. A breeze blew the branches, which groaned and swayed, but she kept climbing. Finally she looked down. Her heart pounded. A breathless smile crept onto her lips.

“Ha,” she said to herself, or maybe to the tree. Leeda had been afraid of trees since she'd gotten stuck in one at that birthday party in the picture.

Leeda smiled at the scrapes on her knees. Carefully, slowly, she scooted herself next to the crotch of the limb and sat, holding on to either side of the branch for balance. She was just level with her bedroom. She swung her legs, giddy. A thrill shot through her stomach every time she looked down.

Leeda peered into her room, feeling like a voyeur. Big white bed, white desk, bare white walls. She momentarily wondered what it would look like to a stranger looking in. She leaned in closer, looking for clues. But there was very little to go on. She wondered if
that
was a clue.

That's when a face appeared in the window and Leeda went fumbling backward with a start, clutching the branch and scraping her arms. There was a click of the latch and a creak as the window slid upward, and Lucretia Cawley-Smith leaned her face out.

According to the “Lucretia Cawley-Smith Survival Guide,” on pages seven, eight, and nine of
Notes for a Truly Leeda Leeda
, one was supposed to avoid verbal communication with Leeda's mom as much as possible and sing
meow meow meow
silently to oneself when spoken to. One was also supposed to hint that Lucretia's mustache was growing back whenever she started to dissect one's appearance. And one was never, ever supposed to give Lucretia what she wanted. Because she was the kind of person who made a mile out of every inch you gave.

“Leeda! What on earth are you doing out there? Look at your clothes.” Leeda looked down at her pale yellow sweater, caked with cracked bark and dirt.

“Leeda, honey.” Grandmom Eugenie appeared beside Lucretia. “I can see your underwear.”

Leeda's grandmom wore a plum tweed suit, the puckers of the skirt matching the puckers around her mauve-painted mouth, making her a purple stripe in Leeda's white room. Her face was as dry and silky as a cornhusk.

Today Eugenie was hatless, her thin white hair clinging in well-coiffed waves to her head. On Sundays for church, she wore a hat twice the size of her head. At Steeplechase, once a year, her hat dwarfed any comparison or relation to the actual size of her head. At last year's race, she wove around with a souvenir stirrup cup like a trophy-wielding munchkin, drinking straight bourbon out of it.

Leeda had heard once that little dogs lived longer lives. Eugenie seemed to prove the rule because she was four foot four, ninety-four, and showing no signs of breaking. Leeda sometimes feared that Grandmom Eugenie would live on eternally and be passed on down the line to her like a set of china.

“I have news for you.” Lucretia smiled, sticking her head farther out Leeda's window. The sunlight caught her blond hair. Her blue eyes sparkled. She was beautiful. “The Magnolia Garden Guild has offered you the honor of being…” Long pause, bigger smile. “Pecan Queen.”

Leeda didn't say anything. She studied her nails and swung her legs, glancing down at the ground and holding tighter to the limb. Her grandmother and mother had been Bridgewater's Pecan Queens when they were in high school. And her sister, Danay—who was in Florida this year with her new husband, taking off school for an extended honeymoon and a job as
Snow White at Disney World—had been the Pecan Queen an unprecedented two years in a row. (Danay had made a natural progression from complete princess to official queen.) It was a sort of family legacy. Leeda guessed she'd just mentally blocked out that her turn was coming. “I'm really busy with school.”

Lucretia looked surprised for a moment, then gave Leeda her biggest Magnolia Garden Guild smile, the kind that made you feel like you were standing in southern sunshine. Lucretia could sell a raffle ticket to anyone. “It would mean a lot to me.”

Leeda considered this, but only for a minute. Being Pecan Queen meant putting Vaseline on your teeth and tape over your nipples for the whole year, appearing at the Elks Club ziti dinners, cutting ribbons with oversized scissors at all sorts of openings, smiling fakely and looking pretty all the time, and throwing the pecan goodies from the royal float at the Pecan Festival Parade on Thanksgiving. But most of all, it meant dancing with the she-devil that was her mom, who would hover over her 24/7, the way she had with Queen Danay. It was the opposite of what she wanted for herself this year, which was smiling for real, leaving her bra off from time to time, and spending as much time as possible with Birdie and Murphy.

“Aren't you flattered?” Eugenie squawked, wedging herself through the window opening next to Lucretia. She looked like one of those parrots that sit on a pirate's shoulder. That was what Murphy would have said. A tiny smile crossed Leeda's mouth.

“Yes, Grandmom.” Leeda knew she was supposed to love being a Bridgewater beauty. People kissed up to her all the time. It was kind of tiring.

“Oh, Leeda, your mother gave birth to you, and just look at
those narrow hips,” Grandmom Eugenie added.

Leeda wanted to laugh. It was ironic, actually. There was a time she could have tasted being queen because Danay had gotten so much attention from her mom that way, attention Leeda had always wanted. But now Leeda was wise enough to know the great secret—that no matter how hard you tried to be perfect, your mom could be missing love for you that was supposed to be there. Leeda could never do enough to make the love appear. And she was over it. There were other places to find love. She had found it at the peach orchard that summer with Birdie—who she'd known forever but had never
really
known—and with Murphy. She'd found it while working under the hot Georgia sun, not being perfect at all.

“Sit up straight, Leeda,” Grandmom Eugenie barked. Leeda straightened. It was a reflex. Despite her small stature, Grandmom Eugenie had always been huge and intimidating to Leeda.

“Leeda.” Her mom's voice turned solemn, and Leeda looked up. For an almost imperceptible moment, something real and genuine flashed across Lucretia's face. It made lines on either side of her mouth and snuffed out her smile altogether. “Leeda, I didn't want to tell you this now, but I think you should know.”

“What?” Leeda said, suddenly anxious.

Lucretia looked over at Grandmom Eugenie, then at Leeda again. “I went to the doctor the other day and…they found something.”

Leeda went stiff inside. Stiff and uncomfortable. She wanted to ask what. But she was scared to. The breeze wafted her hair up and away from her face. She stared down at her dangling legs.

“It's called hyperhidrosis. It's very rare.”

Leeda swallowed, feeling ill. In her family, you didn't ask questions about deep, unpleasant stuff. She wasn't even sure she was allowed to ask anything now. But she warbled, “What is it?”

Lucretia stuck her chin in the air and waved a hand dismissively. “Don't you worry about that, honey. Just…” She turned serious, ran her fingers along the windowsill thoughtfully. “I'd like…to see you do this for me.”

“I brought my tiara,” Grandmom Eugenie added, producing a tiny tinsel crown from out of nowhere. Leeda could see the tiny shake of her grandmother's hands as she clasped its thin edges.

Lucretia tugged on her small platinum hoop earrings to straighten them out. “Being Pecan Queen was one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life.”

Leeda knew this was true. The Cawley-Smiths still had an eight-by-ten glossy of Lucretia-as-queen in a silver frame, signed, on the table by the front door. Murphy said it was a perfect summary of Leeda's mother's personality that one of her most prized possessions was a picture autographed by herself.

“Please?” Lucretia asked.

Leeda examined the tree's bark, unsure what to say. The Murphy on her left shoulder told her to run like hell. The Birdie on her right shoulder welled up with sentimental tears. Finally she looked back up. She could see where her mom had missed a button on her shirt. For some reason, Leeda wanted to reach out and fix it.

“Okay,” Leeda said. “Yeah, of course.” Her heart fluttered.

“Good,” Lucretia said flatly. Then the window closed as abruptly as it had opened.

Leeda stared at the green leaves rustling in the breeze and then at the limb underneath her. “Damn,” she muttered. Then she slowly, carefully shimmied her way out of the tree.

It was harder going down.

B
irdie lay on her stomach in her white T-shirt bra, her bare belly against the soft fabric of her quilt, her toes working a loose thread at the foot end of the bed. Now and then she let out an angsty sigh. She held a crumpled piece of paper in her hands.

The thing about Enrico's letters was that she could feel them. He stuck things in them like leaves, scraps of notes from his classes with the frilly bits where the paper had been ripped out of a spiral notebook, little folded-up poems from the grade school kids he tutored. He also sent things like pencils, match-books from cafés, wrapped mints. Birdie turned them over in her hands as she read his words, usually several times, pulling out the best parts and letting her eyes leap along them like skipping stones. She loved his handwriting, open-looped and crooked—honest and unassuming.

She focused on one bit of the letter over and over again.
If you come to Mexico at New Year's…

Honey Babe and Majestic watched her from their doggie bed. They were wearing a pair of matching red-and-green-striped sweaters that Birdie had knitted. Across Honey Babe's
back she'd embroidered the word
Hola
. Across Majestic's,
Amigo
. Birdie pulled a sock off her foot, rolled it up like a doughnut, and threw it to them. Honey Babe chewed on the sock while Majestic tilted her head at Birdie questioningly. “He wants me to come to Mexico,” Birdie whispered.

She had known the orchard Enrico and the Texas Enrico. But now that they wrote to each other, his letters were full of Mexico—his little house at the foot of the mountains outside Mexico City, his mom who drove a bus, his dad who worked at the Zócalo as a security guard, his brother who was still in grade school. He had gotten a scholarship to transfer to the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City next year. In Birdie's head, Enrico's life took on the shape of a cartoon. It was all so exotic and breathlessly foreign to her. Birdie lived in the smallest corner of the world—or at least it felt like it.

She laid the paper down and rolled onto her back, running her feet up and down the wallpaper, throwing her arms back over her head, restless and bursting at the seams.
If you come to Mexico at New Year's…
It was out of the question, of course. There were several layers of reasons why: Out of the question asking her parents. Out of the question finding the money. Out of the question staying with Enrico's cartoon family in cartoon Mexico. But she wanted to, so badly she could taste it.

She stood and stepped over the pile of textbooks on the floor and surveyed herself in the mirror on the back of her bedroom door. It was hot, and glancing in her mirror, she saw her cheeks were flushed. Birdie's jeans hung loosely off her hips, the ankles slinking over her red Crocs. Her auburn ponytail was swept back with sweaty little curls clinging along where her ears met her
head. She felt pretty. No, sexy. She wondered what she would look like to Enrico with bigger lips. She stuck her tongue over her upper lip, flattening it out so that it looked like a big lip.

Behind her, Birdie's room had become a testament to all things
español
. Murphy called it Casa del Infatuatión. Her desk was strewn with Spanish language CDs from the Bridgewater library, a Mexican flag hung from her closet, and Spanish lesson books lay open and half finished beside her bed.

A handful of dried peach leaves sat on her nightstand, a last remnant of the summer. Looking at them made Birdie long for June. She had the urge to escape her room and walk the orchard. Instead she padded down the hall to Poopie's room.

Poopie was watching
Beaches
on TBS and writing on a slip of paper. Birdie plopped beside her and made big lips at the ceiling. “What are you writing?”

“A letter,” Poopie said.

“To who?”

Birdie looked over her shoulder and Poopie snatched it away quickly, then flashed a smile. “My sister.”

Birdie studied Poopie like she didn't already know every line of her face. She was small and taut and tan, like a peanut. Her black hair was always pulled back into a messy bun and her eyebrows were straight over her open, almost-black eyes. Poopie Pedraza had arrived years ago—from the same suburb of Mexico City as Enrico and several of the other workers—to work as a cook. Since then, she'd become the linchpin that held the Darlington house together. And sometimes Birdie too.

“Why do you look like that?” Poopie asked.

“What?”

Poopie made a face like Birdie's, all full of consternation.

Birdie groaned. Even with Murphy and Leeda, she was embarrassed talking about Enrico. But she needed to spill a little. “Enrico wants me to come to Mexico for New Year's,” she offered.

Poopie's eyes lit up with interest. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You want to go?”

Birdie shrugged. She'd been homeschooled and on Friday nights she usually helped Poopie clean all the linens. On Saturdays, she caught up on invoices and office work and studied the tomes she'd ordered online on fruit pests and parasites, crop diseases, and fertilizing. A weekend at the beach was out of the picture, much less a trip to Mexico. “Does it matter?”

Poopie made a sympathetic murmur and folded up her letter. “Our town is beautiful,” Poopie told her wistfully. Like most of the orchard workers, Poopie and Enrico were from a place outside Mexico City. “I wish you could see it….” She motioned Birdie in front of her so she could braid her hair. It was a ritual they did.

Birdie sighed as Poopie tugged gently at her hair. “I wish it was still summer.”

“We're already on our way to next summer.”

“I guess. Murphy says next summer, she'll plant another nectarine tree in her garden,” Birdie breathed. Poopie tied a knot at the bottom of Birdie's hair to keep the braid in place.

“She won't have time before she leaves,” Poopie said lightly.

Birdie groaned. “Don't rush it.”

Poopie shrugged. “Seventeen is a good year, Avelita.”
Little bird.
“But there are better ones.” Birdie leaned back and let
Poopie wrap her in a hug. Poopie pecked her on the cheek. “Not everyone is so
still
inside like you.”

Birdie didn't get why not. Why did people have to go off for college and bigger things? It seemed backwards to her that people left their families and their homes behind. It seemed like a betrayal.

She stayed beside Poopie and they watched the rest of
Beaches
. They both cried. Poopie clutched Birdie's hands, saying, “No, no,” at the part when Bette Midler says, “We haven't
grown
apart, you've fallen apart,” and then again when Barbara Hershey's daughter finds her passed out on the ground. They had probably seen
Beaches
three thousand times.

When it was over, Birdie shuffled back to her room, the house creaking around her as she walked. She sat on her bed and looked at the knickknacks on her shelves, coated in a fine layer of dust. She gazed at the old paintings of the house—from two different angles—that had hung side by side on the far wall since before she was born.

Finally she couldn't resist anymore.

The minute she let them out, Honey Babe and Majestic went racing off into the orchard. Birdie stepped out onto the grass and turned right, walking between two rows of peach trees whose leaves were just on the verge of turning.

The unmown grass poked through the holes in her Crocs. It was just warm enough outside to be pleasant, with just the slightest cool breeze rustling the trees. The monotony of autumn gray had given way to a few clear days.

Birdie breathed in the fresh air. As she walked, she took it all in: the dips in the ground, how each tree grew slightly differently
depending on its altitude, the bugs floating around, what they were, which ones could be harmful to the crop. Birdie couldn't help her watchful eye even when she was relaxing.

A crunch of gravel announced a gold Chevrolet pulling into the Darlingtons' long driveway. Father Michael from the Divine Grace of the Redeemer church stepped out and Birdie waved at him. She always felt a little sheepish around Father Michael because she suspected that priests could read minds. Particularly when you had gone to the same priest for confession since second grade.

“How's your mother, Birdie?” Father Michael called. He was one of the few people in town with a foreign accent. He was Italian. He was a good friend of Poopie's and came over at least once a week to hear her confession and get a palm reading, which Poopie dabbled in.

“Good, Father.”

Father Michael nodded, smiled, and glided up the stairs onto the porch. Birdie watched him disappear into the house. She wondered if he thought her mom and dad were sinners for getting divorced.

Turning, Birdie wound around the side of the house toward Murphy's garden. The nectarine tree had been picked over by people and animals, but some of the late flowers were still blooming. You could see everything Murphy had taken back from the kudzu, marking the territory that belonged to the humans and not the woods.

She turned left and hooked back behind the empty dorms, sunk into the ground. They blinked at her with empty eyes now that the workers were gone and wouldn't return until April. She could almost see Enrico relaxing on the porch stairs after a long day, his smooth tan skin coated with white dirt. Birdie's dad had
told her, just last week, that both dorms would have to be torn down and rebuilt. They had gotten so old. You could tell just by the exhausted way they sagged.

She trailed through the northwest corner of the farm, turning left at the line between her family's property and the Balmeade Country Club. She checked the fence for holes as she came down along the brushy, wild-grown edge of the orchard to the pecan grove. Once, near the ninth hole with Murphy and Leeda, she'd nailed Horatio Balmeade in the head with a half-eaten peach. Thinking about it brought a smile to her face.

Up ahead, the rows of pecans—eighteen trees altogether—stood across from one another in perfectly straight lines. The pecan trees were enormous and unwieldy, full of knots and peeling bark, thrusting their heavy limbs in every direction. Poopie always said the trees were spooky. If she'd been walking through the grove and you asked her where she'd been, she'd twist her arms and claw up her fingers to imitate a tree.

The trees were uniform height except for Methuselah, which hung above the others like an old witch. She was the most ancient by at least two hundred years. No one knew how old pecans could get or who had named Methuselah. She appeared in the oldest plans for the orchard, which dated back to the 1800s.

Now that Birdie was outside on her family's property, which would one day be hers, she felt centered again—shifted off Mexico and Enrico and all the fluttering. Looking around, she always knew exactly where she stood. She turned to watch the sun, which was sinking beyond the house. It made her feel peaceful that at least the orchard sunsets would always be around—all her life, she would be on this spot.

Some things really did last.