The Secrets of Peaches (4 page)

“You want a date?” he asked, smirking.

Murphy nodded.

“How about a date at my house, with my dad, for dinner?”

Murphy heaved a sigh.

Rex smiled gamely. “And I'll tell you by Thanksgiving—how's that?”

“By the time the tofurkey lands on my table,” Murphy said solemnly.

“Before a bite even touches those pretty lips.” Rex nestled into her, tightening his arms around her as if he were a kid, and kissed her neck. She felt how bare he was in front of her and how much she needed him too, even though she had no interest in needing him.

In the cool night air, wrapped in only the tarp and their wet underwear, she wondered if maybe they
could
have a house, and a flag, and a way to hold on to each other. For the first time, Murphy began to wonder if maybe they could be the rare ones that didn't end.

P
lunk plunk plunk.
Birdie woke with a start and looked toward the window.

Plunk. Plunk plunk.
Slow on the draw as usual, Majestic and Honey Babe leapt up and raced to the window seat, sticking their noses against the glass, fogging it up with nose prints. Birdie shuffled behind them and looked outside. Murphy and Leeda stood on the grass, in a triangular patch of pure sunlight, staring up at her. Birdie opened the window and grinned. They launched into a pathetic rendition of
“Feliz Cumpleaños,”
still holding handfuls of old peach pits.

“You sing worse than Poopie,” Birdie called down.

“We gotta go to school,” Murphy yelled up. “But we left your presents by the door.” They raced off across the light-striped grass, looking chilly and underdressed. Birdie could see them through the other window, hopping in Leeda's car at the head of the long white gravel drive. They left dust hanging in clouds behind them.

Birdie slipped her feet into her pink bunny slippers and shuffled downstairs. Somebody—most likely Poopie—had
turned on the heat for the first time all season. It smelled like last year's pecan bread.

She scooted past the kitchen to the front door, Honey Babe and Majestic bumping into her heels and gnawing at the cotton-tails of the slippers whenever they caught up. She opened the front door, cool air greeting her. The presents lay on the dusty porch—one newspaper-wrapped bundle, one sparkly purple with a flounce of silver ribbon. Birdie scooped them up and looked over at the peach rows. The leaves had a new orange tint to their tips, like a woman who'd dyed the ends of her hair red. Birdie closed the door and opened the newspaper bundle—a sweater from Murphy that said
Hola
across the front, clearly scavenged from some secondhand bin. Birdie laughed. Next she opened Leeda's—an iPod with a peach engraved on the back.

“Happy birthday, honey,” her dad greeted her when she got to the kitchen door.

“Thanks.” Birdie smiled, sliding into the chair next to the empty one where her mom used to sit before she and the family dog, Toonsis, had left them. Poopie was standing at the stove, and her dad was sitting in his usual spot. The Darlington kitchen had had the same color scheme Birdie's entire life. Yellowing counters, rust-colored linoleum, off-white cabinets that had gone yellow too. A big window above the sink overlooking the orchard saved it from being drab.

Birdie looked around the table for her traditional blue birthday eggs. Every year, Poopie put blue food coloring in her eggs because that's what Birdie had liked for her birthday when she was little. But this year, all Birdie saw was the regular old yellow kind. She then took another look around for presents. Her dad
always spoiled her for her birthday. But all she saw was one colorfully wrapped bundle in Poopie's arms.

“Feliz cumpleaños.”
Poopie handed her the gift.

“Thanks, Poops.” Birdie half stood and gave Poopie a kiss on the cheek. She already knew what the package contained. She glanced up at the window, where a tiny wooden statue of Saint Francis, the patron saint of animals, watched over the driveway leading up to the orchard, his back turned to them. Next to him was a jagged crystal Poopie had picked up at some hippie store in Savannah and a dried four-leaf clover taped to the windowsill. A tiny gilt-edged holy calendar marked with the date, October 10, and a painting of the Virgin Mary were tacked to the yellow wall.

Birdie had grown up steeped in Poopie's superstitions, and she had her own collection of little wooden santos hidden upstairs in her closet—her mom had hated them. Birdie always forgot what they meant, but Poopie had probably given her a dozen over the years, one for every birthday. She was pretty sure she had the patron saint of lightning, the patron saint of spirituality, and the patron saint of first periods already. Poopie had carried the infant Birdie on one hip while twirling crystals and crucifixes and clovers in her free hand. So Birdie, a southern farm girl, had grown up sleeping with quartz under her pillows to help her with tests and looking to the clouds for signs.

Birdie opened the bundle. It was a man saint, staring at her solemnly.

“Saint Anthony,” Poopie told her. “The patron saint of roads and going places.” She gave Birdie a wink. Birdie stared at the little guy, curious. He looked very serious and sad, like the
weight of the world was on his shoulders. She had always wondered why God's favorite people had to look that way.

“That's a nice one,” Walter said, so enthusiastically that Birdie gave him a second glance. For a while after her mom left, her dad had been so broken, Birdie had thought he would never be whole again. Today he was Humpty Dumpty put back together. All smiles and rattling newspaper. “How's school?” he asked.

“Fine.” Birdie sat, bewildered, wondering where her present was. Because she was homeschooled, school was always fine. No lunchroom gossip. No horrible teachers, or great teachers, or any teachers. No nothing new. With the exception of some occasional help from Poopie, school ran on autopilot. So did Birdie. It was like she had been born responsible.

“You on top of everything enough to take on a little project?”

By
project
, Walter Darlington always meant
farm work
. Sitting still all day behind a desk didn't quite compute to Walter Darlington, mostly because it was the opposite of what being a farmer was all about. Birdie had known forever she would go to Laurens Community College, half an hour away, to major in agriculture. When school was over, she'd inherit the farm. It was all wrapped up for her like a package.

“Yeah,” Birdie muttered through a mouthful of potatoes. Truthfully, she had plenty to do already: laying out green manure for the new plantings, inspecting the trees for bugs and nests, walking the property to make sure nothing was out of place. Not to mention carving out family time into separate slices—some for afternoons with her dad, going over their work for the coming months. Some for her mom, who had moved into Howl Mill, a new condo complex just outside town.

“I want you to clear off the cave. The one under the eaves behind the barn. Try to draw some bats.”

The bat cave had been covered over forever. It had always been something they talked about doing. Bats could be very good at insect control, an alternative to pesticides.

“Sure, Dad.” Birdie sank back in her chair.

Snuff.
Honey Babe was dancing on her hind legs by Birdie's chair, begging for scraps. Birdie absentmindedly reached out to scratch her ears.

“Great.” Walter shrugged lightly, almost
flip
.

Birdie stared down at her non-blue eggs. She looked over at Poopie, then at her dad, who apparently had no present for her. She sighed wistfully.

“Poopie says you want to go to Mexico over the break,” her dad said, his face still in his newspaper.

“That's not…” Birdie could feel her face going red. She shot a betrayed glance at Poopie, trying to think of a way to say yes and no at the same time. “Um. Yeah, well, you know, his parents invited me.” She put heavy emphasis on the word
parents
. Nothing shady about it. Definitely nothing sexy.

“So they'll be there?” Walter asked, taking a sip of orange juice.

Birdie studied him. She felt like she was being lured into a trap. “Yeah.” He wasn't actually considering it. Was he?

Walter shrugged. “I don't see why you shouldn't go. I thought that could be your present—”

“Really?” she squawked. Her hands grabbed each other to keep from flying into the air. She leapt up from her seat and wrapped her arms around her dad, tight. As she pulled back, she
wondered if she should hightail it upstairs before he changed his mind. But Birdie was hungry. Famished, in fact.

She flopped back down onto her chair and they went back to eating, the picture of an all-American family: father, daughter, empty chair for Cynthia, Poopie the New Age Mexican cook, and Saint Anthony, the patron saint of going places.

In the fall of 1520, a flock of bats ventured out of their cave for their nightly hunt. When they returned, a tree had fallen over the entrance hole, and the enraged bats terrorized everything in their path—foxes, eagles, wild boar. By sun break, approximately 127 animals were chased out of what would one day be known as Kings County, Georgia.

“S
he's a vampire. You know that, don't you?”

“Murphy…”

“Do you know the thing about vampire bats?” Murphy chewed on a cigarette she hadn't lit. It was part of her quitting technique. “They prey on the same victim night after night. They have this stuff in their saliva that keeps the wound open so they can come back the next day and feast again, right where they left off. That's your mom. Subtle.” Murphy pulled out the cigarette and sighed as if she were actually blowing smoke out the passenger-side window of Leeda's BMW.

“You're a metaphorical genius, Murphy. Truly.”

“I've got lots more metaphors for dear Lulu,” Murphy said, tilting her head in a knowing way, grinning. “Leech. No,” she thought out loud. “Mosquito.” And then her grin disappeared. “But seriously, you can't do it, Lee. I don't care what kind of a disease she's got.”

“God,” Leeda said, squeezing the steering wheel, a lump in her throat. Sometimes it was shocking how insensitive Murphy
could be. Sometimes Leeda wanted to throw her out the car window. “Murphy, she's
sick
.”

“How sick? What's hyperpsychosis anyway?”

Honestly, Leeda didn't know. She didn't like to look at anything scary too directly. There was only a faint uneasiness in her stomach. Deep down, like at the bottom of a pit. She tried not to think about it during the day. But at night, in the dark, in her bed, she would feel it flutter inside her.

“You know, Lee,” Murphy said, philosophical, “when I met you, I thought you were this really selfish, uptight person. All looking like this…” Murphy made a tight, tense face, pursing her lips. “But you know what? You're worse than Birdie. Seriously. You're a pushover.”

Leeda wondered if that was true. “I just hate letting people down,” she said. Anyone. Didn't matter who.

The orchard rushed around the car as Leeda steered into the drive. She breathed in the smell of the grass and the musty smell of the white dirt as she parked, leaving the windows down. They got out and trekked over to the barn and around the back. A big cloud of dust was flying out through the huge, sagging doors. They stepped to the threshold, a little shocked to see the piles of ancient tools, farm gear, dusty saddles, and old furniture scattered everywhere. Birdie stood in the middle of all of it.

“Dang, Birdie,” Leeda said. “If we get all this stuff cleaned out, are we going to find the earth's molten core?”

Birdie brushed her long bangs out of her eyes, her hands covered in dust and rotted hay. She grinned sheepishly. “I told you it was a big job.”

Birdie had enlisted Leeda and Murphy to help clean out the
entrance to the mouth of the cave, which lay beneath the eaves at the back of the barn. It had been buried over the years under almost every piece of junk the Darlingtons owned. Now the junk was all covered in webs and dust and rotted, unidentifiable debris.

“There are caves all over the place under the orchard,” Birdie told them, heaving an old hacksaw aside. She said it mostly for Murphy's benefit because Leeda had known about the caves forever. They had always seemed so mysterious and exciting to Birdie when she was little. “That's why the dorms are sinking,” she went on.

“Those dorms are death traps,” Murphy said, running her finger through a layer of dust on an old windowpane, nonchalant. “I bet they're fire hazards too, all that rotten wood.”

“Totally. Dad wants to tear them down and rebuild now that we have the money. But I don't think either of us has the heart to do it.”

Leeda looked around. The same pieces of machinery had been sitting in the same places for years, covered in a thick, pungent layer of damp hay. “Who was the last person to use any of this stuff?” she asked.

“Probably…who was that guy?…Nebuchadnezzar,” Murphy answered dryly, heaving a heavy metal rake off a cracked wooden chest of drawers. Birdie snorted.

There was a pay phone outside the front doors of the barn that the workers used during the summer. It began to ring. They all looked at it.

“It's Rex. I'm not here,” Murphy said. They listened to it ringing.

Leeda's heart gave a little thud. Just a little one. She and
Murphy hadn't talked about Rex much since Leeda had given him up. Or since Murphy had won him away. Or whatever had happened. Leeda wasn't in love with him. But it still hurt for the moment that that phone used to ring for her, all summer long, and now it was ringing for Murphy.

“Why aren't you here?” Birdie asked.

“I stood him up for dinner with his dad and he's calling to yell at me.” Murphy leaned sideways, hands on rounded hips. Hay hung from her curly pigtails. She looked like a sassy farmer's daughter from a rock video.

“Why'd you stand them up?” Birdie asked.

“I don't know.” Murphy shrugged carelessly. “Dad, dinner, boring.”

Leeda looked at Birdie, who looked back at her. They both knew it was Murphy-speak for being intimidated.

“Tons of spiders in here,” Leeda said, curling her arms around herself. She had noticed a big orange fuzzy one scuttling across the hay. Murphy made what was supposed to be a spider face, sticking out her bottom teeth, and clawed up her fingers.

“That looks like Poopie's pecan tree face.” Birdie shot a reassuring smile at Leeda, the kind she'd been shooting her since Leeda had told her about her mom. Birdie, who was always careful, was being extra careful around her today. It only exaggerated how
un
careful Murphy was.

They dug in again, hauling salvageable equipment like saw-horses and rakes onto the grass outside to uncover other, useless stuff like old rusted scythes and pecan shakers. Dust clouds ascended into the air and bits of debris settled in their hair.

“Don't bats eat fruit?”

“Mega-bats do. But micro-bats eat insects. We want the micros. But the megas actually would be okay too. They only eat overripe fruit, and they pollinate.”

Leeda got a shiver. How mega was mega?

Hard as she tried, Leeda couldn't work nearly as fast as Murphy and Birdie. Her arms were twice as thin. Two Leedas put together would make a Murphy. But she did her best.

“I bet you could sell a lot of this stuff on the Internet,” Murphy observed. “Like this.” She pulled an oval frame out of a heap of junk and turned it around, revealing an old, cracked mirror. “People love broken stuff. It's shabby chic.”

Leeda's reflection bounced back at her. Her forehead looked long and wide, and her lips stretched out to either side of her face. “One day all this will be yours, Bird.”

“You'll both be Pecan Queens,” Murphy said darkly. Leeda rolled her eyes at Birdie for help.

Birdie's face lit up. “You're gonna be Pecan Queen?” She clapped. God bless Birdie.

“Yup,” Leeda answered. “And Murphy's going to help me with my queen duties.”

Murphy snorted. “Help you what? Get your tiara—”

“Look!” Birdie interrupted, pulling the last of the debris away. They peered down into the hole. Cool air came up, blowing on their faces.

“Spooky,” Murphy breathed.

They stepped back from the cave entrance and flopped down. The cool grass felt good on their sweaty backs.

“Are you gonna help me with the queen stuff or not?” Leeda asked Murphy. “Like come with me to the appearances. I have to
cut ribbons and do photo ops and give little speeches.”

“You've got to be kidding,” Murphy said flatly, twirling her hair.

“Can you get them to put it in the newspaper if we get bats?” Birdie asked. “People don't understand them,” she said plaintively.

Leeda turned, taking in her friends' profiles. Lying back on the grass, Murphy looked seductive, like she was flirting with the branches above their heads. She always did. Leeda knew she couldn't help it.

“Lee, you know what it's like with your mom,” Murphy started, still staring straight up. “She's like an abusive boyfriend. Did you ever see
Sleeping with the Enemy
?” Only Birdie shook her head. Leeda was trying to tune Murphy out. “What about
Enough
, with Jennifer Lopez?” Birdie shook her head again. Murphy looked at Leeda, seeing she wasn't biting, and sighed. “I just don't think it's a good idea.”

“She's still my mom. She won't be around forever, you know.” Leeda clenched her jaw unconsciously. She shouldn't have to say that. She didn't even want to say it. She felt like she would jinx her mom somehow. “I need you to be my cheerleader, Murphy.”

“Birdie can.”

Leeda's eyes met with Birdie's, who smiled obligingly. “Birdie has to run a farm, for God's sake, Murphs.”

“Why is everyone giving me nicknames all of a sudden?”

“I always wanted to call you Smurphy,” Birdie offered. Murphy shot her a death look. Birdie tried to hide how disappointed she was. “I
like
Smurphy. It's witty.”

“Who else gave you a nickname?”

“Rex calls me Shorts.” Silence. Leeda had nothing to say to that, and Birdie was clearly daydreaming about the bats. “I asked him to come with me to New York after graduation.” More silence.

“That's good, right?” Leeda finally asked.

“Well, if by
good
you mean taking your heart out of your chest and leaving it on the road for him to stomp on, then yes.”

“What'd he say?” Leeda asked. A tiny, petty part of her wanted Rex to have said no. She didn't know why.

Murphy shrugged. She swallowed and held up her fingers to look at them. “He'll tell me by Thanksgiving.”

Birdie looked thoughtful. “Why do you have to know so long before you leave?”

Murphy sighed. “I just…do.”

Leeda worried for Murphy in a lot of ways. She was more skilled than anyone Leeda knew at protecting herself. Which meant she hid all the good stuff from strangers. Leeda worried that in a new place, people wouldn't take the time to figure that out. Anyone looking at them would have thought Murphy was the stronger of the two—bolder, brasher, tougher—but Leeda felt fierce protectiveness when she thought of Murphy being alone in New York.

“Murphy, you know what?” Leeda asked, an idea suddenly forming in her head. “Whether he comes or not, I can come with you.”

“Yeah?” Murphy turned on her side, looking at Leeda straight on.

“Yeah…” Leeda nodded, making the decision as the words came out. “Yeah. There's no reason why not. I don't really care
where I go to school.” Leeda knew she could get in almost anywhere she wanted, and her parents were dying for her to go to Columbia anyway because her dad had gone there.

Murphy smiled huge, which made Leeda feel better. Birdie sighed wistfully. Leeda tugged her long auburn ponytail. “And Birdie will hold down the fort at good old Darlington Peach Orchard. If she doesn't run off to Mexico and become a señora.”

Birdie's forehead wrinkled thoughtfully. “Do you think Enrico will…
expect
something? You know, since I'm staying with him?”

“I don't think he's that kind of guy, Bird,” Murphy said.

“I can't believe Mom and Dad are letting me go. I can't even believe
Poopie's
letting me go.”

“Bird, it's really not that big of a deal to visit your boyfriend,” Murphy told her.

“To Poopie it is. You know how holy she is. Sin and all that.”

“I've never even heard the word
sin
come out of Poopie's mouth.” Murphy rolled her shoulders against the grass. “I mean, I don't think it'll rain frogs or anything if you crash on his couch.”

“You never know.” Birdie sighed. A pecan fell out of a tree above and hit her on the forehead. “Ow.
See?
I get hit with a pecan just for thinking about him on the couch.”

“Ha,” Murphy said. They were quiet for a while, the dust motes still spinning around them in the afternoon sunlight. They could hear birds moving around in the peach branches. Leeda's mind floated to her mom again. Now that the sweat had cooled on her, she was chilly.

“This tree looks ancient,” Leeda said, looking up.

“It is. It's Methuselah.”

“It looks kind of droopy and sickly to me,” Murphy mumbled.

“They're all droopy,” Birdie told her.

Murphy sat up on her elbows to survey the grove. “This one looks ill, though.”

“If you were that old, you'd be droopy too.” A root was poking Leeda in the back. “Gravity.”

“Okay, yeah, I
get
gravity. But whatever. I'm no tree expert.”

“This tree is going to outlive us all,” Birdie replied.

Leeda smiled. “Bury your heart under Methuselah.”

 

After splitting up with Murphy and Birdie, Leeda strolled down around the south side of the orchard, listening to the crickets waking up and enjoying the perfect breeze. She had goose bumps on her arms.

Her feet took her to Smoaky Lake. A large boulder curved up from the south side of the lake, touching the still water. Leeda climbed onto it, her shoes scratching and slipping as she made her way to the flat top. It was the perfect place to sit—like a table decorated with rocks and dirt. Murphy called it the butt rock because of the crevice down its center.

Leeda took a handful of pebbles in her left hand, tossing the stones one by one into the lake with her right. It was addictive. Whenever her mind started to drift to her mom, she threw another rock, and it went sort of blank as she watched the ripples fan out over the water. Eventually she'd thrown everything she could find. She dug into the crevice, wrinkling her nose at what kind of bugs might be hiding inside. When she couldn't
dig anything out, she peered down into the small dark crack and saw not a rock, but a tan…something.

Curious, Leeda reached for a stick lying nearby and chipped away at whatever it was, sending tiny chunks of caked dirt and decayed leaf bits scattering onto the rock. After a few minutes, she could make out a very tiny…plastic…foot.