Birdie and Leeda clustered right up behind Murphy like ducklings. “I don’t have ID,” Birdie whispered to Murphy, thinking how mortifying it would be if someone asked her for it. But Murphy just turned and gave her an oh, please look. She breezed right along up to a lone free stool at the bar. The two men on the stools next to it looked her up and down. “Can you spare those stools for a couple of thirsty teenagers?” Murphy asked, a sly, charming smile on her lips.
The men stood up as fast as if Murphy had cracked a whip. Neither of them bothered much to look at Birdie or Leeda. Birdie didn’t blame them. She figured that for any guy, Murphy would be hard to look away from.
“What’ll y’all have?” the bartender asked as they climbed onto their stools. Sloe gin fizz for Leeda, Jack on the rocks for Murphy, and Birdie had to think for a few seconds, so Murphy ended up ordering her Jack on the rocks too.
When the guy returned with their drinks, he waved off their money. He placed the drinks next to the ancient yellow phone sitting on the bar in front of them.
“Compliments of the guys across the bar.”
They all peered across the way. Two men, they had to be in their late twenties at least, with huge bushy beards and beer guts, waved at them with their fingers, smiling. They each wore a big squared-off cap. One said I Brake for…. And then it had a picture of a beaver. The other just said Destin, Florida.
“Ew,” Leeda whispered.
“There you go, Birdie,” Murphy said, whipping out a cigarette. “We’re gonna get you kissed good and proper.” Leeda took a desperate swig of her drink.
“I just love crazy people like this,” Murphy said. “Jack Kerouac people. Mad to live, mad to die, that kind of thing. My mom met my dad here. He used to work here as a bartender.”
Birdie thought Murphy said it with a certain air of BS, but she nodded and sucked her drink through the tiny red straw.
By the time they finished their first round, the band had launched into a David Allen Coe song and Murphy jumped up to dance, pulling Birdie and Leeda with her. She looked funny in her Mick Jagger T-shirt, grooving to country. It seemed to Leeda like Murphy would have danced to just about anything, she had so much energy. When they came back to the bar again a few songs later, both Birdie and Murphy were covered in sweat. Leeda was still cool as a cucumber because she’d danced stiffly and slowly, sipping her sloe gin.
As the girls waited for more drinks, the phone next to Murphy rang and Murphy picked it up. “Hello? I don’t know. Hold on.”
Murphy stood up on tiptoes. “Don Martin?” she yelled as Leeda and Birdie watched in awe.
Nobody answered. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think he’s here.” Pause. “This is Murphy.” Pause. “Okay, if I see him, I’ll tell him.” Murphy hung up and looked at the girls and shrugged. They all cracked up.
“Would you girls care to dance?”
The two men from earlier were standing behind them and looming above them.
“Leeda and Birdie would,” Murphy said, pushing Birdie forward into the arms of the guy with the beaver hat. She shoved her drink into Murphy’s hand as she was dragged away.
They jostled out onto the dance floor. Leeda danced stiffly at first. But then the guy started dipping her and showing her all these two-step moves, and as she seemed to relax, she started to dance fabulously. She seemed to have an innate sense of rhythm and her body moved like a bird. Birdie watched her smile melt from tight and polite to genuine.
Birdie smiled too. Leeda and Murphy were both dazzling. For the moment, being here with them made her feel happy being Birdie, and not so stuck inside herself like a pea in a pod. She forgot to think about the orchard completely, which was a miracle. The weight of its problems slid off her shoulders to the rhythm of the music.
Even being here with…“What’s your name?” Birdie asked.
“Saddle Tramp,” the guy answered, grinning at her through his beard. “That’s what everybody calls me. It’s my CB handle.”
Even being here with Saddle Tramp made her feel bolder. Or maybe it was the whiskey.
Birdie could see Murphy on the sidelines, watching them both proudly, like an evangelist staring at her converts. Birdie felt a wave of affection for her. And Leeda too.
She was so engrossed in the feeling that she didn’t see Saddle Tramp’s puffy, hair-ringed lips making a beeline for hers until it was too late.
Out in the parking lot the air—normally hot but cool compared to the temperature inside the bar—carried their voices into the empty lot. Murphy reveled in the feeling of sweat cooling on her body. It wasn’t often she felt sated.
“What time is it?” Leeda asked, swiping her hair from where it was stuck across her forehead.
“Damn, it’s nearly three,” Murphy said, looking at her wrist.
“My dad’ll be up in two hours,” Birdie said gleefully, a happily scandalized look on her face. God, Murphy couldn’t remember ever being as innocent as Birdie. When Birdie had been kissed by the trucker out on the dance floor, she’d frozen like a statue for a moment, then darted away as fast as she could. Now she was absolutely giddy.
About half an hour ago Leeda had stumbled into some guy holding a pitcher and now it was all down the front of her flimsy turquoise tank top on her white tennis skirt. She plucked at her clothes, disgusted.
“My underwear is soaked.” Leeda’s eyes arched pleadingly at Birdie and Murphy. “I can’t ride all the way home in wet skivvies.”
“Just take ’em off,” Murphy suggested.
“But what’ll I do with them?” The question came out in a slight slur. Which sounded funnier than usual coming from someone like Leeda.
“I don’t know. Just bring them with you.”
“I don’t want to carry around beer-soaked skivvies.”
Murphy shrugged. She really didn’t care either way. Leeda ducked behind a baby blue Chevy pickup while Murphy and Birdie continued on to the car. They stopped when they heard a snicker behind them.
Leeda was still standing next to the pickup. Her black thong, on the other hand, had found its way onto the middle of the pickup’s windshield. Leeda had her hand stuck in front of her mouth and she leaned forward, clenching her knees and laughing drunkenly.
Birdie and Murphy both guffawed loudly, and then Birdie ran across the lot, scooted behind a car, and whipped out her skivvies, flinging them onto the windshield too. They were pink and said Sunday across the front.
“I’m ready to go home now.” Birdie stuck her chin up in the air and then laughed. “I wonder what they’ll do when they see them.”
Murphy followed suit, though she hated to part with her favorite monkey undies.
Finally, they piled into the car, wet and sweaty and sticking to the ripped vinyl seats. Honey Babe and Majestic were thrilled to see them.
Murphy turned the key in the ignition. The car rumbled and died.
Murphy and Leeda looked at each other and then Murphy tried the ignition again. Nothing happened this time. Damn.
“Well, car’s broken,” Murphy said, throwing her hands up and letting them fall on the dashboard.
She looked at Leeda and Birdie.
“How will we get back?” Leeda asked.
Murphy thought. “I guess we’ll have to call someone.”
Silence.
Birdie’s eyes widened. “My dad’s gonna kill me.”
Murphy thought about her mom, but she’d definitely be asleep right now. And Richard would probably be the one to pick up the phone.
“I’m sure someone can come pick us up, Bird. Don’t worry.”
Finally she looked at Leeda. Birdie did too.
Leeda had never thought Rex’s car could look good. But when he pulled over in his beat-up Ford pickup, she wanted to kiss the hood.
It was close to four when he got there, barely giving them enough time to get back to the farm before sunrise, but Rex didn’t just pull up and throw the door open for them to hop in. He turned off the ignition and got out of
the car.
Leeda crossed her arms over her chest instinctively.
“Thanks, baby.” She walked up to him and stuck her hand into his. He didn’t look happy. In fact, he looked pissed. He looked at Birdie, then at the bar behind them, then at Murphy.
Then he looked over their shoulders at the cars. Damn. She’d forgotten.
“Did you guys put that underwear there?”
Murphy and Birdie cracked up, but Leeda shrank, embarrassed. “Um…”
“Your idea, right, Murphy?”
“Actually, that was all Leeda.” Murphy was giving him her patented dead fish look.
Rex sighed. “I mean the bar.”
Murphy bristled. “So?”
“So number one, you guys shouldn’t be drinking and getting on the road in the middle of the night. And number two, I don’t want a bunch of drunk rednecks hitting on my girlfriend. You guys shouldn’t come to a place like this alone.”
Murphy leaned heavily onto one hip, yawning. “Birdie, we should have called Walter after all. If we were gonna have a dad, it might as well have been yours.”
Leeda had to agree that the whole speech was pretty ridiculous coming from Rex, who’d had his share of wild nights. Leeda met his eyes. Many times she’d felt like he was more of a big brother than a boyfriend. She felt like that now.
“Next time we’ll call someone else,” Leeda muttered.
“Please do.”
He ducked into Murphy’s car through the open passenger door and tried the ignition. “I think the bushings are out on the clutch,” Murphy said. Rex just shook his head and climbed back into his own car.
They rode in silence for several minutes, all smushed into the bench seat, with Leeda next to Rex and Murphy at the window. Birdie sat in the middle with both dogs on her lap. “It’s the starter that’s out, not the clutch,” Rex said.
“Actually, Rex, I’ve had it happen before, and it’s the clutch.” Murphy rolled down her window and stuck one hand out.
“The clutch wouldn’t keep it from starting,” Rex said evenly, with steely calm.
“I think I know my car better than you do, Dad.”
Leeda sat curled up next to Rex. “I know it’s crazy,” she interjected, “but I’ll be damn happy to see the orchard after sitting here with you two.”
Rex seemed to soften as he drove, but he didn’t say anything else. Everyone sat silently, even Honey Babe and Majestic, whose eyes were wide and mournful, as if they sensed the tension in the cab.
When Rex dropped them off, the air had just turned gray. There was a stripe of light right along the horizon of the orchard, and the first birds were just beginning to chirp. The rumble of the car wheels at the bottom of the drive, though quiet, seemed to stand out.
Rex dropped them off without another word. They all stood looking across the grass. The lights of the Darlington house were still dim, and this drew a relieved breath from Birdie, who leaned her shoulder against Murphy’s.
Leeda looked at them. Bits of their hair had stuck together and dried against their foreheads and the sides of their faces. Birdie had a sweat stain right down the middle of her top. Leeda knew she must look equally bad.
She wanted to initiate a talk about what a great night it had been, all in all. Already, now that it was getting light, Mertie Creek seemed like it had happened years ago, and it made her sad. But maybe she was just tired. In any case, she got the sense she shouldn’t say anything. It was better not said.
They straggled into the dorms for a precious half hour of sleep without a word.
Chapter Fifteen
On Sundays, if there hadn’t been much rain to ripen the peaches, the workers harvested until eleven and had the rest of the day off. Each week for Murphy’s first three weeks Poopie pulled a beat-up white van to the front of the dorms and everybody who wanted to pile in for a trip to Wal-Mart did. Murphy never went because she wasn’t allowed off the premises. Still, she looked forward to Sundays because it allowed her to have the orchard mostly to herself, and because it was fun to watch the workers return.
She’d learned last week to make it a point to be back at the dorms around the time they were supposed to come back so she could watch them piling off the bus. Inevitably, the workers would go crazy buying things to bring back to Mexico at the end of the summer—clothes, candy, but also inflatable pools, board games, toys. Murphy didn’t know how they were going to carry it all. But everybody was so thrilled when they poured off the bus, laughing and chatting, showing off their purchases, that Murphy never wanted to miss it.
The bus had left at about ten A.M. Leeda and Birdie had gone to Leeda’s house to see Leeda’s parents and have lunch. Though she knew it was silly, that she wouldn’t have been allowed off the orchard anyway, Murphy felt slightly left out and slightly pathetic for feeling slightly left out. It felt weird to have Birdie and Leeda go off without her.
She spent the morning lying in her bed reading, then ate cereal for lunch, then trailed out to the garden and weeded, clearing away the areas surrounding the first buds, which were popping up everywhere like wildfire. Yesterday, she’d discovered a nectarine, but it was filled with bugs, just like Birdie had predicted. No miracle yet.
When she got hungry, she walked into the orchard and picked a couple of Rubyprince peaches, which had just ripened this week. She was already able to tell the difference in taste between these and the other varieties of peaches that they’d harvested. Candor was her favorite so far. She now kept a peach in her pocket at all times to snack on, the juice soaking into the fabric of her shorts.
With time to relax her muscles, Murphy was bored. She wasn’t even sore anymore, except for the very dull, satisfying ache that she went to bed with each night. She thought about calling her mom, but the thought gave her such a heavy feeling in her gut that she immediately tried to forget it. She peered around, wondering where Rex might be. With so much of the orchard equipment falling apart he was always somewhere, fiddling with something. Murphy started looking for him without really noticing she was looking. She found him with one of the rusty green tractors by the barn.
“I think you’re right. I think it’s the starter.”
Rex stood up and turned. He was all sweaty and an oil streak lined his neck. There was oil all over his hands.
“I know.” He smiled and wiped his hands against his stomach. “It’s still at the bar in Mertie Creek, huh?”
“Yeah, I don’t have any way to get down there.”
Rex rested his hands on his hips and looked down at the tractor. “I’m just about finished with this. You want me to take you?”
Murphy squinted at him. “Really?”
“Any friend of Leeda’s is a friend of mine, no matter how much of a pain in the ass she is.” Rex grinned sarcastically. “We can stop at the junkyard and get you a new starter.”
Murphy put her own hands on her hips, mirroring him. “You’re not getting anything in return,” she joked.
“Please,” Rex said, rolling his eyes.
She met Rex at his car ten minutes later and they started down the road.
“Your garden’s looking good,” Rex said after a few minutes of sitting in the breeze in silence.
Murphy sank back in her seat and looked at him. She wondered how he knew. She hadn’t realized until that moment that she’d even begun to think of it as her garden.
“I think it needs something. A bench or something.”
Murphy nodded. “Yeah. You know, there’s even a nectarine tree in there? But the nectarines are all buggy.”
“Too bad,” Rex said.
Murphy had rarely sat in a car with a guy who (a) wasn’t dating her mom or (b) wasn’t hitting on her. She didn’t know quite what to do. She just leaned back and looked out the window and listened to Rex’s music. His taste was superb. The day, which was a little hazy, started to feel surreal. The grass was fluorescent. The smell of the air was dizzying. Murphy stuck her hand out the window like the wing of an airplane
. The music coming from Rex’s speakers got under her skin and made her feel like that was what was pushing them forward.
When they got to the junkyard, Rex sifted through several cars for a starter, digging in them with his deft hands until he’d finally found one. Murphy crouched beside him while he extracted it, breathing in the smell of motor oil. They drove on to Mertie Creek. In the light of day it looked different, like the knots on the back of the needlework that had made up the other night—all messy and slapdash. Yellowbaby was still there.
Rex ducked inside through the passenger door and fiddled for about fifteen minutes, starting and restarting the engine until it hummed to life, and finally emerging with a concentrated look on his face.
“We can get you a new door handle at the junkyard too. And I can tighten your clutch. I’ll try to do it sometime this week.”
“Thanks.”
He stood back so Murphy could crawl in toward the driver’s seat under his armpit, then leaned down to look at her. He blinked at her a few times, and Murphy pasted a nakedly friendly look on her face. “Yep.” She nodded, stiffening her body and hunching up her shoulders intentionally. It would be too easy to flirt with Rex. “Well…”
“I still have some work to do back at the orchard. See you back there.”
Murphy turned the key in the ignition and didn’t look at him again. “Sounds good.”
Back on the orchard, Murphy walked back to her garden and did some more work. A few roses had snuck out of their buds since this morning. Murphy dug a hand shovel out of the tool-shed and turned the soil around; though she didn’t know quite what that was supposed to do, she’d seen it done.
When she walked back to the dorms about an hour later, she ducked behind the faucet partition and washed her face, getting her hair soaked. She rubbed at the dirt on her cheeks and rinsed. Then she faced the wall, pulled her shirt over her head, and rinsed her armpits and her chest and her back. She held her shirt back to her front and turned to look for the soap.
Rex was standing a few feet behind her, staring—not at her body, but at her face.