The Secrets of Peaches

  “Your dad was looking for you,” Leeda said. Birdie looked at her. Her cheeks were almost as pink as her track pants. Birdie reached out to hold a hand against her skin to see if she was hot, but Leeda ducked her head. She pulled her hand back and folded her fingers together gently.

  “You don’t look so good, Lee,” Birdie told her.

  Leeda half laughed. “Thanks.” When she felt Birdie moon-eyeing her, she looked up at her. “I’m fine. Really.”

  Birdie shuffled down the hall to the office. Her dad was behind the desk, his big thin-rimmed glasses on, concentrating on some papers in front of him.

  “Birdie,” he said, leaning over his desk. “I want to talk about something serious with you.” Oh God. Birdie was blindsided. She had thought the threat of this had passed. “Your mom doesn’t think you’re ready to hear it, but I do.”

  Birdie nodded. Tap tap thump. Birdie scooped Majestic from where she’d hobbled up beside her. Could Father Michael have called? Wasn’t confessional supposed to be private? Oh God.

  He looked uncomfortable, awkward. “It’s about my will.”

  His will? “Your will?”

  “Now that the…now that your mother and I have finalized the divorce, I need to amend my will.”

  “Are you sick?” Birdie gushed.

  To her surprise, her dad smiled. “Birdie, I’m fine. It’s just something I have to do. I just wanted to make sure of something before I do it.”

  Birdie waited with bated breath. She couldn’t imagine what he was going to say.

  “I know it probably goes without saying, but I want to leave the orchard to you. I need to know if that’s what you want.”

  Birdie’s stomach began to ache. It was the last question she’d ever expected to be asked. But hearing it like that made Birdie feel like a weight was wrapped around her ankles. “Yeah, Dad. That’s fine.”

  “You sure?”

  “Of course.” Had there ever been any question? Except maybe a cartoon one? A momentary lapse of sanity.

  Walter smiled again—which used to be a rare occurrence but seemed to come to him so easily these days. Birdie knew she had told him what he wanted, and needed, to hear.

  “How’s Enrico?” he asked generously.

  Birdie gazed around the office, thinking how to answer that. She knew every scuff in the wooden floor. Every crack and slope in every shelf. It was funny how you could go somewhere and your whole life could stretch out. And then you could come home and have it all shrink back again to the way it was before. It was funny that it didn’t stay stretched.

  “We broke up,” she said, with a feeling of deep relief as the words left her mouth. Enrico didn’t know it yet. But there wasn’t a question in her mind, and that was what felt really good. It was how things had always been meant to be.

  She stared around at the piles of papers, which she would inherit one day and in a way already had. For a second, Birdie almost wished she could be some other kind of teenager. Someone who could put rocks on a bus and hope to follow them.

  Behind her, somewhere inside the house, there was a screech of wood sliding and a loud thud. Birdie ran into the kitchen, her dad hurrying behind her. The first thing she saw was one of the kitchen chairs lying on its side. Then Leeda, lying on the linoleum. Thin and perfectly white, she was spread across the floor like a ghost.

  Thirty-three

  Murphy watched while almost every person in the senior class filtered in and out of the hospital room to see Leeda. But what really struck her was how little Leeda seemed to notice they were there to see her. How she managed to stay shrunk, even with all the attention. Lying propped on her white pillows, in red lipstick, she looked like Sleeping Beauty.

  The room smelled like a mixture of antiseptic and exotic flowers. Everywhere bright bouquets and balloons stood out against the white walls, white plastic tables, gray plastic chairs. Only Leeda’s skin—white as a cloud—seemed to blend.

  Murphy and Birdie had taken up spots in the room like a royal court, sitting off to the side for hours while Leeda’s fans came and went, letting themselves be hypnotized by the steady beep of the machines in the room. Birdie was knitting Majestic a new sweater, one that did not go with the Amigo that was no longer around. It said, simply, Woof. Murphy was trying to get through Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, but she kept looking up to watch Leeda greet her visitors and watching the door for who might come through it. Rex would have to come at some point, and Murphy was torn between her loyalty to Leeda and making sure she wasn’t here when he did.

  Leeda didn’t seem to want them there anyway. Whenever the room emptied out, she just looked out the window or flipped the channels with the remote. Birdie had tried asking her questions, like if having pneumonia hurt or if she wanted Birdie to bring her anything from home, but Leeda had muttered halfhearted replies, as if Birdie were a mosquito buzzing in her ear. Murphy wanted to reach out and shake her. She felt like shouting, Don’t you see us?

  The clock read 3:30. Murphy, legs restless, leaned forward, closed her book, and bit her thumbnail. “Lee, you want me to stay?”

  Leeda shook her head, her eyes on a Dawson’s Creek rerun. When Murphy said good-bye on her way out, she didn’t even reply. Birdie shrugged and mimed a kiss to Murphy.

  It had snowed again the day after Leeda had gone into the hospital. In the parking lot outside, the only snow left was caked around poles and street signs, but it was melting fast.

  Murphy shivered under her wool hat and corduroy coat as she made her way across the lot, heavyhearted and mad. She didn’t know what she was mad at. She was mad at the idea that had made its way into her head, that maybe they wouldn’t have Leeda back ever. She wasn’t mad at Leeda exactly, but something around Leeda. Whatever monster was surrounding her. And she was mad at not understanding.

  As she walked, she scooped up handfuls of dirty snow from against the curbs, packed them hard, and aimed them at nearby trees, some of which already had the smallest hints of buds at their tips. Murphy wondered if the buds were optical illusions. In New York, buds would wait till the proper time to come out, she was sure. They’d wait till March, at least. Not the middle of January.

  Murphy felt off-kilter and crooked inside. She’d read a poem once by Elizabeth Barrett Browning about how meeting Robert Browning had meant she could never even look at her own hand the same way again. Even though the poem was about this joyous love, it was really about mourning. Maybe she and Birdie and Leeda—what they were to one another—had changed the way Murphy looked at her own hand too. Maybe without them being like they were supposed to be, she’d always feel crooked.

  Her attention was diverted by a high-pitched voice off to her left. “You’re so sweet!”

  Murphy turned around slowly. Dina Marie was standing on a curb, peering in through the window of Rex’s idling orange truck. He was holding something out to her through the window from the driver’s seat. Murphy squinted, and her blood went cold. It was a peach. Some damn imported out-of-season peach.

  She watched as Dina Marie took a big bite out of it, grinning.

  Something in Murphy snapped. She walked quickly in the direction of the truck. “Hey, Dina!”

  Dina turned, and Murphy whaled her last snowball at her. It hit Dina right on her toothy mouth and bounced off, shattering on the concrete. Murphy put her hand up to her own mouth, shocked. Dina just stood staring at the ground, her fingers to her face, trying to make sense out of what had just hit her. A tiny trickle of blood appeared on her top lip.

  Mortified, Murphy began backing away, then turned without looking at Rex. She made a beeline for the edge of the lot, turned left on the road, and hurried beyond the trees. She realized too late she was walking away from her bike. But there was no way she was doubling back.

  Behind her, a few seconds later, she heard the rumble of Rex’s truck. He pulled up beside her and rolled down his window. Murphy kept walking.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, but she picked up her pace. r />
  “Get in the car.”

  Murphy shook her head and kept moving.

  “Get in, Murphy.”

  She stopped and sighed. She got in. Rex put the truck into second gear and didn’t say anything. He steered toward Anthill Acres.

  “Where’s Dina?” she asked the dashboard.

  “She’s pissed off.” He tapped the steering wheel with his fingers for emphasis. “She left.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Rex looked at her. “Murphy, being sorry doesn’t sit well on you. Tell her you’re sorry, not me.”

  Murphy looked out the window.

  “Dina’s a nice girl.”

  “Yeah, I know. She’s so nice. Nice, nice, nice.” Murphy stole a glance at him to get his reaction to this. He was stone-faced, angry.

  “She says you and I have things we need to work out,” he said flatly. Like it was all her fault that his girlfriend had walked away from him. Which it was.

  But Murphy couldn’t find it in her to apologize for that. “You seem to be working out fine.” She couldn’t stop herself.

  Rex slapped his hands against the steering wheel once, sharply, and then stretched his fingers, taking a deep breath. “Murphy, you dumped me, remember?”

  Murphy huddled into herself. “It was a preemptive strike,” she croaked, staring back at the dirty snow-covered road. Bridgewater at its best.

  Rex sighed, pulled over, and let the truck idle. He put his thumbs up to his forehead. Murphy felt like he was working up to something and she didn’t want to know what.

  “I’m gonna walk.” She got out of the car and walked through the clumps of icy snow. Rex got out too and came up behind her, then reached out for the back of her corduroy coat and tugged.

  “I liked it better when you were sorry. Please stop.”

  Murphy ignored him. She felt like if she stopped walking, she wouldn’t start again. A car sloshed past them and sent slush flying at her. Rex laughed, but she kept going.

  “Murphy, I want to be with you. You know that.”

  Murphy didn’t know. She felt like wild horses were running up and down her rib cage. She knew it would be more beautiful to keep going and not look back. She was wet and cold. She shivered and Rex caught up with her, put his arm around her.

  “Come home with me. Let me keep you warm.”

  Murphy spun around in his arms and crossed her arms in front of her body, her elbows jabbing him. “I can keep myself warm.”

  “Well, then, come home and keep me warm.”

  Murphy wanted to. She slumped on her hip, stared around for an out, buying time. She didn’t want to keep herself warm. She wanted to give in to the flow of what she felt. But like with everything, there was a catch. She knew that if she let herself, she wouldn’t ever stop.

  Thirty-four

  The doctor had explained things to her in teenage girl language, as if Leeda wasn’t capable of understanding compound sentences. They said her body had just shut down and restarted, like a computer. She was going to be fine. The doctor had said she just needed rest and quiet time. They were going to let her go home. But it might take weeks for her to feel like her old self.

  Leeda stared out the window. Her dad stood there to the left, fiddling with the remote control. “What do you want to watch?”

  “I don’t care, Dad.”

  Lucretia sat monarch-like in the farthest chair, reading a copy of W. She’d only put on the minimum amount of makeup, which for her was groundbreaking. Her hair was slightly disheveled. The way her face sagged in places made it look like she hadn’t slept. And she kept eyeing Leeda above her magazine, looking worried. But Leeda couldn’t imagine her really wanting to be there.

  Leeda tugged the light blue curtain to get a better view of the sky—overcast, flat—beyond the window.

  “You leaning toward any of them?” Leeda’s dad nodded toward the stack of acceptance letters that he’d brought to the hospital. UCLA, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, Pepperdine.

  “Still waiting for Berkeley,” Leeda mumbled, staring at the sky.

  Her dad hovered for a few minutes. Mr. Cawley-Smith had always been good at navigating the murky waters between his wife and his daughter. He always gave them both the room they needed. It was like a bow to the fact that they inhabited a girly world he didn’t understand. But sometimes Leeda wished he’d stick a toe in. “Well, I’m going to go get you a bagel. You look too thin. You want anything, Lucretia?” he asked her mother. It was amazing that over the years, he hadn’t managed to shorten such a mouthful to Lu or something like that. It spoke volumes about how intimacy worked with Leeda’s mother.

  With her dad gone, Leeda flipped the channels, and Lucretia flipped her magazine pages faster and faster.

  “I think you should move home,” Lucretia finally said, laying the W on her lap decisively. “You’re obviously not taking good care of yourself.”

  Leeda thought it was ironic that her mom thought she could take better care of her. But she didn’t bother to say it. She was over fighting with her mother. Fighting was a way of trying to connect.

  But Lucretia didn’t let it go. She stood up and walked to the bed and perched on the corner, like she wanted to be close to Leeda but not too close. “You’re going to Aunt Veda’s this summer, and that’s good. But next summer, we’ll have to sort out something for you that’s more structured.”

  “I’m not coming back next summer.” Leeda yawned.

  Lucretia looked surprised. “Oh?”

  “I’ll spend the holidays in San Francisco. I can stay with Aunt Veda or I can rent a place on my own.” Leeda had all sorts of money coming to her when she turned eighteen. She had all sorts of options and none of them, in her mind, were coming back to Breezy Buds.

  Several emotions crossed her mother’s face: surprise, then anger, then recognition. Her mouth settled into a straight, practical line. “When will we see you?”

  “Hopefully you won’t.”

  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Leeda.” Lucretia opened the magazine again, flipping and flipping, as if she wasn’t interested anymore.

  In the past, this would have infuriated Leeda. But she didn’t flinch.

  She only leaned forward. She gently pulled the magazine away and looked her mother in the eye. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that, fully, completely, fearlessly. “You think I’m just saying this because I’m seventeen and seventeen-year-olds say this kind of thing, but I am promising you, Mom, that when I go, I won’t come back. I don’t want you around me anymore.”

  Lucretia gasped so loudly that it seemed like a word. Her blue eyes were as wide and wounded as if she’d been slapped. She had been making Leeda feel that wounded for years, and now Leeda felt serene. She felt like she’d weathered some terrible storm. Like the last few months had been tumultuous and now she had arrived on the other side, somewhere far away, in calm waters, millions of miles from anything familiar. She felt like…what should you call a place far away from all the things that had messed you up before?

  Leeda felt like she was her own continent.

  There were always two ways to tell spring was coming in Bridgewater. One was the color of the sky—which made the gradual shift from a flat, lifeless gray to a smooth, hopeful blue. And then there were the people. They got a little excitable. They did things they normally wouldn’t.

  On February 3, three jumbo-size Sugar Daddys were shoplifted from the Bridgewater Drug and Dairy. On February 20, Maribeth McMurtry accidentally broke the Joseph in her life-size nativity set as she was packing it away for the year. And on March 20, Mayor Wise decided to take a detour along Orchard Road, completely out of his way.

  With the windows down and spring air in his nostrils, he remembered sneaking onto the orchard once, at the age of thirteen, to pick the first peach of the season. He had heard that with the first bite of the first peach, you got to make a wish. Of course, being thirteen, he had wished a naked girl would show up in his front yard, like
a free prize popping up in a box of Cracker Jacks.

  He never realized it, but he had forgotten to specify when.

  Thirty-five

  Murphy woke up just as the sun was rising. Gently, gingerly, she rolled over and propped herself up to look at Rex. He lay flat on his back, one arm stretched out where it had been wrapped around her, the other flat against the back of the couch. They had fallen asleep watching Late Night. To her, he looked like some kind of Holy Grail that only she had been bold and brave and true enough to find.

  Inevitably he sensed she was awake and stirred. She curled back into his warmth and pretended to be asleep.

  “Faker,” Rex whispered, grabbing her arms and kissing her sloppy style on the cheek. Murphy squirmed, her chin pressed against her neck, giggling. And then they both stopped giggling and looked at each other, and Murphy felt like she was hanging on what they had like a clothes hanger. Dangling, swaying, up high.

  She had never wanted to hang.

  But they’d been back together for almost two months now. Rex had landed back in her life with force, even more lodged in than he was before. And Murphy wasn’t dancing away from him anymore like she used to. When she looked at him there on the couch, sitting up, all groggy and disheveled, she wasn’t scared of him like she used to be. Or scared of wanting him as much as she did. She didn’t feel like she needed to pin him down to make sure she had him. She felt like she knew.

  Her mom was still asleep in her bedroom, her door open. Murphy could hear her gently snoring. She pecked him once more on the lips, then forced herself to climb up off the couch.

  She shuffled to the kitchen, filled up the coffeepot, switched it on, and popped her hand out the front door. Outside, it had started to warm up just a tad. She could see the buds on the few straggly trees that hung over Anthill Acres. She reached into the little black metal mailbox at the side of the door.