“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.
A few more jabs and two legs were clearly exposed. It looked like a miniature scene from CSI. Leeda leveraged the plastic leg just enough with the twig so she could reach it with the tips of her fingers and pull it out.
It was an old, ratty Barbie. She had long black hair and wore black clam diggers and a tank top. Her eyes were caked in mud and her hair was stringy and matted, but her outfit had a retro, urban flair, and she wore a devil-may-care Barbie smile.
Leeda smiled too. Poopie was always finding good omens. If there was such a thing, this certainly seemed like an excellent candidate. Maybe it was saying not to worry. After all, there was no one better equipped to look out for herself than her mother. Leeda knew it was a long shot, but she made a big fake smile back at the Barbie anyway and chose to believe it.
Then, in an un-Leeda-like move—considering the Barbie was dirty, muddy, and ancient—Leeda took it with her.
Seven
“Excuse me, what time is it?”
“¿Perdón, a qué hora es?” Birdie repeated in Spanish. She was listening to her Spanish lesson while loading most of the debris they’d cleared from the cave into the pickup truck, her iPod clipped to the waist of her baggy jeans. There had been no sign of bats, and she thought it was possible that the clutter was scaring them off. She craned her neck toward the house, hidden beyond the peach rows, looking for Poopie. She had done this several times, sure that she’d see her in her green rubber boots, stomping out of the peach rows toward her like the determined peanut she was, plunging in to help like she had promised she would about two hours ago.
Birdie sighed and looked over at her dogs. Honey Babe lay like Cleopatra against the wall of the barn, exposing her belly insouciantly. Majestic did the same thing, imitating her. Both papillons had their sweaters on. Birdie grinned at them and grabbed a rusted, heavy old rake, hauling it up into the truck bed with a grunt.
“My clothes are dirty.”
“Mi ropa esta sucia,” Birdie chimed, wiping an itch on her forehead with the inside of her elbow. Honey Babe looked over at her quizzically.
“I have to wash my clothes.”
“Tengo que lavar mi ropa.”
“Your shirt is very pretty.”
“Uhhh, tu camisa es muy bonita.”
“How much do those pants cost?”
Birdie thought, then blurted, “¿Cuántos dólares son los pantalones?”
The sky was getting dimmer, and Birdie couldn’t see the sun. It was almost six.
“This ends lesson six. Lesson seven…”
Birdie pushed the pause button, letting her mind drift. She tried telling Enrico, in her mind, that his shirt was nice. She pictured him in his hallway in Mexico.
“Tengo que lavar su ropa,” the imaginary Birdie said. I have to wash your clothes.
Enrico looked slightly embarrassed and pulled off his shirt.
“¿Puedo llevar tus pantalones también?” Birdie pressed. Can I take your pants also?
Birdie felt her face flame up. Her eyes shot toward the house to check for Poopie.
Birdie grabbed the last rotted old wood scraps and an old tire and leveraged them on top of the other junk, then closed the truck bed door. She got in and drove back up the drive, parking just by the dorms. The dump would be closed now—she’d take everything tomorrow.
Sliding out, she decided to walk down to the pecan rows and see how the leaves were changing there. Late October was one of Birdie’s favorite times for the trees. As she walked, her thoughts drifted back to Enrico. A smile crept onto her face as she worked out the words for asking him to lie in her bed while he waited for his clothes to dry.
Suddenly Birdie’s eyes lit on Methuselah. Murphy was right. There was something a little wrong with her. Her branches definitely sagged. And some of the roots, poking above the ground, looked shriveled and shrunken. She’d have to look in the books in her dad’s office to find out what it was and how to treat it.
Birdie patted the tree affectionately as she moved past, then headed back to the house, her sweat cooling and making her shiver.
Inside, Birdie could hear Poopie’s voice upstairs. Birdie’s stomach growled.
She pulled off her jacket and kicked off her shoes and padded up the stairs to ask Poopie what was for dinner. Peering in, Birdie saw piles of photos strewn across the bed and a box, half packed full of letters and knickknacks. Birdie gazed at the items curiously, feeling like a voyeur. Poopie sat with her back turned, looking out the window, the phone cradled in one hand, the other hand resting on a little figure on her windowsill. It took Birdie a moment to recognize it as Saint Anthony. Poopie had him turned toward her as if he were being included in a conference call.
“…seventeen years…” she was saying. Birdie stood next to the doorjamb, catching bits and pieces of Poopie’s Spanish. She sounded serious, and Birdie hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. She backed up, but just as she did, she heard the phone being laid in the cradle. So she came back, floating in the doorway for a moment.
“You okay, Poopie?”
Poopie jumped, then smiled at her over her shoulder. “Yes.” She looked at the Saint Anthony in recognition, then looked embarrassed. “Oh, oh, sorry. I was just borrowing him.” She handed him to Birdie.
“Thanks,” Birdie said, confused. She was halfway down the hall when she remembered what she’d wanted to ask Poopie in the first place. She backtracked, and at the doorway, she froze.
This time, Poopie sat facing the window, her back shaking with silent tears. She sniffled and leaned over her lap, her hands on her forehead.
Birdie stood, unsure what to do. She had learned a thing or two growing up with her mom and dad. Sometimes pretending you didn’t notice things made everyone’s lives smoother—especially the people who were hurting. If anybody deserved a smooth life, it was Poopie. Birdie quietly crept to her room and closed the door. She put Saint Anthony on her dresser. She stared at him, the patron saint of going places, as if he could clue her in.
Where was Poopie going?
The next day Enrico and Birdie sat in silence on the
phone. Birdie felt like she could listen to him breathe for hours. She could hear him doodling on his notebook—magnolia flowers, stars, peaches—drawings he would send to her in his next letter.
She picked at the stray threads on her Hola sweater. Since she’d told him she was coming, there was anticipation stretching across the line too. The idea of seeing him in Mexico had turned from something funny to talk about to something big and scary to get ready for. What if it wasn’t like it had been this summer? What if there were spaces between them where their lives didn’t meet up? What if Birdie didn’t like it in such a strange place?
“She wouldn’t look at me today,” Birdie finally said, sitting in her bedroom’s front window and staring out at the peach trees across the lawn. Poopie, with “so much to do,” was standing in the grass, drinking a beer with a hand on her waist. The peach trees had fully changed color now—the leaves were as orange as tangerines with tiny specks of green clinging on. The crisscrossing rows looked like flames leaping up from the grass.
“Ask her, Birdie, what’s wrong.” Enrico had said it three times already.
“She’ll tell me when she’s ready. She tells me everything.”
“Well, maybe with this you have to ask.”
Birdie rubbed Honey Babe’s ears distractedly.
“She said something about seventeen years,” she offered, thinking out loud because she’d already told him this. “In Spanish.” She thought of Saint Anthony. “Do you think she’s going on some top secret trip?”
Enrico was quiet for a long while. Birdie wanted to curl up in the easy sound of his breath. She felt like she could almost reach out and touch him.
“Birdie, when do you think Poopie will retire?”
Birdie looked down at the phone cord, pinching it, a nervous prick in her stomach. “Retire?”
Enrico laughed gently. “She will want to retire sometime. She will want to go home sometime.”
Home. Birdie swallowed. “This is home.” Birdie realized how it sounded as soon as she said it. It sounded…egocentric. Anglo-centric. As if Poopie’s whole life revolved around the Darlingtons. Enrico didn’t call her on it, though. Of course, home was the town he and Poopie shared in Mexico. He didn’t have to say.
“How long has she worked for you?” he asked softly.
“Since the year I was born,” Birdie answered, picking at some fuzz on the o on her sweater.
“Seventeen years,” Enrico said slowly, apologetically.
For a moment, Birdie stopped breathing. She stared out the window at Poopie, down on the grass, oblivious to being watched. Her mind spun with thoughts of what it meant if that were true, what it meant about the way Poopie saw things.
“We’re not just…people she works for,” Birdie said, suddenly on fire. Poopie had been there to pick her up, to give her advice, to tell her when she was off the mark, to set her straight. She’d been there to do that Birdie’s whole life.
“She loves you. Of course she does.”
Poopie wasn’t a second mother. She was something else. If Birdie’s life revolved around someone, it was Poopie. “She does,” Birdie asserted. She felt sick. Poopie loved her. She was sure she did.
But maybe not like home. Maybe not like Birdie loved Poopie.
“Maybe it’s not that, Birdie. It could be many other things,” Enrico told her tenderly.
“Maybe,” Birdie said softly, once again listening to the comforting silence of Enrico’s breath.
When they finally said good-bye, Birdie stayed by her window. The sun was setting earlier now, and the house’s wide yard had an orange tint leading to the peach trees. Poopie had put down her beer and walked with a slow, aimless gait into the orchard. Like she was walking for the pure pleasure of walking, not like she was going to get something from the cider shed, or pick tomatoes for the salad, or get in her truck and drive to town. She wove back and forth between the peach trees, floating softly along the pale dirt that rolled out like red carpets between them. She reminded Birdie of some kind of blissed-out hippie.
Why hadn’t she noticed before? Of course, Poopie was leaving. She had the look of someone who was already gone.
On Halloween morning, when Birdie Darlington was five years old, she decided to draw a portrait of Poopie on the pantry wall. Using a red crayon, she outlined Poopie’s long skirt, her long black hair, her busy hands reaching out. It seemed like the perfect tribute, but when Birdie stood back to admire her work, she was shocked to see that what she had drawn wasn’t Poopie at all, but the Virgin Mary. Terrified that she was witnessing a miracle, Birdie ran away and later blocked it from her mind completely.
Eight
“You have to put it on thick for something like this,” Lucretia said. “You’re not just going to Homecoming. You’re the Queen.”
Leeda remembered this already. She remembered all the advice her mom gave her. Smile no matter what. Don’t slump. Put the makeup on thick.
Birdie lay across Lucretia’s bed like a dead fish, her head hanging over the edge as she studied the carpet and picked it apart with her fingers. Leeda’s parents’ bedroom had come straight off an Ethan Allen catalog page—headboard, side tables, bureau—all smooth, clean, matching, the whole bed so fluffed it nearly swallowed Birdie up. On her mom’s side was a Patricia Cornwell novel. On her dad’s was a biography of John Adams. Leeda wondered vaguely if her parents ever talked when they were sitting here, fluffed up on all their pillows. She could feel her mom’s gentle breathing on her face as Lucretia worked and her own breath falling in line with her mother’s. The gentle, synchronized rhythm made her sleepy, like a kitten.
“I’ll call her,” Leeda said. “Just give me the phone and I’ll call her.”
Birdie continued to pick at the floor. “Maybe she’s not ready to tell me.”
“But you already know,” Leeda told her. All day, Birdie had been wilted like a dying flower. She’d come to help Leeda get ready for the homecoming Halloween football game since Murphy was supposedly finishing her NYU application.
“Well, even if Poopie goes, you can still keep in touch. You can still call her.” Leeda tried to sound even, unconcerned. Only because she hoped the evenness might rub off on Birdie. The truth was, she wasn’t sure Birdie could survive without Poopie. Leeda couldn’t imagine Birdie in that big farmhouse with just her dad.
“And then you guys will leave too.” Birdie patted her hands on the carpet, frustrated. “And then I’m only gonna have peaches to talk to.”
“You won’t only have peaches to talk to,” Leeda said evenly. A prick in her eyebrow pulled her attention back to her mom, who was holding a pair of tweezers and wrapped up in concentration. Leeda sighed, content. She couldn’t help basking in the intimacy of having her makeup done. Leeda toyed with the idea of asking her mom how she was feeling but decided against it. She looked okay. These days, it always made Leeda feel a little better just to see her.
“There,” Lucretia said, turning her toward the mirror. Leeda studied herself. She hadn’t changed into her gown yet, and the makeup looked funny with her jeans and sweater. But her mom was beaming. So she guessed she looked good. She guessed if her mom looked that happy, the whole thing was worth it.
“Have you practiced your wave?” Birdie asked, pulling herself up on the bed and brightening a little or at least making an effort. Leeda waved at her, mock graceful.
Birdie laughed valiantly. She climbed off the bed and gave her a big hug. “Ah, Lee. I love you. I gotta pee.”
She left Leeda standing with her mom, and Leeda felt sort of awkward about the love. She wondered how long it had been since her mom had told her she loved her or vice versa. Some people made it look so easy.
Halloween night was unseasonably cold. There was a harvest moon, huge and orange, rising behind the football field. The green grass rose stiffly under Leeda’s high-heeled shoes, which dug into the mud. The whole ceremony was slightly pagan: Leeda stood in the middle and her royal court—her friend Dina Marie an
d another girl—flanked her sides in varicolored dresses, like demigoddesses. Leeda fiddled with her swan pendant, watching the bleachers warily, worried about Murphy and her mom being alone together. Murphy had saved Leeda and her mom seats on the bleachers. She found them side by side in the fourth row up, looking like they were ignoring each other. Leeda breathed a sigh of relief, but then she saw an odd sight—Murphy handing her mom a thermos. It was probably poisoned.
The ceremony went on and on. Leeda smiled and waved and received some flowers. The Pecan Queen always doubled as the Homecoming Queen.
Finally, after half an hour of standing in the cold, Leeda was released and made her way into the bleachers, where different people touched and congratulated her. She moved between Murphy and her mom, shivering. Murphy handed her a warm blue thermos and snuggled up to her.
Leeda took a sip from the thermos. It was hot apple cider. Her mom was drinking out of a red one. She hadn’t keeled over yet.
The Bridgewater High School football team was dismal, but Lucretia insisted it would be bad manners to show up for the game and then leave. She knew everyone in the stands and waved and winked and smiled to people like an actress at the Oscars. She had bustled around the bandstand beforehand, making sure the band was going to play the right music. She’d replaced the tiara they were using with Grandmom Eugenie’s. She’d managed to bend everyone to her will easily, wearing a genteel smile all the while.
Leeda scanned the bleachers. Judge Miller Abbott and his son sat nearby with a group of guys from school behind them. Dina Marie scooted to the end of their row to sit next to the guys. Every time Dina laughed her flirty laugh, Leeda could see Murphy wince and roll her eyes. The boys shot glances over at them repeatedly. Boys always stared at Leeda, but they stared at Murphy harder because Leeda looked fine like china, but Murphy looked like the world’s most decadent banana split. Boys were scared of both of them. Scared of Leeda because she looked too cool to touch and scared of Murphy because they were afraid she might bite them.