Rex was sitting in the bleachers way up behind them next to some guys from work.
“Why isn’t Rex sitting with us?” Leeda asked.
Murphy looked over her shoulder. “I don’t know. I told him I’d catch up with him after the game.” She didn’t look Leeda in the eye as she said it.
“Oh, Murphy, you’re so cold,” Leeda told her.
Murphy looked at her like she was an idiot. “Why?”
“Because you want him to miss you.” Murphy always surprised Leeda with how cruel she could be.
“Well, Thanksgiving is less than a month away, and I just think maybe he needs a little reminder….” Murphy balled upher fists and then released them. “So he can remember why he has to come with me.”
Leeda looked back at Rex. The way he kept glancing over at them made Leeda’s chest ache a little. “Murphy, take it easy on him.”
Murphy twirled her hair like she hadn’t heard her. Leeda looked back again, pinchy. He had never looked like that for Leeda. She ran her hands up and down her goose-bumpy arms.
“So Bird’s moping, huh?” Murphy asked.
Leeda nodded. Earlier that evening, while she zipped Leeda into her strapless dress, Birdie asked for the ten-thousandth time if it was really okay if she didn’t go to the football game. She’d headed home instead, dragging her red Crocs along the hall carpet as she shuffled out of the house.
“Here, darlin’.” Lucretia pulled off her heavy cashmere coat and wrapped it around Leeda. “You have such thin little arms,” she said, taking Leeda’s wrist and waggling it, then tucking it back under the coat. “Small people get cold faster. I’m the same way.” Lucretia wrapped her arms across her black cashmere turtleneck and shivered. Leeda gave her a mystified glance. Normally Lucretia wouldn’t throw a life preserver to a drowning man.
Bridgewater scored a touchdown. Everyone cheered and the band launched into an off-key rendition of “We Will Rock You.”
Judge Abbott leaned forward over Murphy’s shoulder. He had hair going white at the temples, an ample stomach, big glasses, and a square jaw. “How’s your mom, Murphy?”
“Fine.” Murphy cracked her gum.
“Where you headed after graduation?”
Murphy rested her chin on her hand, looking bored. “Anywhere but here.”
Judge Abbott laughed. “Well, don’t sugarcoat it,” he said, patting her on the back. He was one of the few authority figures in town—maybe the only one—who actually liked Murphy. He always seemed amused by her and a little protective. “What about you, Leeda?”
Lucretia answered for her, twisting the top onto her thermos. “Leeda applied early decision to Columbia last week. Her aunt invited her to spend the summer in San Francisco. She has a lot of decisions to make.”
Leeda knew she was expected to add something but didn’t. She’d sent her application in without much fanfare, but spending the summer in San Francisco was not an option. Now that she’d spent a summer on the orchard, it was out of the question that she’d miss a summer there. She just hadn’t bothered telling her mom that. It would just stress her out, and maybe she didn’t need stress. Her mom hated the orchard. It was too unruly.
“But she could do anything. Go anywhere,” Murphy said, then cracked her gum again.
Leeda looked at her mom, hoping she wouldn’t take Murphy’s bait. But Lucretia was on to another topic—the hotel the Cawley-Smiths owned.
“You know, Miller, I haven’t seen your wife in our spa in quite a while. Tell her to come in for her next treatment on us.” She looked at Murphy, whose crazy brown hair leapt out of her cheap wool hat like snakes in a trick can of nuts. Then she winked at Judge Abbott as if they were in on some private joke. “Murphy, you should come in for a cut before your interviews start.”
Murphy squinted at Lucretia with exaggerated concern. “Do they do waxing? It looks like your mustache is growing back.” Lucretia’s face went icy, and she looked at Leeda. Leeda gave Murphy a look to lay off. Then her mom turned around and took another sip of her hot cider.
A few minutes later, the crowd did the wave. When it got to them, Murphy reached over Leeda, took Lucretia’s hand, and lifted it. Leeda shot her a look, but she shrugged innocently. The next time the wave came around, Murphy did the same thing. Lucretia actually went along happily. The next wave, when Lucretia started waggling her arms in the air on her own, Leeda began to get uneasy.
“You spiked her cider, didn’t you?” Leeda muttered.
Murphy just nodded and kept her eyes on the game.
As the game crept into the third quarter, Leeda had to admit that her mom became a lot more fun. Murphy had convinced Lucretia that every time the ball went into the end zone, she should yell, “Poot!” Lucretia complied happily. She waggled her long, thin arms in the air and wiggled her hips, yelling, “Poot!” and then looked around like the class clown, hoping she’d gotten a rise out of someone.
“Lucretia,” Murphy said, like she was talking to a patient at a mental hospital. “At the end of the game, everybody’s gonna rush the field. Are you in?”
“Murphy, she’s not a puppet,” Leeda hissed, trying not to laugh.
“She’s having fun.”
“I’m having fun,” Lucretia purred, pulling Leeda’s arm out from under the coat again and holding it softly, friend-like. Leeda didn’t hold back, didn’t move her arm an inch. She let it rest there.
“That’s because Murphy spiked your cider, Mom,” she finally said.
“Oh, I know.” Lucretia opened her eyes for emphasis, then laughed, leaning in and across Leeda’s lap to look at Murphy. “Do I look like I was born yeeserday?”
“Oh God, she’s slurring,” Leeda said.
“I’m not an alien.” Lucretia held up one finger toward the sky to indicate outer space. “I’m not all boring.” Her perfect chignon had gone slightly akimbo. A few tendrils snaked around her ears.
“I thought you were,” Murphy said. “But you’re pretty funny.”
Leeda, half amused, half nervous, tried to make more room between her mom and Murphy. Lucretia kept turning around to tell the people behind them that her daughter was the Pecan Queen and wasn’t she pretty. She said Leeda was going to Columbia next fall and a whole bunch of things she’d just made up, like that Leeda had been Little Miss Kings County and that she had been approached to be a model.
At the end of the game, Lucretia linked her arm through Leeda’s as they walked to the car. To her left, Leeda heard a squeal and turned to see Murphy being swept up over Rex’s shoulder.
“I’m taking this peanut with me,” he said to Leeda casually, his arm hooked gently around Murphy’s thighs, her upper half disappearing over his shoulder. “That okay? You need help getting your mom home?”
“No thanks.” As they walked away, Leeda gave Murphy the thumbs-up. Murphy rolled her eyes.
They didn’t make it as far as Lucretia’s room. Lucretia grabbed the frame of Leeda’s bedroom door as they walked past and flopped inside onto Leeda’s bed. “I’m fine here,” she said.
“But it’s only eight thirty, and I need my room….” Leeda stood for a moment, looking at Lucretia stretched out on top of her white comforter. Fine. She sat on the very edge of the bed and patted her mom’s shoe awkwardly. “You want some water or anything, Mom?” It hadn’t occurred to her until that moment that maybe it wasn’t good for her mom to drink.
“No thanks, honey.” Lucretia flopped her head over to look at Leeda, who was about to go. “I guess I’ll never understand how you pick your friends,” Lucretia mumbled, sounding more like the mom she knew. “By the time you get to be my age, you’ll understand better about girlfriends.”
“Murphy’s good for me.” Leeda sighed, unsurprised. “Maybe you never had the right friends.”
“What about Rex?”
Leeda felt the words like a nasty pinch. She believed Rex and Murphy belonged together. She did. But it still hurt sometimes. And she hated that her mom could use it ag
ainst her and that Murphy and Rex had given her the ammunition.
“I’m sorry.” Lucretia exhaled, shocking Leeda. The phrase wasn’t in her mom’s vocabulary. It had to be the cider talking. “Maybe I just don’t think anyone’s good enough to deserve you.” Leeda couldn’t tell if it was her mom’s pitch-perfect flattery or if she really meant it.
Then her eyes widened. “What’s that?” Lucretia asked, thrusting a finger toward Leeda’s desk, where the Barbie she’d found sat, washed and clean.
“The Barbie? I found it.”
“Where?”
Leeda shrugged. “At the orchard. Near the lake.”
“Did you find it in a rock?”
Leeda did a double take, from her mom to the Barbie and back. “Yeah?”
Lucretia laughed. “That’s my Barbie!”
“What do you mean?”
Lucretia only shook her head. “I can’t believe it. I lost it a million years ago. That is just amazing.”
Leeda looked at the Barbie again. Now it didn’t look like a good omen. It looked…eerie.
“Can I have it?”
Leeda felt hurt. She’d found it. “Um, maybe?”
Lucretia, surprisingly, seemed okay with that.
“Well, good night, Mom.”
But her mom didn’t reply. She was looking at the mirror on the back of the door, reflecting both of them—Lucretia in the bed and Leeda in her long ice-blue homecoming dress.
“Do you know you and I have exactly the same shoulders? That’s why I wanted you to wear this dress. It shows them off.”
Leeda looked behind her at the mirror. She’d never noticed—she did have her mom’s shoulders—straight as a ledge across, with the tiny bird-like clavicle bone protruding softly and perfectly on each side.
“They broke the mold when they made our shoulders.”
Just in case, Leeda got a glass of water from the kitchen. She saw some trick-or-treaters from the window, a fairy and a ghoul grabbing handfuls of candy from the basket on the porch.
When she went back upstairs, she watched her mom for a moment, sleeping, her pale arm thrown over her forehead, looking so human. For the first time in a long time, Leeda saw her mom the way she had when she was a kid—like the most beautiful, elusive creature on earth.
Leeda put the glass on the nightstand. She took the Barbie off the dresser and laid it beside Lucretia on the bed.
Nine
Outside Kuntry Kitchen, the trick-or-treaters were popping into every door like gophers. Murphy slid out of the passenger side of Rex’s truck and eyed a witch and a spider scurrying past her.
Rex’s arms came around her, wrapping her up tight. He pressed against her back and kissed her on the neck, walking her forward a few steps.
“You take me to all the nice places,” she said, seeing where they were moving. Sometimes when Rex hugged her, she felt the need to squirm away just so he’d know he didn’t have her so much. But she let him walk her up to the door and open it for her. When Murphy saw who was sitting in the first booth on the left, she instinctively stepped back. Rex’s dad stood up and smiled. Rex nudged her from behind, and she practically tripped forward again.
“Great to finally meet you, Murphy.” Mr. Taggart reached out for Murphy’s hand. Murphy glanced down at her tight, low-cut sweater self-consciously. She shot a death glare at Rex. He smiled back at her. His look said, Rex 1, Murphy 0.
“Hi, uh, Mr. Taggart,” she said, taking the hand he offered.
Just across the aisle, the cooks bustled behind the counter to the sounds of sizzling grease. Kuntry Kitchen was a hole-in-the-wall with five booths back to back, a six-item fried food menu, and a little alcove where a bluegrass band played on Friday nights. They had the worst dinner in Bridgewater, but the banjo picker was the third-best in Georgia, and the place was packed to hear him every week. She hated to admit it, but Murphy actually loved the whole scene.
They all slid into the booth, awkwardly quiet, Mr. Taggart wearing a tentative smile. They watched as a couple of people squeezed by them and made their way to the booths in the back. The band launched into their first number.
“So, Murphy, Rex talks blue streaks about you,” Mr. Taggart finally said.
Murphy threw a glance at Rex, intent on looking careless as the band kicked along a rolling rendition of a number called “Butter Beans.” Some of the patrons sang along. “I didn’t know Rex talked blue streaks about anything.”
“Your mom’s Jodee, right?”
Murphy nodded.
“She came in last week looking for a garden hose. She’s a nice woman.”
“Thanks.” Murphy melted slightly. Usually if people were trying to be polite, they didn’t mention Murphy’s mom at all. She kept her eyes on the banjo picker, his fingers moving up and down the frets like wildfire.
They ordered: fries for Murphy, a grilled cheese for Rex, a burger for his dad. Mr. Taggart had an almost feminine way of looking at his son. Glowing and affectionate. He had the humble, open look of someone who liked people, who always let others go first in line, and who had very little to hide. People with nothing to hide always made Murphy nervous. She always felt like her own ribs hid a glistening and secret black heart. But Mr. Taggart looked so awkward and kind that Murphy felt she should say something. She knew Mr. Taggart worked at Ace Hardware. “Do you know a lot about tools?” she finally asked. She could have kicked herself for sounding like such an idiot.
“I’m a little handy,” Mr. Taggart replied in the totally gracious way that made Murphy suspect he was more than a little handy. “But I know more about cooking. I keep telling Rex he needs to bring you home for dinner.” The smile Mr. Taggart gave her was direct and hopeful. “Has Rex told you he’s a bit of a cook too?”
Murphy shook her head. “He hasn’t mentioned that.”
Mr. Taggart swallowed. He looked slightly afraid of her, like he wanted her to like him or something. It took Murphy by surprise.
“Don’t be fooled—he’s not modest,” Mr. Taggart told her, scratching his chin. “He just lets other people do the bragging for him. Looks better that way.”
Murphy glanced at Rex, who leaned back, relaxed.
“Girls eat it up,” Rex said with a crooked smile.
Two booths beyond them, Murphy noticed Maribeth McMurtry, a lunatic-fringe evangelical woman of hulking proportions, sitting with a couple of friends eating country-fried steak. On Sundays after church, Maribeth stood downtown giving out freaky flyers on how the unsaved could survive Armageddon by chopping off their own heads. Birdie had taken one of the flyers once when she and Murphy were getting slushees. She had looked like she might pass out when she saw the illustrations. Even gentle Father Michael at Divine Grace of the Redeemer had tried to talk Maribeth into toning it down a bit. Now Maribeth’s godly brown eyes drifted up to Murphy’s and narrowed. Murphy’s gut did a little thud.
The thing about Maribeth McMurtry was that Murphy had made out with her much-younger husband last year after streaking the Easter Revival, when she didn’t know he was anybody’s husband. She had simply thought it would be a funny story to French-kiss a guy named Patsy. Afterward Patsy had told her she would make a great clerk at the Outreach Center after she graduated from high school. The whole thing had been a mistake. But one she’d assumed only she and Patsy knew about.
But now Maribeth kept looking in her direction and then muttering to her friends, who turned around to look too. Murphy tried not to be nervous.
“I hear Kuntry Kitchen’s hiring,” Murphy quipped, turning her attention back to Rex. “You could meet all the girls you wanted.”
“Ha,” Mr. Taggart laughed. “I bet you keep him on his toes, Murphy.” He gave her a Southern-gentlemanly wink.
Rex put his hand on Murphy’s back and scratched gently. Mr. Taggart sank back in his booth, turning to the band and tapping his feet to the music, obviously content.
It hit Murphy like a hammer. Rex’s dad didn’t hate her. And she didn’t ha
te him. In fact, it startled her how much she liked him.
Once their meals came, Murphy and Rex occupied themselves kicking each other’s feet under the table and laughing at his dad’s jokes. Every time he got to a funny bit, his eyes swept Murphy, making sure to include her. Murphy sat against the wall, inches from Rex, letting him hold her hand and feeling squirmy.
“I hope you’ll come down to Destin with us sometime,” Mr. Taggart said. “We go every summer.”
Murphy thought about how she’d be gone by summer, but she didn’t want to say so. “That sounds great,” she answered, because it did.
The music went on for a little over an hour, every minute of which Murphy enjoyed thoroughly. She felt the weight of the intimidation she’d been feeling lifting off her shoulders. Finally the waitress placed their check on the linoleum table. Murphy fished in her pockets.
“Don’t be crazy, now,” Mr. Taggart said, grabbing the check. Murphy grinned sheepishly and sat back, noticing Maribeth and her friends walking up the aisle. Murphy looked in the other direction, pretending not to see them.
“Hussy,” Maribeth hissed as she walked by, loud enough for everyone near them to hear.
Rex looked at Murphy. Murphy looked at the fry counter, her shoulders going tight. If he and his dad hadn’t been there, she would have danced around yelling, “I’ll swallow your soul.” She would have said something about what a saliva-y kisser Patsy was. She would have done something. But instead she looked down at her lap, trying to keep her hands from shaking.
Mr. Taggart sipped at his water as if nothing had happened and valiantly took a bite of his last remaining fry.
After Rex’s dad had left, they stood on the sidewalk outside. She felt like she should say something.
“You okay, Shorts?” Rex asked, gently tilting her face up to look at him.
She looked at him, looked away, looked at him again. “I wasn’t thinking. I used to not think.” There had been a lot of things Murphy used to do and not do. She wanted to be born again, but not in a Christian way. It wasn’t that she thought she had done anything wrong. She just didn’t think all the things she’d done said anything about who she really was. Even if everyone else in Bridgewater disagreed with that. “I’m innocent,” she said, hoping to sum it all up and feeling like she never could.