The Secrets of Peaches (11 page)

Poopie Pedraza had long been convinced the orchard was haunted. She swore if she stood on the porch at dusk, she could see the shades of people who'd come and gone on the property. One looked like Judge Miller Abbott at age seventeen. Another looked like Lucretia Cawley-Smith at age twelve. Others she recognized from old farm photographs. And although Poopie got the giggly-wigglies watching them, she was always looking for the ghost of herself. She feared that when she someday saw her own eyes looking back at her, she would know it was time to go.

L
eeda was collecting pecans in a bucket because Poopie had asked her to. It was the first of December, cool and bright, and the Balmeade Country Club grass lay splayed out, Day-Glo green, on the other side of the fence. As she worked, Leeda kept pausing and staring at it, drifting off. She set her bucket down and leaned against the fence—which was rotting in places, the paint peeling so that some of it stuck to her pink cotton coat. From here, she could see that the clubhouse was almost finished. She could make out workers installing the windows. The country club was still rebuilding after the summer's big storm. But by the size of the new clubhouse, it looked like it was coming back bigger than ever.

Leeda looked behind her. She couldn't believe she was back living at the orchard. The grassy floor between the two rows of shaggy trees was carpeted in hard, round pecans that had fallen unharvested. Methuselah drooped on the far end, looking exhausted.

Occasionally a pecan ricocheted through branches somewhere far above and landed with a
crack
on the ground. Leeda
heard each crack distinctly. Her ears were tuned to the sound of the winter birds, the rustle of squirrels, the vague crunching of bugs nibbling on leaves. That was what happened, she realized, when you'd been engulfed in quiet for days. Birdie had yet to come to the dorms, though she and Leeda had seen each other for meals before and after Leeda went off to school. Even at the table, Birdie curled over her food solemnly. Poopie wasn't eating with them these days. And Uncle Walter had never been much of a conversationalist.

Leeda understood. There were not enough words to tell Birdie how sorry she was, and she wanted to give her all the space she needed. But Murphy was something else entirely. Leeda kept waiting for Murphy's big apology. For abandoning her to the wolves at the Pecan Festival when she needed her most. But the apology hadn't come. In fact, Murphy had avoided her at school, disappearing at lunch, only nodding to her in the halls. It had knocked Leeda for a loop. Either Murphy was too nervous about being forgiven or she was angry at Leeda for some mysterious cause she couldn't imagine. Both options fueled the firestorm in Leeda's head.

She cast a glance toward the Balmeade property again, thinking about whether she should climb over the fence and lie on the well-groomed grass. It looked tempting—pristine, soft, smooth. At the moment she put one foot up on the lowest fence rung, she felt something thunk her on the back.

“Ow.” She reached back and spun around. Birdie and Murphy stood behind her, Murphy laughing.

Murphy saw the look on her face and quickly suppressed the smile. “Sorry.” Birdie stood beside her, the picture of grief,
awash in black. She had fashioned a papoose out of black fabric and in it Majestic dangled like a seed pod, her little nose poking out and her accusing eyes drilling a hole in Leeda. Leeda couldn't maintain eye contact.

“You know some kids threw Snickers bars at me at Quick Trip yesterday,” she muttered for Murphy's benefit.

“You're the pariah of the Bridgewater beauty queens,” Murphy said. There was a harsh edge to her voice that set Leeda on edge.

“What're you doing here?” she asked coolly.

Birdie whipped something out of her pocket and held it up in the air like a finger. A red Sharpie. “Cast signing.”

They sat with their backs against the fence, Leeda, then Birdie, then Murphy at the end. Birdie unsheathed one of Majestic's casted legs from the papoose. The dog sighed and settled its little chin against her breast mournfully.

“I'll go first,” Birdie said, holding the back of the marker to her lips thoughtfully, then writing, very gingerly,
You are #1. Get well soon.
She held Majestic's face up to hers and repeated what she'd written, giving her a look to see if she understood.

She handed the marker to Murphy, who didn't need to think at all. She leaned over Birdie and wrote
Don't change
.

Birdie shot her a stricken look. When Murphy went to hand the marker back to her, her face went all innocent. “What?”

“Couldn't you have written something more heartfelt?”

Murphy sighed, then reached for the marker again. “Here, I'll cross it out.”

“No, no, no, it's too late,” Birdie said wistfully. She took the marker and handed it to Leeda. Leeda hated things like this. She
hated writing anything permanent—even school papers. She knew that whatever she wrote, she would think of something better a few minutes later. She tapped the pen against her chin and then finally, unsurely, wrote the only thing heartfelt she knew:
Lo siento. I'm sorry.
She was pretty sure Majestic was bilingual.

Birdie lifted Majestic out of the papoose and placed her gently on the grass. “Go play.” Majestic didn't go play. She didn't so much lie down in the spot as expire there and roll onto her side, staring at Leeda.

“I wish she'd stop looking at me like that.”

“I guess
Lo siento
's not good enough,” Murphy offered. Birdie and Leeda both looked at her, surprised. How could she be so hard? Murphy's curls stuck against the little cracks of the fence. Leeda hadn't noticed till that moment the paleness of her face, the dark half-saucers under her eyes, how tired she looked. Like her whole face was working to show something she didn't feel. Maybe she felt terrible for what had happened at the festival after all. Leeda instantly wanted to forgive her.

They were quiet for a while.

“Do you believe in karma?” Birdie asked to no one in particular, unless she was talking to Majestic.

“I think so,” Leeda said. Actually, Leeda really didn't know. She hadn't thought about it much.

Birdie let out a long breath and let her arms loll back behind her head. “What about retribution, like, from the universe?”

Leeda hadn't thought about that much either. She shrugged. “Nah. Look at all the bad guys that get off easy.”

“The bad guys don't just get off easy,” Murphy piped in.
“They win. Nine times out of ten. When the good guys win, it's an accident. That's how the universe works.”

Birdie seemed to take this all in very seriously. Finally she said, “What do you think about that thing where if you're a sinner and Armageddon comes, you have to chop off your own head?”

“HA,” Murphy laughed.

“Me too.” Birdie rolled over on her side. “But what if you make a mistake—do you think God punishes you for it?”

She was asking Murphy, but Leeda felt like she needed to protect Birdie from Murphy's dark cynicism, so she said fast, “I don't think it works that way, Bird. I don't think God is like that.”

“Rex and I are splits,” Murphy announced out of nowhere, reaching around to pluck some paint off the fence. Birdie gasped and leaned in, grabbing Murphy's thigh. Murphy shook her head and put her finger to her lips. “Don't say sorry. Don't say anything.” Murphy peeled the paint into fine little strings. “I'm fine.”

Suddenly it made sense to Leeda. Murphy's recent behavior in the halls had nothing to do with her. She was sorry and hurt at the same time.

Birdie reached from the thigh to one of Murphy's hands, squishing their fingers together even though Murphy tried to pull hers away. Leeda marveled at how Birdie could do things like that so easily.

“He won't go to New York,” Murphy said.

“So you guys decided to call it off now before it gets even harder to leave?” Birdie asked gently. Some people would have
asked out of curiosity. With Birdie, it was always to get you to say what you needed to say. Leeda could only watch, frozen and unsure what to do. Murphy looked at Birdie and her eyes started to go watery.

“I decided,” Murphy said flatly.

Leeda thought of Rex, of how he looked at Murphy, like all sorts of spotlights were dancing on her. He must be devastated.

“I'm sorry, Murphy.” Birdie wrapped Murphy in a suffocating hug. Murphy folded her arms and tried to squirm away.

Leeda watched Birdie showering so much sympathy on Murphy, who had walked away from love. Leeda couldn't remember ever doing that. She could remember lots of times love had walked away from her, in the form of her mom, turning in another direction. In the form of Rex, when he'd kissed Murphy in the garden when he was supposed to belong to Leeda. When she had given Rex up to Murphy, no one had come over to hold her hand. She'd remembered distinctly that when she'd stood on the Pecan Festival float alone, Murphy had been eating a fried Mars bar.

“He would have stayed with you,” Leeda said, almost to herself. “Until the last minute.”

Murphy and Birdie both looked at her.

“But that's not the problem,” Leeda went on. “It's not how much he's wrapped around your finger; it's whether he's wrapped all the way.”

“Leeda, don't say that,” Birdie said. Murphy looked too stunned to say anything.

Finally Murphy straightened herself up and said with a distant, sharp edge, “Rex is taking care of himself.” As in, Leeda
didn't know what she was talking about. As in, Leeda had no idea what the right thing was.

Leeda thought of the many little ways that Murphy had hurt her. She didn't know why she felt so deeply, hugely angry, but it was unstoppable. Still, she kept her voice even and calm. “Well, I'd think of anyone, you'd understand putting yourself first.”

“Leeda!” Birdie said.

Once, when Leeda had been in fifth grade, she'd called another girl fat. It was something she'd heard her mom say a million times behind people's backs. But her teacher—Ms. Dubois, whom she adored—had heard her. She'd said Leeda's name, just like that:
Leeda
, and just stared at her. No punishment. No other words. And Leeda had felt like the smallest, unworthiest piece of dirt in the world. She felt that way now.

Leeda looked off toward the dorms. She needed someone to notice that she was here too, that she had been walked away from too. She didn't know how to say that out loud.

“Let's go inside and watch a movie.” Birdie stood up and dragged Murphy by the elbow.

Leeda stood too, twisted up inside, wanting to hit, or tear, or claw. “I don't feel like it,” she said, daring them to push her. She just needed to be pushed an inch….

But Birdie just started walking. She turned to look over her shoulder with big, wholesome, disappointed Birdie eyes. “That's probably good,” she told her. Leeda felt a stab at the words and stood frozen in place.

She watched their backs as they walked on down between the two rows of pecans, the trees' arms arching overhead so they looked like a couple in a military wedding. Leeda stood with her
hands at her side. Her body felt out of place, like it had landed on the orchard from another planet. She had the strange, too-aware sense that the ground she stood on was all curves and she couldn't be anything but perpendicular.

Birdie and Murphy disappeared on the other side of the pecan grove. They didn't look back. And Leeda watched love walk away from her all over again.

B
irdie lay on her stomach, her cheek mushed against her cool cotton bedspread. She'd pushed one pillow off to make more room, and her left arm dangled over the side of the bed. Her room was the safest place to hide from her dad and Poopie. Outside of meals, she hid up here pretending to do schoolwork whenever she was in the house. Every morning since Thanksgiving, for ten long days, she had woken up thinking it was the day her dad would give her some kind of horrible, uncomfortable speech. But so far, nothing. Ominous, scary silence. Of course, the speech would include her not being allowed to go to Mexico. She was sure of it. As sure as she was that Poopie had told him.

Birdie let out a groan. She did not want to think about Poopie at all. Poopie hadn't made eye contact
once
since the cider house. But Birdie didn't have to look in her eyes to know what she was thinking. She was thinking she was stuck in a house with an emotional mutant (Birdie's dad), a handicapped dog who couldn't go to the bathroom on her own (Majestic), and a Jezebel (Birdie, of course). If Poopie already had one figurative
foot out the door, it was a wonder she hadn't taken off running yet. Maybe she was waiting for a good deal on flights.

On the other pillow next to Birdie, Saint Francis reposed, unblinkingly staring at the ceiling. Birdie wasn't sure who the patron saint of Jezebels was, so she'd dragged out Saint Francis, who'd always been her favorite.

Birdie knew it wasn't quite the way things were supposed to work, but she sometimes tried to communicate with her santos through mental telepathy. This time, she had tried to make him very comfortable first so he would be most amenable to hearing what she had to say.

Hi,
she thought, looking over at the santo. Then a stream of thoughts about all her recent sins flowed out of her, beginning with the biggest. She sighed. She knew she was in no position to ask favors, but she needed to anyway.

If it was my fault that God took Honey Babe away, can you send me some kind of sign?
she asked with her thoughts. Saint Francis stared up at the ceiling beneficently. Birdie lay very still for a long time, listening to the silence of the room, the winter air hissing around the tiny gaps in the windowpanes. She pushed up on her elbows, looked toward the window in case it was raining locusts or something, then plopped back down, cheek first.

Okay, well, if I promise not to do it again, can we forget the whole thing ever happened?
She waited, and again, nothing. It wasn't like she was really expecting a sign. She wasn't
eight
. But just for reassurance, she leaned over Saint Francis and looked at his face carefully to see if the expression had changed at all. He still wore a blank stare and a peaceful smile. Or did it have a hint of disdain in it?

She sighed and shuffled across the cold wooden floor, placing him on her dresser next to a green urn that contained Honey Babe's ashes.

“Woof woof!”

Birdie jumped, thinking it was the urn barking. And then she remembered Majestic, who'd been lying on her dog pillow and was getting up to hobble over. Birdie scooped the dog into her arms. Majestic stared at the urn over her shoulder suspiciously, letting out a low growl. She growled at the urn a lot. Birdie didn't know if she just didn't know what it was or if she knew that it was a vase full of Honey Babe and was grumbling to object.

“I'm losing my mind,” Birdie muttered. She was hungry. She peered out of her room to make sure the coast was clear and tiptoed down the stairs.

In the back of her mind, Birdie was constantly trying to figure out how she would break it to Enrico that she wouldn't be allowed to see him anymore. Part of her kept hoping to open up to Murphy or Leeda and ask for advice, but Birdie was too ashamed. She'd tried dropping hints to Leeda, letting out little sighs, sitting on the bed in her dorm room and swinging her legs, silence passing between them for minutes on end. But Leeda didn't seem to notice the lapses. At meals, she sat like a fine marble goddess. Between meals, she ducked to the dorms. Murphy too hadn't been over again since she and Leeda had argued.

At the bottom of the stairs, Birdie could smell a cloud of Poopie's perfume, as if she'd just been there. She walked into the kitchen and grabbed a box of wheat crackers from the pantry, then wandered into the office to flip through the bills.

After her mom had left, she and her dad had both been so shell-shocked. The office had fallen apart for a while, and now it was such a relief to see everything in order. The two of them—well, the three of them—had gotten their life harnessed together. Birdie marveled at how smoothly it ran now and how quickly it had happened.

She sorted through the bills and highlighted the due dates. She opened their insurance statements and tried to run down the numbers, but she couldn't focus. She kept thinking about things Enrico had done. Where he'd kissed her. The angle of her hand on his shoulder. A tiny bruise on his side. When she looked up, her dad was standing in the doorway. Half a wheat cracker lodged itself in her throat and she coughed, her pulse throbbing. Her dad returned her gaze solemnly.

“Your tickets came.”

“Oh,” Birdie managed to choke out, swallowing.

Walter stepped up to the other side of the desk and handed her the envelope. He watched quietly as she peered down at the address:
Barbara Darlington
. Birdie fiddled with the plastic window, running her finger along the edge, and looked up at him. When her mom had still been living with them, Birdie had gotten so used to the worry on his face that she'd come to think it was part of his features. Now, standing before her, his face creased in the way she'd remembered.

“How're the books looking?” he asked.

Birdie swallowed. She glanced down at the bills in front of her and the ledger, which she'd tallied up the night before. “Good.” She had to say it again because it didn't really come out with a voice attached. “Good.”

Walter nodded. “You'll have so much fun on vacation you won't want to come back,” he said.

Birdie laughed. It was a tense laugh. What did he mean by
fun
? What did he mean by
vacation
?

Her pulse thrummed against her wrists as he stood there, looking at her. As if he had something more to say. And then he walked over and rubbed her head like he had when she was little. “You'd better come back from Mexico in one piece. I wouldn't know what to do without you.”

He turned and walked out. Birdie slumped over, amazed, relieved, disbelieving. She folded the envelope in two and stuffed it into her pocket, as if at any minute someone might whip it out of her hands.

It took her a minute to put together that Poopie hadn't told her dad. And then to ask why. One answer immediately leapt to mind. It was that Poopie hadn't made it her business. It wasn't her concern.

Birdie's elation seeped out like helium, but she couldn't ignore the pricks of excitement running up and down the soles of her feet. She—Birdie Darlington—was going
somewhere
.