Peaches with Bonus Material Read online

  Howl Mill was the gated community Cynthia had just announced she was moving into, which had obviously started the lunch off on a low point for Birdie. When she’d told Birdie she was coming into town and asked her to pedal out to Liddie’s to meet for lunch, Birdie had thought maybe she was reconsidering the divorce. Now it seemed it was just becoming more concrete. Cynthia couldn’t stop talking about it.

  “No grass to take care of. No anything. The management does it all.”

  “That’s great, Mom.” Birdie took another sip of sweet tea, biting lightly on the straw. She was trying to imagine this was the same woman who’d trucked in the mud getting the tractors—which were older, more run-down, and more ornery every year—ready for spraying. When she was a kid, they’d had a huge picnic and a tug-of-war, and Cynthia and Birdie had been on the same side and the last to let go on their team. And then Cynthia had given up, plopping into the mud, and it had just been Birdie, who was no match for the other side. They’d dragged her clear across the middle line.

  “And you can move in as soon as I do. It’ll be perfect. I’m planning on August fifteenth, which gives you a couple of weeks to get situated before school.”

  “But, uh…”

  “You’ll love your room. It’s lofty. And there’s a place for the piano and your cello—like a conservatory,” Cynthia drawled.

  “I think that’s when Danay’s getting married, Mom.” It was the only protest she felt like she could voice.

  “We’ll send a nice gift.”

  Birdie sighed quietly. She had no desire to move out of her house. She couldn’t even imagine what her dad would do without her. She just didn’t know how to tell her mom that.

  “I’ll bet the place is a mess, isn’t it? I know you’ve got Poopie, but one woman isn’t enough to take care of that man….”

  Birdie listened and nodded as her mom went on and on about Walter, then about how she loved having her own place, how she’d gotten into yoga, and how if Birdie could avoid it, she should never get married. She asked her about her schoolwork and the summer and how she planned to spend her time.

  On her way over, Birdie had pictured spilling to her mom about Enrico, the way the girls on 7th Heaven and Tampax commercials seemed like they might do. Several times she started to mention him and then stopped.

  After the check came and went, Cynthia swept up and smoothed back her hair. Birdie stood up beside her. “Tell your dad he needs to get those papers back to me, okay, hon?”

  Birdie held her hand to her stomach protectively, touching the soft fabric of her nicest shirt. They walked out into the parking lot. “I’ll call you soon, sweetie.”

  “Yep.”

  When she got home, Birdie went straight to the study, Honey Babe and Majestic trailing behind her and taking up their post by the door. She looked at the piles of papers on the desk, squinting at them as if there were some solution her dad just wasn’t seeing. She shuffled through bills, then looked over the profit-and-loss statements, getting confused by all the columns and numbers. She wasn’t very good with figures anyway. She wasn’t into things she couldn’t touch with her hands.

  Birdie knelt on the floor, trying to organize what was there. The old natural disaster insurance form was buried underneath a stack of papers beside the trash can. She wondered if she should renew it, just in case, behind Walter’s back. She held it up, then dropped her forehead into her hands. She stuffed the corner of the paper into her mouth and bit it without having any idea why.

  “What’d your mom say?”

  Birdie looked up and yanked the paper out of her mouth. She swallowed. “She said you should send her the papers.”

  Walter looked at the carpet, studying it, his shoulders sagging.

  “Right.”

  Birdie stayed on the floor a long time. If her dad had given up and her mom had given up, then how could she hold things together on her own?

  She crumpled up the insurance form and lobbed it at the trash. It went in, nothing but net.

  As usual, Murphy was late for school. She rattled through the pantry for a box of Froot Loops, eyeing her mom’s bedroom door, which contained her mom and Richard. She sank onto one of the kitchen chairs to eat a few handfuls straight out of the box, staring at herself in the bathroom mirror, which she could see from where she was sitting.

  The door cracked behind her. Damn.

  “Hey, Richard.”

  “Hey, Murph.”

  “It’s Murphy.”

  Her mom appeared behind him, stroked his back, and smiled blissfully. “Well, next time I want to hear Sonny and Cher, I’ll check with you,” she said low, and giggled. She looked at Murphy, noticing for the first time that she was there, then looked at the clock. “Murphy, you better get going, baby—look at the time.”

  “I know. I know.”

  Murphy hopped down the front steps and into her car. “Bring on death,” she said out loud as she turned the car on. It gave its signature rattle, loud enough to announce to the classes in session at Bridgewater High School that she was arriving at 9:10.

  To make itself look like a big modern facility instead of the podunk dump that it was, Bridgewater High School had installed a huge tiered fountain at one corner of the building, engraved with some words in Greek. Everyone had long since forgotten what they meant. Murphy tossed the last of her handful of Froot Loops into the water as she passed by it and pushed through the double doors into the hall, making her way down to Brit Lit.

  Mr. Meehan taught the class, and he had a major crush on her. He only nodded quietly at her as she slipped into the room and into her desk.

  Her textbook was full of little drawings she’d done—of food (when she was hungry), of band logos, of herself, and more recently, of peach trees, which she couldn’t get out of her head. She was a subpar artist, but she practiced a lot. She searched for an empty, relatively large space and started sketching a baby tree, with the white stuff wrapped around it and a pair of hands making it secure.

  Mr. Meehan droned on about the Wife of Bath and Murphy sank onto her hands. She never listened in class since she much preferred reading on her own. She used class time as a kind of brain vacation. Behind her, Allan Brewer, who she’d let touch her boobs in tenth grade, pushed on her bun from behind and whispered, “Beep beep.” She lifted her hand behind her back and gave him the finger.

  On their way out of class, Allan caught up with her. “Hey, Murphy, why’d you flick me off?”

  “That’s what I do to people who annoy me.”

  “Listen, I’m having people over tonight….”

  “And you’re wondering if I can come over so you can give me whiskey and Gatorade and try to feel me up. At which point I’ll smack you.”

  “You’re right about everything but the slapping part.” Allan grinned.

  Murphy came to a stop. Down the hall Leeda was walking with the usual flank of three or four girls who dressed like her, ate like her, and talked like her. Murphy leaned against a locker, casually, and decided to talk to Allan until Leeda’d passed. She always felt weird seeing Leeda and usually liked to pretend she didn’t see her at all, even in the class they shared.

  “So listen, since I’m friends with you, do you think I can get a free oil change?”

  Murphy frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  Allan frowned back and gave her the old nudge. “Since your mom’s hooking up with that guy from Pep Boys.”

  Murphy felt all cramped up inside. How did everybody find out about everything?

  “Shut up.”

  Allan made a sex face and started slapping an imaginary butt. “Oh, Jodee. Oh God.”

  Murphy smiled hard at him. “Can I look at your binder for a sec?”

  “Sure.” Allan handed it to her, grinning too.

  Murphy opened the binder, then started ripping out the pages, one by one.

  “Hey, what the hell?”

  Rip rip rip.

  Murphy backed away as he grabbed for his
stuff and continued to rip and rip until every page had come out, cascading down around Allan’s shoulders and through the hall. When she was done, she shoved the binder against him. Around them everyone in the hall had come to a standstill, including Leeda, whose gray eyes were huge and shocked.

  The only movement was Mr. Meehan plowing toward her.

  “I don’t need an escort,” Murphy said, and pivoted in the direction of the administration office at the end of the hall.

  “Murphy, do you know what your grade point average is?”

  “Yep. It’s when they add up all your grades and divide them by the number of classes. Sure do.”

  “Four point oh. That’s perfect. That’s the highest anybody can hope for. There’s no four point one.”

  Murphy rolled her eyes. If Mr. Lafitte, the principal, had to speak to everyone this slowly, it was no wonder she had a four point oh.

  “Do you know how hard some people in this school work to get grades as good as yours?”

  “Nope.” Murphy didn’t care to know. She nibbled at a hangnail on her thumb. She picked at the run in her stockings and fiddled with the zipper on her short skirt.

  “Look, Murphy, I know you have some problems at home. I just want you to know if there’s anything you want to talk about, that’s why we have a counselor here.”

  Murphy stared ahead blankly.

  “I’m not going to suspend you. I could.” Mr. Lafitte looked at her meaningfully. “I’d be the first to admit that nobody’s perfect. But it seems to me a lot of people have cut you a lot of slack. We have a lot of faith in you. I think it’s time you paid us back by readjusting your attitude. Senior year could be your time to shine.”

  Murphy eyeballed him blankly, in the manner of a dead fish.

  “You’ll need to re-create Allan Brewer’s binder from scratch. You guys will meet every day after school to go over it until it’s done. Got it?”

  “Yep.”

  “And if I see you back here again in the minuscule amount of time that’s left before school’s out, things will get a lot more serious.”

  “You bet.”

  Murphy walked back down the hall, her arms crossed over her chest, feeling like a powder keg. All the class doors were closed, and she could hear the drone of her AP Bio teacher talking about the lab today, which he’d explained yesterday would involve trucking down to the freezer by the cafeteria to retrieve the dry ice being stored there.

  Murphy kept going. She ducked into the empty darkness of the A/V room and leaned against the wall inside the door, throwing her head back. She let out a deep breath and stared at the row of TVs and movie equipment. On the wall were posters for Star Wars, American Beauty, Casablanca. Standing directly across from her was a knee-high replica of Yoda, a full-size Darth Vader mask propped on the table beside it.

  Murphy stuck her thumbnail in her mouth and smiled.

  Date: May 18

  Subject: Murphy McGowen/Darth Vader

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Walter,

  If you read Sunday’s paper, you’ve seen the picture of the Bridgewater High School fountain. It’s hard to get a sense from a photo, Walter, but Miss McGowen really outdid herself this time. My wife was actually the first person to see it—you know she does part-time work at the administration office. She said she nearly jumped out of her bloomers when she saw Darth Vader’s head up there on the top tier of the fountain, looking like it was just hovering, surrounded by clouds of white smoke.

  They figured out pretty quickly that it was dry ice making the smoke and Darth Vader’s head had been taken from the A/V room. I hear Veda Wilkes Teeter actually thought it was an alien. You have to admit, the girl is sharp. Not Veda. Murphy, I mean.

  Anyway, I’m writing to discuss Murphy. The school office has contacted me, and I’ve taken the liberty of contacting her mother. Seeing as the spring break arrangements seemed to work out, how about an extra pair of hands for the summer? I don’t know if Miss McGowen’s more trouble to you than not, but I thought you might be able to use the help. God knows she could use the attitude adjustment, and maybe a summer’s worth of hard labor will do the trick.

  What’s the word on your peaches?

  Let me know.

  MA

  Judge Miller Abbott

  Kings County District Court

  Chapter Twelve

  Georgia hadn’t had such a hot June since 1951. All over Bridgewater, you could practically hear air conditioners busting from overuse. All over the orchard, you could hear the creak-creak of the trees drooping in the sun.

  Leeda started sweating as soon as she stepped out of her car. She noticed immediately that Murphy McGowen’s beat-up yellow Volkswagen, which she’d finally connected with her in the lot at school, was parked on a swath of grass a few feet away. And the first person she saw when she rolled her huge suitcase into Camp A was Murphy herself. She was splayed out on the couch, her right leg hanging over the back, her left hand dragging on the floor. When she saw Leeda, she lifted her head slightly and just said simply, “You.”

  Leeda didn’t need to ask why she was here. Everyone in Bridgewater knew about Murphy’s prank with the fountain. After laughing their asses off, all of Leeda’s friends had started making fun of Murphy, saying what a burnout she was. Then they’d moved on to Murphy’s mom and the different stories they knew about her: She’d shown up to parent-teacher conferences in black leather shorts and a lace halter top; she’d been seen making out with some guy on the picnic table outside Toodles Honky Tonk at three in the afternoon. Then they’d speculated that Murphy McGowen was as much a hopeless case as Jodee. Leeda had felt differently. She hadn’t said it, but she’d thought the prank was pretty ingenious.

  But now, standing under Murphy’s cool green gaze, Leeda just threw back her shoulders and pasted a look of boredom onto her face. “Hey, Murphy.”

  The whole gang was already here, the same ladies from the spring, along with a few new faces. Everyone greeted Leeda with cool politeness as she yanked her suitcase up the stairs one step at a time, and down the hall.

  She stared at the empty room and felt her resolve waver. And then her pride reared up, causing red-hot tears to pop out along the edges of her eyelids. She unzipped her suitcase and dragged out all the comforts she’d brought from home—pictures of her friends, a photo of Rex in a silver Tiffany’s frame, one of her mom and dad, a Swarovski crystal swan her mom had given her for her birthday last year. Danay had picked it out.

  The next morning Leeda rolled out of bed at dawn with everybody else and stumbled out onto the lawn to await the big talk from Uncle Walter. She hadn’t noticed the night before, but the smell engulfing the orchard was heady and sweet. The trees had sprouted green, droopy leaves, and of course, peaches dangled like bubbles—bright orange and everywhere. The peaches all looked fine from where Leeda stood, but that wasn’t saying much. What meant more was that her parents had said that Walter was optimistic—two words that didn’t fit together in Leeda’s mind. Word was that the first few peaches had been culled, and that there was no sign of brown rot yet, and that the Darlingtons were planning to move forward with the summer harvest in the hopes that the rest of the peaches would follow suit.

  Still, if it was possible, Uncle Walter looked even older than he had in April, the gray at his temples having grown up the sides of his head like fungus.

  Standing up on the porch beside Walter, Birdie looked the opposite—she looked fresher, a little thinner, and excited. Her eyes scanned the group in front of the porch frenetically. Leeda looked behind her to see who Birdie might be looking for. Instead, her gaze landed on Murphy, skulking in the back, dark circles under her eyes and her arms crossed around her waist.

  Leeda turned back around, pulling her fine-mesh sun hat tighter down over her eyes to keep the glare from giving her a migraine.

  “We’ll be picking Empress, Sunbright, Springprince, and Candor for the n
ext two weeks,” Walter droned flatly, “then we’ll move on to Goldprince, Summerprince, Gala, and Rubyprince. Birdie will take you out and show you where to get started. We’ll harvest the trees in three rounds—please be careful about picking only the ripe peaches on each round.”

  Leeda felt like he was speaking Greek. Coming out of his mouth, the colorful names of the peaches sounded like a joke.

  “Pick up your harnesses by the supply barn. That’s also where the bins are and where some of the women have already set up their tables to start sorting. Dump your peaches there and Poopie will give you your tokens to mark how many bushels you’ve done.”

  Walter paused for a moment, looking uncomfortable. “Thank you to all of you who helped with the fires in April. We’ll be checking the peaches as they come in for signs of brown rot. If this harvest is successful, it will be thanks to everybody’s hard work.” Leeda picked at her nails, uncomfortable with the memory of the night of the fires. It hadn’t been one of her shining moments. She didn’t really have shining moments. Walter’s mouth turned down slightly, and the rest of him turned and walked back into the house.

  Birdie looked around. “This way,” she said, so low Leeda had to lip-read to make out what she’d said. But everyone followed anyway.

  Leeda, uncomfortable in the crowd, walked up beside Birdie.

  “You’re supposed to go work at the sorting tables,” Birdie said. Just as she did, Murphy caught up.

  “Hey, Birdie, what do the tokens mean? Does that mean I have a quota I have to pick?”

  “Murphy, you too. Most of the women are at the sorting tables because it’s easier. The stronger women pick if they want. Poopie’ll explain everything to you if you go over there.”

  “Walter doesn’t think I’m a stronger woman?” Murphy demanded, her curly dark hair flying around her ears as she walked.