Peaches with Bonus Material Read online

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Emma walked back to her own tree. Murphy watched her for a moment, then swatted at hers again a few times. All she knew was that it seemed backward that you had to thin a tree to get it to make fruit right. Still, the next hour or so passed without Murphy noticing the time. What she did notice was the way the air cooled and heated up depending on where she was standing. The trees didn’t offer much shade, but the tiny dips in the land did. Murphy had the kind of hungry brain that noticed these things, and surprisingly, it didn’t find itself bored all morning, until she remembered why she was here and that she didn’t want to be. She swatted at another branch, and it bounced back and stuck a twig into her thick hair, clinging to it.

  When Murphy had extracted herself, her mood was worse than when the day had started, and she suddenly felt tired. The expanse of trees felt endless. All she really owed Walter was a quarter bottle of crème de menthe.

  She looked around to make sure nobody was watching, then she walked the two hundred yards to Camp A, climbed the two sets of stairs, and crawled into her bed.

  When Emma knocked on her door to invite her to eat lunch, the smells of Mexican cooking wafting in through the cracks in the door, she pretended she was sleeping and held the pillow tighter over her head.

  The Darlingtons had always invited the workers to dinner on the first night of thinning to celebrate the start of the season. This year, though, Walter had opted for a quiet family dinner instead, and now he, Poopie, Birdie, and Leeda sat around the kitchen table alone.

  On the chalkboard beside the refrigerator Poopie had written down the phone messages for Walter. It used to be that Walter or Cynthia would see them, take care of them, and erase them. In the weeks since Cynthia had been gone, they had collected and stayed there, glaring at everyone all day long. Now the neglected board listed calls from Horatio Balmeade, Bridgewater Savings and Loan, and Wachovia.

  Next to Birdie, Honey Babe had his short little legs on her cousin Leeda’s calf and was trying to jump up to sniff her crotch. Birdie tugged him gently by the tail.

  “Get in your place, Honey. Go on, get in your place.” Honey stared up at her mournfully for a second, then pranced over to the corner by the olive green stove and lay down, tapping his paws in a gesture of contained restlessness that Murphy would have been able to empathize with had she been invited to dinner.

  Leeda, though, wore a wrinkled nose and a frown and held her hands tight over her skirt. Why she’d brought skirts to wear to the farm was anyone’s guess. Birdie shot glances at her over Poopie’s signature rib eye steak, feeling resentful. She hadn’t asked Leeda to come in the first place. But here Leeda was, wrinkling her nose and obviously judging. Judging Birdie’s room, her dogs, her house’s out-of-date kitchen. Birdie tucked a forkful of sweet corn in her mouth, wondering why she still cared so badly what Leeda thought. It had been this way since they’d hit puberty and drifted apart. Birdie had always wanted Leeda to be her friend, and she still had no idea why.

  “Birdie, why don’t you keep your elbows off the table? Look at Leeda.” Walter nodded in Leeda’s direction.

  Birdie looked at her dad, who hadn’t said so much as a word through dinner so far. Then at Leeda, who sat with her legs crossed and her wrists resting at the edge of the table like a china doll, occupying Cynthia’s old chair and yawning occasionally. Birdie pulled her elbows to her side. From the corner, Honey Babe let out a tiny squeaky sympathetic howl. Everyone chewed loudly.

  Exhausted from the day, which was always one of the most challenging of the year, Birdie snaked a hand shyly across the table and patted her dad’s fingers. Since her mom had gone, Birdie had noticed the ways it mattered that her mom wasn’t around, and today—with all that Cynthia would have been doing to help get the season moving—had been a major day for that. The big ways Birdie missed her mother were expected. The little ways were hard for their own reasons, because they took her by surprise. Birdie knew her dad felt it too.

  “That software I got is great, Dad,” she said, referring to the program she’d bought a couple of weeks ago at Wal-Mart to help organize payroll.

  Walter merely sawed on his steak, so halfheartedly that he barely made a slash through it. “Did you bring the old bottles down to the cider house?”

  Birdie shook her head. “Not yet.” Actually, she’d done extra chores in other areas to avoid the cider house. So far, she’d managed to avoid Enrico completely. Which, on a small farm, was actually quite a feat.

  “I’ve renewed all the insurance stuff except for natural disaster.” She changed the subject. “That just came today.” She stared at Walter. No response. “But I’ll do that first thing tomorrow.”

  “Don’t bother. We won’t renew this year.”

  “Really?”

  Walter didn’t reply. Nobody spoke for several seconds, and in that time Birdie wolfed down several pieces of steak.

  Poopie looked from Birdie to him and back again and rolled her eyes. Poopie was a better communicator than either Birdie or her dad and had said many times that the two of them together were like two mimes talking, except she called them “mines.”

  This look encouraged Birdie to be bolder. “Daddy, I think you should renew the insurance. You can’t be too careful.”

  “It’ll be a miracle if we can afford to keep up what we have this summer.”

  Birdie swallowed. The farm’s financial situation had been bad for the last few years, but usually her dad tried to keep it quiet, as though neither of them noticed. Last year, to pay their taxes, Walter had sold two of their tractors and a vacant plot of land he’d bought several years ago, hoping to plant it. They’d hardly exchanged more than two words about it.

  “But if something happened to—”

  “Birdie, you’re just like your mother. If we had the money, I’d insure everything. Christ, we could insure the dogs. The porch. The rocking chairs.”

  Birdie stared down at her fork.

  “If this frost comes, they’ll be tearing up the floorboards from right under us. I wouldn’t worry about tornados.”

  Birdie’s stomach rolled over. “There’s a frost coming?”

  Walter didn’t bother to reply. He just kept chewing in silence. Which nearly drove Birdie over the edge. Peach trees were most vulnerable when they had their buds out, and watching over them those weeks was almost like watching the delicate, early stages of a pregnancy. But she also knew her dad thought that he had some innate sense of the weather and that he often spoke about weather patterns before anything was predicted. He kept track of cold fronts in Canada like some people kept track of the stock market.

  Birdie looked at Poopie. “When are they saying it might hit?”

  “They’re not,” Poopie said. “Your father is saying the end of next week.”

  Birdie calculated. Thinning would be wrapping up then.

  “No sense worrying over something that may not happen,” Poopie said.

  “You’re right,” Birdie muttered back. But her dad was good at what he did. He never spoke idly. The Darlingtons had field heaters they had bought years ago for the threat of late frost, but most of them were broken or too decrepit to do much good. Birdie had read about farmers setting fires to keep their trees warm, fighting a losing battle against Mother Nature. The universe wouldn’t be that cruel, would it?

  “Um, this steak’s really good,” Leeda offered. Birdie had always noticed the Cawley-Smiths liked to pretend nothing was wrong, ever.

  Poopie looked at her and sighed. “But you haven’t touched hardly a bite.”

  “Oh, you know, I’m not into A1 sauce,” Leeda said. “And I’m becoming vegetarian. Well, I’m trying to stop eating meat when it’s rare.” Birdie looked down at her own bloody steak. She too had lost her appetite.

  “What are you up to for the summer, Leeda?” Poopie asked.

  “Well, hanging out with my friends. We’ll go on some trips, probably.” Leeda tucked a tiny forkful of green beans between h
er lips.

  “Birdie, why don’t you make friends like Leeda does?” Walter asked.

  Birdie looked at Leeda again, mortified. “Dad, I have friends.” She didn’t add they were Honey Babe and Majestic and Poopie.

  “Five calls to your mother a day doesn’t count as socializing.”

  Birdie put her fork down. “We don’t talk five times a day.”

  Walter eyed her. “I know she complains about me.”

  Birdie swallowed. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that complaints from her mother were nothing new. Cynthia had been complaining to her for years.

  “Walter, a girl as pretty as Leeda has got friends beating down her door,” Poopie interjected, as though this was a better direction to steer the conversation.

  Birdie scowled. Was that supposed to be defending her? Birdie stood up from the table and began clearing plates.

  “Poopie, I’ll help you wash up.”

  “You go for a nice walk with your cousin,” Poopie said, rubbing Birdie’s back and squeezing her shoulder. “I need you to pick some early bloomers for me to put in the vases.” With little movements Poopie could usually tell Birdie all sorts of things, but Birdie wasn’t quite sure what this one was supposed to mean. Was it, “I’m sorry you’re so unattractive”? or, “I agree that your dad is a grumpy aloof shell of his former self”?

  Birdie gave Poopie one of her famous grimace smiles and trailed after Leeda onto the porch, then down to the grass and along the driveway. The fields were empty since most of the workers had quit for dinner. The dogs tapped out after them. Birdie eyed her cousin sideways from time to time. It was true. Leeda was pretty enough to knock down doors. And it kind of made it hard not to want to be friends with her. But she was also kind of cold and uptight. Birdie couldn’t imagine living her life all buttoned up the way Leeda’s was. But for the moment she looked at Leeda with envy. Birdie felt the weight of the orchard’s problems like a pile of stones on her chest sometimes, and now was one of those times. Leeda didn’t have to worry about anything like that.

  Birdie fiddled with the braid in her hair, taking comfort in the cool cotton of her filmy white shirt and the hemp capris her mom had bought her at Squash Blossom in Atlanta. The orchard spread out beyond the porch, looking as bright green and healthy as it ever had. But with its trees so small and so exposed, it was hard to ignore that it was also delicate. And that was what scared Birdie the most.

  “Whadda you want to do?” Leeda asked, peering at the scenery beyond the porch with a crinkle at the bridge of her nose.

  “We could go to Smoaky Lake,” Birdie suggested.

  “Um.” Leeda’s nose crinkle deepened. “How about sitting in the AC and watching a movie?”

  The rare sound of a car pulling up the drive made the dogs perk up their huge butterfly ears. A few moments later a rusted-out white El Camino came chugging around the bend, blaring twangy, peppy Latin music and leaving a stream of gray exhaust in its wake. Several people came to the front of the dorms to see what all the noise was about. The engine cut out, and then Enrico emerged from the driver’s side, running his hands along the top of the door and then shutting it.

  Several workers converged on the car. A couple of the women climbed in. Enrico looked slightly embarrassed. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his gray shorts and started talking to a couple of his friends. He stood a full head taller than all the guys around him.

  In the crowd one of the women noticed Birdie up on the porch and walked over, grabbing her hand.

  “Come on, Pajarita.” Small bird.

  “Oh nooooo.” Birdie pulled back, planting her feet, but Raeka overcame her, and Birdie went trailing along behind her, followed by Leeda.

  Raeka pulled her right up to the car, and when she pulled away, Raeka let her go at the same instant, and she went stumbling back into one of Enrico’s friends.

  “Sorry,” she said, looking at him, then meeting eyes with Enrico. “Um.” She looked over her shoulder. “Nice car.”

  “Oh.” Enrico laughed under his breath. He looked from her to Leeda, and Birdie waited for him to take Leeda in the way guys did, like she was something the heavens had just spat out like a miracle. But his eyes drifted back to Birdie’s immediately. “Thanks, Birdie. It is…not that nice. But…uh.” He tapped his head, looking embarrassed. “Cheap. My English.” He shrugged.

  Birdie’s lips and fingers and toes tingled. She was pleased and horrified that Enrico even remembered her name, though being the boss’s daughter, she was hard to miss.

  “How much did you pay for it?” Murphy McGowen emerged from the crowd, sidling up beside Birdie and sizing up the car with her sharp green eyes.

  “Seven hundred fifty.” Enrico smiled.

  “Way too much,” Murphy said.

  Enrico’s smile dropped slightly; now he was unsure. “Really?”

  Murphy ducked into the driver’s side, looked at the dash, and ducked out again. “It’s got over 200,000 miles on it. I wouldn’t have paid over three. And by the sound of it it’s not going to last you very long.”

  Enrico stared at her earnestly and thoughtfully. He clearly hadn’t followed all that Murphy had said, but he seemed to have gotten the gist. Instead of acting defensive, though, he nodded good-naturedly, taking the information in. Then he looked at Birdie.

  “You think I have bought a piece of lemon?”

  “No, I…I think it’s great.” Birdie shot a look at Murphy. Despite how mean she’d been to Birdie yesterday in the dorm, Birdie disliked her much more at this moment.

  Murphy gave her a “what did I do?” look back and then rolled her eyes to show that if she had done something, she really didn’t care. Then she looked at Enrico, then back at Birdie, then at Enrico, and something in her green eyes clicked.

  Enrico gazed at his car, then nodded at Murphy. “I pay too much. You are right.”

  “Why don’t you two go for a ride?” Murphy suggested, looking from Enrico to Birdie and back.

  Enrico shrugged, swiveling his hips toward Birdie and pulling his hands out of his pockets. “You want to go?”

  “Um—well,” Birdie stammered. Immediately the picture of her and Enrico riding down Orchard Drive together played like a movie in her head, with Birdie leaning against the window in the breeze and Enrico laying a hand gently on her leg. It sent shock waves up her actual, real leg. Birdie felt her body go ramrod straight.

  “Can’t. I’ve gotta get back to the house. Work…”

  “Oh.” Enrico frowned.

  Birdie gave him a hard, fake smile and turned back toward the house, walking at a clip. Behind her the car engine coughed to life again. Once it had pulled away, no doubt to be parked behind the dorms, she turned to watch the workers trailing back inside. Only Murphy McGowen stood with her hands on her hips and stared after her.

  Once Birdie got inside the house, the phone rang. She could see on the caller ID that it was her mom, calling for the fifth time that day. Birdie chose to screen the call.

  Chapter Six

  Over the next couple of days Murphy steered clear of as much work as possible.

  Each morning she listened to the other workers rise at dawn and hid her head under her pillow, waiting for them to go away so she could fall back asleep, trying her best to ignore the blue jay that started chirping as soon as everybody else went out. At night she was too exhausted by the little work she did do to break curfew, which was at ten. She wondered if the fresh air had too much oxygen in it.

  Between the time work ended and lights-out, Murphy was free to do what she liked. But unlike the others, she wasn’t allowed to do it outside of the circle delineated by the dorms, the supply barn, and the house. She walked this circle endlessly like a caged tiger until she knew every inch of grass on the way from Camp A to Camp B to the Darlingtons’ front porch. She’d noticed the way Walter checked up on her from time to time, coming by the dorms a couple of times each evening. She looked for Rex and spotted him once or twice, but
he didn’t come around the dorms, and their interactions were limited to Murphy glimpsing him here and there and not getting glimpsed back.

  On Wednesday afternoon she was meandering along her usual evening route when she noticed Poopie Pedraza placing a small statue on the railing of the porch. She knew Poopie had just been to the dump, but she didn’t make the effort to ask Poopie what it was or if that’s where she’d gotten it. The statue looked like some kind of tiny saint—it wore a red cape and had its hands pressed together in prayer. Murphy was staring at the statue and walking, and so she didn’t notice Walter Darlington until she was right in front of him.

  “I was just coming to find you.” Walter was wearing a frayed straw hat with a leather loop around the front, which he tugged slowly as he spoke. “Judge Abbott called to check on your progress.” Murphy squinted up at him, her hands over her eyes, not replying. “I told him you have a couple of choices. You can start getting up on time with everyone else, or you can work the hours you miss at midday.” Walter paused, making sure his words were sinking in. “He offered to remove you to a road-cleaning crew instead.” Murphy continued to squint at him, but Walter didn’t seem bothered. “It’s your choice,” he said, and brushed on past her, his broad farmer’s back listing slightly left to right as he walked.

  On Thursday morning Murphy crawled out of bed at dawn.

  Through Thursday and Friday she spent most of each morning trying to look as busy as possible while doing very little. She stood in front of the farthest trees with her Walkman blaring, tugging occasionally at the peach nubs and then resting her arms. She liked to go back to the farthest trees of the row they’d been told to do that day, where she rarely saw another worker and could turn in a 360 and feel like there was nothing but peach trees leading off the edge of the earth.

  Already she felt like the edge of the earth was exactly where she’d landed. Even in the dorms, but especially in the fields, Bridgewater felt like it had to be a thousand miles away. The orchard smelled thick: Scents of mud, buds, insects, and early-blooming flowers overlapped one another. Murphy had spent all her life breathing the aroma of fry grease and parking lot weeds. Squirrels darted up and down the trees, and rabbits and the occasional groundhog watched Murphy work, reminding her that the orchard was the world to them, that they’d never seen Taco Bell and would never be roadkill. It was actually comforting. It was still earth, but without the crap.