Love and Peaches

by Jodi Lynn Anderson

  “Yeah.”

  But neither of them thought it was okay. Barky was Barky. Not an animal.

  Grey suddenly reached out and pulled her to him in a hug, laying his head on her shoulder. Leeda held the back of his head and hugged him tight, wanting to hold on harder and harder. Instead she pulled back right away.

  Feeling awkward and strangely guilty again, she reached out and patted him stiffly on the shoulder. It came out ridiculous and cold. “Well, hang in there,” she heard herself saying, sounding like she was coaching baseball.

  When she’d gone inside and Grey was gone, she kept looking out the window with a heavy feeling like regret. She didn’t know what she regretted. Maybe that she’d taken in Barky at all. Maybe the way she’d patted Grey’s shoulder like an acquaintance. Maybe something she hadn’t done yet.

  Twenty-five

  Poopie and Birdie sat at the sorting table, sorting peaches. Occasionally one of the workers would come up with a bushel of peaches, dump it, chat with them for a little while in Spanish, and then turn and head back into the trees.

  Poopie kept eyeing Birdie sideways, and Birdie knew why. She was giving off darkness in billowing clouds. She was thinking nonstop of the hole under the house, and she was walking around with her head down, lost in thought and scowling in concentration at her shoes, or at peaches, or at whatever else crossed her line of vision. Try as she might, she couldn’t work her way around it. And the more she thought of it, the more other observations piled up in her head. The sinking house. Her dad’s desire to move on to somewhere new and easier. The money it would take.

  Grey had come for the morning to help Walter with an old tractor he was fixing to sell before they moved. Birdie could see him, whenever she looked up, tinkering across the grass.

  Next to her, Poopie furiously sorted the peaches, her hands moving so fast it was hard to believe her brain was involved in deciding which peach was perfect, which was damaged enough for cider, and which was somewhere in between and destined for local sale.

  “Where will everyone go?” Birdie asked, her hands moving rapidly too, though not as fast as Poopie’s. “If we close down?”

  “They’ll find more work,” Poopie said. “They’re always looking for more work so they can send money home.” She glanced up at Birdie and met her eyes. “They’ll scatter.” Her brown hands continued to move like butterflies over the bright, round shapes.

  Birdie turned to gaze into the peach rows at the occasional worker coming and going. “I can’t imagine life without them.”

  “The best parts of life are the things you can’t imagine.” Poopie leaned forward to corral some peaches that had gotten away from her.

  Birdie tried to imagine the things she couldn’t imagine. She slid the last few peaches she was juggling into their proper bins.

  “I saw the cave under the house,” she finally said.

  Poopie’s hands halted their movement, as if she were waiting.

  Birdie thought about the lines on her dad’s face. About how much worry the farm had caused him. And about how it all felt over.

  “You guys should sell it,” she finally said. She tried to smile at Poopie, tried to be encouraging, but she could feel her lips trembling, giving her away.

  Poopie looked at her. She reached over and took her hand. Birdie stared at it for a moment, and then couldn’t sit there anymore. She pulled her fingers away and propelled herself toward her crutches.

  She ambled past where Grey was working on the tractor and headed toward the pecan grove. She made it to the fence at the edge of the property and let her crutches drop on the grass. She flung herself against the fence, breathing hard, staring at the endlessness of the grass in front of her, a giant hole inside her. She could hear the odd pecan falling to the ground from the trees above.

  “Birdie.” She felt a hand on her shoulder. “Birdie, are you okay?”

  Birdie turned to Grey.

  She didn’t know why he was there. But she reached out for him anyway. She just pulled him to her and then she kissed him.

  Twenty-six

  Murphy biked circles around the courthouse parking lot like an evil newspaper boy from one of her favorite movies, Better Off Dead. She and Judge Miller Abbott didn’t have a great history. Since she’d hit puberty, he’d seen her through two shoplifting convictions, countless underage alcohol issues, a few streaking episodes, and the time she’d mutilated the Bob’s Big Boy “Big Boy.” But Murphy was unfazed. She was going to get him to talk.

  When he emerged from the courthouse door at exactly five o’clock, Murphy turned her bike onto its kickstand and climbed off, walking to meet him in the middle of the lot. He looked surprised and a little nervous to see her there.

  “Hi, Murphy.” He tried to look like it was an average day and an average encounter, but Murphy could tell he guessed why she’d come and it made him nervous. “How are you?” he asked. “How’s school?”

  “Let’s not play games, Judge Abbott,” Murphy said, sounding like a forties gangster movie. “You know what I’m here for.”

  Judge Abbott’s usually friendly face went poker blank. “What’s that?”

  “My dad,” she said firmly. “I know you met with him. I was here. I followed him in his LeBaron,” she spat. “I need his info. I deserve his info. His name. Address. I have rights.”

  “Murphy, I—”

  “I’m not leaving here without it.”

  “Murphy, any meetings I have contain confidential information. If your father chooses to reveal his whereabouts…”

  Over his shoulder, Murphy could see one of the courthouse secretaries walking toward them, presumably to her car.

  “I don’t know much about bladder-control issues,” she said loudly. “But you shouldn’t be ashamed to ask the pharmacist—”

  “Murphy.” The judge looked more disappointed in her than embarrassed. He looked over his shoulder and nodded at the secretary.

  “You know, lots of men have that problem,” Murphy went on loudly.

  But when he turned back to her, she could see it wasn’t working. “Murphy,” he said solemnly. The tone of his voice arrested her. Murphy looked at him expectantly. “Murphy, that man we met with wasn’t your father.”

  Murphy didn’t say anything.

  “He was a lawyer. Handling your paternity case. That’s all I’m allowed to tell you.”

  “Allowed by whom?”

  “If you don’t believe me, we can ask…” He gestured in the direction of the secretary getting in her car.

  Murphy felt something collapse inside. She looked down at her shoes. “I believe you.” When she looked back up, the judge’s poker face was gone and had been replaced by an expression of warmth and sympathy.

  He reached for her shoulder and patted it. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. If you’re sorry, change it. Say something. Tell me the truth.”

  Judge Abbott looked thoughtfully at her, long and hard. “I can’t. I really am sorry.”

  “Sorry is for chumps,” she said. “You’re just a chump.”

  She didn’t wait to see how he took that one. Murphy got on her bike and pedaled away.

  It was just dusk at the orchard. Murphy swung left into the drive and slowed her bike, noticing the warm yellow light pouring out of the barn across the grass and the sound of jazzy, old-time music drifting out through the open doors.

  She laid her bike against one of the huge oak trees that stood beside the driveway and walked across the grass, curious.

  Rex was sitting at the old workbench against the wall, repairing a circular piece of wood. It looked like the top of a banister. He looked up, saw Murphy, and turned back to what he was doing. Probably repairing little things for Walter, Murphy decided. He had been doing odd jobs at the orchard for even longer than Murphy had known Birdie.

  Murphy sank down beside him on a stool. The vinyl of the seat cushion was torn, and she could feel the rip through her jeans. It was stuffy in here;
outside was much cooler.

  She had calmed a bit on her ride home from the courthouse. Now she watched Rex working silently, breathing slow and steady.

  “Summer’s over soon,” she said.

  Rex kept working.

  “I may never know who my dad is.”

  Rex continued what he was doing.

  “Maybe I don’t care,” she said.

  Rex nodded absently. She watched the way his hands moved while he sanded the piece of wood. Rex had careful hands. True hands. He never undertook anything halfway. He never did something shoddily.

  “I just, I admire him, you know?”

  Rex looked up from what he was doing. “How?”

  Murphy shrugged. “Because he didn’t let me hold him back. He stayed true to himself.” Rex shook his head and laughed under his breath. It was the kind of laugh that said he knew she’d never change. “I just…maybe I wish I were a little connected. Maybe I wish I had a permanent place on a wall somewhere.”

  Rex only stared at her.

  “I know that makes no sense.”

  “It does.”

  Murphy felt an overwhelming urge to burrow in Rex’s arms, to have the tactile experience of the cloth of his shirt against her cheek, and to have his smell wrap around her. She cleared her throat. The music on the radio changed to something slow.

  “Rex, why were you at my house? With my mom?”

  Rex glanced up at her. He seemed to think for a long moment. And then he stood up. “Wanna dance?” he asked.

  Murphy stared for a moment, and then grinned, disbelievingly.

  “Here?”

  “Yeah, sure, why not?”

  Murphy looked around, feeling awkward, and then slid off her stool, shoving her hands in her pockets. Rex put down the slab of wood and stood, turned up the music, took her by the wrist, and led her out the great open door of the barn onto the grass.

  He put one hand on her waist and the other in her right hand, holding it up.

  “You were going to leave,” Murphy said. “Without telling me.”

  “You left me first,” Rex said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. Murphy knew she could never be fully in New York if she was partly back here with him in her head. She couldn’t have him—that was the problem. She only wanted to have him.

  “I know that, Murphy.” He pulled back and smiled at her. “It’s okay. It’s just a dance.”

  Something about it hurt Murphy. And something about it made her feel safer.

  She allowed herself to rest her chin on his shoulder.

  They danced like the grass did, rustling in the breeze.

  As a child, Leeda Cawley-Smith had had a natural attachment to animals, and they had had a natural attachment to her—cats and dogs were constantly following her home and even squirrels let her get close enough to feed them nuts. Her grandmom, who loved petite, pretty ponies but who was certain that all other animals must be rabid, told her that if she didn’t stop luring the animals with treats and cuddles, she’d get bitten and die. This claim made such an impression on Leeda that it created a distance between her and animals that continued to grow long after she had forgotten where it had come from. By the time she was ten years old, Leeda had forgotten, in fact, that she’d ever cared for them at all.

  Twenty-seven

  Wednesday night, Leeda woke to the sound of tiny pebbles hitting her window. She must have been dreaming about her grandmom, because her first sleep-soaked thought was that it was the mysterious M. of the letters trying to wake Eugenie. Sitting up, Leeda looked around the room and tried to orient herself, trying to remember where she was. She wasn’t in the dorms and she wasn’t at Primrose Cottage, and finally it sank in that she was in her bedroom at her parents’ house.

  She slid out from under the covers and stuck her face up against the screen, expecting to see Murphy or Birdie down below. But it was Grey who stood in a moonlit circle of grass.

  Leeda backed up and pulled on her sweatshirt, worried. She thought about the animals and wondered who could be hurt and how she could handle it. Her heart was still sore from losing Barky. She tiptoed out of her room, blood throbbing in her eardrums.

  She slinked past the room where Eric was sleeping, making sure she didn’t wake him. She continued down the stairs, gliding like silk, and opened the front door slowly, slipping through the crack and out into the night air. She tentatively pulled it closed behind her.

  Grey was standing near a tree across the grass. She hurried over.

  “Is everything okay?” she whispered.

  “Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine.”

  “Are the ponies okay?”

  “Ponies are great.”

  Leeda straightened up, relieved. “The dogs and everybody?”

  “Yeah, the animals are fine.”

  Leeda waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. She felt recognition then expectation dawning on her. He had something more to say to her. It was the way he was looking at her, like he was about to make a confession. She leaned against the tree to steady herself. She looked up at the sky.

  Don’t say it, she thought. Don’t make this uncomfortable.

  “I kissed Birdie today.”

  At first Leeda didn’t know what he’d said. It didn’t fit into anything she was expecting, so it sounded like gibberish.

  “What?” she asked.

  “We kissed.”

  Leeda’s expression didn’t change. But she felt suddenly, inexplicably like her skin was on fire. She felt unbearably, searingly hot.

  “You kissed Birdie?”

  Grey winced. “Leeda…” He looked lost. His hesitation gave Leeda all the time she needed to gather herself together.

  “I don’t understand,” she said, her voice breezy while her heart raced. “I didn’t know you liked Birdie.” Leeda felt acutely abandoned. Like she was being left somewhere away and alone, and she hadn’t seen it coming.

  Grey looked like he’d lost his bearings. “C’mon, Leeda. Be real with me.”

  “What do you mean? You’re so—”

  Grey reached out and swept her hand into his. He looked at it like it was some kind of creature all its own. When he kissed her knuckles, it was like he was kissing a tiny animal.

  Leeda felt her face flame hotter, and she slipped her hand out from where he held it. Not quickly, but as if it had never happened. Like she hadn’t noticed. She didn’t know why she couldn’t act like she’d noticed. It was like she was in a cage inside herself.

  “Well, I don’t know why you woke me up to tell me, but I’m happy for you guys.”

  Grey kept staring at her hand. Disappointed. But not in himself. It was disappointment in her. In her cowardice. She could see it clear as day. If she was going to reject him, why couldn’t she just be open about rejecting him? Why did she have to hide?

  He swallowed. He took a step back. His face settled into a distant expression.

  “I wanted you to hear it from me and not from Birdie.”

  Leeda stood tighter against her tree. They stared at each other.

  “You said you don’t know what you are. But you do,” Grey said. “You just don’t want to know you know. And it sucks because”—his voice cracked here, as if he was going to cry—“you’re lucky. You’ve got so much more than most people.”

  He looked down and swiped at his nose, and Leeda stared at him, confused.

  He squinted back at her like he was sizing her up.

  “Good night.”

  She watched him cross the lawn, and then she crept back inside. She stood outside Eric’s door, listening for his breathing. And then she continued down to her room. She crawled back into bed, facing the window with the moonlight still shining in. Her chest throbbed like it never had in her life.

  Leeda had never been much into crying. But tears slid down her cheeks. She knew she had no reason for them, and she didn’t understand them.

  Leeda had had breakups. She had said good-byes to her friends. She had run
over her friend’s dog. She had been racked with guilt, longing, and hurt before. But she had never felt this specific kind of searing in her heart.

  It was like becoming real.

  Early the next morning, Leeda drove Eric to the airport. She hugged and kissed him good-bye, clinging tighter to him than ever.

  Once he was gone, she reluctantly steered a course for Primrose Cottage. She dreaded seeing Grey. But pulling into the tiny driveway she saw, with relief, that his car wasn’t there.

  Inside, the animals greeted her. A parrot that had arrived that week, cage and all, squawked at her. The dogs—four of them now—launched into happy yips. One of the cats that had shown up on the porch rubbed itself against her legs.

  “Oh God, I’m Dr. Dolittle,” Leeda said out loud. She squeezed the door shut behind her and walked into the kitchen. There was an envelope by the coffeemaker with her name on it. Her stomach flopped. She turned it over, opened the flap, and slowly pulled out the letter.

  Leeda,

  I’ve gone to Alaska. I don’t think I have to explain.

  I understand why you want to be where you’re going. Don’t forget that being unsure isn’t the same thing as being weak or aimless. Don’t let anyone push you into thinking that the sure thing is also the true thing.

  Please pass my apologies on to Birdie for leaving without talking to her, although I don’t think she’ll really care. I don’t know what she’s looking for, but I think I just happened to be standing in the way when she was looking for it.

  You and the animals take care of each other.

  Yours,

  Grey

  Leeda held the letter, dumbfounded. She walked back into the living room. She looked at the chaos of lives around her, dependent on her.

  She sank onto the couch. Tufty, a recently arrived border terrier, jumped up on her lap, licking her face. Leeda pulled him close, suddenly, and held him, sinking her face into his ears, feeling the warmth of his body against hers, feeling guilty that he wasn’t Barky but also feeling happy that he was there.