“Okay. Bye, sweetie.”
“Bye.”
“Sweetie?”
Silence.
“I love you.”
Birdie held the phone between tight fingers. “Love you too.”
Birdie laid the phone down and leaned her head back against the molding. She sighed, then reached out and stroked her dog Honey Babe behind her butterfly-wing ears. Majestic stuck her nose in for a pet too and licked Birdie’s fingers. She smiled weakly.
Birdie looked at her bookshelf. Most of it was filled with things other than books—three porcelain clown dolls that Poopie said gave her the giggly wigglies (which meant heebie-jeebies in Poopie-speak), a collection of fairy figurines, a plush Tinkerbell from Disney World, a trillion manifestations of birds (stickers, ornaments, stuffed animals), and a couple of books people had given her.
Last year at Christmas, Birdie’s aunt Gladys had given her a book she’d bought at Wal-Mart titled Angels Have Feelings Too. Birdie had flipped through it stoically, looking for something she could comment on to make her aunt feel like she’d read it. She’d finally marked a section about finding an outlet for your emotions, like a musical instrument. Just look at the angels and their harps, it said. She’d managed to convince much of her extended family that she did, in fact, find solace in her cello.
Right now, it was leaned on the wall beside her closet, a thin layer of dust asleep on its surface.
She stood up, the pups leaping off the window seat and following at her heels. She looked at the cello, then looked in the mirror on her closet door. How had she gotten so fat? Oh yeah. She opened her closet and pulled a box of solace off the top shelf.
She gave Honey Babe and Majestic, each named after a breed of peach, a caramel-drenched Girl Scout Samoa, then polished off the rest of the box herself.
“What’re you doing lazing around in here all day?”
Birdie was lying in her bed in a cookiefied stupor watching VH1. There was a fascinating show about eighties Hair Bands.
“Nothing,” Birdie said, sitting up and wincing at Poopie in a pathetic attempt at a smile. Poopie had started working at the house as a cleaning woman some fifteen years ago when she’d come from Mexico to pack peaches, shortly after Birdie was born, but now she mostly cooked and had Birdie clean instead. If Birdie’s mom was the neglectful gardener in Birdie’s life, Poopie was the kudzu. She was hearty and she had staying power.
“You know we don’t have nearly enough help and you’re in here feeling sorry for yourself,” Poopie said, thrusting out a bucket. “Get down there to the cider house and start cleaning up the press. You’ll feel better.”
Birdie slid off the bed and took the bucket obediently from Poopie’s hands. Poopie smacked her on the butt on the way out. Birdie had more cushioning there than she used to.
On the porch, Birdie bumped into Horatio Balmeade, who took off his hat and smiled with straight white teeth.
“Hi, Birdie.”
“Hi, Mr. Balmeade.”
Horatio Balmeade was the Darlingtons’ only neighbor. He owned the country club next door, and he was always looking to expand. Birdie knew a visit from him inevitably meant an offer on the orchard. He’d made offers every year for the past five years, though her dad always made it clear he’d rather throw himself under the wheels of Horatio’s Mercedes than sell his family’s orchard to a golf course developer.
He was like a mosquito that hovered just out of reach as you tried to smack at him, only to sail back the moment you had forgotten him. He wasn’t big enough to do much harm, but he was big enough to itch. He was probably the only person Birdie had ever met that she actually hated. She glanced around the porch, feeling self-conscious about the peeling paint and the wood rot on the banister, the dirtiness of the rag rug at the top of the stairs.
“Can I help you?”
“Oh, just calling on your dad,” Horatio said through his teeth.
Birdie knew Walter’s patented responses to Mr. Balmeade—he wasn’t home, he was busy. “He’s over checking the—”
“Hi there, Horace.” Walter stepped onto the porch behind Birdie. He thrust out his hand and shook Mr. Balmeade’s, a joyless smile on his face. “I’ve been meaning to get over there for that game of golf.”
Birdie looked at her dad, then at Mr. Balmeade. Horace? “C’mon inside, Poopie’s just made a fresh batch of sweet tea.”
Mr. Balmeade turned back to Birdie. “Thanks, honey.”
Birdie watched them, boggled, as both men disappeared into the darkness of the house. She stared at the closed door for a minute. And then she walked down the porch stairs.
Birdie lit out across the clearing and over the hill toward the cider house, trying to shake Horatio Balmeade out of her head, the bucket knocking against the side of her ample right thigh, her auburn hair bouncing in its ponytail. Maybe her dad was desperate for friends since her mom had left. The thought that he might actually sell the orchard was too ridiculous for Birdie to even consider.
After a few minutes the movement and the air lifted her mood. She loved the smell of spring. She could predict how and when everything would start blooming. The magnolia by the cider house always unrolled its prehistoric petals later than the ones on top of the hill. Piles and piles of blackberry bushes would flower at the far back of the property near the bridge and ripen around the third week of June, when Birdie would trek across the acreage and go pick them for Poopie to make pie.
Birdie could see a few of the newly arrived workers crisscrossing the grounds, and this made her smile too and give them little waves. Spring meant the return of all of the workers, who were old friends to Birdie and her dad. She looked forward to seeing them all roll in the way other people might look forward to visits from relatives. They were so much family that Birdie couldn’t imagine life without them.
Every year the orchard produced batches of cider to distribute to farm stands in the area and batches to distribute to wineries that would turn the juice into wine. Birdie had been handed the job of supervising the press two years ago as her first major responsibility. Now it was just one of her many duties.
When she got to the cider house, tugging at the leaves of the nearby magnolia as she passed it, she could hear clanking inside, and she slowed down, wondering if a possum had gotten in. She held the bucket back over her shoulder like a weapon, prepared to throw it if she needed to.
She peered around the corner of the door. But there was no possum in sight. Instead a boy leaned over the press with his profile to her. He had a nice, straight-bridged nose, brown hair, and almond-colored arms, which were stretched over the press, scraping a scrub brush back and forth. Crap. Birdie would have preferred the possum.
Birdie’s hands immediately flew to her sloppy ponytail. She hated talking to strangers. Especially guys her age. Especially good-looking ones. Living on an orchard and being homeschooled, she had the social prowess of the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
“Um,” Birdie began, preparing to say hi, and introduce herself, and ask him if he was the new cider guy. But instead she took one step forward and squish. Birdie went flying, her feet sliding forward and up into the air and her butt landing with a thud, followed by her head. A splurt of goo came flying out of nowhere into her face. Another soaked its way through her shorts and onto her butt cheeks.
Birdie had a straight view of the ceiling for a moment before the guy’s face appeared above her, his eyebrows knit in concern and his mouth pursed in an “ouch” expression. He had perfect eyebrows. Damn. He looked good.
Birdie remained lying with her eyes on the ceiling, too mortified to stand up and a surge of heat racing through her stomach. “I’m okay. I’m okay.” She wanted to wait till the red ran out of her cheeks. But she felt his hands on her shoulders and he was pulling her up, and she felt herself go redder.
Birdie looked around her. She was sitting in a pile of old moldy peach sludge.
“Lo siento,” he said.
“It’s okay. Not my fau
lt. I mean, not your fault, totally my fault,” she said, trying to climb onto her feet. She was halfway up when she realized that her butt was sticking out and that her boobs were probably looking all lopsided and big.
“I’m Birdie,” she said, reaching out a hand.
“Enrico,” he said with a heavy accent. “Nice to meeting you.”
He took her floppy, halfhearted hand in his strong one and shook once, the rough of his palms scratching against the rough of hers.
“Okay, well, I just brought a bucket down,” Birdie said, wiping the slime off her right butt cheek. “If you need one. Um, if you need anything else…”
Enrico was looking at Birdie with a strange smile. She lost her train of thought. Her voice stuck in her throat and she swallowed. He wiped at his forehead.
“Come se dice…tienes la cara sucia.” He rubbed harder at his forehead.
Birdie tried to remember what little Spanish she knew. Why had her mom made her take French when they were surrounded every summer by a ton of Spanish speakers?
“You want something for your itchy forehead?” Birdie ventured. Maybe the guy had poison ivy.
Enrico shrugged. “P-pardon me,” he stammered, grinning, “but you have peaches on your forehead.”
Birdie rubbed at her forehead with the back of her wrist and looked at the spot it left on her arm.
“Oh. Thanks. That’s, um, very polite of you.”
Enrico broke into a smile, then started laughing softly. He rolled his pretty brown eyes. “Pardon me, but you have peaches on your forehead,” he repeated, laughing at himself.
The laughter was contagious, especially with Birdie’s nervousness. She giggled.
“Pardon me, but there are peaches on my butt,” she replied, brushing off her rear end with both hands. Enrico laughed a little harder. Then he looked down at her butt. Birdie felt her face flame up again.
“Well,” she said, backing away. “If you need anything, just let us know.”
She actually couldn’t believe her luck. She had handled the whole thing so gracefully. She stepped onto the threshold, wanting to quit while she was ahead. “See ya.”
Birdie turned to walk out the door, then turned back to give Enrico a little wave. As she turned, her feet caught each other wrong, and she fell backward into the grass. So much for luck.
Chapter Four
“Mom, you can’t do this to me.”
Jodee McGowen looked in the rearview mirror of her maroon 1990 Pontiac and smoothed her Wet ’n’ Wild Passionflower-lipsticked lips together. “Honey, you did this to yourself. You know I’ll miss you.”
Murphy rolled her eyes at the hypocrisy of it all. If someone was always “doing it to herself,” it was her mother.
“Judge Abbott made it pretty clear—” Jodee added before Murphy interrupted her.
“You’re ruining my life,” she said, and opened the door quickly to get out. She walked around to the back of the Pontiac and rapped on the trunk with her knuckles. The lock popped open.
Murphy hoisted her green army-issue bag onto her shoulder and then slammed the trunk. She walked back to the open window. “This is worse than jail. Can’t I just go to juvie instead?”
“How do I look?” Jodee asked, moving a wisp of her copper hair away with one fingernail. All of her fingernails were long and had tiny little seagulls painted on them above tiny little oceans. Murphy and her mother looked nearly alike, but Jodee dressed to accentuate her femininity—low-cut tank tops from Wal-Mart, short skirts to show off her admittedly perfect legs, long nails that her boyfriends seemed to go for.
“You look like a floozy,” Murphy muttered.
Jodee frowned at her. “Watch your mouth.”
But Murphy only shrugged. Her mother was the least intimidating person she’d ever met.
Jodee looked in the mirror again, unsure now. “I happen to think I look very nice. He works at Pep Boys. His name’s Richard. He’s taking me out to dinner. Not bad, huh, baby?”
“Are you going to Burger King or Arby’s?”
Jodee lifted one plucked eyebrow. “I might just never come to pick you up.”
“Tragedy,” Murphy said darkly.
“I’m gonna run off to Mexico and drink margaritas every day,” Jodee threatened.
“That would be fine.”
Murphy backed up and gave a half wave. Jodee blew a kiss to her.
“I love you, honey. See you in two weeks.”
“Not if I die of boredom first,” Murphy said.
The Pontiac pulled away, its wheels crunching in the white dirt of the long drive out of the orchard. Murphy sent up a silent prayer that Richard wouldn’t be that interested in her mother. She didn’t know if she could take another of her mom’s boyfriends. Then she looked around.
Damn.
Murphy dropped her bag and stuck her hands in the pockets of her cords, surveying the orchard. The house stood directly behind her. In front, stretching back toward the road and to either side as far as the eye could see, were the peach trees, their tops low and dipped in the middle like cereal bowls, rows of white sandy dirt striping straight paths between them. The branches were dotted in tiny spots of fluorescent green where the leaves were sprouting. To her right were two other houses, about twenty-five yards apart, strange looking because they were both sort of sunk into the ground and more run-down than the main house. To her left was a barn, also worn and sunken, its red paint closer to an ambitious brown.
It was different than at night. Murphy felt like the one thing that did not belong in the picture.
“Well, hi,” she heard, and turned. There was Chickie Darlington, cuddling one of her dogs against her chest. The other stood by her heels.
Murphy just stared at her. Chickie seemed to falter, her hands freezing on the enormous ears of her dog. “I’m Birdie,” she said, trying to sound bright in that fake way Murphy hated. Birdie. Chickie. Whatever. “This is Honey Babe.” Birdie held one dog forward, then nodded down to the other. “And Majestic. Welcome to the farm.”
Murphy stared coldly at the dogs, then looked up at Birdie—a picture of innocence with huge brown eyes and softly wavy auburn hair. “What kind of name is Birdie?”
Birdie’s cheeks flushed. “When I was little, I had, uh…these little chicken legs.” She seemed on the verge of saying more but stopped.
“Uh-huh.” Murphy looked her up and down. Birdie was sort of plump, definitely not chicken-y. Still Birdie but without the legs.
“Dad asked me to come and show you where to sleep.”
Murphy lifted her bag back over her shoulder. “Lead the way.”
Murphy walked behind Birdie, watching the way she walked, self-consciously, like each step was carefully thought out. Yuck.
They made their way across the grass up to the smaller of the two houses. Birdie veered toward the one with the sign at the top of the stairs that said Camp A.
“This is the women’s dorm,” Birdie said, opening the door and leading Murphy into a tiny yellow-walled hallway bordered with a kitchen and then a common room. The whole place smelled delicious and looked like something from an old movie.
“Everyone just had lunch,” Birdie said, hovering in the archway into the common room, which was filled with three old La-Z-Boys, a table with three legs, a worn plaid couch, and the dark-haired, dark-skinned women who occupied these seats.
“This is Emma, Alita, Isabel, and Raeka,” Birdie said, smiling shyly at the women and then back at Murphy. “Hola,” she said softly.
“Hola,” everyone said back absently. Birdie continued down the hallway to the bottom of a set of stairs. “They’ll be picking and packing too. They’re all nice.”
At the top of the stairs Birdie stood back to let Murphy walk into the first bedroom on the right.
“This is your room,” she said, standing back so Murphy could go inside. The room was bare, with an old beat-up desk and bed with a blue mattress beside a window that looked out at a row of trees. By the door was
a list of rules: No smoking, no loud music, curfew 10 p.m. Murphy immediately knelt on the bed and tried to open the window. It was jammed shut.
“This is a fire hazard,” she said, flashing her green slitted eyes at Birdie, who hovered by the doorway looking like a deer trapped in headlights. Birdie held her cheek out to be licked by one of the dogs in her arms. Her pink worm of a tongue darted along her skin twice. “I have rights. I want a window that opens. I could sue you guys.”
“Um. But I don’t know….” Birdie trailed off, looking nervous. “It’s an old house.”
Murphy rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” She tossed her bag onto the bed and started unpacking. She’d figure out how to un-jam the window.
“If you need anything…”
Murphy could think of many things she needed. She needed to be getting stoned outside the Ryman auditorium. She needed a real spring break, one of the few joys of life. Now, thanks to Birdie and her dogs, she had neither.
“Don’t you think that’s hypocritical?”
Birdie shifted her weight. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re asking me what I need, but I already told you I need a window that opens, and you can’t do that. And what I really need is to go on break like every other normal person in America, and I can’t do that either. And I have you to thank for that and you, Honey Butt.” Murphy nodded at the one dog. “And you, Ambrosia Salad.” Murphy nodded at the other.
“It’s Honey Babe and Majestic. They’re named after peaches….”
“I don’t know if that’s how you spend all your time, sitting around waiting to bust people’s balls because you don’t have anything else to do. Guarding your dad’s crème de menthe.”
“Bust balls…but we weren’t…?”
“Yeah, bust balls. You and your fascist dogs.”
Birdie’s bottom lip quivered. “But I didn’t…I…” Birdie blinked a few times, unsurely. Then, to Murphy’s amazement, she simply pivoted on her heel and took off down the stairs.
Murphy came to the doorway and watched her disappear. Maybe she had hit a sore spot and Birdie really was afraid that her dogs were fascists. She imagined them giving each other little Nazi salutes with their paws.
Peaches with Bonus Material Page 3