Peaches with Bonus Material

by Jodi Lynn Anderson

  “Well.” Birdie looked wide-eyed and nervous again. “You’re small.”

  “Whatever. I’m picking peaches.”

  “Murphy…”

  “It’s my choice, right?”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “I’m picking.”

  Leeda looked between the two of them, tensing up. “Well, if Murphy’s picking, I’m picking.”

  Suddenly Birdie stopped in her tracks and gave both of them a death glare. It was the first time Leeda had ever seen such a look from Birdie, and it surprised her so much she stumbled back a foot.

  “Fine. Whatever.” Birdie threw up her hands, then walked on ahead of them, leaving both of them to follow her.

  Murphy looked at Leeda. “See, you pissed her off. Your cousin’s a total powder keg.”

  Leeda scowled at her back as she walked on ahead. Birdie wasn’t a powder keg. She wasn’t even a firecracker. She was maybe, at most, a sparkler.

  It was past nightfall by the time Birdie started toward Camp B, her last stop of the day. She strapped on her Tevas and stepped off her porch and onto the front lawn, swiping her arm across her face to rub off some of the sweat that had gathered on every bare inch of skin, making her feel like a salamander. Honey Babe and Majestic nipped along behind her, catching bugs in their teeth.

  The crickets chirped at her from the trees as she dragged across the grass, more exhausted than she’d ever been in her life, and also more drained. Her mom had always done so much with the workers—getting them settled in, getting them supplies for picking, keeping an eye on the different areas to see if everything was running smoothly. Birdie was sure she was a poor substitute. She hadn’t spoken to Enrico once, one-on-one, since he’d arrived back at the farm. He’d been part of the group she’d led to pick the Springprinces, but they’d barely met eyes. And Birdie had been so focused on combing through the peaches, looking for signs of rot with her paring knife and a worried flutter in her throat, that she had hardly noticed.

  But now, on the stairs of Camp B, she tightened her ponytail and stuck her sweat-slicked hair back behind her shoulders. She rubbed the sweat off her face one more time, her heart pounding, and looked at her dogs. “Stay.” And then she took the last couple of steps and knocked on the door, calling through the screen. “Puedo entrar?”

  One of the men, Fonda, appeared at the door and pushed it open slightly, smiling.

  “I just want to make sure you have everything you need.” Birdie stepped in and the door hissed closed behind her. Immediately, she was bowled over by the foreign smell of the dorm. It smelled like men.

  Birdie could feel herself blushing. “Is everything okay? Necesita más?”

  Fonda just smiled at her and shrugged, then turned and led her into the common room, which was disgusting compared to the women’s—the couch was in a shambles with cushions lying all over the floor, empty beer cans and soda bottles were strewn about, a pair of tighty whities lay across the top of the TV. Five or six guys were sitting on the floor, a card game spread out in the middle of them. Everyone was covered in the same glistening layer of sweat. Enrico wasn’t among them.

  “You can check,” one of the guys said. “I think we have everything.”

  “Okay, well…” Birdie took a step backward, thinking that she would just take their word for it. The dorm felt too manly for her to be standing here. It felt like she’d invaded forbidden territory.

  She glanced down the hall and swallowed. “Well, maybe I’ll just take a quick look….” The men’s house was much bigger than the women’s, with a long downstairs hall that held eight rooms, four on either side. It was filled with a blue glow from a light that was coming from one of the open doorways. Birdie padded down the hall, peeking in through the door as she passed.

  Enrico was lying on the bed by the window, watching a tiny TV, his arms glistening beneath the sleeves of his T-shirt.

  His eyes shot up to hers and widened. “Birdie.” He sat straight up, looked around, and straightened the covers around him. He ran a hand through his hair, which was all messy.

  “Come in.”

  Birdie shuffled in and took the seat Enrico offered beside him on the bed.

  The room smelled better than the rest of the house—more like boy than man. His bed smelled like boy. It was beginning to make her giddy. She peered around the room nervously—noticing several books lying all over the place, open and facedown—then glanced up at the TV.

  “What’re you watching?”

  “The O.C.”

  “Oh.”

  At the moment a local commercial was on. “Are you tired of riding around in that old hooptie? Come see the Credit Doctors, where we make buying a new car easy.”

  Birdie tried not to laugh, but a small snort slipped out. Enrico shoved her playfully on the shoulder.

  “You think I drive a hooptie?”

  “I can’t believe you even know the word hooptie.”

  “I know many English words,” Enrico said, grinning at her.

  In an effort to look casual, she leaned back so that her back curved and her head rested against the wall.

  “Here, pillow,” he said, holding up a pillow as if it were a lesson. “Almohada.”

  “Almohada,” Birdie repeated.

  He settled the pillow down behind her head.

  “Thanks.”

  Then he lounged back beside her.

  “This girl is very pretty,” he said, nodding to Mischa Barton on the TV.

  Oh. Birdie sized up Mischa. She was skinny, for one thing. And delicate. Birdie wondered if she was his type.

  They lounged like that until the end of The O.C.

  Birdie thought she should go, but she couldn’t get herself to move. She stayed through the mini–news update and still didn’t move. They stayed put through the next couple of shows.

  During each commercial break Birdie tried to think of something to say. She’d look at Enrico and he’d look at her, his eyebrows rising expectantly, and then, when she didn’t say anything, he’d turn back to the TV, unconcerned.

  Their thighs touched a few minutes later, but Enrico pulled his away.

  Finally the nine-thirty news came on, and a hot weight descended on Birdie’s chest. The news was hardly a pretense for staying. She could feel Enrico’s breathing change from slow and deep into a nervous, uneven rhythm. His arm pushed against hers gently, almost imperceptibly, so that the fine brown hairs on it tickled her. Birdie listed ever so slightly to the left, toward him. She studied what she could of him sideways—his tan legs, his hands….

  Her elbow came to rest on his—just slightly.

  He sat up. There was an open Coke can on the windowsill, and he leaned forward and grabbed it, taking a sip. Then he started playing with the mouth of the can with his thumb and forefinger. Birdie watched his fingers make the slow circular motions. She had a vision of him cutting his thumb on the lip of the can. She would kneel beside him and put a Band-Aid on it for him and then look up at him and they’d just move toward each other easily in a kiss.

  “Oh!” Enrico jerked his hand into the air. A thin trickle of blood ran down not his thumb, but his forefinger.

  “Oh.” Birdie shot up. Did she have ESP? Telepathy? “Um.” She felt her stomach flop nervously. “Let me get a Band-Aid for you.”

  She hurried down the hall to the first aid box hung by the door, grabbed a bandage (the pinky kind), and walked back slowly, knowing she’d been given a sign and if she let the moment slip past, she would be pathetic in the eyes of herself and the fates.

  Enrico was still sitting on the bed. He had the edge of his forefinger in his mouth. Oh God.

  Birdie walked up to stand directly before him. She pulled the outer wrapping off the Band-Aid. Enrico looked up at her under his eyebrows.

  “Here you go!” On reflex, she tossed the Band-Aid at him across the few inches of space. It fluttered madly, listing sideways and landing on the floor. Enrico bent down to pick it up, awkwardly.

&nb
sp; “Thank you,” he said, looking at her unsurely, like she might have lost her mind.

  “No problem.” Birdie watched him peel off the waxy white strips and apply the Band-Aid, realizing at that moment it was the wrong size and didn’t even cover the cut.

  “Thanks,” Enrico said again.

  Birdie shifted from foot to foot. “No problem.”

  The discomfort between them was so thick Birdie felt she could step forward and bump her head on it. The skin under her armpits was tingling and itching. Finally Enrico stretched his arms back, which pushed his ribs forward against his shirt. “Well, I am going to bed, I think.”

  Birdie could have been knocked over with a feather. “Oh. Oh yeah. Sorry.”

  Enrico’s dark eyebrows descended worriedly over his pretty eyes. “I am just suddenly tired,” he said, smiling nervously. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah,” Birdie said, blushing. “Sure. Good night.”

  Enrico closed the door behind her and Birdie walked down the hall, feeling like her body might sink into the cracks in the cool, creaky wooden floor and drip down into the dirt underneath.

  When she stepped out onto the porch, she put her hand to her forehead and muttered, “Why?”

  When she looked up, her dad was at the bottom of the stairs.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  Birdie froze. “Um, just…making sure everybody has what they need. What…are you doing?”

  Walter relaxed a bit. “I came to look for you. I need you to come up to the house at five tomorrow morning. I need some help in the office.”

  “Okay, Dad.”

  “Birdie, I don’t want you in the men’s dorm. It was all right when you were a kid, but…” His mouth settled into a thin, awkward line. “I’ll take care of it from now on.”

  Birdie swallowed. “But I wasn’t…”

  “You should be in bed.”

  “Okay.”

  Walter turned his cheek for Birdie to kiss. She did and then headed toward Camp A. But she didn’t go to sleep.

  She flopped into every angle, hoping to find one that would send her off to sleep. She turned so that her head was at the foot of the couch.

  She’d never felt more desperate for someone to talk to. And there was no one. Not her dad. Definitely not her mom.

  It seemed like whatever had been building in her since the spring was making it impossible to stay inside herself. It was too big to contain.

  Leeda was lying on her bed, her feet up on the wall with the door open to catch the breeze. She was resting her sore muscles and facing the facts. She was never going to make it this summer. That was the facts.

  The day had been hell, picking peaches all morning, dropping them into her harness basket, carrying them, dumping them. She hadn’t seen Rex all day. She’d gotten a fifth of the work done that anyone else had, and she’d actually tried. She’d wanted the workers to start being nice to her again, like they had at the beginning of spring break. But at this rate, that seemed impossible.

  The air was so sultry that she was covered with sweat. She’d never felt so hot and miserable. Leeda rolled off her bed and pulled on her turquoise silk robe. It was almost ten. Not too late to call home and ask them to come get her. Leeda got up, feeling the ache in her muscles, and decided it was the only way.

  By the time she made it down to the front stairs, she could already feel the softness of her huge pillow-top bed and the little plastic straps of the pool lounger pressing gently into her suntanned skin while she sipped a sloe gin fizz brought up by the help. She tiptoed past the couch, where Birdie appeared to be already sleeping. The dogs perked their ears at her as she creaked out the door.

  She forgot to think about critters lurking in the grass as she rushed across the lawn toward the supply barn. It didn’t even occur to her someone else would be on the phone until she saw Murphy hunched over the box in the dim glow striping the grass from the light on the Darlingtons’ porch. Leeda came to a stop and waited for Murphy to turn around, but apparently she hadn’t heard her.

  “It’s our house, Mom. I live there too.” Murphy had the phone tucked between her ear and her shoulder, and with her free hands she was scratching at the soft skin on the insides of her forearms with nervous energy. Her voice crackled and cracked, like someone on the verge of crying from sheer frustration—contradicting her body language, which was strung out and defeated.

  “I don’t want him using my stuff,” she said coldly.

  Silence. And then, “Fine. Whatever.”

  Murphy slammed down the receiver and, to Leeda’s shock, plopped down on the grass and began ripping up handfuls of grass, throwing them over her left shoulder.

  Leeda felt like a voyeur, like she was seeing Murphy naked. She tried to take a silent step backward.

  Murphy jolted and looked in her direction, swiping quickly at her eyes. She took so long to gather herself that Leeda thought she should say something.

  “Are you okay?”

  “How long have you been standing there?” Murphy finally growled.

  “Um, just a second?”

  “Ha, right.” Murphy snatched up another handful of grass, gripping it this time instead of throwing it. “Don’t you have a life?”

  Leeda scowled and crossed her arms. “Don’t flatter yourself. This phone’s for everybody.”

  Murphy rolled her eyes. And then she began sifting the grass between her fingers, almost seeming to forget to be mad.

  Leeda softened again. “What’s wrong?”

  Murphy ignored her. She reached into her pocket as if looking for something, then pulled out her empty hand and sighed. She looked up at Leeda. “Jodee’s having a guy move in.”

  “Oh.” Leeda didn’t know what to say. Jodee McGowen had always sounded like an exotic creature to her—someone definitely not of the same species as the Cawley-Smiths. It was hard to think of any sort of comforting words about somebody like that.

  But Murphy didn’t seem to be hoping for any. “I can’t believe it. Every time I think things can’t get worse, they do.” Murphy shook her head.

  Leeda searched for something to offer. “How long have they been dating?”

  Murphy laughed under her breath. “Like, two seconds.”

  Leeda didn’t know what to say. She wanted Murphy to know she wasn’t too sheltered to get it. “God, I know, my sister and her fiancé only dated for six months. And now they’re getting married. It’s so weird.”

  Murphy stared at her incredulously. “I’m talking about my mom.”

  Leeda stiffened. She was only trying to help. “Well, maybe you should try to be happy for her,” she shot back.

  Murphy laughed. The laugh sounded like rocks in a rock tumbler. “It’ll crash and burn like everything else. My mother is so predictable.”

  “You don’t know. Maybe it’ll work out.”

  “You don’t know my mom.”

  Leeda felt like she did, a little, from everything that she’d heard. She certainly knew Jodee better than Murphy knew Lucretia Cawley-Smith, but what could she say?

  “It sucks, Murphy. I’m sorry.” She waited for Murphy to come back with something rude, but instead she just slumped over. Again, Leeda got the voyeur feeling. She never would have imagined that Murphy could look so defeated or that she would want anyone to see her that way. It was like seeing a hermit crab without a shell. Rex had shown Leeda one once at the pet store, which he’d dragged her into, and it had looked all wrong.

  “God, I hate this. I hate her. Life is not enough for her unless there’s some jerk around to treat her like crap. And she rolls over for them. A guy comes in, and suddenly it’s his house, and…” She looked up like suddenly she realized she was talking out loud, and her eyelids drooped. And then she leaned to the left, peering beyond Leeda’s calves. Leeda turned to look.

  A shadow was crossing the grass toward them.

  Birdie stopped several feet away, her dogs at her feet, her hair down from its usual ponytai
l and all ratted up around her face. Leeda’s first instinct was to check her watch, knowing they were out past curfew. She started to pluck up an excuse.

  “I’ve been looking for you guys.” Birdie swiped the ratty hair back, but some of it stuck to her temples wetly. She looked very serious and nervous, and her chest rose and fell unevenly. Which made what came out of her mouth next sound out of place, and funny, and formal. “I was wondering if maybe you’d take me to sneak out.”

  Leeda looked down at Murphy, who stood up and brushed herself off, eyeing Birdie suspiciously but also with a slight smile creeping onto her lips.

  “I know you think I’m a spy,” Birdie said. “But it’s not my fault.” Her big brown eyes scanned their faces. “If I don’t do something…I don’t know….”

  Leeda didn’t know why, but she felt the decision was Murphy’s, as if some kind of unspoken agreement had already been struck between them, and they were two against Birdie’s one, and Murphy was the boss of the two.

  “I’m going to explode,” Birdie blurted, making them both look at her again. She blushed. “Seriously,” she added. “I thought you guys might…help….”

  It took a few seconds, but Murphy’s face took on an amused, eureka expression. Like of course Birdie was here to sneak out. And of course she, Murphy, got that. Murphy transformed in front of Leeda like a hermit crab getting its shell back. She was suddenly the girl from that night they’d gone swimming, tough but irresistible. “I told you,” she said, pointing to Birdie but looking at Leeda, “this girl is a powder keg.”

  “I know where we can get some booze,” Birdie offered. And then her eyes widened in surprise, as if a lightning bolt might strike her. But it didn’t. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

  “You guys, I’ve gotta take them. They’ll start barking if I try to lock them up.”

  “Oh God,” Murphy said. “Let’s go.”

  They had already made it halfway across the orchard when Murphy realized Honey Babe and Majestic were still trailing them. The dogs had stopped when she’d turned, while they were still several feet behind, and now they both tilted their heads at the same exact angle, looking at her woefully as if they sensed her hatred.