“Say what?” Murphy asked. She immediately knew. And it made her go hot and cold inside. She gave him her best innocent, ignorant look.
Rex shrugged. “You tell me.”
“Tell you what?” Murphy grinned, nervous, palms sweaty. She tried to think it to him through telepathy. That should be enough.
He swallowed. Looked embarrassed. “I need to hear it, Murphy.”
Murphy’s eyes sank away from his face toward the gravel. “Good night?” she asked, turning it into a joke. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite?”
Rex looked at her a minute longer, straight, the way she could never really look at him. He kissed her at the corner of her lips. Then, before she could think of anything halfway decent to mumble to stop him, he got into his truck and pulled out. Murphy watched him as he disappeared behind the trees. The ease with which he left made her breathless.
Maybe he didn’t understand, but that was why she couldn’t say it. Because she loved him, but also because she couldn’t pin him to her. Because he was too big and true to be sure of.
Georgia winter always teased its way in. On November fifteenth Judge Miller Abbott played his last eighteen holes of the season at the Balmeade Country Club in summer-like weather. He was shooting well until, on a putt at the ninth hole, his ball was knocked off course when it ran into—of all things—a peach pit. The nearest peach tree was three hundred yards away.
That night, a cold breeze swept into Bridgewater. The leaves went fluttering like butterflies, and Judge Abbott began to have what he later called “the orchard dreams.”
Every night far into the following year, he dreamed of Jodee McGowen reclining nude by Smoaky Lake, like she was Eve lying in a cluster of reeds in the oldest garden in the world.
Eleven
Three-quarters into November, Cynthia Darlington steered her car out of the parking lot of Liddie’s Tea Room. “You sure you won’t spend the night?”
“Yeah, thanks anyway.” Birdie stared out the window as they zipped past the loblolly pines butting up against one another alongside Orchard Road. Already Birdie felt like she was starting the afternoon late. Summer days always lasted longer than she expected them to, but November days snapped past as clean and crisp as sweet peas. Birdie had forgotten that.
She glanced over at her mom, whose hands were wrapped tight around the steering wheel, her nails a gleaming pink. Birdie glanced at her own fingernails—they were short and had little specks of dirt under them. She watched the peach trees, bald in most places, as Cynthia pulled toward the house.
“See you Thursday, honey,” Cynthia called behind her as she climbed out of the car.
“Okay.” Birdie leaned over to wave in at her mom, wondering how she was going to have a whole Thanksgiving dinner on the table by then.
Running through a mental list of chores, she crunched up the driveway toward the house. And then, remembering Methuselah, she turned in that direction. Checking on the tree was one of the items on her list. She walked between the dorms, sunk crookedly on either side of her, and then turned left. As she absently watched her feet on the grass, her mind drifted to Poopie. Birdie had wanted to ask her a hundred times a day if she was leaving, but the words always got caught inside her. If she asked, she’d know the answer. There would be no five percent maybe it wasn’t true. But the ninety-five percent true was killing her anyway, so why was she waiting? When she looked up, a figure startled her, and she stopped short.
Her dad turned to look at her over his shoulder. He was standing in front of Methuselah, hands stuffed in his overall pockets.
“Hey.”
“Hey, did you see this tree’s dying?” he said lightly, rubbing his chin and then apparently gauging the distance between the tree and the edge of the property.
Birdie looked at Methuselah. “I’m gonna do some research on how to treat it.”
Walter shook his head, shrugging. “It’s just old age. She’s gonna come down.”
Birdie felt a tiny lump in her throat. “I’ve been reading up on it,” she shot back defensively. “It could be scab, or crown gall, or a zinc deficiency.” She’d Googled it.
“I don’t think so, honey. We need to call and have someone come chop it.”
“No!” Birdie blurted, horrified. Walter looked at her, surprised.
“Birdie, this tree’s too close to the road to let it fall on its own.” Birdie glanced over at where the knotty grass met the black tar of the single lane of Orchard Drive. She swallowed.
“Let me take care of it,” she said. “Please?”
Walter studied her, then shrugged his broad shoulders. “Okay. You’re a big girl.”
Birdie heaved a sigh of relief. There was no doubt in her mind she could save the tree.
Walter turned back toward the drive, waving once over his shoulder. “I’m headed to town.”
“What for?” But her dad hadn’t heard her. As she walked up to the house, she heard the sound of his truck pulling away.
Inside, the house was deeply, unsettlingly quiet. Birdie let the dogs jump on her and lick her hands. “Poopie?” Nobody answered. She pulled off her scarf and rubbed her cheeks and glanced at the chalkboard. No messages. Honey Babe and Majestic followed Birdie from room to room, tip-tapping along. Birdie could feel the wind leaving her sails. She reached for the mail and found a letter from LCC on the table with a bunch of forms to fill out. It surprised her because she hadn’t sent anything to them yet. Her dad had sent in her materials, she guessed. She marveled at how her future was taking shape with her hardly lifting a finger.
She sank onto the kitchen chair and stared around. She knew there were a million chores she could do. But she couldn’t think where to start.
Finally she picked up the phone and dialed Enrico.
“Hello?”
“Enrico.” She scratched the back of her neck, which immediately prickled. “Hey.”
“Birdie,” he said, sounding out of breath. Birdie could hear loud voices behind him, talking and laughing.
“Hey. Sorry I haven’t called in a while. Things are so crazy here.”
“That’s fine,” Enrico said lightly, unconcerned. Birdie tightened her fingers around the bottom edge of the phone. She felt like Enrico was getting fuzzy so far away. Were they growing fuzzy to each other?
“You okay, Birdie?”
“Yeah.” Birdie pushed a toe into the linoleum. “I guess.”
Enrico laughed. “You sound quiet.” He sounded happy. Excited. Lively.
“I…” There was a loud shuffling on Enrico’s end of the phone and then a couple of girls’ voices in the background.
“Birdie, I have to go. I’ll call you tonight.”
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll call you.”
“Okay.”
Birdie listened to the phone click. She tried to quell the jealousy in her gut. She circled the downstairs rooms one more time, looking for Poopie. The dogs circled behind her. Finally she went out the back door and dragged the crates of peach preserves up from the musty cellar. She’d haul them down to the Pecan Festival on Thanksgiving morning and sell them at the Darlington Orchard booth. Next she tackled the back porch with a big scrub brush and bleach, something she’d always seen Poopie do. She wasn’t sure what time of the year she was supposed to do it, but it couldn’t hurt.
Then she trudged down to the bat cave to check for any signs of life and, seeing none, grabbed the bucket-like container she’d bought and began scattering its stinky contents all around the opening, wrinkling her nose. It was a mixture of bat droppings and secret ingredients that the label guaranteed to work. Upon more thought, she went into the house and got two bowls of orange juice and placed them by the opening too. If they got mega-bats, well, that was better than nothing.
Afterward she did laundry, leaning on the dryer with her chemistry textbook vibrating under her hands, the warmth of it heating the drafty old room. She heard her dad come back from town and head upstairs.
> Around eleven she heard the front door open and padded out to the hall to see Poopie coming in.
“Hey,” Birdie greeted her.
“Hiya, honey.” Poopie unwrapped her scarf and warmed her hands next to the radiator. This was the way it was now. Like everything was the way it had been, on the surface.
How could Birdie begin? How did you tell someone you were still a kid? That you still needed them? That if they left you, you’d crumble? Did you just blurt it out? “You want some tea?” Birdie asked, turning on the stove.
“No thanks,” Poopie answered. She looked ready to go. She backed up.
“Poopie,” Birdie blurted. “Can I talk to you about something?”
Poopie got a cagey look on her face and busied herself straightening the napkin holder on the table. “Maybe tomorrow, honey, I’m tired.”
Before Birdie could even register surprise, Poopie pecked her on the forehead and hurried up the stairs. No, she didn’t hurry; she ran.
Long after midnight, when her clothes were dry, Birdie climbed to the dark upstairs hallway and into her room, setting her alarm for six. She pulled Honey Babe and Majestic under the covers with her and curled around them, snuggling their warmth tightly. She had the kind of thoughts in the dark that grew bigger the longer she lay there. Murphy, Leeda, her mom, Enrico, Poopie…everyone seemed to be speeding away, and Birdie was a road sign in the rearview mirror. The dogs, at least, were stuck with her.
She didn’t remember that Enrico hadn’t called back until she woke up in the middle of the night, shooting out of a dream. She squinted in the dark, trying to recall where she’d been—and then it came back to her. She’d been standing on the cartoon ground in Mexico, rocky and dry and flat, watching a single peach blossom blow across its surface.
Birdie chased it, but it was too fast. It blew away from her.
Twelve
“He was terrified of me,” Lucretia told Leeda, pulling into an empty parking spot at Buck’s Creek Nature Preserve the day before Thanksgiving. Leeda watched her, listening raptly. Her mother’s face was flushed and animated. She’d been telling Leeda how her dad had proposed. All her life, Leeda had never heard the story.
“Of course he was.” Leeda’s stomach hurt from laughing. Everyone was terrified of her mother. She couldn’t imagine how scary it would be to also be in love with her.
“I mean, honey.” Lucretia reached out and took Leeda’s fingers. “His hands were shaking. I’m telling you, they were quaking.” She shook Leeda’s hands to demonstrate. Leeda noticed the moistness of her mom’s palm and studied her face, which was covered in a fine layer of dew. It worried her. But she forced herself to laugh.
They climbed out of the car and brushed themselves off. Leeda wore a thick green wool cardigan and jeans. She was supposed to dedicate the new nature trail at five and then head home to get her things ready for the Pecan Festival tomorrow morning. Leeda couldn’t believe tomorrow was her Pecan Queen finale already. She looked at her mom’s dewy complexion again and wondered if things between them would change back after pecan season was over.
It was brilliantly cold and bright as they made their way toward the small gaggle of people already standing at the head of the trail. They listened as the park rep—Mindy, by her name tag—explained the many benefits of the new trail, including a convenient view of the wild turkey dam and the bat flight that took place at dusk.
Lucretia shot Leeda a bored look and Leeda looked bored back, as if they were in on some private joke. But the truth was, Leeda wasn’t bored. She liked hearing about the bats. She wanted to memorize as much as she could to tell Birdie later.
When the talk was over, Leeda smiled and cut the ribbon. Photos were taken and the small crowd dispersed. Mindy stood by the large wooden trail map at the edge of the parking lot, waving.
“Are we allowed to go see the bat cave?” Leeda asked. She felt like Birdie’s spy, casing the joint.
Mindy shrugged. “If you want. Just follow the trail. Straight down, about two hundred yards.”
Leeda looked at her mom hopefully. Lucretia scrunched up her face. “Come on, it’ll be good.” The minute the words left her lips, Leeda felt the pressure. She didn’t know if it would be good or not.
They walked gingerly through the dried leaves, Lucretia keeping a careful eye on her clothes as Leeda pushed the branches aside. She felt like any moment her mom would call the whole thing off and head back to the car. She hoped they didn’t hit any spiderwebs.
The cave, when they came to it, was a black jagged slice, encrusted like a black jewel into the wooded slope. To the left, the land swept downward into a low valley. Leeda crept up to the cave and peered into the dark curiously, then peered back at her mom. “Want to see?”
Lucretia shook her head, looking stiff and uncomfortable. “It’s quiet out here.”
To Leeda, it felt like they were the only two people for miles. She couldn’t remember ever having her mom so wholly and completely to herself.
“Birdie says if you catch it at the right time, you see the babies too. But I think that’s spring.”
The air got darker around them. They both fidgeted, nervous. Leeda thought she could hear something. But no. And then it got louder—a thrum thrum thrum.
Leeda stepped back, suddenly afraid. And then the bats burst out of the cave. Leeda stumbled backward into her mom, who grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her close. She could feel the air of hundreds of wings flapping and hear the soft, tiny thwaps and the tiny chirps and squeaks. Her heart was in her feet as they flew past.
As they watched, the flock looked like it was swimming through the sky, up above the low trees. Leeda turned to follow the bats’ progress over the woods and into the valley. They moved off like a spot of ink, diluting as they got farther away. Lucretia let go of her shoulders and she sank forward.
And then Leeda started to laugh.
It wasn’t a laugh at it being funny. It was a laugh from fear, relief, and the tickle of the wind of the bats. Behind her, her mother laughed too.
They were quiet in the car on the way home. Leeda watched the occasional house zip by, set back from the street, obscured by trees or tall grass, on the long country road that ran between Buck’s Creek and Bridgewater. The heater was blowing directly on her knees, and she held up a hand to warm her fingers. The car smelled like heat.
Occasionally Leeda glanced over at her mom. She opened her mouth, then looked out the window. Finally she got up the nerve to break the silence.
“Mom?” They were coming into Bridgewater city limits.
“Hmm?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Okay.”
“Did I do something? Sometime? Did I do something wrong?”
Lucretia kept her eyes on the road. Her forehead wrinkled slightly. “What do you mean?”
Leeda kept her hands firmly on her lap and looked out the window. “We’ve always had this…thing. You know…it’s different with Danay. When you look at her, you look different than when you look at me. I just want to know if I did something to make you feel that way.”
The warmth seemed to seep right out of the car. Lucretia sat up straighter. Leeda felt immediately that she had said the wrong thing.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
They drove on, Leeda fiddling with her fingernails and looking out of the window. When her mom turned into the driveway, she cleared her throat and let out a deep breath. She had the door open before she’d even pulled the key out of the ignition. The cold air burst in and made Leeda zip up her coat as they climbed out.
Leeda followed her mom up the long walkway that led to the front door, winding its way through shrubs shaped in squares. She couldn’t walk fast enough to keep up with her. “Mom, please, I just want you to be honest with me. I can take it. Mom? Mom.”
Lucretia was fumbling for her keys, than stopped at the door and turned toward Leeda, looking disappointed, annoyed. It was a look Leeda wa
s used to. But it was too late for her to go back. She wouldn’t let herself.
Leeda swallowed, hard. “Mom, do you like me?”
“That’s a ridiculous question.” Lucretia turned and pushed her key into the door.
“Mom. Please stop. I’m talking to you.”
“No, you’re not. This conversation is over.”
“But…”
Crack.
The front door opened. Danay stood in the doorway, with her long brown hair in a thick red headband like Snow White herself. She smiled a big white smile and reached out to hug their mom like it was the easiest thing in the world.
“Gobble gobble,” she said.
Thirteen
“She’s not coming?” Murphy cocked her head dramatically, following Leeda down Main Street on Thanksgiving morning. She sipped her Pumpkin Spice coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts.
“Of course she’s coming. She’s just behind me. I think she’s having breakfast.”
Murphy’s stomach growled at the word breakfast. She looked behind her, as if Lucretia might materialize in the crowd.
As happened in Georgia, the cold had gone warm just when you thought winter was setting in. It was light-jacket weather. Sometimes it did Murphy’s head in. She longed for real winter winter. She always had.
People had started rolling in to the festival at dawn, so now, at eight thirty, the booths were already set up on either side of Main Street, loaded with baked goods made by the teachers at Bridgewater Middle School, wreaths and handmade soaps and jelly candles from the Curious Cottage Gift Shop, a quilt being raffled by the Divine Grace of the Holy Redeemer. Murphy glanced longingly at the junk food stalls. “Do you think the fried Mars bar truck will be here?”
“You’re such a guy.” Leeda readjusted the garment bag she was carrying, trying to keep it steady over one shoulder.
“I like my guy-like qualities,” Murphy said, trying not to scan the crowd for Rex. As usual, she’d been avoiding him. Over the past three weeks, she’d seen him a handful of times, letting him come over to play Ping-Pong in the cold parking lot one time, letting him watch late-night TV with her and her mom for a few nights, fooling around with him in his room twice when his dad was out. She wanted to make sure she kept him unsure of the next time he’d see her. Like Leeda had said, she wanted to make sure he knew what it was like not to have her. But today—today was the day he’d promised her an answer about New York.
The Secrets of Peaches Page 8