The Secrets of Peaches

by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Birdie felt clouds lifting in her head. She didn’t know why it took Poopie to lift them. But all of a sudden she realized that maybe the whole thing was crazy.

  “What else do you want to know?” Poopie asked.

  Birdie looked at her. “Are you in love with my dad?”

  Poopie shrugged. Then nodded.

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see it happening. I had different plans. Always to go back home. Always putting it off. There was one way I thought life would be and another way it was happening. But I couldn’t see how far what was happening was taking me away from what I thought.”

  Birdie cleared her throat. “Did you want my mom to leave?”

  Poopie hugged her. “No, honey. No, of course not.”

  Birdie studied her face. She believed her. It didn’t change the hurt. It didn’t make Poopie and her dad okay. But it made Birdie feel a little less betrayed.

  “Dad wants me to take over the farm.”

  “He’d live if you didn’t.”

  “I want to, though.”

  Poopie wrapped her arms around her and hugged her. “That’s easy, then.”

  “I broke up with Enrico.”

  “I know. Why?”

  Birdie found herself on the verge of crying again, but she smiled sheepishly. “I have no idea.”

  The front door cracked open and they heard Walter coming up the stairs. He walked into the room with his mouth open to say something to Poopie and then saw them both tear-streaked and leaning against each other. He cleared his throat, looked at the ceiling, and then turned around and walked into his room.

  Poopie and Birdie looked at each other, and even though it was more pitiful than funny, they laughed.

  That night, Birdie walked to the dorms and sank down with her back to the building, underneath what was once Enrico’s window. She thought about the warmth of his body and wrapped her arms around herself, shivering from the soles of her cold, wet feet. She tried to make it enough to just be near where he used to be.

  Heading back toward the house, Birdie made a wide arc left to circle through the pecan grove. She came to a dead stop a few feet away from the first tree. Around Methuselah’s shaggy middle, about three feet up from the ground, was a red vinyl ribbon.

  Red ribbons marked the trees slated to be chopped down. Over the years, her dad had placed them on a few trees that, for one reason or another, had needed to go. Birdie reached out to touch it, her chest aching.

  She envisioned her heart buried under Methuselah, like Leeda had said. She pictured the tree standing above her grave. But the picture nagged at her. She was imagining the epitaph. Most people’s had stuff like loving mother, dear husband, giving spirit, beloved daughter. Hers read: Birdie Darlington, Held down the fort.

  When she trailed back to her room about an hour later, she stared at the phone.

  She dialed his dorm and got his voice mail. “It’s me. Birdie. Darlington. I’m…sorry.” That was it. She hung up.

  Birdie was up before dawn. She’d left her window open all night, and the orchard had filled her room with the smells of swelling green peaches, shaggy pecan bark, and magnolia leaves. Birdie wasn’t sure why, but it was all mixed up with the memory of jacarandas, dry sand, cactus, cayenne, cinnamon.

  She crept down the hall, careful not to wake anyone, careful to position everything exactly right.

  When Poopie woke and opened her door, it would be to a line of wooden saints in the hallway, all staring at her. They weren’t a judgment, but a wish and a blessing.

  They both needed all the help they could get.

  The second week of May, several changes took place in Bridgewater that went unnoticed by a soul. At the Buck’s Creek Nature Preserve, the bats began flapping inside their cave, their restless wings beating long into the night. Methuselah listed a bit more—so slightly that only the beetles crawling up and down her trunk noticed. The cinnamon smell that had settled over the orchard was replaced by the scent of roses drifting out of Murphy’s garden. And in New York City, a pebble tumbled from the corner of a rubber stair and fell straight into an open sewer grate.

  Forty-one

  “I don’t know,” Birdie said, clutching the urn.

  “C’mon, Birdie. She wants to be free.”

  Murphy sat in the golf cart, sweaty. Today had been her and Leeda’s last day of high school—forever—and they’d come straight here to start getting things ready for the workers: cleaning the cider press, stacking the halters, picking the trees that were ripe early. She slumped in the seat, laying her head back in the sun impatiently.

  Birdie was wearing a pair of Rollerblades, her hand cupped over the top of Honey Babe’s urn. A long line of rope went from the back of the golf cart to the belt at her waist. Leeda sat shotgun, barely there, her wavy blond hair pulled back in a short and simple ponytail, her body listless in the seat like a string of licorice. Murphy suspected she’d only agreed to come because it was less trouble than saying no.

  “Can’t I just ride up there with you guys?” Birdie called.

  Murphy looked back at her, tilting her chin chidingly. “Do you think Honey Babe would have wanted it that way?” Birdie bit her lip thoughtfully. Then she gave a conceding shrug.

  To Murphy, it was key to have the ashes flying behind Birdie gloriously. She had come up with the idea, of course. She’d used her downtime at Ganax to write out morbid invitations with little skulls and crossbones. Even though Leeda was hardly talking to them these days, they’d all met at the barn, where they’d hidden the Balmeade’s golf cart, at the specified time.

  “Are you ready?” She glanced back at Birdie, who didn’t look ready at all.

  “Yeah. Okay.” Birdie nodded, her knees pulled together unsurely.

  Majestic, who’d been curled between the front seats, leapt onto Leeda’s lap and started yipping. Murphy stepped on the gas, glancing back every second or two, and the cart picked up speed. Birdie held the urn tightly as she jostled forward. She smiled and Murphy stepped harder on the gas. Leeda put a hand against her forehead and shook her head.

  Birdie held up the urn now, ready to let the contents flutter out. But her Rollerblade stuck in something, and she went flying forward. Murphy hit the brakes and swiveled in her seat in time to watch the urn toppling across the grass, finally landing upside down. Majestic leapt out of the passenger side and went dashing for Birdie. Birdie looked at the urn, its contents emptied in an unglamorous heap on the grass.

  A second later, Murphy and Leeda were beside her.

  “Are you okay?” Leeda gasped, sinking to her knees.

  “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.” Birdie pushed herself up on her elbows, her voice crackling, her hair hanging over her face.

  They all stared at the pile. “It actually reminds me of Honey Babe’s poo,” Murphy said, trying to sound bright.

  Birdie sniffled. Murphy kissed her on the cheek. “I’m sorry. It was a bad idea.”

  She grabbed Birdie’s hands and hoisted her up. Deflated, they climbed into the cart and drove it back toward the Balmeade Country Club.

  Climbing back over the fence onto the orchard property a few minutes later, Murphy was struck by the greenness of the grass, the peaches showing through the spaces in the trees up ahead of them like sun-colored polka dots.

  “I don’t feel it.” Birdie sighed a deep sigh.

  “What?” Leeda asked.

  Birdie stuck her hands into her pockets. “Last summer. I thought it would feel like last summer.”

  They were silent for a few minutes. It didn’t feel anything like last summer. They climbed over the fence back onto the orchard property, and Birdie looked around. “Sometimes I feel like I’m a small person for staying here. You know, forever.”

  Murphy looked at her. “Oh, Bird, at least you know what you want. And you’re good at it. You’re good at being here.”

  Birdie turned and peeled some paint off the fence. “Maybe there are other things I’m
good at. And I just don’t know it. Maybe I’m just being boring.”

  Murphy looked to Leeda, waiting for her to object, but Leeda’s lips stayed closed, her face a blank slate. “You’re not boring,” Murphy said, leaning her elbows back over the fence and looking at Methuselah, droopy as ever, a red ribbon tied around her waist. “You’re the farthest thing from boring. You’re the kind of not boring that doesn’t have to act all crazy to remind people she’s not boring.” She stuck her thumbnail in her mouth, like she was trying to think of the right way to say something. “Bird, you’re a Mondrian.”

  Afterward Birdie and Murphy swam in the lake to wash off the ashes that had blown onto them. Leeda sat on the rock watching them like a siren—beautiful and far away. The crickets sang to them wherever they drifted, as if by swimming, they were directing an orchestra. Birdie hopped out first, shivering and squeezing the water out of her hair.

  Murphy swam to the edge and let Majestic lick her wet arms, feeling like there was something to say as she watched Birdie clamber over beside Leeda. But she pushed off from the edge again back into the water. She floated on her back, looking up at the sky, some puffy clouds floating past. Then she swam forward again.

  “I got into NYU,” she said, slapping her palms gently on top of the water. She could hear Birdie gasp. “I lied before.”

  She could feel her friends’ gazes on her, but she didn’t look up. Instead of diving, she sank underwater.

  When she came back up, Birdie was turning red, and for a minute, Murphy wondered why. “Enrico and I had sex,” she whispered. Leeda and Murphy both looked at her, shocked. “And Poopie found us naked.”

  Leeda and Murphy looked at each other now, stunned.

  They were quiet for several seconds, absorbing.

  “And we broke up.”

  “Bird!” Murphy and Leeda both said at the same time.

  Birdie scrunched her toes around some gravelly pebbles.

  They were all silent for a second, and then Leeda said, “I’m going to Berkeley.”

  It was nothing like last summer at all.

  Forty-two

  Rex was sitting on his porch listening to the radio when Murphy pulled up on her bike that evening. She laid it against the mailbox and picked her way up the stone path like she was skipping her way across a stream. By the time she had made her long pilgrimage to the stairs, hands in pockets, head down, he seemed to know. She sank into the swing, and he pulled her across his lap. He put his fingers into her puffy curls. She stared up at the ceiling light of the porch. Moths were fluttering around it.

  “Three days to graduation, huh, Shorts?” Rex said. His voice sounded flat and far away. Murphy nodded.

  “I think we should drive to California for the summer,” she said.

  “Yeah, I was thinking that too.”

  “We can tool around for a while. Go to the beach. And then we can be there waiting for Leeda when she gets there.”

  “That’s great, Murphy. That’s a great idea.” No Shorts. No Murphy Jane. No M.J.

  Finally he pulled Murphy tight to him and curled over her, putting his forehead against hers. “I was selfish,” he said. “I never really believed you.”

  Murphy lost her voice. Deep down, she had known he knew.

  His voice was rumbly when he went on. “When are you leaving?”

  She cleared her throat. A tear dribbled out of the corner of her eye, down along the edge of her ear. “They offered me a work-study program for the summer. It starts Monday.”

  Rex just stared at her, into her, like he could see every part of Murphy. She wondered when someone would ever look at her like that again. If. “Can I drive you?” he finally asked.

  Murphy shook her head. “I don’t…” Murphy had known it would be hard, but she didn’t know she would have so much trouble putting words together. She wiped the tear at her hair-line. “I don’t think I can see you again.” This time, it was an honest request. Rex’s forehead creased, as if he had a bad headache.

  He pushed the swing back and forth, like a heartbeat. After a while, she said, “We should live in an Airstream trailer on a cliff. Looking down at the ocean.”

  “And grow nectarines,” he added.

  They went on and on about all the things they would do. They’d make their slow way along Route 66, staying in old theme motels shaped like wigwams or painted with neon lights. They’d see things along the road like the Blue Whale and Monument Valley. Being right for each other would be right enough.

  “All the Bridgewater boys will cry to see me go off with you like that.” Murphy grinned.

  “The world is our oyster,” Rex said.

  “It really is, Rex.”

  He put his face gently against her cheek. They didn’t look each other in the eye now.

  Murphy listened to him breathing and the sound of his blood rushing wherever it was going beneath her ear. She thought about when she was with him, when she touched him, she wasn’t just touching skin, but all the things Rex was, and all the things he’d seen and the things he knew how to do, and all the ways he had shown her he was hers. She thought of the blood rushing its way through his heart.

  Murphy woke sometime late. The house was dark, and Rex was leaned back on the seat, asleep. She sat up slowly so she wouldn’t wake him and tiptoed across the porch. She was a shadow walking to her bike, pushing it down the driveway and turning to walk it past the cemetery. She’d wait before she got on and pedaled. If she woke him, they’d have to do some kind of good-bye.

  Walking across the bridge, the view looked different to her now that she knew—really knew—she was leaving.

  There had been bonuses to being stuck in the mud that Murphy had never noticed. Over seventeen years, she’d managed to get a lot of firsts tucked under her belt. But she had never once had to say a real good-bye.

  Forty-three

  It looked like Murphy wasn’t going to show for her own going-away party. They waited, called, waited. Birdie kept swallowing the lump in her throat, and Leeda just stared at her, looking like it was the last place she wanted to be anyway. Finally she said she was tired and slunk off to the dorms. Birdie watched her go, something breaking inside for Murphy.

  Around eleven, Birdie rubbed the sweat from her neck and drifted toward the back porch. She closed the door behind her, sat down on the top step, and fanned her face with her hand. She noticed the tiniest movement in the dark and realized there was somebody lying on the dewy grass in front of her.

  “Murphy?”

  “Yeah.”

  Birdie got up and then lay down beside her. The wet grass sent cool chills down her back as it seeped through her shirt. The sky was low and thick and dark. Birdie stared up at it, relaxed but sad. The cicadas were achingly loud. “Why are you in the back?”

  Murphy didn’t answer for a while. Then she raised herself on an elbow and looked over at Birdie. Birdie couldn’t make out her face, just the flop of her curls and the shadows hanging over her eyes. “I don’t want to look at the peach trees.”

  Birdie didn’t really need to ask why. She imagined it was like looking away from something that made you too sad to watch.

  “Will you stay up with me? I don’t want to lie in bed and wait to fall asleep.”

  “Sure.” Birdie thought. “You wanna go do something? Something away from here?”

  Murphy seemed to be thinking. “Yeah.”

  “We can do anything you want.”

  Murphy seemed to think some more. And then she sat up all the way, and Birdie could finally see something of her in the dark. She could see the white of her smile. Birdie knew to be immediately afraid.

  Mayor Wise’s house was set up with alarms, sprinkler systems, double bolts. It was indicative of the fantasy world he lived in that he thought the mayor of a place like Bridgewater would even need to lock the door at night.

  Birdie and Murphy stood poised on the edge of the lawn. Murphy was leaning slightly forward and breathing excitedly, like a bull b
eing enticed by a red flag. The house—large and white with giant pillars—gleamed in the moonlight. One light was on, on the second floor. Birdie could just make out a lamp and the top of a head. Oh God. She looked at where they’d piled their clothes a safe distance away, and at her own naked body gleaming like a white bike reflector in the moonlight.

  Murphy took her arm to position Birdie like she was, like a runner at the beginning of a marathon. “They’re going to know as soon as we do it. So just keep running, okay? If we get separated, I’ll meet you back home.”

  Birdie didn’t have to ask what she meant by home.

  “Ready?”

  Birdie nodded. She wasn’t. But then, she was as ready as she’d ever be.

  When Mayor Wise looked out his window on the night of May 14 to see not one, but two naked girls on his front lawn, running through the sprinklers, his reaction was quite different than it would have been forty-one years before. Then he would have fallen on his knees to thank his lucky stars. But as he peered out the window, pushing his glasses up on his nose to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing, he didn’t even smile. He frowned seriously, thoughtfully, and said to no one in particular, “Somebody should get those girls some clothes.” And then he went downstairs to call the police.

  By the time the cops arrived, however, the girls had vanished into thin air, and the only thing to indicate they had ever been there at all were disappearing footprints under the water jets still soaking the grass.

  Forty-four

  The night seemed shorter when you were awake.

  After streaking across the mayor’s lawn, Birdie had lit a fire by the lake. They had managed to get mostly dry, sitting through the night, hardly talking, just watching the sky and listening to the leaves. Murphy didn’t want Birdie coming to the bus station with her, so just before dawn, she walked her to the dorm.