Love and Peaches (14 page)

“I
'll have a profiterole,” Eric said. Leeda ordered the same. Her mom and dad got the tiramisu and Danay only ordered an espresso.

The Cawley-Smiths were sitting around the table at Abbondanza!, a fancy Italian restaurant in Warner Robbins. It was the nicest place within a sixty-mile radius of Bridgewater, with white tablecloths and candles. They had ridden over in the family car—all four of them—and Danay had driven out from Atlanta to meet them halfway.

Lucretia was gazing at Eric in an approving way that, to Leeda, was almost over the top. Eric kept looking at her sideways, smiling obligingly. Leeda laid her hand against his elbow just to remind him she was there. But he didn't seem to need reassurance. Throughout the dinner, under the stream of questions from her parents about his background, his family, and his interests, his self-confidence had never faltered. Lucretia had conducted the dinner almost like a formal interview. But if Eric had a chink in his armor, it didn't show.

“Did you know Leeda was the Pecan Queen?” Lucretia asked,
fluttering her eyelashes and winking at Leeda. She looked as giddy as a schoolgirl. She had drunk a couple of glasses of wine.

Eric laughed. “What's a Pecan Queen?” His smile was even and perfect. He had worn a soft blue button-down shirt and a gray jacket, and he looked very New York.

“Nothing.” Leeda waved her hand.

“Not nothing. It means she's the prettiest girl in town. Her sister was too. And so was her grandmother Eugenie. And so was I.” Leeda's father cleared his throat, but Lucretia went on. “Her last boyfriend's dad owned a hardware store,” she said, rolling her eyes as if to say weren't they—weren't they three—relieved she'd come to her senses?

“Mom, maybe you should take it easy on the Zinfandel,” Danay said, sliding Lucretia's glass out of arm's reach. Leeda shot her a grateful glance, and then looked at Eric contritely, as if to apologize that her mom was a snob and apparently buzzed.

Eric smiled at Leeda, a smile that, between the two of them, said he was not so much horrified as amused. Leeda studied him thoughtfully as his plate was delivered and he placed a bite of profiterole in his mouth. She was undeniably proud of him. But it had been so long since she'd seen him that he felt a little foreign to her. She guessed it was natural. But it wasn't what she'd expected after all the times talking and listening to each other breathe on the phone. She'd expected to feel, when she saw him again, like their souls were entwined or something.

“You look great, Leeda, by the way,” he said.

Leeda tossed her head jokingly. “Thanks.” But she really did feel like a new girl. She had scrubbed herself silly, even under her
fingernails, to get off all the grime from the animals. She had ditched her T-shirt and shorts for a two-hundred-dollar pair of jeans and a silky, jewel-green top. She had seen people looking at her when they'd walked into the restaurant. It felt nice to be looked at by people instead of ponies. Leeda was pretty sure ponies never thought she was pretty.

Her mom patted her hand. “She's going to be a big deal, Eric. Leeda has a bright future ahead of her.”

Leeda rolled her eyes, feeling embarrassed. But she was also pleased. She liked to think that her mom thought she would be a big deal. She liked glowing in a silky top at a nice restaurant, with the guy she loved looking at her like she was pure gold. It all seemed clean and clear and lovely. Just the way life should be.

 

The ride home was jovial, everyone chatting away. Leeda, sitting against the passenger-side window in the back, watched the dark landscape go by, content.

They got out of the car at Breezy Buds, where the Cawley-Smiths had insisted Eric spend the night. It only took a moment for Leeda to notice Grey's car in the driveway. For a split second she felt guilty, as if his being here were a reason for guilt.

Grey was standing on the steps at the front door. Leeda looked at him, perplexed, as they all approached him. Finally they reached him, and they all stood expectantly for a second.

“Grey, these are my parents.” Leeda gestured to her mom and dad, her stomach roiling suddenly. “You already met Eric.”

“Hey,” Grey said, sticking out his hand to shake Leeda's mom's and dad's hands. “Nice to meet you.”

They nodded at him politely, gave Leeda a quizzical look, and
then walked inside the house. Leeda, Eric, and Grey lingered on the lawn in front of the stairs.

“I just thought you'd want to know,” Grey said, his face sober and serious. “Leeda, Barky died.”

It was the last thing Leeda expected to hear. She suddenly felt floaty and far away. “What?”

“He just went into this kind of…fit. I rushed him to the vet, but he had died by the time we got there. They think he had hepatitis. They said he probably had a fever for a couple days, but we didn't notice. It can happen suddenly, I guess.”

A tight pain grabbed onto Leeda's chest and fast tears clouded her vision. “That's not fair,” she said disbelievingly. “We took care of him. I…”

Leeda stared at Grey, hoping he could somehow fix it. She felt a hand slip into hers and she realized it was Eric's. She'd almost forgotten he was standing there.

“Can you give us a minute?” she asked, turning to him.

Eric studied her face earnestly. “Sure, Lee.”

In another moment he'd gone inside, and it was just Leeda and Grey standing and looking at each other. Leeda had the urge to touch him or to give him a hug. But she couldn't bring herself to even say something soothing.

“This stuff happens with animals,” Grey said instead, trying to make it sound okay.

“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.

P
oopie 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.

M
urphy 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.