Love and Peaches

by Jodi Lynn Anderson

  It was full of pictures of people who’d spent time at the bar—the family of the bar owners, babies even, and a grainy photo of the original owner in 1973.

  It was like looking at history. These were people who’d stayed in one place all their lives—the opposite of Murphy.

  Maybe it was a thread she was looking for. Just a tiny thread between her and her father.

  She trailed back to the bar. Rex had returned and was sitting there on the stool watching her, looking worried.

  “We can go,” she said.

  On the way back, they were quiet. But it wasn’t a bad silence.

  Murphy studied him out of the corner of her eye from time to time. It was 2 a.m. before they were back at the foot of the driveway. “You can just leave me here,” she said.

  “Are you gonna call me again?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  She hopped down onto the gravel and closed the door behind her, giving Rex a wave through the window. It hurt to watch him pull away without a promise she’d see him again. But Murphy didn’t want to be depended on.

  Maybe that was another thing she and her dad had in common.

  Twenty-three

  Rooooooooo.

  It was midafternoon and sweltering. Leeda had locked up Barky in his crate because it was Baxter the hunting dog’s time to play in the house. Barky and Baxter didn’t get along, mostly because Barky was jealous of Baxter. Barky was very possessive of Leeda, like a firstborn, and he didn’t like to share her. Over the weeks, he had weaseled his way into being Leeda’s bedmate whenever she stayed at the cottage, mostly because he wouldn’t stop crying and yelping till she went downstairs, got him, and pulled him into her bed. It had been difficult for her, sleeping with a dog. Getting his fur all over the sheets, having her face licked in the morning, listening to his snoring. But, slowly, she had gotten used to it.

  Now she went up to his crate and gave him a stern look that quieted him down. He looked at her guiltily. But she knew as soon as she turned around, he’d start yelping again.

  Still, Leeda was in a good mood. Even though, despite countless Internet searches and phone calls, she hadn’t found anyone willing to take the ponies—not even one of them. The fact was, she felt confident. She felt as though, for the first time in her life, she were doing something good for the world.

  Exhausted, she looked at the clock. Almost noon and she was way behind. She headed out to the barn lot, swiped back her sweaty hair, and began pouring feed into all the buckets. She didn’t know how Grey had ever done it all alone. It was hard enough for her to share it with him fifty-fifty, and he did all the heavier, more difficult work.

  The ponies were in high spirits, racing each other around the field. They moved like a clutch of bees, all turning and weaving as if on some secret signal. When they tired and stopped running, they milled around, watching Leeda or playing with one another.

  Sneezy had taken a special interest in Leeda and often walked over to spend time with her while the rest of the ponies socialized. The pony would follow her around, watching Leeda curiously as she swept out the stalls or spread fresh straw. Leeda didn’t welcome her, but she didn’t shoo her away either.

  The Baron was much more mischievous. He would come by and nip Leeda on her butt or tug at the hem of her shirt, and then, when she whipped around, he’d run back to the other ponies. Sometimes she could swear they all seemed to be snickering. And that they liked Grey best. They nuzzled up to him and let him pet them and never nipped him.

  In any case, the nips hurt. Leeda found bruises in the mirror when she undressed at night.

  She and Grey spent much of each day not talking, just focusing on their tasks, but when they crossed paths they smiled or nodded at each other. At mealtimes they sat on the sunporch with the windows open and rested. Sometimes Grey would read for twenty minutes or so after eating, and Leeda would just stare out at the barn lot, content to sit in silence.

  Between the ponies and the animals (the grand total of strays was now ten) and trying to get to the orchard whenever she could, Leeda felt she never had a second to herself anymore. She was thinking about this as she poured feed into the last of the pony troughs. Hearing footsteps behind her, she turned to see Grey.

  He looked sweaty and tired, his T-shirt pasted against him and a film of dust covering his long, lean arms.

  “Where do you want me to build the new pen?” he asked. Leeda thought. They had already built two pens for the dogs to run in, but now Leeda wanted to give the bunnies—there were two—some room too.

  “I guess we could do them along the wall,” Leeda said. “So there’s shade.” She had gotten a little handy over the past couple weeks and had learned how to nail pens together and stretch chicken wire over the wooden frames. She still didn’t know what she’d do with the animals when she left. She never had time to step back and figure out what her plan was. She was merely reacting.

  Leeda leaned against the wall of the stall. “Phew,” she said. August was just around the corner. “It has to cool down soon, doesn’t it?”

  Grey studied her for a moment. “Why don’t we get out of here for a while?”

  “Now?” Leeda looked up toward the house, thinking of all the stuff she had to do up there once she was done with the barn lot. “Oh God, I don’t have time. I’ve got to get online once we’re done and—”

  Grey reached out and took her elbow, smiling, amused. “C’mon, Leeda.”

  She let him drag her out onto the porch, and then down to the front of his truck. He pulled her around to the passenger side and opened the door. Then he lifted her up roughly, like a wet fish, and dumped her onto the seat. Leeda rubbed her elbows where he’d picked her up, even though they didn’t hurt.

  He drove in the opposite direction of town, down a winding back road that seemed to go on forever. Leeda was too tired to ask where they were going and too bleary-eyed to follow the scenery.

  “So what are you gonna do with all that money?” Grey asked after about ten minutes, his hands confident and lazy on the wheel.

  Leeda flopped her head to look in his direction, resting her neck on the top of the backrest. “Shop.” She smiled, half-joking.

  Grey nodded.

  “You think I’m selfish,” Leeda said, wiping away her hair where it was blowing in her eyes and looking back out the window, not really offended. Not really caring.

  “Hey, I’m no saint. I don’t know what you are. I’d probably buy a ridiculous Italian motorcycle or something. But…” He trailed off.

  “What?” She looked at him.

  “But maybe I’d give it all away and live in a cabin and have everything I needed,” he said.

  He looked at her, and Leeda didn’t know why, but she laughed.

  She hadn’t asked him when exactly he was leaving for Alaska. She had been scared to. She didn’t know how she was going to take care of everything without him.

  “I’d buy something I’d get tired of,” she admitted. “I’m fickle.”

  “Eugenie must have thought more highly of you than that.”

  Leeda shrugged. “Grandmom contained multitudes, I guess.”

  “You know what I’ve been thinking, Leeda?”

  She turned to him. “What?”

  “You know how you say you’re so unsure of what you want and what you like, all that?”

  “Yeah.” Leeda felt slightly embarrassed. And she wondered where he was headed.

  “I was just thinking, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.” He glanced over at her. “Maybe figuring it out is…I don’t know, what it’s all about. Constantly deciding. And you’re true enough not to decide anything before you’re ready, and you don’t want to lock yourself into a box. Maybe it’s the sure people who are missing out.”

  The words fell on Leeda heavy as stones. Each one of them hit her somewhere inside, like something she’d never thought of before. A little something in her shook. She didn’t say anything. Grey only gave her a half s
mile and kept driving.

  A few minutes later, he slowed down and parked at a small makeshift parking spot nestled into the side of the road among the trees. Leeda followed him into the thin swath of woods. They emerged almost immediately onto a long winding creek. Mertie Creek was miles long and ran all through the county.

  The water, moving gently, glistened in the sun, winding its way south. It was wide here, and the current was slow. It looked deep, with no rocks poking out, and a rope swing dangled from one of the oak trees overhanging the water.

  Grey took off his shirt. He was sunburned on the back of his neck from working in the sun. Leeda felt awkward and stared at the water. “Well, in you go.”

  Leeda grinned dubiously. “That’s a creek. It’s way too cold.”

  Grey studied her, shrugged, and turned, taking a running start into the water. He leaped up for the rope swing and grabbed it, pulling it to the shore with him. Then he proceeded to use it, doing dives and flips….

  He was graceful in the water. She’d never seen him look so unfettered. He moved like a different person than the one she’d met in the barn lot at the beginning of the summer.

  Leeda finally walked to the water’s edge, dipped a toe in, and then started to wade in, first to where the water met the edges of her khaki shorts, then, gasping with the cold, to the bottom of her tank top. Finally, with a kind of surrender, she let herself sink all the way in.

  They swam and kicked and splashed.

  Grey knelt so Leeda could climb up on the shelf of his thigh to grab the rope. He steadied her by the waist as she reached up for it, stretching herself out of the water. She had to stand on her tiptoes to try and reach it, lower herself, and try again. Within a few seconds her body was covered in goose bumps. Grey’s left hand was on her calf.

  “What happened?” he asked, reaching out his finger to a spot just above the back of her knee where The Baron had nipped her.

  “Ponies,” she said, stiffening until his hand went back to her calf.

  When she got it, she held the rope like a trophy.

  The first time she swung she slid off the rope almost immediately, hitting the water with her feet and letting go. The second time she lifted her knees up, pulled herself into a ball, and gripped. By the third time, she could make it clear to the end of the swing before letting herself drop. Leeda had always been a quick learner.

  They roughhoused for a while, splashing each other, and then they got tired. They drifted off to their own areas of the water, Leeda floating on her back and Grey examining some moss at the bank.

  Finally she got bored and ducked under the water, swimming toward him, sneaking. She came up right behind him. But either he was pretending he didn’t hear her, or he was too absorbed in what he was studying, because he didn’t turn around when she popped out of the water. Hesitating and wondering what to do, Leeda froze. She stood a bit too long to do anything. She stared at his back, at his shoulder, at the drops of water on him, at the tilt of his head, feeling curious about whatever was going on in his brain. It was like being hit with an arrow.

  She stepped backward, awkwardly, and sank under the water, swimming back toward the shore. She got out and began wringing out her clothes. She waited by the car until he’d come out of the water and dried off with his shirt, putting it back on sopping wet.

  On the drive home, they were quiet. Leeda was acutely aware of where every edge of him was. It was like she couldn’t be just in her own head.

  “I’m gonna wait to go to Alaska. Until you go back to school,” he said. “After you’ve figured everything out.”

  Leeda felt awkward and grateful. “Thank you,” she said.

  Grey turned on the radio, and they were silent for the rest of the drive. Leeda wondered if the silence felt as dense and alive to him as it did to her.

  A strange car was in the driveway when they pulled in, but Leeda barely registered it.

  They both got out of the car a little breathlessly.

  At the front of the truck, they stood for a second, smiling at each other with their hands in their pockets. “Thanks, Grey,” Leeda said.

  “Yeah.”

  The cottage’s front door opened, and Leeda turned, surprised by the sound.

  Eric stood in the doorway.

  Leeda jumped, yelped with glee, and ran into his arms.

  Twenty-four

  “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 insist
ed 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.