The Secrets of Peaches

by Jodi Lynn Anderson

  The pecan booths were at the end of the line. There were several from different pecan growers around the county. They saw Birdie’s booth with a banner that read DARLINGTON ORCHARD, but no Birdie.

  “Did you bring the pecan goodies?” Murphy asked. The pecan goodies were the Pecan Queen’s signature duty. Macy’s had Santa at the end of their parade to launch the Christmas season and keep the universe moving along on time. In Bridgewater, the Christmas season didn’t begin until an airborne pecan goodie socked you in the eye.

  “Mom’s bringing them.”

  “You know if she doesn’t show up and you don’t have pecan goodies to throw, the kids are going to riot.”

  Leeda rolled her eyes.

  They ran into Leeda’s grandmom, who was with her chauffeur. She was wearing her old tiara and making him help her find the drink cart. “Don’t forget to sit erect,” she said, patting Leeda’s hip and disappearing into the crowd.

  All the parade exhibits and participants were cloistered, like every year, in the parking lot behind the middle school. Leeda and Murphy made their way to the back of the crowd—past a rolling petting zoo, the Elks Club, the Freemasons, the Duck Carvers club, the Young Riders, Little Miss Kings County, and the Bridgewater High School band. Leeda would be on the last float with the famous pecan goodies in tow.

  Rex was standing at the float with the rest of Leeda’s court, Dina Marie and Melissa Gentian, a gorgeous little junior. Dina Marie laughed loud and donkey-like at something Rex had said, but Murphy was above being jealous. They both seemed to dote on her boyfriend, who sensed her watching and looked behind him. Before Dina Marie could see, Murphy made a bucktooth face at her back, and Rex shook his head but smiled. Of course he was waiting for her. Murphy’s heart leapt with triumph.

  Leeda disappeared into the bathroom to dress, and Murphy sauntered up to Rex. Would he tell her now? Later? When?

  “Hey.” He put his hand at the side of her neck, kissing her. “I’ve been calling you.”

  “Been so busy with Miss Queenie.” Murphy rolled her eyes in exaggerated exhaustion toward the bathroom. “How’s it going?”

  “How’s it going? Did we just meet or something?” Murphy shrugged. Rex kept his hand at her neck. “I figured this was my rare chance to see my girlfriend up early.”

  Murphy swallowed. She waited for him to say more. He didn’t. The four of them stood there eyeballing one another, casting about for something to say until out of the corner of her eye, Murphy saw Leeda waving to her from the bathroom. “Royal duties,” she said, walking backward.

  Leeda was half dressed and agitated. “Can you just start on my hair until my mom gets here?”

  Murphy pointed to the tangle on top of her own head. “Have you seen my hair?”

  Leeda shoved a curling iron into the pointing hand. “Just curl it.”

  Murphy took the iron reluctantly and felt to see if it was hot enough. She gazed at Leeda, sizing up her head, then glanced back out through the bathroom door, which was propped open.

  “What if your mom flakes out, Lee?” Murphy was just looking for a reason to have both of Lucretia’s eyebrows waxed off at the Cawley-Smith Spa. She knew people who could do that. Aestheticians who owed her favors.

  “She’s coming.” Leeda looked at her watch. “Nothing starts for another half hour.”

  Murphy started on the hair. When that was done, she started on the makeup. “Mom says put it on a little thick. You have to make sure it shows up from far away,” Leeda said.

  By the time Murphy was finished with her, Leeda looked like a cheap hooker from the seventies.

  Murphy hesitated a moment before letting her look in the mirror. Already the confidence of an hour earlier—when she’d picked Murphy up at Anthill Acres, fresh as a violet—had seeped out of Leeda’s face. When she stood up and looked at her reflection, any remaining self-assurance drained away. “I look like Elvira,” she said.

  For a long while, they stood in the doorway to the bathroom, Leeda’s eyes scanning the crowd. At five till, she murmured quietly, “She’s got the pecan goodies.” The people at the beginning of the parade began moving. It would be a matter of minutes before the float at the back kicked into gear. “Maybe something happened. Maybe she’s not feeling well.”

  Murphy’s rib cage hurt. She tugged on her full bottom lip, shooting a sideways glance at Leeda. “Maybe she’s on her way…” she found herself saying halfheartedly.

  Leeda shook her head, crossing her arms tightly around herself.

  The Pecan Princesses were waving to her expectantly. Dina Marie had a big, dramatically anxious look on her face.

  Murphy didn’t reach out to touch or hug Leeda. Wrapped up in her own arms and standing rod-straight, Leeda looked like she had an invisible wall around her, and Murphy didn’t want to broach it. She was the picture of calm. Murphy knew that Leeda being calm was worse than being upset. It meant she was too upset to be upset.

  “You better hurry. You can’t let down the other nuts,” Murphy said, trying to make light. But Leeda didn’t acknowledge the comment.

  She turned her gray eyes to Murphy. “Will you do this for me?”

  Murphy looked at her, a small panic building in her gut. Leeda was gesturing down at her dress.

  “Do what?”

  Leeda waved her hands down at her dress again, then reached back to unzip it.

  “Oh no.” Murphy groaned.

  “I don’t want to be up there, Murphy.” She started pulling at the neckline.

  “Neither do I.” Murphy looked at the float, at the princesses. Dressing up as one of them would be like Maribeth McMurtry dressing up like Satan. It was against everything Murphy stood for. “Just skip it,” she said desperately. “They don’t need a Pecan Queen.”

  “Please.” Leeda clawed Murphy’s wrist. “Please, please, please.”

  “Leeda.” Murphy swallowed, looking at the float again. It disgusted her. “No way.”

  Leeda stopped unzipping. She looked Murphy hard in the eye. Her face settled into smooth, clean lines. And then she zipped herself back up and sailed out of the bathroom.

  Birdie heard the booing before she caught a glimpse of the float. Now that the parade was almost at the last leg, some sort of small upheaval was rippling through the younger members of the crowd. Birdie stood on her tiptoes to try and see why. When she saw who they were booing at, she gasped, bewildered.

  Leeda stood on the float in her long brown dress, her hair in straggly, puffy curls, her arms at her sides, shoulders drooped. Her eyes were made up in deep gray shadow and her cheeks were as rosy as a Kewpie doll’s. A tight, quivering smile was plastered to her face. Then she looked down at her hands, which picked at each other nervously like cats in a fight. Birdie looked at her empty hands too and finally realized what the booing was about.

  Where were the pecan goodies?

  Leeda had never had so many people looking at her at once. Their faces were a mixture of confusion, disillusionment, and fear. She wondered if Murphy had put on the makeup a little too thickly.

  In the crowd, she spotted Birdie and gave her a desperate look, as if Birdie could somehow rescue her. Birdie looked back at her and held up her hands helplessly. Leeda took a deep, shuddering breath. The worst thing she could do was let herself look like she felt. What she felt, more than anything at that moment, was angry at Murphy. She couldn’t think what it would have cost Murphy to just step up, this one time, and rescue her. If the roles had been reversed, Leeda would have done it in a heartbeat. Leeda clenched her teeth, explosive inside.

  From her spot on the platform, she had a bird’s-eye view of a few interesting things. She could see her grandmother, intrepidly pushing to the front of the crowd, waving her little munchkin fists proudly. She could see Lucretia wasn’t anywhere near her. And she could see the wrath that the absence of the pecan goodies appeared to cause. She had never let so many people down.

  But she kept the smile plastered on her face. And then sh
e felt the faint sting of something hitting her shoulder. And before she could make sense of it, there were more—hitting her on the head, the face, the back. Her smile faded. She shielded her face with her hands and peered around, finally taking it in. The little kids were rioting. They were pelting her with pecans.

  Leeda wanted to sink into the bottom of the float. She wanted to cease to exist. Instinctively she looked around for Rex because for years that was what she’d always done. She made him out just at the back of the crowd, with Murphy, of course. The two of them—Leeda’s ex-boyfriend and her best friend—were talking and laughing and sharing a fried Mars bar. Apparently they hadn’t noticed the ruckus. Leeda’s heart went steely, watching them. For a moment, she wavered between climbing off the float and disappearing into the giant pecan behind her.

  Taking the humiliation up another notch, she could see Grandmom Eugenie running alongside the float now, wobbly and minuscule, as she grabbed one of the rioting kids by the ear. If Leeda hadn’t been so close to crying, she would have laughed. It seemed entirely appropriate that only a geriatric munchkin had come to her defense.

  Leeda felt the muscles in her body harden like they were rocks. The wave of anger she felt, at her mom, at Murphy, at herself, threatened to swallow her. It was sharp, but to her surprise, it wasn’t new. It was like something that had been just behind her, waiting to catch up.

  Leeda lifted her hands and began waving. She closed her eyes when another volley of pecans arrived. She adopted an old tried-and-true trick and pretended like she couldn’t care less.

  And of course, she kept smiling.

  Fourteen

  Thanksgiving evening, Birdie kept throwing glances at the stairs, looking for help that didn’t come, like the Titanic.

  Sitting at the table—at her old seat, next to Walter—was Birdie’s mom. She looked great. She was like one of those hypothetical astronauts who go to space and come back young when everyone else is either old or dead. It seemed like since leaving her daughter and husband last spring, she had aged in reverse.

  Walter seemed slightly tongue-tied to have Cynthia back in the house, but Cynthia made up for it by being so perfectly at ease.

  “The garden is looking nice,” she said to Walter. “I took a spin around the yard before I came in.”

  “That’s Murphy,” Birdie interjected, searching the cabinet. “Parsley, parsley…” she muttered to herself. Cynthia walked to the kitchen, looked over Birdie’s shoulder, and pulled the parsley flakes from the cupboard, placing the bottle on the counter beside her. Her mom knowing where everything was just seemed to exaggerate the fact that she no longer lived in the house. She gave Birdie an affectionate pinch, then sat back down, telling Walter about her new job managing the Tea Room.

  Birdie worked with a lump in her throat. She wiped the sweat off her face and glanced at her reflection in the window above the sink—her auburn hair was pasted to the sides of her forehead in sweaty squiggles, her eyes wet from the heat and steam. She’d had a vision of answering the door in the dress she’d picked out, with a clean kitchen behind her and candles on the table—the way her mom and Poopie had always put things together. Instead she’d answered the door with a hand covered in gizzard juice and sleepers in her eyes that her mom had swiped away, the dogs tangled between her ankles and yipping. When Majestic had seen the old family dog, Toonsis, she’d peed because she was so excited and Birdie had had to clean it up. The potatoes had boiled over and left sticky trails of potato water on the stove, onion skins piggybacked to bits of dough stuck to the counter. The turkey was still in the oven and looked suspiciously underdone.

  As far as Birdie was concerned, it was all Poopie’s fault. Poopie, who had spent the morning traipsing around the parade (Birdie had glimpsed her, munching happily on a fried Mars bar, and then later, waving an American flag at the Elks Club), had been weirdly absent all afternoon. Poopie—who had always been there to give Birdie advice even when she didn’t want it, who if you asked her if your dough was too smushy not only said yes but took it out of your hands and did the rest herself—had gone AWOL.

  Through the window, the orchard looked cool and inviting—the grass a muted green, the trees empty and serene in their rows, everything still and at peace except for the squirrels and the occasional cardinal flitting in the branches.

  Birdie grabbed the gherkin jar out of the fridge and shook the tiny pickles into one of her mom’s glass bowls. She laid it on the table with a thud. The bowl of gherkins was the only thing that looked like it was supposed to.

  “Just a few more minutes and we eat.” Birdie bent over the mashed potatoes, trying to relax, but the smoke alarm went off. She dove for the oven. She’d left the rolls in too long. She grabbed a dish towel and used it to grip the pan of rolls. She shoved open the window to let in the unseasonably warm November air. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine…” she said, glancing toward the table.

  Cynthia and Walter were staring toward the staircase, looking slightly aghast. Birdie took a few steps forward to see what they were looking at. The elusive Poopie was floating down the stairs. Floating. Wearing a long, straight, flowery dress and lipstick.

  “How’s it going, honey?” Poopie asked as she stepped into the room, glancing around the kitchen. Thank God.

  “Perfect,” Birdie said sarcastically, sending her an SOS with her eyes.

  “Cynthia. How are you?” Poopie drawled. She sank into the chair opposite Cynthia, ignoring Birdie’s distress call, just like the USS Californian.

  “I’m good, Poopie. You look good,” Cynthia said awkwardly.

  Once Birdie had laid out the dinner, with help from neither her mom nor Poopie, she sat. There they were, everyone in their old places, Saint Anthony smiling down on their feast benevolently. The turkey skin crunched. The rolls were slightly blackened. Somewhere along the way, Birdie had added too much salt to the stuffing. Everyone smiled and congratulated Birdie and then drifted into silence, chewing with grim determination.

  “Walter, I don’t know why you haven’t replaced that truck yet. I would have thought that’d be the first thing you’d get rid of once you got out of debt,” Cynthia said. Birdie’s mom had always hated her dad’s truck.

  Walter shrugged amiably. “It’s okay.”

  Poopie was pushing her stuffing back and forth with her fork, staring at Cynthia from under her eyebrows. The oven had filled the kitchen with hot, stuffy air, so that it was only cool right near the window. Birdie turned on the ceiling fan and sank back into her seat cross-legged.

  “It still runs great,” Poopie muttered.

  “Poopie, that truck is horrible.” Cynthia waved her hands dramatically, but Poopie was unswayed. “It’s probably going to explode at any moment.”

  “It may not be good enough for you, but it works for Walter.”

  Yowl!

  Birdie spun around. Toonsis had grabbed Honey Babe by the scruff and the two were scratching and sliding around on the linoleum locked in a death grip. Majestic had squeezed into the tiny place behind the fridge and was trying to be invisible. Birdie darted forward and grabbed Toonsis by the hind legs.

  “Birdie, don’t grab him like that! The pet psychic says you just need to ask him not to do things. Otherwise he feels resentful. Toonsis, please don’t play rough with Honey Buns.”

  “Honey Babe,” Birdie corrected, with Toonsis struggling in her arms resentfully. Majestic leapt onto Walter’s lap and let out a yip.

  “You’re right, Poopie,” Cynthia said, turning cool. “Walter, does the truck still run great?” She knew, of course, that it didn’t.

  Walter looked at Birdie and cleared his throat.

  Yip yip!

  “Oh my God!” Birdie yelled, standing up and sweeping the two papillons under either arm. She yanked open the front door and deposited the two on the porch, taking a deep breath. The air smelled like dry leaves and fireplaces. She looked down at the dogs and took in their pitiful Who, me? faces. “I envy you,” she said, be
fore slamming the door shut.

  The argument between Poopie and Birdie’s mom about the truck had escalated. Poopie was digging into her stuffing relentlessly, twirling her fork around in it as they talked. The silver of her fork glinted and then, suddenly, a bit of stuffing was sailing across the table.

  Everyone froze where they were. A piece of stuffing had landed in Cynthia’s short blond hair and dangled there by her ear like an earring.

  “Did you just throw food at me?”

  Poopie leaned back and crossed her arms, looking both self-conscious and defiant. “Was an accident.”

  “That’s fine.” Cynthia reached toward the gherkin bowl and knocked it over so that the gherkins went tumbling onto Poopie’s lap. “Ooh, sorry.”

  “Mom!” Birdie gasped. The beautiful gherkins. The only thing she hadn’t ruined. But it was too late.

  Poopie grasped a turkey leg and jerked it off the turkey, letting it fly out of her hands at Cynthia. “Ooh, sorry,” Poopie mimicked.

  Knock knock knock.

  As if waking from a trance, everyone blinked in the direction of the foyer.

  Birdie stood up from the table, trembling inside. “Um,” she mumbled. “I’ll…get it.” Birdie walked to the door stiffly, glancing back over her shoulder. Everyone sat still, watching her, not looking at one another. She grasped the doorknob and pulled.

  There, standing on the top step, a backpack slung over his shoulder, was Enrico.

  “Surprise,” he said, reaching his arms around her waist, pulling her into a hug. Birdie sank into him. He smelled like peach blossoms.