Free Love and Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson Page B

“Are you gonna try to talk to your mom again?”
    Murphy put her feet back up on the tree, absently digging off the bark again.
    â€œShe won’t admit it.”
    â€œHow can she not admit something you actually saw?” Leeda asked.
    Murphy’s face looked bored. Only her violent, destructive feet showed any anger. “My mom is the queen of denial. One time, she was laying on the horn because the car in front of us was letting someone out on the sidewalk, and when I told her that was obnoxious, she said she wasn’t doing anything. I said, ‘Mom, you’re laying on the horn.’ And she said, ‘No I’m not.’ That’s how my mom feels about denial. It’s just something you do even when you know no one believes you.” Murphy blinked up at the sky. “Whatever. I don’t care in this huge way. I mean, I want to know. I’m mad at her and everything. But I’m not like, ‘I miss my absentee dad,’ or anything. I’ve never thought about him all that much.”
    She sat up and perused the items on Birdie’s shelves, clearlywanting to get off the subject. Birdie’s eyes trailed to the driveway, magnetized, as they had been doing all day.
    â€œBirdie, why do you have Nicorette?” Murphy was looking at Birdie’s shelf. Sure enough, a pack of Nicorette gum was sitting on the middle shelf.
    Birdie felt herself blushing. “I’m taking up smoking.”
    The way Murphy looked at Birdie, tucking her chin and looking up from under her eyebrows, made Leeda laugh. It lightened the mood.
    â€œIf you want to take up smoking, which is idiotic, why are you chewing gum instead of actually, um, smoking?” Murphy pressed.
    â€œI hate the taste of cigarettes.” Birdie had just thought smoking would be a good, cynical thing to do, given the circumstances.
    Murphy blinked at her for a moment, and then relaxed, laying her head back down. “I bet my dad smokes.”
    Birdie stared at Murphy thoughtfully. They lapsed into silence. Birdie could hear the creaking of the pecan trees over beyond the dorms carried on the breeze. She twirled her ring nervously, like it was a kind of rosary.
    A car came and went down Orchard Drive, the hum of the motor faint in the distance. Majestic’s satellite ears followed it down the road.
    Birdie had the feeling of teetering on a wire.
    The sound of another vehicle echoed faintly across the grass. As it got closer, it wheezed. It could be a truck carrying rocks or lumber. But as it got louder, it squeaked and wheezed again, distinctly buslike. Murphy, Leeda, and Birdie looked at each other. Birdie’s heart fluttered up to her throat. Then Murphy bouncedup and grinned at them, turning to slither down the ladder. Leeda followed her. Birdie grabbed Majestic and trailed Leeda, her hands unsteady on the rungs.
    The bus chugged its way up the driveway, hands squiggling out of it to wave like the legs of a caterpillar. At the top of the driveway, it slowed with a squeal, let out a gasp of air, and stopped. A moment later, the doors came open with a hiss.
    Out poured some of Birdie’s oldest friends. Birdie let herself be swept into the group for hugs and kisses and pats on the back. She made her way through the crowd, searching the faces, looking for the one who would save her from whatever the lostness was.
    When the last passenger had emerged and they were all moving forward to meet the crowd, Birdie kept her smile big. She climbed up the bus stairs, like she was making sure no one had left anything behind, and scanned the empty aisle, the empty seats, the places where he wasn’t.
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    Contrary to popular belief, Poopie Pedraza of Darlington Orchard had not seen the Virgin Mary in the clouds once, but twice. The first time had been the day she’d arrived in Bridgewater. The second was the day that she’d met her employer’s niece, little Leeda Cawley-Smith, out in the front