Peaches

There he was, a blue jay, right next to her window, looking at her insolently from a drooping branch. A chickadee two branches above appeared to be ignoring him.
    “See, nobody likes your stupid song.” Murphy slapped her pillow and staggered out into the hallway, pulling on a thin navy blue sweatshirt. She’d heard people moving about a while ago and had stayed in bed, praying no one would wake her up. Blessedly, they hadn’t. One of the women, Emma, she thought, rushed by her with a baseball cap. Then slid to a halt, backed up, and gathered Murphy into the crook of her arm. “ Es tarde. You are late.”
    Murphy shrugged. “I’ll catch up.” Whether she understood or not, Emma hurried on down the hall.
    Murphy returned to her room, smell-tested the armpits of her Craig Nicholls T-shirt, and changed into that and a pair of shorts. A few minutes later she straggled into the bright spring sunshine. The air felt warm and cool in patches, like it hadn’t yet evened out, and it was full of the sounds of different critters buzzing, chirping, legs rubbing together in the trees. Murphy could see that a group of people had gathered up at the house.
    Pulling a Doral out of the pack in her pocket, she walked around behind the dorm to smoke, promising herself that if the blue jay was there, they’d have a good talk and she’d threaten him with cigarette burns. Instead she saw a guy crouched about fifty yards away, doing something in the dirt where the orchard began.
    Curious, Murphy walked a little closer, admiring his butt. She knew you always had to be careful about checking out guys from behind. Then they’d turn around and be ugly and you’d feel all grossed out.
    Murphy walked closer so that he’d hear her and turn around. He did. It was the guy from the lawn the day before.
    She could see now it was a fledgling tree he was working on. He was tying a white band around its tiny trunk, which was skinny as a baby’s wrist. His hands worked deftly at the twisting. Murphy had the impulse to look away, as if she’d walked in on something intimate and private. Instead she took a long drag of her cigarette and stared at the guy’s knuckles. He was older than her, maybe by a year or two.
    “Are you our tree nurse?”
    He turned back toward her. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?” he said, nodding up to the farmhouse.
    Murphy nodded. “I guess so.” She thrust out her breastsslightly, because he didn’t appear to have seen them. “What’s that white stuff for?”
    The guy looked at her for a moment, as if she were Dennis the Menace, still not taking in the breasts. “It protects the baby tree from the animals. And it shelters the trunk from the insecticides we spray for the bigger trees. It takes them three years to grow big enough to bear fruit.”
    Murphy shrugged. “I’m against insecticides.”
    The guy smiled at her, as if he was in on some joke she wasn’t. “Right.”
    Murphy frowned. She intentionally took forever to finish her cigarette, letting the silence work its way out and kicking the toes of her sneakers, which were damp, into the dirt. The guy didn’t seem to notice.
    “Well, I’m Murphy. I’ll see you.” She reached out a hand toward him, just to show him she wasn’t intimidated.
    He reached out and shook it, the dirt from his fingers rubbing off on hers.
    “Rex,” he said. “See you.”
    Murphy rubbed the dirt between her fingers and walked, putting a little more swing in her hips in case Rex was watching.
    Up on the porch, Walter Darlington was speaking in a hopeless monotone, with Birdie on one side and a dark-skinned woman on the other, talking in unison with him in Spanish.
    “We want to thin ten percent of the trees. That’s one in ten peaches we want to knock off. We have about a hundred acres and about eighty-five trees per acre, so that’s a lot of peaches to knock down. Those of you who don’t know how, watch the ones who do.”
    Murphy raised her hand and interrupted. “Don’t we want peaches to grow?”
    Everyone looked at her and muttered. Walter frowned. “You missed that part, Murphy. You’ll need to ask someone later.” Walter cleared his throat. “Birdie oversees the dorms, so if you have any problems with the living space or if you need something like charcoal for the grill, cooking supplies, or toilet paper, let her know. She’ll be by to check on everyone every day.”
    Birdie fidgeted where she stood beside Walter. Murphy grinned. It was hard