Peaches

to imagine Chickie overseeing much of anything.
    “You won’t get cell reception. There is one phone, over in the supply barn. It takes quarters. This”—Walter gestured toward the Latin American woman standing next to him—“is Poopie Pedraza. She’s in charge when I’m not around. And she…”
    Murphy tuned him out and looked around her at all the brown faces. How did these people do it? All spring and summer, working in the sun. Her eye caught a movement back toward the dorm and then a sight a lot like a leprechaun. Leeda Cawley-Smith emerged from Camp A, her blond ringlets a-frazzle, dark circles under her eyes. She wore silky pajama pants and a pair of slippers and walked carefully across the grass, watching the ground as if something might jump out and grab her. Leeda came closer and closer, finally hovering on the edge of the crowd to listen to Walter with everybody else.
    When Walter was finished, the workers—about twenty in all—fanned out among the trees. Murphy straggled after them into the outskirts of the orchard. Now that Murphy really looked, she could see that in addition to the budding leaves, thetrees were covered with small green buds, about the size of Super Balls, clustered out along the lengths of the limbs.
    Murphy watched the other workers begin to yank at them and drop them onto the ground, letting out tiny thud thuds as they landed. Then she looked back over her shoulder. There was Leeda, right behind her.
    “Hola,” she said when she saw Murphy looking at her.
    “Oh God.”
    Leeda squinted at her, the circles under her deep-set, fluffy-lash-rimmed gray eyes crinkling. “You speak English?”
    “I’m in your bio class.”
    “Oh, you’re right,” Leeda said, tossing back her hair with one hand. “Do you work here during the summers?”
    “No.”
    Leeda nodded. “Oh. Well, I don’t work here either.” She looked around at the other workers, as if she were slightly embarrassed. “Walter’s my uncle.”
    Murphy stuck her hands into her pockets, fingering her empty cigarette pack. “Wow,” she said flatly.
    Leeda faltered, seeming unsure of whether Murphy was teasing her or not.
    “You’re staying in the dorms?” Murphy hadn’t seen her last night.
    Leeda nodded. And yawned, covering her mouth. Her fingernails were bubble-gum pink. “What’re you doing here?”
    “Got caught on the premises. Having wild sex. It was so good I didn’t hear anyone coming.”
    Leeda stiffened before Murphy turned and walked several yards down the row.
    The trees were set up like checkers—in every direction you looked, they made a straight line. They were just Murphy’s size—short and full, each ending at the same height. But within that uniformity, the trees themselves were as unique as snowflakes—their small trunks and limbs zigzagging, messy, awkward knots of wood marking the unexpected turns of growth, as if the trees themselves hadn’t known which way they were going to grow and had started one way and changed their minds.
    To Murphy, they appeared miniature and delicate, and when she looked up and around, the collective impression was so vast that it made Murphy feel far away from everything—from the dorms, definitely from home. Like she’d stepped onto the checkerboard and out of real life.
    She tackled a tree, swatting at the raw peaches. The branches bent like rubber bands, bouncing back at her after every swat. Murphy shrank back, startled.
    Someone giggled behind her. Murphy turned to see Emma, the woman from this morning, laughing at her.
    “What?” Murphy asked, defensive.
    “You angry at trees?”
    Murphy huffed. “Nooo.”
    “Here, you pick gentle.” Emma tugged at a cluster of peaches and set them falling to the ground— thud thud thud thud thud.
    Murphy watched her, then glanced at Leeda, who was down the row picking one peach at a time and then ducking to lay them down on the grass, agonizingly slowly.
    “Maybe you should go help her instead.”
    Emma looked at Leeda. “She do okay. You…” She nodded tothe tree. It had knobs in several places and branched out at strange, crooked angles.
    Murphy picked a few the way Emma had. Finally Emma stood back and smiled.
    “Okay, thanks.”
    Emma walked back to her own tree. Murphy watched her for a moment, then swatted at hers again a few times. All she knew was that it seemed backward that you had to thin a tree to get it to make fruit right. Still, the next hour or so passed without Murphy