Peaches

vigilant the Nazi dogs were. Or what Walter would do if he caught her a second time. But that was, of course, part of the appeal. Also, zigzagging down the rows of small trees, with her feet sliding on the discarded buds, was different at night. She felt like she might run into Hansel and Gretel. Or Snow White.
    “Yow.” Murphy slapped at her leg just as she reached the overgrowth that separated the farm from the tracks. A fat, juicy black fire ant clung to her ankle. She slapped it again, smushing it. “Damn.”
    Murphy had a particular bitterness, and also an admiration,for fire ants. They were like stealth fighters. They climbed up your legs on tiptoes, knowing you wouldn’t notice them, and then when one bit you, it released a pheromone that signaled them all to bite you all at once. Vindictive little suckers.
    Murphy jumped back and forth on the ties of the track while she waited, challenging herself to do different tricks—jumping on tiptoe, jumping backward, jumping backward on tiptoe. She smoked another cigarette and waited another hour. It had started to drizzle in a fine mist, and still no Max. He’d probably found some party and bailed. She began the long walk back to the dorms.
    As Murphy came along the front of the men’s dorm, her body relaxing, she froze. A figure backed out of the door, closing it softly, sneakily. Murphy watched it for a moment, her pulse spiking again, making sure it was who she thought it was. When she was sure, she padded forward and tapped the figure on the back. Leeda shot straight up and squealed, snapping around.
    “Oh God, you scared me.”
    “Shhh. What’re you doing?”
    Leeda eyed her suspiciously. “What are you doing?”
    Murphy shrugged with studied carelessness. It drove her crazy to think Leeda Cawley-Smith—of all people—had somewhere to sneak out to while she didn’t. “Just stuff,” she whispered.
    Leeda nibbled her lip. “Oh.” They both stood there for a second, awkwardly. “Well, do you want to come with me? I hate walking by myself.”
    Murphy thought for a moment, mentally weighing a night of being unconscious against a night hanging out with Leeda, which would probably be almost as boring. But she was wideawake and full of energy. The thought of shutting out the night and the sounds of the orchard was depressing. “I guess.”
    With their heads bowed, the girls started back across the wide, exposed area of grass, looking toward the house for any movement. Once they reached the trees, Leeda grabbed Murphy’s wrist. Murphy looked at her quizzically.
    “Do you think there are rattlers?” Leeda whispered. From the purplish light still coming in through the edge of the trees, her face was shadowy but mostly visible. Her eyelashes were wide and fluttering. Murphy was pretty sure that her own eyelashes had never fluttered. Not once.
    “Oh Jesus,” Murphy whispered back. The moon had popped out from behind the clouds for a moment and the bare branches of the trees cast shadows across the footpaths.
    “Where are we going?”
    Leeda blinked some more and started forward. “I’ll show you.”
    They disappeared into the view.

    The rows went on much farther than Murphy had ever gone or ever expected to go. It was several minutes before they emerged from the last stand of peach trees onto a sloped grassy hill. The grass became a wide, dark blotch at the foot of the hill, barely distinguishable from the dark lake in front of it, except that tiny plunks of water were bursting all over its surface. Murphy thought she could easily have walked by the lake and never noticed it was there. The girls stood and gazed at it. Murphy wanted to say that it was gorgeous, but she didn’t want to say it to Leeda. She had the immediate thought that nobody had ever seen this lake but the two of them.
    Murphy sank down onto the grass. Leeda sat down beside her, primly pulling in her knees and tugging the hem of her robe down around her ankles. She peered beyond Murphy’s shoulder, then scanned the trees. Murphy leaned back on her elbows and sighed, pulling her hood over her already-wet head, and decided she would have to put this evening in her book of things she never thought would happen, right below being incarcerated at a peach orchard and meeting a person whose first name was Poopie.
    A pounding noise behind them made them start and turn around.
    “What the…”
    A large dark figure came bursting out of the bushes before Murphy could get the words out.