Peaches

And extend the golf course.”
    “You don’t know that,” Murphy said, frowning at Rex. Rex eyed her, equally annoyed, even though Rex was rarely annoyed with anyone.
    “Well, that’s what Horatio Balmeade says. Over drinks. To people,” he sputtered.
    Looking around, it was hard for Leeda to imagine the orchard in financial trouble. It was practically brimming with life. But dinner conversations at the Darlingtons’ told a different story. So did the sinking floors of the house and the outdated machinery. “Things are pretty bad,” she murmured, agreeing. It was sad, really. Leeda had lived in the same town her whole life, but she realized that having the orchard there had always made her feel like she had some kind of root planted in the ground.
    “This place has been here forever.” Leeda knew the orchard was one of the oldest in Georgia. While most had either died completely or survived by tacking onto bigger, consolidated orchards (there were four major ones in the state), the Darlington peach orchard had somehow managed to survive. “Maybe they should just declare it a historic landmark or something.”
    “You think everything’s so easy, Lee,” Rex said doubtfully.
    “It’s toast,” Murphy said, actually agreeing with him.
    Leeda looked at her, thinking about Danay in Atlanta. She would never be tromping around with Murphy McGowen in an orchard. She wondered if the orchard gave Danay that rooted feeling too and figured probably not.

    “This is where I leave you,” Rex said, tugging Leeda toward him with one hand and giving her a chaste peck on the lips. Murphy watched the kiss curiously and gave Rex a halfhearted wave when he nodded at her before he turned and walked off.
    They were standing at the north side of the pecan grove, the dividing line between the orchard and the country club aboutthirty yards behind them. As they watched Rex disappear into the darkness, Murphy toyed with the idea of asking Leeda what the kiss had been all about. She’d never seen two extremely attractive people kiss with such lackluster abandon. Maybe they weren’t into PDA. Maybe Leeda didn’t have anything else in her. Murphy was pretty sure that Rex must, but she made her imagination stop at that.
    The girls walked toward the dorms in silence, the glow of their dip in the lake fading behind them. The talk about the Balmeade Country Club had been a buzz kill. Murphy had always had a deep distrust for things that were perfect and sterile, like the view over the fence had been, and the fact that that view was connected with Horatio Balmeade was an added down note. The thought that it could spread and envelope the orchard was almost sadistic.
    They came at the dorms from the far side of the Darlington house, and Murphy’s heartbeat picked up again as they made their way across the front of the house, skirting the circle of the porch lights. Murphy looked at the cloud-dipped moon. It was probably two. Maybe three.
    “What’s that statue?” Murphy whispered as they passed the stairs of the porch and the railing where Poopie had left her little figurine.
    Leeda smiled. “That’s one of Poopie’s saints. She has one for everything. If you want to sell a house or if you want to get pregnant or if you’re in trouble for evading your taxes. Everything.”
    “Is that a…Mexican thing?” Murphy whispered, surprised she’d be asking Leeda a question about a foreign culture.
    Leeda shrugged. “I don’t think so. Poopie’s into everything. New Age. Meditation. Saints.”
    “Well, which saint is that?” Murphy asked.
    Leeda squinted at it. “Actually, that’s Saint Jude,” she said, obviously proud she knew the answer. Murphy had heard of Saint Jude. Her mom had dated a deacon once. The meaning of Saint Jude was just on the tip of her tongue.
    “What’s it the saint of?” she finally asked, caving.
    They looked at each other, then Leeda bent to brush at her leg. Murphy’s eyes followed her hand to the crawling black blotches all over her legs. She gasped at the same time Leeda let out her first piercing scream.
    “Oh, damn.” Murphy watched Leeda jump up and down on the lawn, slapping at her legs, flabbergasted, then chased after her, trying to slap at the fire ants too.
    The lights in the house flared up.
    “Yip! Yip yip!”
    The door flew open, and the first one out to see what was wrong was Honey Babe, followed shortly by Majestic. And then there was Poopie Pedraza hurrying across the grass