Peaches

watching TV, taping little bags of cotton balls to her door. But whenever Leeda thanked her, she couldn’t get her voice to sound sincere. The cotton balls didn’t make up for not being able to sneak out anymore, since after dark had been the only time when Leeda had gotten to spend any real time with Rex anyway, and now it was the only time she was willing to let him get close to her at all.
    Out in the field that Friday, Murphy and Leeda drifted by each other like they had every morning since the lake—awkwardly, muttering hellos but nothing more. Today they moved down the row in the same slow unison.
    Leeda kept glancing at Murphy sideways as she took up her station a few trees away. Whatever strange mood had stolen over Leeda at the lake had vanished the moment she’d seen Poopie in her nightdress and hadn’t come back since. She cringed thinking that Murphy had seen her swimming in her skivvies andthen cringed harder thinking about the way she’d told Murphy about her weird thing with trees. It was the same feeling she’d had a few times after getting drunk at one of her friends’ parties, when she’d wrapped her arms around people, planting sloppy kisses on their faces, begging them to tell her if they really liked her or not. Only at the lake she’d been completely sober.
    Murphy, who’d gotten too lazy to hide her laziness, let Leeda catch up with her.
    “How’re the bites?” she asked.
    “Ugly,” Leeda said, pointing down to her legs, which had started on a new phase yesterday of itching like crazy.
    “Too bad.”
    Leeda nodded. “Yep.” She looked at Murphy’s slouch and the way she swatted at the peaches. She tried slouching a little bit too. And then she saw Rex.
    “Oh, crap.” Leeda ducked behind Murphy as Rex cut a diagonal across the row. He looked their way, rolled his eyes and shook his head, and kept walking.
    When Leeda stood up to her full height again, Murphy looked at her quizzically.
    Leeda shrugged. “I don’t want him to see my pus bumps.”
    Murphy’s lips twisted into an amused grin. “You’re not letting your boyfriend see you until your pus bumps go away?”
    “No.” Leeda knew it sounded stupid, but suddenly it sounded really stupid with Murphy looking at her like she was. “I’m just particular,” she offered airily.
    Murphy was shaking her head and swatted at the peaches, though Leeda knew she knew they weren’t supposed to swat.
    “Nah. That’s anal,” Murphy said matter-of-factly.
    Leeda was too tongue-tied to retort. Murphy blinked at her frankly, twirling the bottom of her T-shirt around her fists until two workers walked by and they both turned to watch them. Some of the men and women came to the farm in couples, and these two were holding hands as they walked and talked. They snuck a kiss before separating to their different trees.
    “They were talking about the frost,” Murphy said. “Sounds like it’s definitely coming.”
    “I know.”
    “Are they talking about it?” Murphy asked, nodding back toward the main house.
    “Kind of.” Leeda considered telling Murphy about the long silent dinners. She wished she could explain to someone how Uncle Walter had looked smiling up at her from his desk with his office falling apart all around him. The orchard had broken up his marriage, it had turned him gray, and now it was making him broke. “Maybe it’s better for him to get out of farming,” Leeda added finally.
    Murphy eyed her critically. “It’s never better to be forced out of something that’s your whole life,” she said in a superior, knowing tone that got under Leeda’s skin.
    “Well, people get what they deserve,” she retorted. “If Uncle Walter wasn’t so stubborn about selling…”
    Murphy laughed. “Of course you can say that when your family’s loaded.”
    Leeda opened and closed her mouth, feeling stupid. Then she sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and bit it irritably. Murphy shook her head, annoyed, and walked down the row, leaving Leeda standing there feeling like an idiot.
    Leeda scanned the rows for Rex and then walked out onto the grass. She found him kneeling beside one of the tractors with a rag spread out, his old tools laid out on top of it.
    She crouched beside him. His skin smelled like tractor grease, which made her scrunch up her nose, but she put his hands on her bumpy calves, and, when he turned his face toward her, she kissed him on the corner of his lips. She was well aware it wasn’t like