Peaches

imperceptibly, so that the fine brown hairs on it tickled her. Birdie listed ever so slightly to the left, toward him. She studied what she could of him sideways—his tan legs, his hands….
    Her elbow came to rest on his—just slightly.
    He sat up. There was an open Coke can on the windowsill, and he leaned forward and grabbed it, taking a sip. Then he started playing with the mouth of the can with his thumb and forefinger. Birdie watched his fingers make the slow circular motions. She had a vision of him cutting his thumb on the lip of the can. She would kneel beside him and put a Band-Aid on it for him and then look up at him and they’d just move toward each other easily in a kiss.
    “Oh!” Enrico jerked his hand into the air. A thin trickle of blood ran down not his thumb, but his forefinger.
    “Oh.” Birdie shot up. Did she have ESP? Telepathy? “Um.” She felt her stomach flop nervously. “Let me get a Band-Aid for you.”
    She hurried down the hall to the first aid box hung by the door, grabbed a bandage (the pinky kind), and walked back slowly, knowing she’d been given a sign and if she let the moment slip past, she would be pathetic in the eyes of herself and the fates.
    Enrico was still sitting on the bed. He had the edge of his forefinger in his mouth. Oh God.
    Birdie walked up to stand directly before him. She pulled the outer wrapping off the Band-Aid. Enrico looked up at her under his eyebrows.
    “Here you go!” On reflex, she tossed the Band-Aid at him across the few inches of space. It fluttered madly, listing sideways and landing on the floor. Enrico bent down to pick it up, awkwardly.
    “Thank you,” he said, looking at her unsurely, like she might have lost her mind.
    “No problem.” Birdie watched him peel off the waxy white strips and apply the Band-Aid, realizing at that moment it was the wrong size and didn’t even cover the cut.
    “Thanks,” Enrico said again.
    Birdie shifted from foot to foot. “No problem.”
    The discomfort between them was so thick Birdie felt she could step forward and bump her head on it. The skin under her armpits was tingling and itching. Finally Enrico stretched his arms back, which pushed his ribs forward against his shirt. “Well, I am going to bed, I think.”
    Birdie could have been knocked over with a feather. “Oh. Oh yeah. Sorry.”
    Enrico’s dark eyebrows descended worriedly over his pretty eyes. “I am just suddenly tired,” he said, smiling nervously. “See you tomorrow.”
    “Yeah,” Birdie said, blushing. “Sure. Good night.”
    Enrico closed the door behind her and Birdie walked down the hall, feeling like her body might sink into the cracks in the cool, creaky wooden floor and drip down into the dirt underneath.
    When she stepped out onto the porch, she put her hand to her forehead and muttered, “Why?”
    When she looked up, her dad was at the bottom of the stairs.
    “What are you doing?” he demanded.
    Birdie froze. “Um, just…making sure everybody has what they need. What…are you doing?”
    Walter relaxed a bit. “I came to look for you. I need you to come up to the house at five tomorrow morning. I need some help in the office.”
    “Okay, Dad.”
    “Birdie, I don’t want you in the men’s dorm. It was all right when you were a kid, but…” His mouth settled into a thin, awkward line. “I’ll take care of it from now on.”
    Birdie swallowed. “But I wasn’t…”
    “You should be in bed.”
    “Okay.”
    Walter turned his cheek for Birdie to kiss. She did and then headed toward Camp A. But she didn’t go to sleep.
    She flopped into every angle, hoping to find one that would send her off to sleep. She turned so that her head was at the foot of the couch.
    She’d never felt more desperate for someone to talk to. And there was no one. Not her dad. Definitely not her mom.
    It seemed like whatever had been building in her since the spring was making it impossible to stay inside herself. It was too big to contain.

    Leeda was lying on her bed, her feet up on the wall with the door open to catch the breeze. She was resting her sore muscles and facing the facts. She was never going to make it this summer. That was the facts.
    The day had been hell, picking peaches all morning, dropping them into her harness basket, carrying them, dumpingthem. She hadn’t seen Rex all day. She’d gotten a fifth of the work done that anyone else had, and she’d actually tried. She’d wanted the workers to start being