Peaches

wake him up?” Murphy looked at Birdie. She felt like she had to be careful—like a thin thread was holding Birdie with them and she didn’t want to break it.
    Birdie shook her head. “They sleep through noise and light but not motion. So if a snake or something comes after them, they wake up.”
    “Wow.” Murphy’s hand shot out and shook the branch slightly. With a squawk the bird shot off the branch and flapped away. Birdie and Leeda looked at Murphy, who looked between both of them for a moment and shrugged. “Sorry.”
    Murphy skipped ahead of them toward the lake, peeling off her tank top and then stopping to take off her shorts. She felt like she hadn’t seen the lake in a hundred years. She hadn’t realized that it had become epic in her mind.
    “Ah, it’s great.” Leeda quickly stripped down too, to her silky hip-slung boy shorts and demi-bra, and walked up to the edge to dip a toe in. Birdie hovered self-consciously behind her.
    “Watch this,” Murphy said, climbing the tree from before.
    “Oh, Murphy, please…”
    Murphy ignored Leeda. There was nothing she could do to hold her energy back. The feeling of the lake she’d gotten the first time she’d come seemed to have intensified exponentially in the heat of summer, and Murphy couldn’t contain herself. And maybe it was partly that all the energy of being angry had to be transferred somewhere.
    She cannonballed.

    Birdie walked up beside Leeda, making sure not to compare herself to either her willowy cousin or curvy Murphy, who had surfaced onto her back, breathing hard.
    “Thank God. This feels incredible.” Murphy sighed.
    “Did your feet touch the bottom?” Leeda asked. “Is it slimy?”
    “Was it slimy last time?” Murphy asked. Leeda frowned at her.
    Underneath her clothes Birdie wore a tankini she’d changed into at the dorms. She pulled off her shirt, then shimmied out of her knee-length dungarees, glancing at Leeda and Murphy shyly.
    She felt dazed and hopeful and happy. Birdie couldn’t believe that she had just foisted herself on her cousin and Murphy, and that it had been so easy, such a nonevent. She hadsought them out once she’d seen Leeda sneak out of the dorms, with her pulse pounding. And now she couldn’t understand why it had seemed so risky.
    She looked around to make sure Honey Babe and Majestic were settled and accounted for (Honey Babe was itching his back on the grass, Majestic was biting at invisible bugs), and then she jumped in.
    When she popped up again, spitting water, Murphy was doing laps, and Leeda was sitting on the edge of the lake, letting her legs loll so that the water was up to the bottoms of her knees. Honey and Majestic had both come to the edge of the lake and were sniffing at the water.
    Honey put a paw to the water gingerly, then pulled it out and shook it.
    Murphy paddled up and rested her elbows on the grass beside Leeda’s thighs.
    “Come on, Leeda.”
    “Mm, I don’t think so…. If Rex were here…”
    “Are you guys together?” Birdie asked, feeling left out. She knew Rex was the guy her dad had hired part-time for odd jobs. She knew he was very meticulous and very easy on the eyes and that was about it.
    Honey Babe whimpered.
    “Yeah,” Leeda said casually, swirling her feet in the water, seeming a world older than Birdie.
    “So, Bird, do you ever bring guys down here?”
    Birdie shook her head. “Nah.” In the silence, it hung in the air. “My mom and I used to have picnics down here. I come down here alone a lot.”
    “My mom would never be caught dead eating sandwiches where the bugs might get on them,” Leeda said.
    “She sounds like you.” Murphy splashed water onto Leeda’s knees.
    Leeda scowled, but Birdie knew Murphy was right. Leeda was the spitting image of her mom in a lot of ways. She had the same habits and manners. But it always seemed to fit a bit awkwardly on Leeda, like the wrong pair of clothes.
    Murphy drummed on the ground with her hands. “Being with my mom is like watching makeover TV. Every time she meets a new guy, it’s like she’s looking in the mirror and they lift the curtain and she goes, ‘Ooh, I’m beautiful!’” Murphy did the imitation, clasping her hands. “And then she cries a lot. Then the guy dumps her and she’s back to the ugly duckling.”
    Leeda cleared her throat uncomfortably. So did Birdie. Murphy’s face fell for a moment.
    “You know, she dated that guy Horatio.” Murphy looked from Leeda to Birdie,