Peaches

can’t start on someone you really like. It’s too intimidating.”
    Birdie tilted her chin toward her chest, looking confused, and as always, very earnest. “Huh?”
    Murphy shrugged. “We’re going to have to find someone you don’t like. We can do it tonight if you want.”
    “Do what?” Birdie asked. Leeda was wondering the same thing.
    Murphy hopped up and brushed the dirt off her legs. “Go out and get you a kiss,” she said.

    Somewhere around midnight Murphy, Leeda, Birdie, Honey Babe, and Majestic piled into Murphy’s dilapidated yellow Volkswagen, Yellowbaby, and took off down Orchard Drive after having first pushed the car backward down the long drivewayaway from the house (with Leeda steering, of course). The car was full of the scent of Leeda’s perfume, which all five were wearing, Birdie having spritzed both dogs lightly, to their delight. Murphy rolled down her window to clear the air.
    Leeda looked around the car nervously. “Is this thing going to explode?”
    “It might,” Murphy said.
    Birdie couldn’t help but laugh. It had been one thing to sneak down to the lake. But leaving the orchard property felt so daring and so blatant that Birdie was a ball of nervous giddiness.
    “Oh God,” Leeda said, leaning her head back against the headrest and holding tight to the handle above the window.
    Murphy hadn’t told them where they were going yet. They careened down the main drag of Bridgewater, but kept going, past the edge of town where the Pearly Gates Cemetery was, and then onto Route 75 south.
    “How far away is this place?” Leeda asked.
    Murphy shrugged. “About forty-five minutes if we hurry.”
    “Oh God.”
    They zipped past a sign for hot boiled peanuts, then several billboards for one of the large orchards, then past several for condos and resorts in Florida, just four hours away. Murphy kept her window down, and the wind blew so hard that Birdie had to hold her hair back on either side of her face to see the signs.
    Finally the billboards tapered off, and Murphy pulled onto an exit ramp that led them to a dark, two-lane road. By the lights of the occasional farmhouses they passed, Birdie could see they’d come to a swampier area. The air smelled wetter. Bugs smacked against the windshield in droves. A square green signjumped into the headlights announcing Mertie Creek, 5 Miles.
    About ten minutes later, Murphy pulled into a gravel drive and the three of them piled out of the passenger side because the driver’s side door didn’t work. Honey Babe and Majestic stayed behind, curled up on the backseat.
    They were in a parking lot, standing in front of a low, wood-lined building with a high slanted roof. About fifty old wooden chairs hung from the front wall and scattered across the porch all around the door. Picnic tables sat in front of the porch under low-slung crisscrosses of round white lights. But from the sound of it, everyone was inside, laughing and shouting above some loud, twangy music.
    “I’m not going in there,” Leeda said.
    “Well, Bird and I will see you when we come out, then,” Murphy said, reaching an arm around Birdie and sweeping her along. Birdie looked back over her shoulder at Leeda and couldn’t help but grin at the look on her face as she ran to catch up.
    Inside, the smoke was so thick Birdie had to wave her hands in front of her eyes to see clearly. The room consisted of a large square bar and a small dance floor with a corner staked out for a country band that was doing a Kenny Chesney cover.
    Birdie and Leeda clustered right up behind Murphy like ducklings. “I don’t have ID,” Birdie whispered to Murphy, thinking how mortifying it would be if someone asked her for it. But Murphy just turned and gave her an oh, please look. She breezed right along up to a lone free stool at the bar. The two men on the stools next to it looked her up and down. “Can you spare those stools for a couple of thirsty teenagers?” Murphy asked, a sly, charming smile on her lips.
    The men stood up as fast as if Murphy had cracked a whip. Neither of them bothered much to look at Birdie or Leeda. Birdie didn’t blame them. She figured that for any guy, Murphy would be hard to look away from.
    “What’ll y’all have?” the bartender asked as they climbed onto their stools. Sloe gin fizz for Leeda, Jack on the rocks for Murphy, and Birdie had to think for a few seconds, so Murphy ended up ordering her Jack on the rocks too.
    When the guy returned with