Peaches

stared. “What do you mean?”
    “Birdie, Rex kissed me. But I told him off.”
    “Really?”
    “I did all the righteous stuff. I was a good girl.”
    “You never had sex with him?”
    “Jesus, Birdie.”
    “Well, I don’t understand why you didn’t tell Leeda.”
    “I tried. You heard all the stuff she said to me.”
    “But you could have sent her an e-mail or written a note or something.”
    “She already thinks she knows who I am. She did before she knew me.”
    “But you guys love each other.”
    “Birdie.” Murphy leaned back on her hands. “It’s not gonna happen. And I don’t want you to say anything to her about it. Promise me.”
    Birdie looked dubious. “But I could…”
    “Birdie, promise me.”
    Birdie blinked a few times. “Okay. Okay. But you’re friends with me, right?”
    Birdie hugged her around the waist.
    “It’s hard to be mad at you, Bird.”
    “I know. I’m so sweet.”
    “You are.”
    Murphy hugged her back, feeling the defined spaces of her spine.
    “I hadn’t really noticed, but you’re getting your birdie legs back, Bird.”
    Birdie shrugged and smiled, pushing her hair behind her ears. “Am I?”
    Murphy couldn’t believe how much better she felt. She was buzzing with electricity to have Birdie back in her life. It felt like a miracle. She wanted to do something for her.
    “So things suck with the farm, right?”
    Birdie nodded, unable to speak.
    “I guess there’s nothing we can do about that.”
    Birdie shook her head, her lips trembling. “No.”
    “Well, you should have a vacation, then.”
    Birdie half laughed. “Yeah. How about the Greek isles? Let’s leave tomorrow.”
    Murphy smiled. “My car won’t make it to Greece, but I think it has enough juice for a shorter trip.”
    “To where?” Birdie asked softly.
    Murphy grinned. The idea had taken hold like a vision. Of course, it had to be done.
    “My dear, duh. My car can make it all the way to Texas.”

Chapter Twenty-one
    “Y ou turn here.”
    Murphy peered through the right corner of the windshield toward where Birdie was pointing.
    “No, you don’t.”
    “Yeah, it’s here.”
    “Bird, seventy-five is straight ahead.”
    “I know the back way.”
    Murphy looked at Birdie, whose wide-set brown eyes were staring at her placidly, and pressed the corner of her lips down to communicate that Birdie didn’t know what she was talking about, but what the heck. She took the turn. They passed a pecan farm on the right and then a few open fields.
    “Left on Mossy Creek.”
    Murphy looked at Birdie again, and Birdie smiled innocently back at her. Behind them their stuff was covering the seats—Murphy’s army bag and Birdie’s matching teddy bear suitcases her grandmother had given her. Also, a jar of dill pickles Birdie had brought and two bags of pretzels, along with two bottles of strawberry cider. One of Murphy’s brashad found its way out of her bag and wrapped itself around the pickles.
    Birdie had told her dad she was with her mom. She’d told her mom she was with Leeda. Murphy still couldn’t believe she’d had the guts to do it. Already Birdie had gotten a look of terror on her face three or four times—never mind the look on her face when she and Murphy had gotten Enrico’s address from her dad’s office—and mentioned to Murphy that maybe they should turn around. They hadn’t even gotten to the highway yet.
    They were definitely coming at town a back way from the orchard, and it was starting to get familiar. Murphy leaned forward and peered far over the steering wheel.
    “Birdie.”
    Murphy tapped her foot on the brakes, which squealed as the car slowed. They came to a stop a couple hundred yards before the driveway of Breezy Buds Plantation, aka the Cawley-Smiths’ mansion.
    Birdie had her feet up on the dash and her eyes straight ahead, her eyes big. “I told her she could come with us.”
    “Oh Jesus.”
    “Murphy, come on. I need you guys to get along. I need Leeda to come too.”
    Birdie saying she needed Leeda felt like tiny Charles Manson fork stabs in Murphy’s heart. She wanted to make it somehow so that Birdie didn’t need Leeda.
    “Well, maybe if you’d rather hang out with her…” Murphy didn’t expect this tack to work, it was so obvious, but Birdie looked at her with her upper lip slightly puckering and thendisappearing into her mouth. She looked wounded and sorry, which made Murphy wounded and sorry.
    “God.” Murphy felt her chest filling