Peaches Read Free Page A

mandibles of an insect—a praying mantis. Her mom didn’t flinch. Leeda sighed, removed her fingers from her lips, and dipped them into the lilac finger bowl by her plate, swirling them around irritably.
    Every time Leeda’s sister, Danay, came home for the weekend, which was just about every other weekend, their mom spent most of her time gazing at her in awe, like the eldest Cawley-Smith daughter was the second coming of Jesus. Only instead of having risen from the tomb, Danay had driven from Atlanta in the Mercedes their parents had bought her for her high school graduation gift. And instead of bringing absolution for all of the Cawley-Smiths’ sins, she brought black-and-white cookies from Henri’s bakery in Buckhead and her fiancé, Brighton, whose family had a fabulous rock-lined poolthat nobody swam in and threw parties where nobody smiled.
    Right now, Leeda’s mom and the messiah were talking about wedding invitations.
    “What color and black did you say they were, pumpkin?” Mrs. Cawley-Smith cooed. In reply Danay flashed her brilliant Emory University smile, the one she’d been giving her parents ever since she’d left Bridgewater. Despite the Cawley-Smiths’ money, their huge antebellum mansion, and the three hotels the family owned—posh by Bridgewater standards—they were still small-time in the eyes of the rest of the world, a notion Danay apparently bought into wholeheartedly. She looked at their mom like she thought she was cute. Cute in all of her unsophisticated glory.
    “Lehr & Black, Mom. It’s not a color, it’s a brand.”
    “Oh.” Mrs. Cawley-Smith nodded. “Well, you sure are on top of things, sweetie. And with classes and all to keep you occupied, I don’t know how you do it.”
    Danay smiled graciously. “It’s not that bad.”
    Leeda watched both women dig delicately into their matching endive-and-Stilton salads. Danay leaned her elbows on the table, lounging over her food like she might be at a picnic on the beach instead of in a stuffy dining room. Occasionally she reached over and placed her hand on their mother’s wrist, patting it affectionately as she talked.
    “I couldn’t believe it when I saw the lights in the rearview,” she said, referring to a story she’d started earlier about how she’d been pulled over last week for going eighty-five in a fifty-five. “Two hundred fifty dollars, can you believe it? He wouldn’t even knock it down to eighty.”
    Leeda watched the faces surrounding the table. Everyone, including her parents, shook their heads softly, agreeing with her, wearing amused expressions. It was this—Danay’s demeanor while telling the story, that lazy perfection—that always managed to take Leeda by surprise. Somehow Leeda always forgot it, and when she witnessed it all over again, it sank into her stomach like a lead weight. Danay could screw up (not that she did very often) and absorb it into her perfection, like it was another jewel on her sparkling aura.
    Leeda took another bite of her pastry. She’d managed to charm the waiter into bringing her the lobster claw instead of the prix fixe appetizer, pulling out her best eyelash-fluttering southern debutante look. She occasionally glanced at her mother to see if she’d say anything. She didn’t.
    Instead the entire Cawley-Smith family sitting at the table moved on to the wedding that would take place in mid-August, talking about the cake (red velvet, boring), the honeymoon (the West Indies, typical), the signature drinks (the Danayrita and the You Brighton My Life Banana Daquiri, no comment), and the wedding song (“From This Moment On,” by Shania Twain, vomit). Chewing loudly, Leeda let her attention drift across the table to Brighton, who smiled at her with his usual kiss-up-to-the-family expression. She frowned back, letting her pink puffy lips droop in disdain, then looked at the space just beyond his head. A giant acrylic painting of a miniature Shetland pony watched them eat, its