The Secrets of Peaches Read Free Page B

library, a Mexican flag hung from her closet, and Spanish lesson books lay open and half finished beside her bed.
    A handful of dried peach leaves sat on her nightstand, a last remnant of the summer. Looking at them made Birdie long for June. She had the urge to escape her room and walk the orchard. Instead she padded down the hall to Poopie’s room.
    Poopie was watching Beaches on TBS and writing on a slip of paper. Birdie plopped beside her and made big lips at the ceiling. “What are you writing?”
    â€œA letter,” Poopie said.
    â€œTo who?”
    Birdie looked over her shoulder and Poopie snatched it away quickly, then flashed a smile. “My sister.”
    Birdie studied Poopie like she didn’t already know every line of her face. She was small and taut and tan, like a peanut. Her black hair was always pulled back into a messy bun and her eyebrows were straight over her open, almost-black eyes. Poopie Pedraza had arrived years ago—from the same suburb of Mexico City as Enrico and several of the other workers—to work as a cook. Since then, she’d become the linchpin that held the Darlington house together. And sometimes Birdie too.
    â€œWhy do you look like that?” Poopie asked.
    â€œWhat?”
    Poopie made a face like Birdie’s, all full of consternation.
    Birdie groaned. Even with Murphy and Leeda, she was embarrassed talking about Enrico. But she needed to spill a little. “Enrico wants me to come to Mexico for New Year’s,” she offered.
    Poopie’s eyes lit up with interest. “Oh yeah?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œYou want to go?”
    Birdie shrugged. She’d been homeschooled and on Friday nights she usually helped Poopie clean all the linens. On Saturdays, she caught up on invoices and office work and studied the tomes she’d ordered online on fruit pests and parasites, crop diseases, and fertilizing. A weekend at the beach was out of the picture, much less a trip to Mexico. “Does it matter?”
    Poopie made a sympathetic murmur and folded up her letter. “Our town is beautiful,” Poopie told her wistfully. Like most of the orchard workers, Poopie and Enrico were from a place outside Mexico City. “I wish you could see it….” She motioned Birdie in front of her so she could braid her hair. It was a ritual they did.
    Birdie sighed as Poopie tugged gently at her hair. “I wish it was still summer.”
    â€œWe’re already on our way to next summer.”
    â€œI guess. Murphy says next summer, she’ll plant another nectarine tree in her garden,” Birdie breathed. Poopie tied a knot at the bottom of Birdie’s hair to keep the braid in place.
    â€œShe won’t have time before she leaves,” Poopie said lightly.
    Birdie groaned. “Don’t rush it.”
    Poopie shrugged. “Seventeen is a good year, Avelita.” Little bird. “But there are better ones.” Birdie leaned back and letPoopie wrap her in a hug. Poopie pecked her on the cheek. “Not everyone is so still inside like you.”
    Birdie didn’t get why not. Why did people have to go off for college and bigger things? It seemed backwards to her that people left their families and their homes behind. It seemed like a betrayal.
    She stayed beside Poopie and they watched the rest of Beaches . They both cried. Poopie clutched Birdie’s hands, saying, “No, no,” at the part when Bette Midler says, “We haven’t grown apart, you’ve fallen apart,” and then again when Barbara Hershey’s daughter finds her passed out on the ground. They had probably seen Beaches three thousand times.
    When it was over, Birdie shuffled back to her room, the house creaking around her as she walked. She sat on her bed and looked at the knickknacks on her shelves, coated in a fine layer of dust. She gazed at the old paintings of the house—from two different angles—that had hung