The Secrets of Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Author:Jodi Lynn Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780061855207
Publisher: HarperCollins

Twenty-one

Murphy and Jodee picked out a short, fluffy tree at the tent set up in the parish parking lot of Divine Grace of the Redeemer. Murphy stood and watched, her hands around a Styrofoam cup of complimentary cider, as her mom flirted the guy down to thirty-five bucks. Then together they loaded it halfway into the trunk of the Pontiac, tying it down securely.

Murphy couldn’t believe how good she felt. For two weeks, she’d spent each night lying awake, sleepless with anger, her fists balled, or thrown over her head, or wrapped strangle-like around the pillow beside her. But today, and for the last few days, she’d felt like she was at the top of her game, somewhere she hadn’t been in a long time. She’d turned all her energy to thinking about May and New York. She’d spent countless hours on the Internet looking at photos and maps, burning it all in her brain, like a map to buried treasure. Now when she thought about Rex, which was still often, she felt above him somehow, like he’d let her down enough that she could give him up. She felt powerful. Like if he appeared in front of her at that very moment, she could have laid him flat with one swift punch.

She felt differently about Leeda. Part of the fist balling had been directed at her too and the things she’d said. The two had been avoiding each other, neither willing to make the first move to get back together. But Murphy didn’t even know what, on her side, she’d actually done.

“You want me to drop you anywhere, baby?” her mom asked. “Maybe you should stop by and see Rex….” Jodee looked hopeful. It was unspoken between them that Jodee thought Murphy was crazy for letting such a good guy go. To Murphy, her mom’s credo of men first was pitiful.

“I think I’ll hang out here awhile,” Murphy said, tossing the cider cup into a garbage can and sticking her hands in her pockets.

“You sure, baby?”

“Yeah. I can walk home.”

Once her mom was gone, she shuffled around, directionless. Maybe it was because of TV or maybe that Murphy had been born for colder climates, but every year, she expected a layer of snow for her to stomp through downtown. But Main Street was clean and clear, with only the occasional snack wrapper blowing across the brick sidewalks. It was cold enough for a coat but not a hat. And as long as Murphy had been alive, snow had never fallen on Bridgewater at Christmas.

She stopped in Eckerds to flirt with a guy she knew there and get some free Blow Pops. She leaned over the counter and pursed her lips and moved up and down on her toes while he dug out all the watermelons, her favorite. There was a scale with a mirror next to the pharmacy counter, and she stared at herself sideways. With her low-slung jeans and junk store green army coat, Murphy looked high-fidelity, full-color, and healthy.

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