Love and Peaches Read Online Free Page A

e-mails in the Blah Blah Blah folder with a sick thud. There were over thirty of them, all from Rex. And she hadn’t read a single one. From the moment she’d left home she had ignored him completely, cut him off, left him out.
    It hadn’t really occurred to her, until just now, that when she saw him she wouldn’t know how to explain herself. And he would probably find that hard to forgive. Maybe impossible.

Four
    M exico City had nowhere quiet to walk. It was one of the few things Birdie really disliked about it. Everywhere you went there were people and buildings, always accompanied by noise. For someone who’d learned to sort through her thoughts by walking under drooping pecan trees and into quiet shady corners, it could be hard to focus when she needed to.
    Today Birdie was walking aimlessly in the city’s center. She had just finished her last final. Enrico was waiting for her to come over so they could head to an engagement party being thrown for them by one of their friends. But Birdie’s feet had led her away from his dorm building and down by the floating market, then past the bus station, winding along the streets, people watching. She kept circling back to a particular pay phone, staring at it, biting her pinky nail absently, and walking away. She didn’t need to call anyone. She just kept feeling like she had to call someone. Finally she picked up the receiver, fished her phone card out of her wallet, and began to dial.
    â€œHello?” Murphy’s sleepy voice came over the other end ofthe line. Georgia was two hours ahead, but Murphy had never been an early riser. Birdie was grateful she had even picked up.
    â€œMurphy?”
    â€œBird? You okay?” Murphy croaked, slowly waking up.
    â€œYeah. I just…wanted to know how your trip went.”
    â€œFine,” Murphy murmured. “It’s weird being home.”
    â€œI bet,” Birdie warbled. She didn’t know why, but hearing Murphy at home in Georgia set her on the verge of tears. A few feet in front of her, a man spit on the sidewalk. Sometimes she hated Mexico City.
    â€œWhat’s going on, Bird?”
    Birdie hesitated. She didn’t know what to say. She kicked her toes against the concrete beneath her, staring at a piece of flattened gum stuck there.
    In the days since Enrico had proposed, Birdie had gone from nervous to giddy to something else entirely. Some feeling she didn’t recognize. And the more she’d tried to swallow it and write it off, the bigger it had gotten. It was close to the feeling of forgetting something.
    â€œNothing. I just can’t believe I’m not gonna be there with you guys this summer.”
    â€œI know. Me too. It’s the worst.”
    They were quiet for a while, missing each other. A woman had arrived at the phone booth and had dropped two big satchels of vegetables. She hovered, looking at Birdie directly to let her know she was waiting.
    â€œSo are you still engaged today?”
    Birdie laughed softly. “Yeah.”
    â€œYou sound, I dunno. You sound weird.”
    Birdie could hear that Murphy was perfectly awake now. And it felt like a blessing that, when Murphy was awake, she noticed everything, and then she called you out on it.
    â€œI…I don’t know if I can explain it….” She studied her brown Teva sandals instead, then looked at the lady waiting for the phone. Birdie was growing a little self-conscious.
    â€œTry, Birdie.”
    Birdie kicked her feet gently against the pavement. “I just, you know what? I feel really angry.”
    â€œWhy?”
    Birdie considered.
    â€œI’m angry because…because Enrico has floppy hands. And he wears these nubby white pants. I hate white pants. I just stare at him in those white pants and I want to—”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI don’t want to say.”
    â€œBirdie…”
    â€œOkay. I just want to punch him in the