I give in and Joe leads me through the front door and into the main areas of the house calling out “Mom?” periodically.
I whisper as I rush to keep up with him, “This is your parents’ house,” because making keen observations of obvious facts is something I do when I’m nervous.
“I grew up here. It was my parents’ until my dad passed away. My mom wanted to sell it, but I couldn’t do that. My name may be on the title now, but it’s hers.” He pushes through a back door into an expansive backyard with several tidy rows of trees lined up in the back. I follow him down a set of stone steps that lead to the lawn, which is surrounded by more yellow and pink and creamy white flowers than I ever thought could survive in this harsh desert sun. It’s an oasis.
“She lets me live in the apartment above the garage and do all the yard work,” he adds with a wink that makes my heart trip.
“You don’t have to brag to impress me. Just say you’re perfect and call it a day.” I shove at his arm.
“I’m only stating the facts, ma’am.” His terrible southern accent makes me laugh, and almost makes up for his arrogance.
I follow him to the small orchard, where a woman is snipping and pruning at the branches. Her mud-stamped bottom points to the sky as she bends to gather her clippings. Her salt and pepper hair is twisted into two messy braids that wave around under a sweaty sunhat. She’s singing a Billy Joel song at the top of her lungs—myBilly Joel song. I love her immediately.
“Hey, Mom.” Joe’s voice is cautious and quiet, but that doesn’t stop his mom from shrieking, scrambling to her feet, and slappinghim in the chest with her garden glove, which leaves a vaguely glove-shaped outline of soil on his shirt.
“Obbs! How many times have I told you not to sneak up on me?” she shouts at him.
Obbs?We’ll be circling back to that later.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I just wanted to introduce you to Indie. Indie this is my mom, Sarah Pratt.” He would sound repentant, except he’s sporting that lopsided grin that makes me want to put us in time out together.
She finally registers me standing slightly behind her son. “Indigo Fox. This is a surprise. You’re even prettier in person.”
Oh, fabulous. She knows me. “You mean with my sweaty hair, uncovered freckles, and chapped lips?” I laugh, apologizing for my bedraggled appearance. Or maybe her eyesight is bad? I hope her nose is also bad, because I’m sure I smell funky after our jaunt through the desert.
“You know Indie?” Joe’s shock is sweet. The man obviously doesn’t spend as much time online as the average person. It’s refreshing.
She swats his arm with the back of her wrinkled, brown hand. “Of course I do, boy. A lot of women know who Indigo Fox is. She’s Kara Fox’s daughter. What I don’t know is how she found her way to my orchard.” She gives me a quick side squeeze, “Not that I’m not happy to meet you. I’ve admired you ever since I saw that photo the other day. You know–”
Joe cuts in, “Oh no. Mom. We don’t need to talk about… that.” His face is as red as the tomatoes I spotted on our way in.
“It’s okay,Obbs.” I grin at him and he rubs his neck with his big old hand. “Honestly, talking to you about it helped.” It really had. The sting was still there, but it helped to sort through it out loud with him.
“You mean when you cried and I gave you no helpful feedback?”
“No, when you listened instead of jumping in to tell me I was overreacting.” I inch closer to him.
“You aren’t overreacting. You should be furious.” His gaze is stormy again as he inches toward me. “If I ever meet the person who did that to you—”
“And that’s why I like you, Obbs.”
“No one but my mom calls me that.”
“No one but your mom and now me, Obbs.” I bite my lip to stop a huge grin from splitting my face in two. Why is this giant of a man so fun to torment?
Sarah clears her throat. Her dark eyes ping-pong between us and the corners of her mouth turn up slowly, slowly until she looks like The Grinch when he comes up with his terrible, awful idea. She snatches her bucket off the ground. “How about lunch?”
And that’s how I find out, over a plate of microwaved leftover enchiladas, that the nickname Obbs has something to do with Joe’s middle name. Undie-gate is as forgotten as a stack of unpaid bills shoved behind a houseplant. This is priority number one.
“Why don’t you just tell me what it is?” I say between giggles to Joe, who is not laughing. “Those are the first four letters, right? O-B-B-S?” The three of us are done with our food, leaning back in our patio chairs, feeling stuffed and maybe a little slap happy. Two of us are, anyway. Number three is being a stick in the mud.
“No.” Joe stops swirling the ice in his glass. “And no.” He shoots a warning look to Sarah.
“Save that face for someone else, boy. As the person who spent 27 hours in painful, drug-free labor with you and chose your middle name, I resent the fact that you hide it from the world.” She sniffs and turns to me, “It’s a perfectly lovely name, but I’m sorry to say, Indie, I am sworn to secrecy.” She grumbles in Joe’s general direction as she stands to gather our dishes. I get up to help her, but she shoos me away. “You’re our guest. Joe can do the dishes. You can help me with the thinning."
She passes our plates to Joe and leads me back out to the orchard, where she teaches me more than I ever thought I would know about growing peaches. I follow her worn out overalls all over the garden as we prune and trim and swap stories. Sarah gives me a quick lesson, and after letting me loose for a while she tells me I have a knack for thinning. She says I seem to know precisely where to cut, and I work faster than she thought I would for a newbie. We work side by side for a while, until Sarah tells me to take a break for a minute. I am sure my freckles are going to explode on my face like fireworks after this week, but when we sit on the cool grass to rest I can't help but close my eyes and turn my face to the sun and so it can warm every inch of me. I breathe in deep through my nose and the scent of earth and pruned trees makes my toes curl.
Later, when the dishes are done and we’ve all spent a solid two hours thinning peaches, we say our goodbyes to Sarah. Joe parks next to my van, which is squatting like a toaster-shaped weed in the Nizhóní parking lot.
