The Peach Keeper

by Sarah Addison Allen

Rachel snorted. “Superstitions are man’s way of trying to control things he has no control over.”

Daughters of the South were to their mothers what tributaries were to the main rivers they flowed into: their source of immovable strength.

Not that Agatha minded anything about money. That’s what happens when you have too much of it. It becomes like dust, something that constantly moves around you but that you never actually touch.

Right now everyone is drinking bad wine made of sour grapes and hysteria. Let them drink it, and let them regret it in the morning.

There was a strange but universal understanding among women. On some level, all women knew, they all understood, the fear of being outnumbered, of being helpless. It throbbed in their chests when they thought about the times they left stores and were followed. The knocks on their car windows as they were sitting alone at red lights, and strangers asking for rides. Having too much to drink and losing their ability to be forceful enough to just say no. Smiling at strange men coming on to them, not wanting to hurt their feelings, not wanting to make a scene. All women remembered these things, even if they had never happened to them personally. It was a part of their collective unconscious.

Coffee, she’d discovered, was tied to all sorts of memories, different for each person. Sunday mornings, friendly get-togethers, a favorite grandfather long since gone, the AA meeting that saved their life. Coffee meant something to people. Most found their lives were miserable without it. Coffee was a lot like love that way. And because Rachel believed in love, she believed in coffee, too.

Happiness is a risk. If you’re not a little scared, then you’re not doing it right.”