CHAPTER 17
It appeared Maeve was in a ‘leap’—a period of cognitive development impacting sleep, behaviour and mood. Poppy had downloaded the app but it wasn’t doing jack shit. Suffice to say, the morning had been a disaster. She’d texted Patrick again—just a quick FT today? Only two words, abbreviated, totally his style, hopefully completely safe from accusations of nagging, but she’d heard nothing back—and then Henry had bounced into The Bustle this morning looking like a curly-haired Hemsworth cousin. His cheeks were pink from the wind and tiny diamonds of rain were scattered across his curls. ‘Dad’s getting a labrador,’ he announced, sinking into the seat beside her with his takeaway coffee. ‘That’s his retirement plan.’
Poppy readjusted Maeve on her lap. ‘What about your mum’s allergies?’
‘He’s getting a doodle one.’
Poppy couldn’t repress a grin. ‘A male one?’
Henry grinned back. ‘No, a doodle one, you dumb-arse.’
‘A labradoodle ?’
‘I knew you knew what I meant.’
She always knew what he meant. ‘Why a labradoodle?’
‘Penis size.’
Poppy snorted into her coffee and Henry’s eyes twinkled, thrilled with himself. A mental image of Henry’s dad with his blond handlebar moustache popped into her head, and Poppy felt the bubble of something hilarious in her throat. ‘I always thought …’ she began, but nope, the giggles were already fizzing through every vein. ‘I always …’ she tried again, but the laughter was sucking the air from her lungs.
Henry’s grin expanded and he began to chuckle. Their eyes locked and they laughed harder, and Henry had no idea why they were laughing, which made it even funnier.
‘I …’ Poppy gasped, holding Maeve tighter before she lost full control of her body.
‘Tell me,’ pleaded Henry. They were both shaking now, vibrating like caffeinated tambourines. Every time their eyes connected, that link between them was pulled tighter and they laughed harder. Random customers glanced at them, smiles tugging at their lips too, as if whatever was happening between them was contagious. They were making a scene for no good reason other than this was how they were together. Still.
‘WHAT, POPPY?’
The blond moustache. She couldn’t . It was too stupid.
‘GOLDENDOODLE!’ she gasped, clutching her daughter as a tear rolled down her cheek. ‘Always had you for a golden-doodle family.’
Henry’s head fell into his hands. ‘Poppy!’
‘I know!’
‘Not! Funny!’ More laughter rumbled from his core and his eyes sparkled. Everything about this man thrummed with life. The gloss of rain in his hair, the twinkle in his eye, the creases of his laugh lines. He looked like a man who slept for eight hours a night.
‘I’d forgotten this,’ Henry wheezed, settling back into his chair.
‘How hilarious I am?’
‘No, how you crack yourself up two hours before the punchline.’
‘It’s because I’m hilarious.’
‘It’s because you’re a deadshit.’
If there were a warmer compliment, Poppy didn’t know it.
‘I’ve missed this, Pops.’ His hand landed on the table as he tried to steady his breathing.
Poppy wiped her palm across her cheek. ‘Same, Hen. No-one gets my crap jokes like you do.’
‘You mean no-one gives you sympathy laughs like I do.’
‘And that’s why I love you.’
Oh god . Poppy blanched. It had just slipped out. Like another giggle, but a giant wrecking ball of verbal diarrhoea. Loved . She had loved him. Past tense. He knew that! They could be grown-ups about this. It had been an innocent slip of the tongue. It was the giggles; she’d deprived herself of oxygen. She’d basically taken a nang! She could not be trusted to speak coherently after such oxygen deprivation. And anyway, people were allowed to love their friends. She loved Dani. She could love Henry in the same way—even if he was her first true love, whom she definitely still found attractive even though he was engaged to a megababe. And besides, maybe he hadn’t heard anyway.
Poppy glanced at him. Oh shit. He’d definitely heard. His ears were tinged with a tell-tale pink.
‘I’d better be going,’ he said, standing abruptly.
‘Definitely,’ agreed Poppy, hugging Maeve closer.
‘Bye.’
This was excruciating. ‘Cheerio.’ And that would help.
Henry fumbled with his wallet, trying to slide it into his chinos, and Poppy watched in slow motion before she realised what was in her sightline and she hastily snapped her eyes away. Maybe she should say cheerio again, just to make it clear this was one hundred per cent platonic?
‘I didn’t mean to say I love you!’ she blurted.
Henry flinched.
‘I didn’t mean to make it weird, it’s just …’ She paused, trying to find the words, but she wasn’t used to thinking before she spoke. (It was unnatural!) She shrugged wearily. ‘Most people don’t laugh at my jokes.’
Henry picked up his coffee and eventually, to her overwhelming relief, he laughed. It was a soft tinkle, not a booming full-body laugh like before, but it was better than nothing. A cool rush of relief flooded her nervous system. If she could have loved him any more (in that extremely platonic longtime-friend kind of way), his smile made it possible.
‘Don’t stress, Pops.’ He placed a hand on her shoulder as he walked past on his way out. ‘I know what you mean.’
Now, as Poppy stood in her garden, leaning on a useless rake that was providing zero assistance in overcoming this leaf-sludge travesty on her front lawn, it dawned on her that she had not thought about her unanswered text to Patrick for over two hours. Instead, she’d been ghoulishly rewinding back and forth through her conversation with Henry. Maybe this was how she’d survive in life: by obliterating the memory of recent disasters with the memories of new ones. Genius!
From her bouncer on the verandah, Maeve was watching her like a sniper. The reproachful look on her daughter’s face made it clear Maeve was extremely displeased with their geographic separation and the resultant lack of skin-on-skin contact. Poppy began raking again and smiled encouragingly at her daughter. Maeve responded with an unimpressed blink.
The wooden handle of the rake was splintery under her hands—a comes-with-the-house accessory she’d found in the corner of the garage—which required her raking motion to be perversely gentle and therefore perversely inefficient. At this rate, she’d be done by next autumn.
Out on the street, a HiLux ute was parked next to her driveway. She’d seen it there before. The sun bounced off the ute’s windows obscuring the view inside. There was a sticker on the rear windscreen that looked like a cartoon duck. Then again, it could be a rego sticker. Poppy still had clear memories of the social currency that bumper stickers earned in high school. A boy who had a Cowra Races sticker on his ute was cool, but a boy who had a Louth Races sticker was the ultimate. She sighed at the memory. Everything had been so simple back then.
Poppy glanced at Maeve. Her daughter was now fascinated by a fly on the wall so Poppy decided to edge towards the fence to check out the car. Mary’s neighbourhood snooping was rubbing off on her.
This HiLux wasn’t giving much away. It didn’t have enough gear to be a tradie’s ute. It didn’t have enough branding to belong to a real estate agent. It was too small to be a family car. The dust could have come from anywhere, but maybe it was from somewhere exotic. Somewhere like Louth?
Mary would want to know. After checking that Maeve was still distracted, Poppy quietly unlatched her gate and tiptoed closer to the car. It was slightly exhilarating to be on a mission. This was how you amused yourself as a suburban mum—you became a Desperate Housewife.
She reached the driver’s window and squinted through the dust. Hmmm. Not much, not even an empty Macca’s bag or a chocolate wrapper. There was loose change in the centre console. That wasn’t much of a hint. But, aha! There was a green canvas bag sitting in the footwell of the passenger seat. It looked full of … cash? Drugs? She couldn’t wait to brainstorm with Mary.
‘Poppy?’
She swivelled. Oh bugger.
‘Hi James,’ she said, forcing herself to make eye contact.
‘What were you doing?’ he asked.
‘I was …’ Poppy looked around desperately for inspiration. ‘Raking!’
Damn it . There was nothing more unbelievable than the truth. ‘I didn’t know it was your car.’ (Damn it again. The truth thing was not helping.) She hoped he wouldn’t notice the redness creeping across her cheeks.
‘Okay,’ he said slowly, his eyes narrowing. Poppy held his gaze determinedly. Play it cool. Do not let him see you blush .
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked. (The oldest trick in the book: turning defence into attack!)
‘Visiting someone,’ he said. ‘Before I start my shift.’
‘Oh.’ Poppy suddenly remembered her yellow-string-bikini neighbour. The thought of their combined tallness made her feel mildly sick. They amount of eye contact they could make. Imagine what their other body parts could do together.
‘Rightio,’ she said. (That sounded more middle-aged soccer dad than she’d intended.) ‘I hope you enjoyed your visit, though next time you should dress to match.’ She smirked as she gestured to his non-yellow attire of jeans and a grey jumper.
James raised an eyebrow.
‘I won’t hold you up,’ Poppy continued, bravely filling the silence. ‘You must need to rush off. Babies to deliver and all that.’
James’s eyebrow was still raised. Poppy wished she could smack it down. It had a real air of condescension, that bloody eyebrow.
‘Okay then, McKellar. I’ll see you round.’ His lips twitched slightly, and Poppy had the distinct impression that as soon as he turned away, his face would break into a big private grin. Douchebag.
He got in his car and started it as Poppy stood rooted to the footpath, watching him. Driving off, he raised his hand in farewell and Poppy found herself raising hers in return. A wisp of a thought formed in her head, but it vanished like smoke. She sensed, like a dream fading, that it had been significant.
‘Poppy, love. Is that you?’
‘Mary, yes,’ answered Poppy, startling from her thoughts.
‘Cuppa?’
‘I’ll grab Maeve!’
Five minutes later as they settled into the verandah chairs with Maeve next to them in the pram, Mary got straight down to business. How was Maeve sleeping? (Okay.) More jam drops? (Emphatic yes .) Any neighbourhood gossip? (Hot dude still sleeping with hot chick in number five, but we don’t like to talk about him so pretend I said nothing and let’s move on as though he doesn’t exist—except Poppy didn’t say that. She went with a polite: ‘Mmmm … no.’)
Mary’s fourth question was new: ‘Any men in your life?’
‘Er …’ Poppy swallowed a mouthful of jam drop. ‘Nope.’
‘What about Maeve’s dad?’
‘Uh, er …’ Poppy waved a non-existent bug from Maeve’s head. How could Poppy explain this to a lovely old lady who probably didn’t want her verandah sullied with such liberal use of swearwords?
‘And what about that old high-school boyfriend you told me about?’
‘Um …’ Poppy couldn’t even remember mentioning Henry to Mary. ‘Ah …’
Mary smiled at her expectantly. ‘I’ve got all the time in the world, love.’
‘Okay, well …’ Poppy cleared her throat and ran through a condensed timeline of both relationships, laying the detail on thick when it came to the last forty-eight hours, and by golly, there had been some details.
‘Goodness me,’ exclaimed Mary somewhat gratifyingly after she’d finished. ‘You know what you need?’
‘Please don’t say you have a lovely grandson.’
‘Oh, I have hordes of lovely grandsons, love, but that’s a discussion for another day. In the meantime, I think you need a holiday.’
‘A holiday?’ Poppy’s mind immediately drifted to tropical island getaways with all-you-can-drink swim-up bars. They were obviously out of the question in terms of both price and alcohol content.
‘Yes, for the Easter long weekend. I have a cabin at Burrendong Dam, but I won’t be able to go with my dodgy hip. I could give you my keys and you can take Maeve up. You’d both love it.’
‘Burrendong?’ Poppy wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m not really into fishing.’
‘Oh, love, that doesn’t matter at all. Go for the bushwalking and stay for the skies. It’s really magical. I think you should go. You deserve it.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. The idea of a holiday—even in a dusty country caravan park—felt too indulgent when she should be focusing on getting her life sorted for Maeve. Yes, this had been a crazy week, but she was making progress. For example, the house was clean. ( Victory! ) And soon her lawn would be denuded of those frost-muddled leaves. (Possibly.) There was real and significant progress happening on the other side of the hedge. You just had to look hard—and at very specific times. It would be risky to stall the momentum now.
No, she would stick to her current plan and have lunch with her parents and the neighbours, then watch TV while they played a round of digestive golf after pudding. Great. Yes. Fifth-wheeling on her parents’ double date and enduring endless questions about single parenting in the age of social media.
‘It’s so quiet up there,’ mused Mary.
Poppy thought of her mum’s screechy storytelling. And then it was a MALE midwife!
‘How quiet?’ Poppy asked.
‘Quiet enough to hear the magpies swoop, love. Pure serenity.’
Poppy lifted her daughter into her lap. Serenity . No questions about Patrick, or assertions that leaps were a figment of the modern imagination. Big skies and no-one in the world to judge her. That’s what she needed right now.
Poppy grabbed another jam drop from the plate and a smile spread across her face. ‘Okay, Mary—I’ll do it.’