CHAPTER 39
The phone buzzed on the kitchen bench. An unknown number was calling.
‘Hello?’ Poppy said cautiously.
‘Put your heels on, McKellar, we’re going out.’
‘What? Who is this?’
‘It’s Kate, James’s sister! I’ve been meaning to get in touch for ages and I was speaking to April, who mentioned you were friends, so I decided you’re crashing our dinner date. Mr Spice King at seven thirty.’
Poppy replayed the words in her head in case she’d missed something. Kate was calling? And she knew April? Since when? And why and how? And also: it was already five past seven.
‘It’s all sorted,’ Kate continued. ‘I called the restaurant and they’ve changed the booking and Harper’s in the car ready to babysit.’
‘Hi, Poppy,’ called Harper from the background.
‘We should be at your place in about twenty minutes. You’re next door to Mary, right?’
‘Uh, yes, that’s right,’ said Poppy, trying to catch up.
‘Cool. We’ll see you soon.’
‘Wait!’ Poppy said, trying to regain some level of control. ‘Maeve is—’
‘—sick, I know. I can’t remember who told me. April? Or James? No, it was the lady at the pharmacy—she golfs with your mum. Anyway, her conjunctivitis will be no match for Harper. She’s been around her fair share of pooing, spewing babies. A bit of eye gunk won’t faze her.’
‘But … but,’ stammered Poppy. ‘How do you even know April?’
‘Played rep netball with her for ten years,’ replied Kate. ‘She’s a monster on the centre court. A demon on the dancefloor too.’
Poppy chuckled. She could corroborate that last bit. ‘Okay, I’ll get ready. Is Mr Spice King the karaoke place?’
‘Sure is,’ replied Kate cheerfully. ‘You’re under no obligation to participate, but I must warn you that April gets very domineering with a mic. She calls herself a red-headed Beyoncé.’
Kate arrived twenty minutes later, flanked by a baggy-jeaned Harper. Poppy gave the teenager a tour of the house, detailed instructions for the baby monitor, a full rundown of bottles, nappies, formula tins and their precise locations, and finally, the password for the wi-fi. Harper looked most interested in that.
As Poppy climbed into Kate’s car, she checked her phone in case Harper had texted between her leaving the front door and reaching the driveway. Unsurprisingly, there were no notifications.
‘Relax, mate,’ said Kate. ‘You’ve done this before, remember?’
The restaurant was packed, to the extent that Poppy had to suck in her stomach to squeeze between the tables. April was already seated, wearing an emerald lurex skivvy that made her eyes look even greener.
‘Took the liberty of ordering a bottle,’ she announced by way of greeting. ‘What are you wearing, doll?’ she asked Kate. ‘It’s, like, six degrees outside.’
‘It’s the first day of spring, hence …’ Kate waved her hands at her leather miniskirt and legs that were preposterously tanned for this early in the season.
‘Goal attacks,’ said April, rolling her eyes. ‘Such show-offs.’
‘I knew it,’ Poppy said, sliding into a chair.
‘Knew what?’ asked Kate.
‘It’s so obvious you’d play goal attack and April would play centre. You have very conspicuous GA and centre energy. Unco girls like me can pick it instantly. It must be evolutionary—my way of working out the leaders of the pack so I can convince them not to feed me to the wolves.’
‘No wolf would want you,’ scoffed April. ‘You’d be too gristly now your boobs have deflated.’
‘So true,’ said Poppy with a groan. ‘And you haven’t even seen me naked.’
‘Ha! You’re not my type.’ April winked. ‘But I’ve been wanting to ask: did anyone get naked after the races? And I’m not actually asking you,’ she said to Kate.
‘Good,’ said Kate. ‘Because you know I don’t have sex anymore. Three times for four kids was plenty enough for me. Happy to be celibate for the next few decades.’
‘I’m sure Dereck is thrilled with that.’
‘He loves me for my intellect,’ Kate retorted.
April snickered. ‘Back to my original question. Poppy, what happened after the Royal?’
A shaky movie montage flashed through Poppy’s mind. Dancing, drinking, more drinking, Henry, James, him yelling, her yelling, her crying. Thinking about it still lanced her with pain.
‘Nothing,’ she lied.
‘Nothing?’ repeated April sceptically. ‘From my vantage point on the dance floor, I absolutely thought you were on there. James was definitely keen.’
‘He was?!’ Kate exclaimed.
‘He was totally keen,’ said April.
‘This is massive news!’ cried Kate.
April grinned. ‘Poppy, you need to tell us everything that happened between you and James.’
‘Not everything!’ yelped Kate. ‘Remember I am his blood relation. Please keep it PG.’
‘Nothing happened, I swear,’ said Poppy. It wasn’t entirely the truth but it was pretty darn close. If he hadn’t told anyone, she sure as hell wouldn’t.
‘Damn it.’ Kate banged her fist on the table. ‘You would be so good for him. He should definitely have tapped that.’
Poppy coughed on her champagne. ‘I thought we were keeping it PG.’
April laughed. ‘Her definition of PG is—how should I put it?—loose.’
‘Anyhow,’ said Poppy, ‘I’m a single mum. I have too much baggage. I’m sure he isn’t interested.’
‘Children, schmildren,’ said Kate, waving her glass. ‘He’s obsessed with kids. He would not be turned off by you being a single mum and I definitely thought you’d be his type.’
April looked at Kate meaningfully. ‘Especially given she’s the opposite of …’
‘Exactly,’ nodded Kate.
Poppy was missing something.
‘I’m the opposite of who?’ she demanded.
‘Adelaide,’ said Kate, her voice dripping with revulsion.
‘He’s moving to Adelaide?’ cried Poppy. ‘But I thought he got into Melbourne Uni.’ Adelaide was even worse than Melbourne. He might as well move to Moscow.
‘He got into CSU Orange, too,’ Kate said, ‘but we’re not talking about cities; Adelaide is his ex.’ She scowled. ‘They were engaged but they ended it last October. She had an affair with the drummer of the band that used to play at the Ex-Services’ Club. No loss, really. We all hated her.’
‘Oh my gosh,’ whispered Poppy. This was critical new information. ‘Did she break his heart?’
‘Nah,’ Kate said. ‘That was what bummed him out the most. When it happened he realised he didn’t even care that much. Like, he’d just got used to her being around and, being the good guy he is, he proposed because he thought he should, but when the shit hit the fan he realised he didn’t actually love her. He’d wasted four years with a peroxide princess who thought Garth Brooks was a homewares shop.’
‘Ouch.’ Poppy winced.
‘Precisely,’ said April.
‘So when you guys hit it off at the dam, our radars went completely haywire because we all knew Adelaide would never have come to the dam, let alone enjoyed it.’
‘She was a grade-A bitch,’ April agreed, gulping her champagne. ‘He was always too good for her.’
‘So why did they get together in the first place?’ asked Poppy.
‘Because it’s James!’ cried Kate, and April nodded as if that explained everything.
‘I don’t get it.’
‘Because he’s always the good guy,’ said Kate. ‘He never does the breaking up, he never pulls anyone into line, he just smiles and cops shit, and then deals with it stoically, because that’s what he’s always done. Ever since Dad left, he’s just got on with it. He doesn’t want anyone to think he’s remotely like our father. He was so determined to never be the dickhead that he went to the other extreme and became this pushover who smiled and nodded when his girlfriend said she hated his hair and tried to tell us hippos were native to Australia.’
Poppy spluttered her drink. ‘I know I should be concerned about the hippo thing, but you’re actually serious that she didn’t like his hair?!’
‘The girl was a fool,’ muttered Kate.
‘Wow,’ said Poppy slowly. For anyone to think James’s hair was anything less than outstanding was criminal, but even more confusing was Kate and April’s character profile of James. It was way out of sync with hers. ‘I would never have picked James for a pushover. I mean, when we first met, I thought he was an arrogant douche.’
‘What?’ asked Kate and April in unison. They sounded confused now.
‘Was that because you were in labour?’ asked Kate. ‘Because during all three of my labours I despised Dereck. During the twins’ labour, I threw a custard cup at him.’
‘She did,’ said April. ‘It split his lip. You can check the twins’ baby photos.’
‘I actually met James before I was in labour,’ admitted Poppy.
‘Huh?’ said Kate. ‘I could have sworn he said that’s how you met.’
A distant alarm bell clanged in Poppy’s mind. If James hadn’t told his sister about their first encounter he must have a reason for that. (Was he trying to protect her reputation? Or his own? To be honest, they both deserved better than that first impression.) Poppy tried to keep her voice neutral. ‘We did meet at the hospital,’ she said.
Kate and April shared a look. ‘There’s more to this story,’ said April. ‘I can feel it in my waters.’
Poppy considered her options. Either tell the truth and unmask herself as a nutjob, or lie and have the truth catch up with her another day. It was a zero-sum game. She sighed. ‘It was a really hot day …’
She told an edited version of the story—without mentioning Kate’s brother looking like a sexily evil Ken doll—but touched on all the major points: stealing a car space she wasn’t entitled to, the yelling, the sweating, the fact he probably saw her undies.
Kate exhaled deeply. ‘No. Frickin. Way.’
Poppy looked at her plate, embarrassed. A common theme of recent weeks had been realising how selfish she’d been and it wasn’t getting any easier to accept.
‘No, no, no, you don’t understand!’ cried Kate. ‘He told me about that car park drama! He literally called me after this happened! I had no idea it was you! This is a sign, this is a sign!’
‘Hold up, girl,’ said April, raising her palms. ‘Explain yourself.’
‘We’d been having some deep sibling therapy,’ began Kate. ‘Basically me ribbing him on FaceTime for being so clueless about life. So we’d just had this big D and M about how he needs to live his best life and stop putting up with the Adelaides of the world and blah, blah, blah, and I think nothing of it, like I’ve just done my sisterly good deed for the day, when he calls me twenty minutes later and I swear he is high. He’s cackling like a maniac—well, James can’t cackle, his voice is too deep—but he’s laughing, because he reckons he followed my advice and this girl basically told him to stick it.’
Poppy cringed. ‘Stick it’ would have been so much better than the goody-two-shoes disaster.
‘Then he mentioned this girl was pregnant and suddenly I’m all like, “Whoa, Jimmy, did you really need to lose it at a pregnant chick?” Because I understand that he needs to be his authentic self, but even though he’s a midwife and a great brother, he’s never been pregnant . And like, seriously, the world needs to go easy on pregnant ladies.’
‘Hear, hear!’ said April, nodding furiously.
Kate continued, ‘But he was totally unapologetic. He basically said this chick could handle it, and when I asked how he knew he said, “Oh, she was a ball of fire.”’
‘Is that a good thing?’ asked April.
‘Yes, it’s a good thing!’ cried Kate. ‘He’s so black and white, he’s basically a penguin. To him, everything is binary. People are good or bad, tall or short, pregnant or not pregnant. You’re either allowed to park in the car space or you’re not. The fact he could tell that your reaction came from a place of strength and not innate badness was huge.’ She clapped her hands together. ‘No offence, Poppy, I was stoked when you guys were hitting it off at the dam, but a part of me was like “he needs a fire girl” and now I find out you’re the OG fire girl. Talk about next-level serendipity!’
Poppy gulped her champagne. This made no sense. She wasn’t a fireball. She was a wet blanket. She’d been so afraid of confrontation it had taken her nine years to confront her own feelings about Patrick. That whole car park incident had been an aberration. And what were Kate and April talking about? James wasn’t a pushover—she’d only ever known him to excel in confrontation. He was self-assured to the point of arrogance.
Unless … James had definitely brought out her inner velociraptor—had she done the same to him? Her fingers trembled as she gripped her champagne flute. Were they so combustible together because they made each other burn brighter—in every way, good and bad? Then she remembered the disgust on his face that night after the races and her airways suddenly felt thick. She was being stupid. She was making crazy assumptions; they clearly didn’t know each other at all. She was suddenly aware that Kate had no idea James hated her right now.
Up at the bar, Mr Spice King himself had appeared and was rolling out a portable karaoke machine.
‘To signs!’ declared Kate, raising her glass rapturously.
‘To signs,’ April repeated.
Poppy lifted her glass and attempted to smile. There was only one way to avoid feeling these feelings, so she tipped the rest of her champagne down her throat.