Page 38 of Special Delivery
‘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 hadlovedhim. 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 couldlove 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.’ Andthatwould 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.
