Page 39 of Special Delivery
‘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. Thetruth 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 areyoudoing 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 wispof 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? (Emphaticyes.) 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 onthick 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.
