Page 48 of Special Delivery
Poppy narrowed her eyes. ‘Can you give me a hand or what?’
James smiled, taking the bowl from her. ‘It would be my pleasure.’
Poppy followed him to the tables, where he set the salad down and surveyed the chairs that were slowly filling up.
‘Let’s sit over here,’ he said, walking towards Kate. ‘The key is not to get stuck on the kids’ table or they’ll make you tell jokes all day and try to pull down your pants.’ He glanced at her dress. ‘Well, maybe not you, but you get my drift. Youdon’t want the drunken aunts and uncles, either; they’ll try to bait you about all this woke Gen Y stuff. And you don’t want to be sitting with the teenagers, because the boys use too much Rexona and it can put you off your food. And then …’
Poppy let his commentary wash over her, enjoying how he connected the dots in a busy, colourful mosaic. Within ten minutes, she had a plate heaped with turkey, ham, green beans with slivered almonds and lemony baby potatoes, there were plump slices of tomato with shreds of basil and silken burrata. There wasn’t even room for the cauliflower and pomegranate salad. The cotton of the white tablecloths brushed her legs as she sat down next to James and another half-glass of champagne materialised from a friendly uncle. Maeve was still snoozing in the shade. Poppy suddenly wished everyone would pick up their forks. She was starving.
‘Ahem.’ The friendly uncle cleared his throat. He had James’s jawline and shoulders, giving him the appearance of a retired tennis player. The man tried again and clinked a fork against his beer. ‘Hey, shut up, you lot!’
The table fell silent. He cleared his throat again. ‘I want to say thank you to everyone who helped prepare this feast for us.’
‘You could have helped!’ piped up James’s mum, and the others roared with laughter.
The man grinned sheepishly. ‘Thanks, Donna-tron, but no-one wants food poisoning at Easter, especially with the septic tank situation out here. I’ll shut up soon, I just wanted to say how special it is to have you all here this weekend—even you, Cooper.’ His laser eyes homed in on Kate’s son, who immediately stopped flicking peas at his twin brother. ‘I know Mary isso sad to be missing this, but nothing makes her happier than knowing how much we all enjoy each other’s company.’
‘Speak for yourself!’ yelled an uncle from the back, and another wave of laughter erupted.
‘Alright, alright, that’s enough from you, Barry! I can see you’re not enjoying this at all.’ He pointed to Barry’s overflowing plate. ‘Well, let’s all dig in and be thankful for having such a motley crew of a family. Cheers!’
The table raised their glasses and a hearty ‘cheers’ rang out across the valley.
James’s siblings and their partners were all warm and friendly, with the athletic frames that Poppy was starting to associate with this tribe. It was like a Noah’s ark of Olympians: Kate and Dereck, Michael and Maggie, Dave and Trudy. Poppy ate slowly, squeezing in mouthfuls between answering questions. They wanted to know about Maeve, her job, where she lived, why she’d left Sydney. Poppy hadn’t spoken about herself in so long, it amused her to think how neatly she could summarise her life for strangers: Maeve was sleeping okay, she’d worked in marketing, she lived in Orange now, she’d left Sydney to raise her daughter.
When James’s youngest brother, Michael, asked how she’d become friends with James, Poppy realised she had no idea. Forty-eight hours ago she wouldn’t even have said they were friends, but they’d just spent a whole day together, their conversation floating from funny to sad to serious to stupid.
James bumped her knee under the table and caught her eye. Poppy bumped his back with a playful smirk. She hadn’t realised their legs were so close, and now, wow, yep, his thighwas touching hers. Did he realise? Poppy tried to surreptitiously inch her leg away, ignoring the fact that all the heat in her body now seemed to be redirecting to her left knee.
‘I helped deliver Maeve,’ James said.
‘No way!’ cried Kate. Her expression twisted from wonder to shock to alarm. ‘How … was that?’
Poppy tried not to wince and wrenched her knee cleanly to the right. ‘No comment,’ she replied, grimacing.
‘Wait, wait, wait!’ interrupted Michael, turning to James. ‘You mean you pulled the baby out? You were at thebusiness end?!’ His eyes were wide with horror.
‘Not quite,’ said James. ‘But I will say …’
Kate threw a scrunched-up serviette at him. ‘Patient confidentiality, Jimmy boy!’
James threw up his hands in surrender. ‘Poppy was a star, that’s all I’ll say. But yes, it is quite funny that we’re friends now.’
Poppy’s ears were burning suddenly. The casual compliments from James were starting to accumulate like weights in her chest. She didn’t know what to do with them. Ignore them? Assume he was like this with everyone? Was she so emotionally stunted after nine years with Patrick that she’d forgotten guys could be friendly, no strings attached?
‘Even if you had been swearing like a truck driver there would have been no judgement from me,’ said Kate, and her sisters-in-law nodded vigorously. ‘These men have no idea what we go through.’
Michael piped up, ‘I dunno, sis. Maggie almost tore my hand off she was gripping me so hard and her fingernails weresharp. It was pretty intense for me too.’
Kate and Maggie looked at each other meaningfully before walloping him over the head in unison. The rest of the table laughed.
‘Well, Poppy, since you had to go through childbirth with James, I think it’s only fair we share some of his embarrassing stories,’ declared Kate.
‘Where do we start?’ quipped Mike.
‘He wasobsessedwith Adam Gilchrist,’ supplied Dave.
‘Ah yes!’ cried Kate. ‘The cricket phase!’
