Page 94 of Special Delivery
‘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, buteven 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’tentitled 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 Iswearhe 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 beenpregnant. 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, goodandbad? Then she remembered the disgust on his face that night after the races and her airwayssuddenly 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.
