Page 3 of Special Delivery
‘Um, sorry, why would you comb my hair?’ asked Poppy, wincing as she stepped through the automatic doors back into the shuddering heat.
‘Um, because I am maternal now, and I would look after you because I am a caring legend.’
‘Well, thanks, legend, but I’ll be a-okay out here in the sticks, so long as I stop yelling at vigilantes in the car park.’
‘Wait, what?’
Poppy groaned, a fresh layer of perspiration building at her temples. ‘I just yelled at some random dude in the car park. It was full crazy-preggers-lady mode. He rocked up and was being a douche about where I could park and I lost it.’
‘LOL—actual LOLs,’ Dani said, chortling. ‘You actually got rowdy at some poor old guy in the car park?’
Poppy groaned again. ‘He wasn’t even old. He was, like, our age.’
‘Was he hot, at least?’
Poppy smiled to herself. Her best friend was nothing if not predictable.
‘The main takeaway from the encounter was that he was a giant douche of the douchiest kind, but I guess he wasn’tterrible-looking,’ she admitted, thinking back to the man’s broad shoulders. ‘But in a really clichéd Ken doll kind of way,’ she clarified. ‘Not like a Ryan Gosling Ken; more like a basic model Ken, wearing scrubs. Boring. Totally wholemeal bread.’ She breathed deeply, trying to expel the heat from her throat. The back of her dress was stuck to her thighs. ‘Seriously, Dan, who does that? I don’t know who I am anymore. I mean, I’m fine, but—’
‘Are you though?’ Dani interrupted. Her friend’s tone was serious now.
Poppy sighed. ‘Honestly? I don’t know. I’m on autopilot. If I stop to think about it, I’ll get overwhelmed. It’s becoming so much more real now. I have no idea whether I’ll be a good mum or if I’ll cope on my own. I mean, you have Sam and it’s still been a whirlwind for you.’
‘Pops, I cannot even imagine how crazy this must feel, but you have to trust me when I say I know you’ll be okay. You’re clever, you’re strong, you’ve got your parents there. This baby is so lucky to have a mum like you. I mean that.’
It wasn’t that Poppy didn’t believe her friend; she knew Dani was sincere. It was just that her friend thought way too highly of her.
‘Thanks, Dan.’ Poppy reached into her handbag for the car keys as the LandCruiser came into view. ‘I love you.’
‘No worries, my dear,’ replied Dani, instantly jumping out of serious mode. ‘If you’re ever feeling overwhelmed, just close your eyes and imagine I’m right next to you, calming you with my melodious voice.’ At this point, her friend began belting out an enthusiastic rendition of ‘Lean On Me’.
‘Hanging up now!’ yelled Poppy, pressing the red button on her iPhone. She heard Dani begin to cackle before her name vanished from her screen.
It was amazing how such terrible singing could make her feel so profoundly soothed. Her fingers drummed the tune to ‘Lean On Me’ all the way home to her new rental, which, in every aspect, was worlds away from her old place. Her apartment in Sydney had been on the sixth floor, which felt fancy but not nauseatingly high, and if you did suffer from vertigo-induced queasiness you could always nip downstairs and self-medicate at the twenty-four-hour pharmacy or the wine bar across the street.
Her new place was in pure suburbia—unadulterated in every sense of the word. If a wine bar opened nearby it would have to serve sherry and port in a non-ironic way, given the median age of her neighbours. Poppy suspected she was the youngest in her new suburb by about forty years. The broadband was excellent, mind you, which was probably because most of her neighbours were still on the faxing bandwagon.
Everything was beige: the bricks, the roofs, the outfits. Poppy’s house looked like the house next to it, and the house next to that. The 1980s brick veneer was sun-faded and chipped, the grass was starched and prickly, and the verandah was tiled with pavers the colour of Betadine. When she’d given Dani a tour over FaceTime, her best friend had shrieked in faux delight, ‘Love a poo-brown palette!’ That pretty much summed it up.
Secretly, though, Poppy didn’t mind it. The street was lined with sprawling oaks and, most significantly, her rental had a garden. No-one in Sydney in their early thirties couldafford a garden unless they were a nepo baby or a white-collar criminal. To have grass and actual trees—plural!—felt almost Kardashian-level luxe.
Poppy walked across the dusty verandah and unlocked her front door. The view inside was starting to improve. A week ago it had been a labyrinth of cardboard boxes, so disorganised that on her first night she couldn’t find the cutlery so had eaten her takeaway with her bare hands. Seven days later—put it down to the prenatal nesting or a desperate instinct for self-preservation—the boxes had all been unpacked, flattened and deposited in the recycling bin. The gaping lack of furniture was a stark reminder of her new-found aloneness and everything left behind in Sydney, but slowly she was cobbling together a neat, if sparse, functional three-bedroom home.Ready for a family, she thought grimly. Of sorts.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Mum.
‘Darling, I just saw two-for-one summer dresses at Rockmans!’ her mother announced by way of greeting.
Poppy rolled her eyes. Her mum was an avid bargain hunter and prone to excitement at very mundane things. Weed killer, umbrellas, a well-boiled egg. ‘That’s great, Mum,’ she replied. ‘You should treat yourself.’
‘Not for me, darling—for you! Lots of snazzy prints. They’d go very nicely with the baby bump. And some of them are that stretchy fabric you could yank down for breastfeeding!’
‘Mum, I don’t think I’m the target market for Rockmans.’
‘What do you mean, darling?’ Chrissie McKellar still thought she and her daughter shared the same taste in fashion despite a clear divergence at age nine, when Poppy had askedSanta for a Roxy bikini and board shorts combo (still an iconic look) but ended up with a paisley-print Cancer Council rashie instead. It was pathetic that two decades on she still didn’t know how to admit she hated paisley without hurting her mum’s feelings. Poppy sighed. ‘Thanks, Mum. I’ll take a look tomorrow.’
‘Excellent!’ said her mother. ‘Now, how did the appointment go? Was there much discussion aboutyour situation?’
Her mother always said ‘your situation’ in a loud stage whisper, clearly intending to spark intrigue, which Poppy knew it definitely did among her mum’s golf friends.
