Page 64 of Special Delivery
Poppy raised her cappuccino. ‘To being okay.’
April picked up her son’s bottle and clinked it against Poppy’s coffee. ‘To being okay,’ she echoed.
It was 11.30 am by the time the mothers’ group disbanded. There was a blizzard of sleet outside but The Bustle was toasty warm, so Poppy decided to hang around in case Henry popped in for a second coffee. She opened her phone to check her messages. Patrick hadn’t sent a follow-up text but he might not have remembered sending the first one. On her lap, Maeve’s body was slackening with sleep. Poppy lifted her carefully into the pram and covered her with a thick blanket. Then, on a cappuccino-fuelled high—before she could second-guess the impulse—Poppy deleted Patrick’s text. If he couldn’t be bothered asking about his daughter, who looked like a living angel sleeping so divinely under the pale pink blanket, then he didn’t deserve a response.
She pulled her laptop from the nappy bag and opened it on the table. Her fingers tapped the keyboard, the spinning wheel of death took its sweet time, the blue-and-pink Seek logo appeared, and everything felt strangely normal. There was no plague of locusts, nor a biblical rain of fire. She’d just deleted a text from Patrick and the world didn’t care.
‘I found a job,’ Poppy announced when Henry walked in ten minutes later. ‘Well, it’s a job ad, but I reckon I’m qualified so I sent in my résumé. It’s with Region Building Australia—the government agency. They’ve got a marketing and digital team.’
‘That’s great news,’ replied Henry. ‘The usual?’
Poppy gave him a thumbs up and he headed to the counter to order, poking his head under the pram hood to smile at Maeve as he passed. Poppy grinned at her laptop screen. Everything was turning out dandy.
‘Poppy?’ said a voice behind her. A queasy rush of adrenaline immediately saturated her nervous system. In this too-tiny town, it had only been a matter of time.
‘James!’ Her voice was an octave too high. He was standing there in his scrubs with a takeaway coffee. She hadn’t seen him walk in; she must have been engrossed in her laptop. His hair was as lustrous as ever and his scrubs stretched taut across his shoulders. Why did he always have to look like this? Three months of no contact other than a texted gif of Scott Cam dancing. She’d responded with three laughing-face emojis and that had been it. The whole exchange had felt cheap and frankly sad after the highs of the kitchen bench encounter.
‘It’s been a while,’ she said, glancing at Maeve, who was still serenely asleep.
James shifted uncomfortably. ‘Yeah, I’ve been studying heaps. Haven’t really seen anyone. I’ve been working, studying, working, studying. Bit of coffee in between. Not much else.’
Poppy’s jaw tensed. What was she supposed to say?
‘I’ve been coming here hoping to run into you,’ James said quickly. ‘I should have called or texted, but I left it too longand then I convinced myself that it would be better to have a conversation in person but …’ He took a deep breath. ‘It’s proven trickier to run into you than I’d thought. Have you stopped walking the golf course loop?’
Poppy narrowed her eyes. Where was this going?
James spoke in a rush. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That whole thing in your kitchen—I got carried away and I don’t want you to think I planned it or I was trying to take advantage of you.’
I wish you’d taken advantage of me, said Poppy’s mind traitorously. She’d told herself again and again that breaking off the kiss had been the best outcome. She didn’t need distractions; she needed to focus on her daughter. But then he turns up with his puppy dog eyes and his apology and her brain capitulates instantly. How embarrassingly un-feminist.
Since that night she’d tried to banish all images of broad-shouldered, dark-eyed men from her thoughts. Time had been helping to blur the memory of his breath on her neck—it was almost as though it had been a really hot dream, just a figment of her touch-starved imagination—but seeing him here brought back the crashing, desperate reality: that kiss had been the best of her life. Such a shame it would never happen again.
‘Poppy, I’m really sorry and I really hope we can go back to being friends,’ said James. His dark eyes were searching hers.
‘Of course,’ said Poppy automatically. She didn’t need distractions, and his excellent kissing definitely qualified as that.
James breathed a sigh of relief and ran a hand through his hair. ‘I’m so glad. You have no idea how often I’ve imagined this conversation.’
I bet I imagined it more, thought Poppy dryly.
‘I’m not lying when I say I’ve spent a small fortune buying coffee here hoping to run into you.’ He leaned closer and lowered his voice. ‘Controversially, I don’t get the appeal. I think the coffee’s better up the road.’
Poppy pursed her lips. ‘I come for the ambiance.’
‘I get that,’ said James, glancing at the walls around them. ‘The art is awesome. I wanted to buy some, but then I got targeted on Instagram and ended up buying these random prints from China instead. They took seven weeks to arrive and they won’t hang straight but they make me feel more worldly. Also, they cost twenty-seven dollars for four and you can’t put a price on that kind of bargain. Well, you can put a twenty-seven-dollar price on that, I guess—but you get what I mean.’
Poppy laughed despite herself. ‘Buying art is a very’—she searched for the right word—‘maturething for a grown male to do.’
‘I am mature,’ he said, smiling. ‘And tall.’
Poppy stared at him. Was that a reference to Kitchengate?!
‘Ahem, hi there.’ Henry was holding out Poppy’s coffee.
‘Thanks, Hen,’ she said, taking it. ‘James, this is Henry. Henry, this is James, my friend from—well, it’s a long story.’
‘I was her midwife,’ explained James, reaching out to shake Henry’s hand.
