Second Verse

By

Natasha West

Copyright © 2024 by Natasha West

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

With thanks to Brooke

One

The morning Norah Cauldwell saw Poppy Jennings again for the first time in twenty years at the gates of Northwood Primary School, it was a major head fuck. Like Norah didn’t have enough going on without running into the all-time ex. But life was gunning for her that day.

Her husband Max had gotten the day off to a cracking start first thing by announcing that he was thinking about divorce. It wasn’t the first time, and Norah was starting to take the announcements with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, it was a hell of a bomb to get dropped on Norah five seconds after her eyelids opened. So she’d had to have that talk before she could even put on a bra.

‘I don’t know if this is working,’ was how he put it.

That phrasing angered Norah more than what he was actually saying. Obviously, it wasn’t working. They both knew that. He didn’t have to keep announcing it like it was his own personal revelation. Norah might not know much, but she knew she wasn’t in a good marriage. Max could have credited her with enough intelligence to suss that out. But she supposed that was simply another symptom of the larger problem.

The conversation resolved with the conclusion they were going to have to go to couples’ counselling, if only to defer the inevitable. But defer it, Norah would. Their five-year-old son, Freddie, would be devastated if they split, and Norah would have done anything to save him from hurt if it was within her power.

With all that to contend with, Poppy was not on Norah’s mind at all when she walked (and occasionally pulled) Freddie to school that Monday morning. So she looked like she always did for drop-off—like crap. She worked from home, and though she wasn’t at the slobbing-up-to-the-gates-in-her-pyjamas level, she wasn’t far off. She was in sweats, with her hair pulled into a greasy ponytail and eye bags for days.

‘Come on, Freddie, we’re gonna be late,’ she said to her son for the fourth time.

‘No, we’re not. It’s only 8.40,’ he insisted, looking at his new Pokémon watch.

‘But we’re six minutes away. Add that on to the time, and what do we get?’ she explained with a patience she had to force.

Freddie groaned and quickened his step, but only just.

At the tall, wrought iron gates of Northwood Primary School, parents were pushing pell-mell into the playground, the late crowd perpetually a few minutes behind. Norah was a regular in their number.

But a few were not pushing, having completed drop off in comfortable time, and were just standing to chat on the street. One such woman was turned away from Norah and somehow, despite Norah’s haste, caught her eye. She had her back to Norah and was chatting to Susan Graham, a lean woman with the black bobbed hair of a villain. This was handy because, as far as Norah was concerned, she was one. Norah disliked Susan because she was always putting passive-aggressive comments in the parents’ WhatsApp group about the source of the latest head lice infestation—determined to find patient zero, like some kind of nit Poirot.

As Norah passed them, she noted Susan talking to a woman facing the other way. The mystery woman had a perfect caramel messy bun, and her crisp denim shirt was cinched at the woman’s small waist by a thick leather belt. Her jeans fit perfectly, and her high-top white Converse were box fresh. It was a casual outfit, but at the same time, perfectly executed. Even from the back, she was the definition of effortlessly cool.

Norah, only ever a frumpy, vaguely human-shaped blob at this time of the morning, thought, ‘Who has the time?’ and kept walking. She was well aware it was a thought coated in envy.

She took Freddie to the first year’s entrance of the old, red brick building, and he ran in before she could even say goodbye. He had shit to do. Norah exchanged a brief nod with his nervous yet sweet young teacher, Miss Potter, and headed back home to Google marriage counsellors.

But on the way out, she passed Susan and the mystery woman once more, coming a little closer this time, enough to catch a snatch of conversation.

‘If you want to have a voice here, you’ve just got to join the PTA,’ Susan was saying.

‘Well, I’d have to see if that’s doable right now,’ the woman said.

Norah immediately had a funny feeling that she didn’t understand. Later, she would come to understand that she’d recognised the voice without realising it consciously. But at that moment—before the woman turned and Norah’s mind slid out of her head and down her leg—she only knew that something had set off what Freddie would have called her Spidey Sense, but Norah would have said was a distinct feeling of, ‘Uh oh.’

Norah didn’t intend to pause, but then Susan locked eyes with her. ‘Oh Norah, late again?’ she said in a tone that was probably supposed to sound affectionate and familiar but was obviously an admonishment.

‘You know me,’ Norah shrugged, not playing Susan’s game.

The woman turned. ‘Norah?’ she said, agape.

Norah could no longer deny that she was looking right at Poppy Jennings. Childhood friend, former lover, and the one true mortal enemy of Norah’s life.

Two

Though it was her daughter’s first day at a new school, Poppy Jennings was the nervous one. She’d been up since six this morning, fighting it. The form that took for Poppy was a thorough quaffing. She was going to look as close to perfect as she could for the school run. Her hair needed to be on point and her outfit pristine. She didn’t know if she could keep it up ad infinitum, but for now, it was the only way to cope with all the changes. She was going in strong.

She loaded Luna into the BMW for her first day at Northwood (a school she knew well, having attended it from four to eighteen) and travelled the mile there, a walkable distance to be sure. But mornings only worked if they drove. If Poppy attempted to walk Luna to school, Luna would triple the time it took to make the journey. She might graze a knee to what she considered a near-fatal degree, launch an involved rescue for a pavement-stranded worm, or decide she was not actually that keen on going to school today because she wanted to watch Moana three times back-to-back. Some days, it could be all three.

But somehow, Poppy wasn’t nervous about the one thing it turned out she should have been. Because what were the odds she would run into Norah, now with her own five-year-old, at the same school they’d both attended as children? It was an absurd coincidence, too unlikely to consider. Even though life had brought Poppy back here, it seemed impossible she would find Norah back here, too. She’d be somewhere else, wouldn’t she? Doing cool things. Not standing there in sweats, looking life-worn.

But she was here, staring Poppy in the eye with an expression that could only be described as mild horror.

‘Norah!’ Poppy exclaimed. She waited for a response for agonising seconds.

And then Norah said, ‘Do I know you?’

Poppy almost laughed. Norah knew precisely who she was. Her reaction had made that crystal clear. ‘Norah, I think you know...’ she began to say.

Norah then made the most preposterous song and dance of remembrance. She clicked her fingers. ‘Oh, right, it’s Poppy, isn’t it? Sorry, it’s been so long.’

Poppy decided to roll with the ludicrous performance. There was nothing to be gained from calling her out. ‘OK, sure,’ she said evenly.

Susan suddenly jumped in. ‘You two know each other?’

Oh boy, what a question. It created the most terrible pause.

‘We grew up on the same street,’ Poppy eventually managed to say.

Norah shot her an inscrutable look before she turned to Susan. ‘Yeah. We both went here, actually.’

Susan clapped her hands together. ‘And you didn’t know your kids came here together? How funny.’

Poppy thought that was an interesting word choice, seeing as no one appeared close to even cracking a smile right now.

‘It’s mine’s first day,’ Poppy said. ‘We moved recently.’

‘What class?’ Norah asked, her eyebrows knitting together in a familiar expression, even after all this time. She was worried.