‘Was she angry?’

‘I don’t know,’ Poppy said, aware of how utterly useless she was being. ‘Should I go?’

Norah sighed. ‘Probably.’

‘OK. I’m sorry.’

‘What for?’

‘If this is gonna be a problem...’

Norah shook her head. ‘I mean... I think she was just shocked. I can understand that.’ She gave a nervous giggle. ‘I’m kind of shocked myself.’

Poppy nodded and kept nodding for longer than was normal or necessary. ‘Yeah, right, shock. Yeah. It’s all... Yes.’ She finally managed to stop her head from going up and down and climbed off the bed. She realised her clothes were somewhat askew, and she tucked and smoothed until she felt vaguely together. ‘Sorry. I mean, not sorry. About all of it. Just that last bit. That wasn’t good. The rest of it was... nice.’

Norah looked up at her. ‘Nice?’ she repeated. She looked slightly offended.

‘It was awesome,’ Poppy said quickly, which felt like an overcorrect. She needed to get out of here before she could completely fumble this. Why was she acting so bloody goofy? ‘Let’s talk tomorrow.’

Norah smiled. ‘OK. Tomorrow.’

She left the bedroom carefully, looking around in case Mrs Cauldwell was waiting to beat her to death with a frying pan. But the hallway was dead silent, and Poppy fled without further incident.

Eleven

Now

Well, that was that. Norah wasn’t gonna be able to go back to The Sugar Cube now. If she wanted a lunch out, she’d have to go to the newsagent for a prepackaged parody of a sandwich.

That was annoying. She liked The Sugar Cube. How much territory was she prepared to surrender to Poppy? What if Poppy turned up in Tesco? Would she quit eating altogether?

No. The Sugar Cube was one of those little pleasures that made Norah’s life bearable. She couldn’t let it go.

It was funny that it took a bagel to turn Norah’s thinking around, but that was her red line. She was going to have to figure out how to be a normal person around Poppy. There was no better time to start on that because it was almost time to get Freddie. She was going to see Norah at the school gates imminently.

She grabbed Freddie’s post-school snacks out of the cupboard and headed to the school, arriving at the gates just in time to see Poppy pull up in her car across the road. She got out and jogged across the road.

Norah braced herself. ‘Hello,’ she greeted Poppy.

Poppy looked around her like Norah was talking to someone else. ‘Oh, me? Hi.’

‘Your shift finished?’ Norah asked, trying to do an impression of how normal people sounded.

‘Uh, yeah. How about you?’ she asked anxiously as they headed through the gates and across the playground.

‘Yeah, I work from home.’

‘What do you do?’

‘Customer service online.’

‘Oh,’ Poppy said, a chuckle escaping her.

‘Is that funny?’ Norah asked defensively.

Poppy looked slightly scared, which Norah didn’t hate.

‘Not as such.’ Poppy paused and licked her lips nervously. ‘I was just... I wouldn’t have expected you to do a people job.’

Norah didn’t say anything.

‘I just mean, you weren’t really... You liked your own company, as I recall,’ Poppy added.

‘Not always,’ Norah said, though she knew it was true.

She wasn’t and had never been a Chatty Kathy. The only reason her current job was bearable was that she wasn’t having to speak to anyone using her mouth. Typing on a screen left a gap between her and the customer, which made it less like dealing with an actual human and all that came with that.

‘Sorry, I’m sure... Anyway,’ Poppy muttered, embarrassed.

Norah was annoyed with herself. She was supposed to be developing a cordiality with Poppy. Hell of a start.

‘Sometimes you just gotta suck it up and do something you hate to pay the bills,’ Norah said. ‘You don’t always get to choose. Especially when people are relying on you.’

Poppy gave a knowing nod. ‘You said it.’

They joined the queue at the door, waiting for the kids to be released. They didn’t say anything else to each other, but Norah thought, OK, that was normal. Right? No one would have looked at that and known we’d been what we’d been.

Twenty Years Ago

Norah was a mess. She’d had no sleep. How could she snooze after all that? She’d discovered a new element of her sexuality and been outed all in about the span of half an hour. She couldn’t process it. So she was choosing not to.

She went to school and headed to art. Joy was hard at work, moved on from her last painting of Edgar Allan Poe and halfway through a haunting depiction of Mary Shelley working in a call centre.  

‘She looks exhausted,’ Norah said, examining Mary.

‘She’s got to meet unrealistic targets, and she’s completely behind,’ Joy explained. ‘I based it on my mum’s job.’

‘It’s great. Totally depressing.’

‘Thanks,’ Joy said with a rare smile.

Norah got out her latest panel and went to work on it. Unfortunately, the pencils were now linked to what had happened with Poppy, so Norah was distracted straight off the bat. But with a herculean mental effort, she pushed that to the side and managed to crack on.

But then she happened to glance over at the door, and she saw Poppy out there, looking right at her. She gave a little wave. She looked nervous. It was alarmingly cute.

Norah took a deep breath, put down her pencil, and went out to talk to her.

‘Hi,’ Poppy said, sounding different. She was usually so easy and casual about everything. Today, she looked like she was at a job interview. Formal and uptight.