Now

Norah had to admit, Freddie seemed happy playing with Luna. But Norah wanted to kill Max all the same. Poppy was a safe pair of hands, but Max hadn’t known that! He’d dumped their child on a stranger and run off to yet another work emergency. Norah hadn’t even seen the text until twenty minutes after it hit her phone because Freddie had been blowing it up with his usual cryptic emoji streams sent from his dad’s phone. A dog, a sloth, an otter, five kisses and twelve thumbs up.

Consequently, when Max’s message came through, she’d felt the vibration but hadn’t thought it urgent and ignored it, up to her eyeballs at that very moment, loading up the Tesco click-and-collect order into the car. Why hadn’t he called her and checked it was OK before he’d buggered off?

Well, that was the point, wasn’t it? He didn’t want to give her a chance to say no. He was asking for forgiveness rather than permission, one of his worst habits.

Norah couldn’t wait to tell the couples’ therapist about this. Hopefully, she’d join Norah in ripping Max a new arsehole, in her measured way. Norah knew you couldn’t technically win couples’ therapy, but she was gonna be a tiny bit victorious in the next session. Let him say everything was her fault after this.

Poppy brought her a coffee, reminding her that as well as being angry, she should be embarrassed, too. Poppy had been placed squarely in the middle of this. Of all people, it had to be her. To be so utterly frazzled in her presence was uncomfortable, to say the least. And Norah had let a jab at Max slip out when she first got in, so Poppy knew her marriage was, currently, for shit.

‘You OK?’ Poppy questioned, not leaving the table. The place was dead except for them and the kids.

‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ she responded.

Poppy nodded. ‘OK,’ she said gently.

Norah didn’t know why, but that pissed her off. ‘What?’

‘What?’ Poppy mirrored.

Norah realised she was being defensive and weird. ‘I... Sorry.’

‘Did I do something?’ Poppy asked.

‘No,’ Norah said.

Poppy hovered, looking a little pensive. And then she sat down and gave Norah an extremely direct look. ‘I can’t do this anymore.’

Norah was wide-eyed. ‘What can’t you do?’

‘Dance around this. I just want to acknowledge that I know it’s weird that I’m back. And I know you’re not happy about it,’ Poppy said plainly.

Norah felt a bead of sweat run down her spine. ‘I n-never said anything like that,’ she stuttered.

‘You’re going to pretend there’s no problem? That’s how you want to handle this?’ Poppy asked her.

Norah felt a strong, inbuilt instinct to bluff her way through this conversation. It would have been so easy to run for the most convenient conversation exit—denial. But something in her, something even stronger, couldn’t do it, didn’t want it.

‘No. Obviously, it’s weird,’ she admitted.

Poppy smiled, relieved. ‘Acknowledging the problem. That’s a good start.’

‘To what?’ Norah asked.

Poppy shrugged. ‘I really don’t know.’

They looked at each other for a long moment, and Norah felt the corners of her mouth trying to move in an upward direction. She fought it bravely, but the trouble was, she knew that Poppy knew she was trying not to smile because Poppy was grinning at her. Norah cracked. She started to laugh. Poppy laughed right along with her. It felt good, like getting into a warm bath after a walk in the cold rain.

‘OK, well, I guess you can stop being so weird now,’ Poppy said.

‘Like it was just me?’ Norah shot back.

Poppy flashed her teeth. ‘You got me there, Cauldwell.’

Norah felt a funny little feeling in her tummy when Poppy said her last name. The intimacy of it recalled their younger selves so vividly.

Twenty Years Ago

Norah was lying in her bed, naked under the sheets, staring at the ceiling in sheer amazement. She had officially been devirginated by Poppy. Six months ago, she was the cool girl who lived down the street, a childhood friend, yet a stranger, and now Norah knew the ins and outs of her body. Life was officially nuts.

She wished Poppy hadn’t had to leave. Norah would have loved to have kept her in her bed all night long. If only her bloody mother wasn’t such a killjoy with a pathological aversion to knocking. Heaven forefend Norah have a bit of privacy. That she be allowed to have sex at the grand old age of eighteen.

Her mother should have appreciated that she’d waited for the right one. She’d slept with someone who cared about her and who she cared about. Her mother couldn’t have asked for more of her. Well, Norah supposed her mother might have asked her to do all that with a different gender. But Norah felt in her heart that Poppy was the only person she could have been with. It had to be fated.

Norah was filled with the possibility of Poppy. She was nervous about her, too, but her worries simply couldn’t compete with what had just happened. Her body felt like it still had Poppy’s hands on it, like she’d left an impression of them, indelibly.

Was this, as she suspected, love? Was this what it felt like? Norah didn’t have a point of comparison. She’d liked people. She’d had crushes. She’d even gotten a bit obsessed. But none of that was like this. This goddam pull that Poppy had on her. Norah physically ached to be with her again.

The only thing that could calm the craving was the knowledge that this was just the beginning of things. This happiness was only the first taste. There would be so much more of this. She just knew it.

Sixteen

Now

Poppy hadn’t even known she was going to address the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room until the words were coming out of her mouth. But she couldn’t dance around it like this any longer. They had a past, and now they had a present. And if there was one thing Poppy could never do, it was live in the dark.

‘So, can we do normal now, do you think?’ Poppy asked, framing it as a joke. But it wasn’t. She ached to be real with Norah. She didn’t understand how much until she had a true shot at it.

‘Yeah, I guess,’ Norah said, that old, familiar wry smile on her lips.

Poppy hadn’t seen that since they were teenagers. It was such a part of Norah that to separate it from her was to suck out her essential Norah-ness. But here it was. A fuller Norah, a realer Norah, a truer Norah. It was so good to see it.

Norah glanced at the kids. ‘Must be tough working around Luna? Freddie wouldn’t let me do that. He’d be hanging off my leg.’

‘Luna’s the same, which is why I never usually do this,’ Poppy said quickly. ‘My neighbour babysits her on a Saturday, but she had to get a flight to Cape Town at short notice.’

‘Your babysitter had to leave the country? Bloody hell.’

‘Yeah, her mum’s unwell. It’s Cherry. You remember her?’

Norah’s mouth fell open. ‘Oh my god. Cherry? I haven’t seen her in forever.’ She blinked. ‘Wait, her mum?’

‘Don’t. I was shocked, too. But I guess Cherry’s family has the secret of eternal youth.’

‘If she ever gives it to you, share it with me, would you?’ Norah said dryly.

Poppy chuckled. ‘No way. I need every drop for myself.’