Saturday morning, Poppy went down to her home ground to do some training. With everything that was happening with NOP, she needed a release, something to take her mind off the drama. Plus, with her injured hand she was going to have to be out on the field full time during games, so she had to improve her fitness. The kids’ games were on but there was an empty field where a bunch of spectators were kicking a ball around. She dumped her gear near the goalposts and took off for a jog around the edges of the pitch. The sun was warm on her back and it wasn’t long before she’d taken off her jumper and tied it around her waist.
When Elle had pulled her out of goals during their first game, she’d been shocked to realise how hard it was to run for an extended period. She was sure she used to be much fitter than this. And actually, if she was completely honest with herself, she also used to look a lot fitter. Had her slightly rounded figure been yet another factor in Garret’s decision to choose Karleen over her? But adding on a few extra pounds after getting married was normal, wasn’t it? And it wasn’t a fair comparison; Karleen had always had this amazing metabolism meaning she could eat anything she wanted and never gain an ounce. It was the one thing Poppy had always envied. That and her curls.
Poppy had once complained to Garret about the fact that her hair had no body, said she wished it was more like Karleen’s. They’d been lying in bed together in the darkness. Garret had reached out, stroked her face and mumbled sleepily, ‘Nah, I love your hair. Karleen’s is too big and poofy. She looks like Ronald McDonald. Yours is sexy.’
Lies.
Poppy wanted to feel fit and she wanted to look it too. If she ever saw Garret again, she wanted to look hot. She wanted him to regret giving her up.
As she ran, Poppy tortured herself with thoughts of the last few days. So much for using the training to take her mind off her problems. Since NOP had come under attack from MOP, things had gone from bad to worse. A lot of their members were taking things into their own hands. There was post after post with opinions from different women on how they should handle it.
Marns – Can we please get someone into MOP? Start causing trouble from the inside for them! See how they like it?
Carla – A NOP friend told me the other day she overheard a group of mums at a cafe talking about us. They were calling us a bunch of middle-aged, bitter, twisted, barren bitches. She said she wanted to say something but she was on her own so she decided not to engage. It really got to her though, she left the cafe in tears. We need to do something about this, those MOP women are AWFUL.
Nicole – So! Any guess on who our mole is?!!
Poppy shut down the last thread quickly. Of course she wanted to know who the hell the mole was – more so than anyone else there – but she didn’t want this to turn into a witch hunt. They’d already lost enough members because of this whole nightmare. She wanted to find the mole in her own way. She just didn’t know how. She could hardly go through every single member one by one.
An image popped into her head. In it she was sitting in a dimly lit office with a woman opposite her, a bare wooden table between them.
‘So you say you don’t have kids, do you?’
‘Of course I don’t! I hate kids!’
‘Oh yeah? So what’s with the mashed bit of banana IN YOUR HAIR!’
She saw the woman slump forward to sob into her arms at the table. ‘They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse! I got in too deep! I’m sorry!’
The idea amused Poppy enough to make her smile, which was nice for a change.
She’d also tried contacting the gossip site where the article was posted, begging to find out who wrote it and also for it to be taken down. But she was met with cut-and-paste responses.
Thank you for your email. We pride ourselves on giving our writers the option to be fully anonymous, and to betray that anonymity would fly in the face of our guidelines.
Further to our previous response, please note that we have taken your feedback and concerns on board. However, on this occasion we have chosen to keep the article live due to community interest.
Annalise had been keen to exacerbate things further by pushing to make this an all-out war between the two groups.
‘We should tell everyone to fight back. Get them to start PMing the MOP members the way they’re spamming us. We can’t let them just get away with this.’
But Poppy had convinced Annalise to take a step back and give her some time to see if she could find another way to fix it first.
So far they hadn’t provided any further updates to their pinned post from the other night, because Poppy simply didn’t know how to deal with it. Should they shut NOP down and start fresh under a new name with tighter security around membership? Or ride it out and see if it would all blow over? Or maybe they ought to go with Annalise’s idea and fight back.
It was all too much. And the entire thing was her fault for coming up with the idea in the first place. If only she hadn’t posted that night when she’d been so hurt and so very drunk. And once things had escalated from there, she should have stepped in and said something. Stopped NOP from turning so ugly before it was too late.
The one positive was that so far, Nolan and Megs hadn’t heard a thing about it and Poppy had been able to placate her mother by assuring her it was a misunderstanding. No one from her family had come across the gossip article. If they did, Therese would be unstoppable in her belief that Poppy did want children. And Nolan would be hurt by the things she’d said about parents.
Poppy gave up on her laps. Her chest was starting to hurt and her legs were burning, so she headed over to the goalposts where she’d left her kit, thinking about what kind of drills she could do on her own. She supposed she’d start by taking the ball up and down the pitch and then maybe try a few shots at the goal.
She was dragging the ball back with her toe, when she realised someone was approaching from behind.
‘Hey!’
It took a second for Poppy to place him, but then she remembered – it was the guy at the pub who’d tried to warn her off going home with Will a few weeks back. She supposed it wasn’t that unusual to run into him there considering he was a member of the same club. But it was only kids’ games on today, so it still took her by surprise.
‘Oh, hello,’ she said. They stood awkwardly. What exactly was he expecting from her here? It wasn’t like they were old mates. They’d had a brief conversation at the pub when she’d been completely drunk and had chosen to ignore his advice. What were they really going to say to one another other than ‘hey’?
‘Doing some training?’ he asked.
‘Yep.’
More awkward silence.
‘Hey, I didn’t ask you that night we met if you won your game.’
‘Yeah, just scraped in.’
‘And, ah . . . how about the rest of your evening. Score another win?’ He raised his eyebrows at her and she glared back.
‘Umm. Not really any of your business, is it?’ She sidestepped around him with the ball and kicked it halfway down the pitch so she had a good reason to sprint away from him and chase it down.
When she caught up with the ball and turned back around though, she saw him walking towards her.
‘Sorry,’ he began, but he said it at just the wrong distance away from her, so yet again there was an awkward silence as he realised he’d tried to start chatting too soon and had to jog the last few steps to catch up to her. ‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘That was super weird. For some reason in my head I thought it would be funny, like break the tension or something. But as soon as I said it I realised it just sounded sleazy.’
‘What tension?’ Poppy asked irritably.
‘You know. The “will they won’t they” tension the two of us clearly have going.’
‘Are you completely deluded?’ she said. ‘I don’t know you. I don’t even know your name!’
‘Ah, fuck,’ he said, looking down at his feet. ‘I did it again. Trust me, that sounded so charming in my head. I’m sorry, I’m terrible at this. I’m Jack, by the way.’
‘Poppy,’ she said reluctantly. ‘But seriously, what exactly do you think “this” is?’
‘Us flirting?’ he said, a hopeful note in his voice.
‘Oh!’ She was caught completely off-guard.
‘Any chance you could forget like, all the dumb things I’ve said so far today? Seriously. Just wipe them from your memory. I feel like a complete dick.’
Poppy chewed on the inside of her cheek. ‘Yeah, all right. But listen, I actually am trying to do some training. So . . .’ She trailed off, hoping he’d get the message, but he grinned.
‘That’s actually why I came over. I saw you were training alone and I was checking to see if you wanted someone to train with you. You know – it’s more fun if you have someone to pass the ball to . . . isn’t it?’
She was about to decline, but goddamnit he had such a hopeful puppy-dog look.
‘Yeah, okay, fine,’ she said. ‘But no more of your hopeless attempts at flirting, right?’
‘Scout’s honour.’
They ran back and forth the width of the pitch a few times, passing the ball between them without speaking, apart from the odd sorry called out when the ball was mis-kicked and caused the other to break their stride to chase it down. After a while they stopped and threw one another some high balls for headers, and then kneed it back and forth.
‘How come you’re down here this morning anyway?’ she asked eventually, breaking the silence.
‘I coach the under-eights. They had an early game and I was just packing up to leave when I saw you running laps. Recognised you from the other night and thought I’d come over and make a complete fool out of myself, ’cause that’s always a fun thing to do on a Saturday morning. Actually, it makes for a perfect Saturday morning, seeing as my team got completely slaughtered as well and one of the dads had a go at me. So yeah, grand start to the weekend.’
Poppy smiled for the second time that day. ‘Yeah, that sounds like a rough day. Hopefully the rest of your weekend will go better, eh?’
‘Here’s hoping. So why were you training alone?’
‘Oh, I’m usually in goals, but I stupidly hurt my hand so I’m trying to get used to being out on the field again.’
‘You’re a goalie? Nice. What did you do to yourself?’ He glanced down at the square bandage across the back of her hand.
Poppy regretted mentioning it at all. She was too embarrassed to explain so she brushed it off in the same way as she had at the NOP dinner. ‘Just a silly accident. Come on, let’s take some shots at the goal.’
* * *
Jack asked for her number but she didn’t give it to him.
A few reasons: to start with, he was weird. All that awkwardness with how they met and his terrible flirting skills. And then there was the fact that he coached a kids’ soccer team. Guess who must think that makes him perfect future daddy material? Or then again, for all she knew he could already have a kid on the team. She hadn’t thought to ask. He probably thought he could melt her ovaries by pulling the kid card. And finally, she simply wasn’t looking to meet anyone right now. Or any time soon. Sorry, buddy – not happening.
The training was good though. He did teach her one or two decent moves she hadn’t seen before.
* * *
That afternoon the twins were having a birthday party at one of those play centres. Nolan had assured Poppy it would be bearable, even for his child-hating sister.
‘I don’t hate kids, Nolan,’ she’d exclaimed, a note of hysteria in her voice as she panicked that perhaps he really had seen the article. ‘I’m just not a kid person.’
‘Well, either way, there’s a quiet, grown-up area and they have good coffee – so it’ll be bearable for all of us.’
His voice had been kind, so she decided he hadn’t seen anything and her secret was still safe.
Nolan’s description of the centre wasn’t entirely accurate. The place was a nightmare. A serious assault on the senses. Oh God, the noise. The noise and the colours, the sticky lino floor and the squeaky plastic chairs. The coffee was dishwater. Either Nolan had talked complete bullshit on purpose, or he had a very different idea of what was bearable for adults. The worst part was the sudden high-pitched screams from the frolicking children.
She was eating leftover chicken nuggets and calculating the minutes until she could politely make her escape when she overhead her name.
‘Actually, Nolan grew up there but Poppy still lives in the area.’
She looked up and saw Megs chatting with another parent, and Megs waved at her to move closer. Poppy obediently switched chairs to join in on the conversation.
‘Laura and I were just talking about the social media blow-up that’s happening over your way,’ Megs said.
‘Oh yeah?’ Poppy hoped her voice sounded politely curious rather than slightly horrified.
‘Have you heard about it?’ Laura asked. ‘Apparently a group of women started up a Facebook page to rebel against a local online mothers’ group and now there’s some sort of big fight going on between the two groups, which is getting way out of hand. I heard that a woman from the new group gave a peanut-butter cookie to a kid in a restaurant because the kid was being too loud and she wanted to shut him up, but the kid was allergic and went into anaphylactic shock. The mother had to use an epipen on him. I mean really, in this day and age most people should know better than to hand an unknown child something with nuts in it.’
‘Oh my God,’ Poppy said, ‘was he okay?’
‘Yeah, the mum acted quickly enough, he’s fine. So, you haven’t heard about any of this then? Are you a member of the Parramatta Facebook mothers’ group?’
‘Poppy doesn’t have children,’ Megs cut in quickly and Laura looked momentarily embarrassed.
Then she said with a laugh, ‘Well, I guess that makes you the smart one out of the three of us. No wonder you have such a nice top on. I could never get away with wearing white – it would last all of five seconds before it got smeared in Vegemite or apple sauce.’
Poppy managed a smile. ‘Yep, definitely a bonus of not having kids.’
Inside she was panicking. She hadn’t seen or heard a thing about this allergic reaction story. And why were people from the Northern Beaches hearing about NOP?
‘You still have plenty of time, of course,’ said Laura, reaching out to pat Poppy’s hand.
Poppy shifted her hand away. ‘Not an issue,’ she said shortly. ‘I’m not going to have children.’
‘Oh right,’ she replied. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up. But listen, I’ve had friends with fertility problems and with the right treatment, they were still able to conceive.’
For fuck’s sake. Was she for real?
‘No, no,’ Megs interrupted, ‘Poppy doesn’t want to have kids.’
Poppy had to admit, she was kind of surprised. She and Megs had never really had much of a relationship beyond exchanging polite sister-in-law pleasantries. But there was a note of pride in her voice when she spoke instead of the usual judgement or disbelief that most people expressed.
‘Right,’ said Laura. ‘Well, I am going to go and grab myself a muffin before I put my foot in my mouth anymore. It was nice to meet you, Poppy.’
She got up and hurried away and Megs gave Poppy a sympathetic look. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Laura’s never had all that much tact. I bet you get that all the time. Other women making assumptions about why you don’t have kids or feeling sorry for you because they think you must be pining for them. It must really suck.’
Poppy was stunned. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘all the time. Sends me insane. So, considering my own parents don’t seem to get it, how come you’re so perceptive?’
Megs leaned back in her seat. ‘It’s not really hard to understand, is it? Don’t worry, I’m working on your mum for you. Whenever she comes round to see the kids and drops comments about you having them one day, I drop my own hints right back. She’ll get it eventually.’
She paused before adding, ‘So are you a part of the other group? The one we were talking about in Parramatta?’
Megs mustn’t have seen the article then, otherwise she’d know full well that Poppy was a member. She tried to shrug in an indifferent sort of way. ‘Oh, you know, it’s sort of meant to be an anonymous thing.’
Megs shook her head. ‘Say no more,’ she said. ‘Just be careful, okay? I’ve heard there’s some really nasty stuff going on with that feud. I’m a member of a Northern Beaches online mum’s group, and mostly it’s pretty good. You know – helpful advice and that sort of thing. But even within the group the women can get bitchy at times. I can only imagine what it must be like between two opposing women’s groups.’
Poppy nodded. ‘All good, I’ll be careful.’
Soon after, she managed to escape the party. On the way home she wondered what Megs would think if she knew that rather than simply being a member of NOP, Poppy was actually the founder. Would Megs feel differently? Would she be disappointed in her? And also, she was going to have to see what she could find out about the story of the kid going into anaphylactic shock. That news had her rattled.
* * *
Tuesday morning at work Poppy went to see Paul and found Frankie’s desk empty and his office door shut, the blinds drawn. She assumed they were both out at a meeting and had turned to leave when she heard a noise from inside his office and looked back. She stepped closer. She heard whispered voices.
What the hell? Were they seriously going at it right there in his office in the middle of the day? Poppy suddenly found herself wondering when and where Garret and Karleen had shared their secret trysts throughout those four months when he was cheating. Did they meet up during the day? On their lunch breaks? Did Karleen visit Garret at his work? His office was open plan, he sat in a cubical, so it’s not like he could have pushed her up against his desk as Paul was probably doing right now with Frankie. Not unless they particularly enjoyed having an audience. Maybe they rented a room at a cheap hotel. Or climbed into the back of Karleen’s car like they were teenagers.
Poppy was livid. How dare Frankie and Paul put their partners through that same humiliation and hurt that she had so recently experienced. And how dare they bring it all back to the surface for her. Enough was enough. Paul’s wife needed to know what was going on.
She stepped quickly behind Frankie’s desk and tapped her computer awake. Searching through Frankie’s business contacts she found Linda’s number and scribbled it down on a post-it note before hurrying back to her own desk.
Sitting down she pulled out her phone and opened up her messages. But now that she was ready to say something, she didn’t really know how to word it. She tried to imagine what it would have been like if someone else had told her about Garret and Karleen before they’d confronted her themselves. Would she have been less distraught hearing it from someone else? At least she would have gone into their little ‘meeting’ prepared. But would she have trusted the information if it had come from an anonymous source? And would it have been more of a shock – receiving a random text out of the blue like that?
Poppy decided to put the question to NOP. At least it was something to distract everyone from the whole MOP mess. She would post the question, wait for at least five responses and if the majority said do it, she’d do it.
Quick poll. Say you know two people are having an affair. Do you dob them in?
She tried – unsuccessfully – to distract herself with work while she waited. Eventually she checked back for comments and saw there were already about ten. She skimmed through them.
Marns – Of course you do.
Viv – I’d want to know.
Kellie – Need to know more, depends on circumstances. Can you give details?
Jess – How do you know both couples don’t have an arrangement in place where they’re allowed to see other people? Opening up your relationship to other parties can be a great way to keep things fresh. So it could be all above board.
Dianna – Absolutely. No excuse for cheating. Who cares about the circumstances.
Carla – You realise there’s always two sides to every story, right?!
In the end, the overall consensus was a resounding yes. They’d made the decision for her. It was the right thing to do. Linda deserved to know. Poppy hated the idea of another woman going through the same horrendous heartbreak she’d suffered. Hopefully Linda had a good friend she could turn to for comfort and advice. And hopefully she would confront Paul, not let him get away with it.
Poppy decided to keep it simple and straight to the point.
Linda, I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you this – but I’m an employee at Cormack and I think you need to know that your husband isn’t being faithful to you. Again, I’m really sorry.
The second she sent it, she kicked herself. She should have checked if there was a way to block her number. Although maybe that only worked for phone calls. She wondered if she should block Linda’s number now that the text had been sent so she couldn’t call her and quiz her about what she’d said. Maybe she’d been too hasty sending that message. Maybe she’d made a terrible mistake. She jumped back up from her desk and headed down to the warehouse to see what Annalise thought about the whole situation.
Poppy found her directing one of her staff on a forklift and she waited impatiently for her to finish. When she was finally done, Poppy beckoned her over and they walked out onto the driveway to chat alone.
‘So,’ Poppy said, ‘Paul and Frankie were at it again just now.’
‘What do you mean “at it”?’ Annalise asked.
‘I mean I went to see him and his office door was locked and the blinds were down and —’
‘Eww! That’s so gross, in the middle of the day with everyone right there? You’re kidding me?’
‘So it got me thinking . . . don’t you think Paul’s wife should know what’s going on?’
‘What? Like you mean you want to tell her? You really want to get involved in that?’
‘Umm, that’s the thing – I kind of already did . . . get involved.’
Annalise closed her eyes and took a deep breath. ‘Fuck’s sake, Poppy, what have you done?’ she said.
Poppy squirmed, embarrassed about her rash action. ‘I take it you didn’t see my post on NOP just now? Okay . . . so I stole her number off Frankie’s computer and sent her an anonymous text.’
‘Shit. What did you say?’
‘I just wrote that I was sorry but I didn’t think her husband was being faithful to her. That was . . . pretty much it.’
‘And?’
‘And what? That’s all I said.’
‘And did you get any response back? Like did she ask who you were or how you knew or anything?’
‘No, no reply.’
‘But she has your number now, what if she calls you, what will you do?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘Well, you can’t answer it. She can’t find out you’re from work, you could end up getting yourself fired.’
‘Oh.’
‘Oh? What do you mean oh?’
‘Well, I did sort of mention that I was from Cormack – I just wanted to lend the text some credibility, that’s all.’
‘Jesus. And what about Frankie’s husband? You took down his number and texted him as well?’
‘Oh. I hadn’t really thought about him.’
Annalise raised her eyebrows. ‘So why didn’t he get a look in?’
Poppy looked down at her feet, considering Annalise’s question. But the answer was obvious. She hadn’t worried so much about Frankie’s husband because she couldn’t relate to him in the same way as she did to Linda. When Garret and Karleen cheated, Karleen was a free agent. She was the archetypal ‘other woman’, while Poppy was the scorned wife. Poppy had slotted Frankie neatly into the part of ‘other woman’ and Linda took on Poppy’s position. Frankie’s partner didn’t score a role. Poor bloke. Now that Poppy began to think properly about him, she felt a wave of empathy for the guy. He was just as hard done by as Linda.
‘I just . . . didn’t think,’ she said.
‘Probably for the best,’ said Annalise. ‘I mean I’m all for stirring up a bit of drama, you know me. But I’m worried that you’re potentially risking your job.’
‘So what do I do?’
‘Leave it. Promise me you won’t do or say anything else. Let’s at least wait and see if she responds to you, then we’ll figure it out from there. But if she does reply, let me know the second you hear from her, okay?’
‘Okay,’ Poppy said. ‘Hey, by the way, I meant to ask – have you heard anything about a woman from NOP giving a kid something to eat in a restaurant because the kid was bugging her and the kid having an allergic reaction?’
‘Nope, haven’t seen anyone talking about anything like that on Facebook. Why? Where did you hear it?’
‘Just something someone mentioned. Don’t worry about it.’
A delivery truck came up the driveway and they both moved out of its way. Poppy recognised the company name on the side of the truck – it was a place Annalise had previously worked for.
‘Here’s one of your old mates,’ she said.
Annalise frowned back at her. ‘One of my old mates,’ she repeated. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Didn’t you say you used to work for Langum’s Holdings?’
‘No,’ she replied, ‘I’ve never said that.’
‘Oh,’ said Poppy, ‘I must have mixed it up with something else.’
* * *
Poppy didn’t know if Annalise was aware that she’d been part of the hiring process when she was appointed as warehouse manager. That was before the two of them had become such good friends. And the truth was, Poppy had picked up on a couple of discrepancies on her resume – the dates Annalise had listed for the time spent at one of her past jobs didn’t line up with that company having gone into liquidation. But Poppy hadn’t thought too much of it – deciding Annalise was probably just padding out the time to increase her experience – and still put her forward to Paul as the best possible candidate.
But now, as Poppy sat back down at her desk, she crossed one leg over the other and jiggled them irritatedly. She pulled the elastic out of her ponytail and redid her hair, twice. What was going on here? The truth was, she didn’t believe she had that company name mixed up. She was sure she remembered Langum’s being listed on Annalise’s resume. She still had Annalise’s documents on file, so she decided to look them up to make sure.
It didn’t take long for Poppy to find the answer. She was right, and so now she had to question if Annalise had lied about more than that.
Poppy scanned the resume, looking to see if anything else jumped out at her: graduated from Fairfield High School; completed a certificate in management studies at TAFE . . . studied at Sydney University.
Sydney Uni. Sydney Uni. Why was that tripping something in her brain? It clicked – the night they went to the pub after soccer, Annalise had been wearing a Macquarie Uni jumper. Okay, so that wasn’t such a big deal, was it? Wearing a jumper with a logo didn’t really mean a thing. It could have belonged to an ex-boyfriend, or been borrowed from a friend.
But it bothered her.
It was her mum’s fault. Therese’s voice in the back of her head, questioning who Annalise was. Questioning where she came from. Poppy was annoyed with herself for never having asked. They were friends; it shouldn’t have always been about her own problems and issues. Friendship was supposed to be two-way. So why didn’t she know anything about Annalise beyond the woman she saw in front of her? Why had they never chatted about Annalise’s childhood, her family? What had high school been like for her – had she fitted in, had she liked university, had she kept in contact with any old uni friends?
Weren’t these the kinds of things Poppy should have known?
Poppy was suddenly finding herself feeling more alone than ever in the NOP disaster. Because if she couldn’t even trust her best friend – the woman who’d helped her start the group in the first place – who could she trust?
And if she couldn’t trust Annalise, did that mean there was a chance the ‘imposter’ within the group was even closer to home than she imagined? But that was ridiculous, wasn’t it? Annalise didn’t have any reason to betray NOP. They’d started the group together, they were on the same side. It didn’t make any sense.
Then again, she’d thought she and Karleen were on the same side. For a moment, she felt a pang of longing for her old friend. Not the Karleen who’d betrayed her, but the one she’d loved way back before she’d even met Garret. The one who held her hair back so she could be sick after she had five Midori Cream cocktails on her eighteenth birthday, even as she scolded her for drinking too much. The one who helped her study for her final high-school exams: ‘You’re smarter than you think you are, Poppy, you just have to concentrate.’ The same girl who once had a crush on Nolan, and Poppy had fantasised about how wonderful it would be to have her best friend become her sister-in-law.
But next she saw Karleen sitting at her kitchen table, telling her she’d fallen in love with her husband. And the longing in her heart dissolved.
Thank God Nolan had always thought Karleen was a pain in the arse.
* * *
Poppy wriggled back into the large, soft chair, then leaned forward again to examine a spot on her chin in the mirror. Blackhead, she concluded before sitting back once more. Where did that come from? Maybe she should book in for a facial some time soon. She had to admit, the treatment at this hairdresser so far was the best she’d ever received. An apprentice was bringing her a proper espresso, and she’d even been asked which hand cream she’d prefer for her complimentary hand massage.
The appointment had been set up for her by Annalise a couple of weeks back.
‘You need a change. I think you should do something radical,’ Annalise had said. ‘Get an undercut with patterns shaved into it! Dye it blue!’
‘Are you kidding me? You could get away with shaving the side of your head, I’d just look like I’d been in a terrible accident or had brain surgery.’
And they’d both fallen about laughing. But that was before everything had blown up with NOP. And before Poppy had started to have her doubts about Annalise.
She still hadn’t asked her about the lies on her resume. Poppy didn’t know how to bring it up without it seeming like she was ambushing her, but she knew she’d have to say something eventually. This wasn’t the kind of the thing you could simply ignore.
She didn’t know the hairdresser Annalise had booked her into. Poppy had never been the type of person to have a regular stylist. Usually she ducked into one of the discount ‘Cuts Galore’ salons for a quick trim and left it at that.
She decided that when her hair stylist came over, she was going to throw caution to the wind and tell her she did want something radical. Something brand new! As long as it didn’t involve clippers, the stylist could have free rein. Well . . . as long as she told Poppy what she was going to do before she did it.
A young woman with a long plait hanging over one shoulder finally approached and stood behind her, catching her eye in the mirror. She introduced herself as Wendy, and Poppy picked up a Southern American twang to her voice.
‘So sorry to keep you waiting but your stylist wasn’t feeling great, so we’ve fallen a bit behind.’
‘That’s no good. I hope she’s okay?’
“Not to worry, she’ll be fine. Now, what are we doing for you today?’
‘I need a change,’ Poppy said, a slight wobble to her voice. ‘Something completely different.’
She was waiting for Wendy to turn into one of those stylists you saw on television makeover shows, brimming with ideas and excited to have a blank canvas to work with. But instead her shoulders sort of slumped.
‘Oh yeah?’ she said, not a hint of enthusiasm in her voice. ‘So what kind of a change do you want?’ As she waited for a response she absent-mindedly pulled Poppy’s hair tie out and started running her fingers through her hair, fluffing it out.
‘I don’t . . . I don’t know,’ she said falteringly. ‘I was hoping . . . you might . . .’ She felt silly and stopped short, unsure of what to say. Maybe she should just ask for a shampoo, blow-dry, and her usual centimetre off the ends.
Poppy noticed a guilty expression cross the stylist’s face.
‘A big change!’ she said, and it was clear she was forcing an excited note into her voice now. ‘That’s a great idea. We can do that. Cut, colour, style – the works. Let me grab some pictures we can flick through and get an idea of what you do and don’t like.’
Ten minutes later they had a plan. Well, Wendy had a plan, Poppy wasn’t entirely sure she’d completely followed as she’d flicked between magazines, hair-colour charts and an album of photos of previous clients.
Next thing she’d run off to mix colour and Poppy had no idea what was coming next. What was it about hairdressers that made her lose all of her assertiveness and turn into a meek school child?
A younger apprentice came over to do her hand massage while she waited for Wendy to come back with the colour.
When Wendy returned, Poppy nervously cleared her throat and asked carefully, ‘Sorry . . . which colour did we land on?’
Wendy winked at her in the mirror. ‘Trust me,’ she said, ‘you’ll love it.’
For most of the colouring process, Wendy worked in comfortable silence, her face filled with concentration as she painted on the colour and wrapped sections of Poppy’s hair up in foils. But just as she was finishing, she let out a sudden sob that made Poppy jump.
‘Are you okay?’
Wendy bit her lip and looked embarrassed. She piled the last section of coloured hair on top of Poppy’s head, peeled off her gloves and set a timer. Then she pulled a spare chair across and sat down next to her.
‘Sorry,’ she said, and her voice choked up for a second. Poppy waited.
‘It’s really stupid,’ Wendy continued, ‘I shouldn’t be letting it get to me – it’s one of those things that keeps running around and around in your mind though.’ A tear escaped and she wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. ‘You don’t need to hear about it. It’s totally inappropriate for me to be acting like this with a client.’ She stood up ready to move away, but Poppy caught her arm.
‘I can listen. If you want to talk.’
Wendy sat back down quickly, as though that was exactly what she’d been hoping for.
‘It’s this group I’m in,’ she explained. ‘An online mum’s group.’
Poppy’s chest tightened. ‘MOP?’
‘Yes! Are you a member?’ she asked hopefully.
‘No.’ Poppy decided not to elaborate on why.
‘Well, I only joined recently,’ Wendy continued. ‘I have a two-year-old and someone told me it was a great place for new mums to get advice and meet other local mums, and I didn’t have a mothers’ group because I only moved here recently from overseas. Plus . . .’ She paused, looking like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to say the next bit. Poppy gave her what she hoped was an encouraging smile.
‘Plus, I’ve been dealing with . . . post-natal depression. So pushing myself to get out of the house, to go and make friends . . . it’s been difficult.’
Poppy nodded and stayed quiet to let her continue.
‘So at first it seemed really nice, but then the moderators of the group put up this warning notice about this other group – this non-mums group that was supposed to be full of women who hated everyone in MOP. And I was all like, oh okay, whatever, that doesn’t really affect me, does it? But then I got invited to take my son out on a playdate with a few other mums I’d been chatting with on MOP. We went to this cafe here in the centre – the Pear and Fig – I don’t know if you know it? I don’t think it was a good choice to be honest. Not really enough room for all our prams and a bit too cool or trendy or whatever for a group of babies and toddlers to be crawling about the place. I had my little boy sitting on my lap, and I was talking with the other mums and I wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing, and next thing I look down and realise he’s opened, like, eight sugar packets and tipped them everywhere.’
Poppy’s stomach dropped. She already knew this story.
‘I was about to start cleaning all the sugar up,’ Wendy continued, ‘and one of the other mums starts laughing and saying how cute Henry is – that’s my son – and next thing, I realise these three women at another table – no kids – are staring. They’re all shaking their heads at me in this real judgemental way like I’m the worst mum in the world for letting him do that. One of them gets up and walks over to us. “Let me guess,” she says, “A little MOP gathering is it?” And then she goes on about how us mums always think we own the place and we can do whatever we want and she says she knows the owner and she’s going to get kids banned from the place because all they do is make a mess and ruin everything, and apparently, my kid opening sugar packets was the last straw!’
Wendy paused and shook her head. ‘Sorry, you probably think I’m insane, like why am I all teary over this, right? But it’s just that this was the first group of mums I’d met since I moved here and now I feel too embarrassed to see them again, ’cause they’ll probably think I’m a terrible mum for letting my kid do that, and ’cause I’ve single-handedly gotten us banned from the Pear and Fig, and it’s all so stupid because it’s over something like a buck-fifty worth of sugar or whatever, and the most humiliating part is . . . I took off. As soon as it all happened I was just so taken aback by the way this woman was talking to me that I just . . . I just left. So even if those mums didn’t care about Henry tipping the sugar everywhere or the cafe banning us or whatever, they aren’t going to want to hang out with me again because they must think I’m a basket case.’
‘Oh God, that sounds horrible. But . . . how do you know this has anything to do with the online group of non-mums?’ Poppy asked, even though she knew full well it had everything to do with NOP.
‘The woman told us they were members of NOP and that they were done putting up with our shit.’
Poppy cringed inwardly and felt a sense of self-loathing.
She hesitated, trying to decide the right thing to say, but Wendy suddenly stood up. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have been dumping all of this on you. Anyway, your colour’s got to stay on for another thirty minutes, you’ve got some magazines there to take a look at, and I’m just going to leave you to it.’
With that, Wendy hurried away and disappeared out the back of the shop. Poppy sighed. She picked up one of the magazines and flicked idly through the pages, not taking in any of the pictures or stories in front of her, but instead thinking hard about what she might be able to do to help Wendy.
As she turned the pages, an idea began to form. What if she popped down to the Pear and Fig herself to ask them if they really did have an issue with what Wendy’s kid had done? Just because the NOP woman had claimed she’d be able to have children banned, didn’t mean she’d managed to actually follow through. Hopefully Poppy would be able to reassure Wendy that it wasn’t all as bad as she’d thought.
Poppy hopped up from her chair and strode out of the salon. She’d never in her life walked out of the hairdresser with foils in her hair and a cape over her clothes. She knew plenty of women did – to go to the bathroom or maybe order a coffee – but she’d always preferred to stay hidden until she was completely done. Today, she didn’t care. She was angry with herself for causing this woman so much hurt and she wanted to fix it. All of it.
She knew she must have looked a state when she burst into the cafe, cape flying, hair sticking up. She asked for the manager and explained Wendy’s story.
‘Are you kidding me?’ he responded when she was done. ‘We have absolutely no intention of banning mums and I couldn’t care less about a few packets of sugar. Look,’ he added, leaning in to whisper conspiratorially to Poppy, ‘I know the women you’re talking about, the ones who made a fuss about that group of mums last week. Yes, one of them is an old friend, but she doesn’t speak for me. They like to think this place is their corporate hang but the truth is, mothers’ groups make up sixty percent of my business. Trust me, you’ll never see the day that we start turning away parents. So, if that mother is a friend of yours, you can tell her from me, she’s welcome back here any time.’
Poppy was thrilled. That was the best response she could have hoped for. She couldn’t wait to reassure Wendy. She returned to the salon and took her seat, picking up one of the magazines again to pass the time until Wendy returned.
By the time she reappeared – a good five minutes after the timer had buzzed, Poppy hoped her colour hadn’t been left on too long – Poppy was practically bursting to tell Wendy what she’d done.
She was stopped short, however, by the expression on Wendy’s face as she strode up and looked down at the back of Poppy’s head. She wasn’t upset again, and she wasn’t smiling either. Instead her face was scowling.
‘Time to take these out,’ she said, her voice clipped. She tugged roughly on one of the foils, pulling Poppy’s hair hard as she removed it. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘colour’s ready. Over to the basin.’ She stood back and pointed, her words more a command than an invitation.
Poppy stood up hesitantly. ‘Umm, Wendy,’ she said carefully, ‘is there something wrong?’
Wendy glared back at her. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Nothing at all. Could you hurry, please? I have other clients I need to get to after you.’
Poppy was stung. What could have happened since Wendy had left her to make her turn so completely? She made her way obediently over to the basins and took a seat at the first one.
‘Not that one!’ Wendy snapped. ‘The next one over.’
Throughout the entire wash it was more of the same. Wendy tugged and pulled at Poppy’s hair as she ripped out one foil after another and Poppy was too shocked to speak up about how much she was hurting her. When she rinsed out the colour the water was too hot and she skipped the conditioning head massage altogether.
Poppy was almost in tears, wondering what she could have possibly done wrong, by the time they returned back to her spot in front of the mirror.
‘How do you want it cut?’ Wendy asked, a nasty glint in her eye as she picked up the scissors.
‘Wendy, really, could you please tell me what I’ve done wrong?’
‘You know what, if you really want to know, then sure, I’ll tell you. While I was out the back I was chatting with one of the girls – the one who was feeling sick – and guess what? Turns out she knows you. So we’re chatting away and then she tells me that you happen to be the founder of NOP. Isn’t that interesting? Bet you were having a good laugh to yourself as I told you how much those women had hurt me – all along you were one of them.’
‘What? No! That’s not it —’
Poppy was cut short though, as Wendy grabbed a handful of her hair and hacked it away. It was too much. Poppy wrenched her head out of her reach. ‘Hey! No!’
Her raised voice caught the attention of another stylist who hurried over to see what was happening. As soon as she saw the back of Poppy’s head, she gasped.
‘Oh God,’ said Poppy, ‘what does it look like back there?’
‘Umm,’ said the stylist. ‘Just give me one minute.’ She pulled Wendy away by the elbow and after a few tense words, Wendy vanished out the back and the new stylist returned to Poppy.
‘I am so sorry about this. I’m Sonya, the manager here, and I promise you, I’m going to fix this.’
It took the best part of an hour, but eventually Sonya was all done. She comped the service to make up for Wendy’s treatment, and while Poppy’s hair was the shortest and darkest it had ever been, she had to admit, Sonya had done an amazing job salvaging it.
She just wasn’t sure she really deserved it.