The Best Of The Year - Medical Romance. Carol Marinelli
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cold standing there on the doorstep but I couldn’t take my eyes off his tall, rangy figure as he walked along the snow-covered footpath. I let out a long, foggy breath as he disappeared around the corner.
Oh, boy, was I in trouble.
I was in the female change room, putting my bag in the locker, the next morning when Gracie McCurcher came bursting in. ‘Guess what?’ she said, her eyes bright with conspiratorial excitement.
‘What?’
‘Matt Bishop has a girlfriend.’
I hoped my face hadn’t shown my surprise. If he had a girlfriend then why the heck had he kissed me last night? I felt a rumble of anger roll through me. What was it about me that attracted two-timing guys? Did I have a sign on my head that said ‘Exploit me’?
I shoved my bag in the locker and turned the key. ‘How do you know?’
‘He’s got a hickey on his neck,’ Gracie said. ‘I saw it when he took off his scarf when he came in this morning.’
I was glad I was facing the locker bay instead of Gracie. I was so hot in the face I was sure the lockers would melt and drool, like Salvador Dali’s clock. ‘Are you sure it’s a hickey?’ I said in a vaguely interested way. ‘He might have scratched himself shaving.’
‘I know a hickey when I see one,’ Gracie said. ‘I wonder who it is? Do you reckon it’s someone from the hospital?’
‘I have no idea.’ I was scaring myself at how easy it was to lie.
Gracie was watching me in the mirror, where I was attempting to put my hair in some sort of order. ‘I heard he went to the US after he broke up with a long-term girlfriend. She was a speech pathologist.’
‘How long term?’ I asked.
‘Not sure.’ Gracie gave me a speaking glance. ‘For some men a couple of weeks is long term.’
I turned around and gave her arm a squeeze. She hadn’t had much luck with boyfriends. Her first one left her for her best friend and her last one cheated on her the whole time they were together. She was a lot like me, she wanted the fairytale but so far it had eluded her. ‘Don’t give up hope, Gracie,’ I said. ‘You’ll find your handsome prince one day.’
She gave me a thoughtful look. ‘Is it better once you’re married?’
I disguised a gulping swallow. ‘Better?’
‘Your relationship,’ she said. ‘More stable. Secure. Happier. My cousin told me she felt really let down after she got married. She said there’s all that build-up to the big day. Months and months of planning and then it’s all over. Was it like that for you?’
‘A little, I guess,’ I said, which at least was the truth. I was let down. Massively. Everything I had planned and dreamed for myself had been blown away as soon as I’d opened that bedroom door and seen Andy in bed with another woman. Someone younger and far more beautiful than I could ever be. And taller and thinner. She looked like one of those bikini models on a billboard. I’d felt short and dowdy and fat ever since.
‘When can I see the photos?’ Gracie asked. ‘Have you got time now?’
‘Sorry.’ I glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘I have to get going. I have to check on a patient before Theatre.’
I came back from Theatre and Jill Carter, the ward clerk, looked up from some filing she was doing. ‘Have you heard the latest gossip?’ She shut the filing-cabinet drawer and gave the same conspiratorial gleam Gracie had shown earlier.
I prided myself on my indifferent expression. I’d been practising behind my surgical mask in Theatre. ‘No.’
‘Apparently Dr Bishop is—’
‘Right behind you,’ Matt said from the office doorway.
Jill and I both turned around like schoolgirls caught out smoking behind the toilets. Jill recovered quicker than I did but, then, she probably hadn’t spent half the night lying awake fantasising about his mouth kissing her.
‘Oh, hello, Dr Bishop,’ she said, smiling brightly. ‘How did your heads of department meeting go?’
Matt’s expression had the high wall with barbed wire at the top look about it. ‘Fine. Dr Clark?’ His gaze nailed mine. ‘My office in ten minutes.’
I couldn’t stop my gaze drifting to his neck. His shirt collar covered half of it but anyone with a history of necking as a teenager would have recognised it for what it was. I could feel the slow, hot crawl of colour spread over my cheeks as my eyes came back to his. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’ll just check on a couple of patients first.’
I was longer than ten minutes as I wanted to talk to Jason Ryder’s parents about a new type of therapy I was keen to use with him. Childhood awakening therapy was still in its experimental stage but there was some anecdotal evidence of people in comas responding to stimuli from their childhoods. Playing music, favourite movies or reading well-loved childhood stories had produced responses in some patients. I felt sure it wouldn’t compromise the care Jason was already receiving, and I was quietly confident it might be the key to getting him to wake. From what I’d gathered from his parents, he’d had a happy and contented childhood, which made him a perfect candidate.
Jason’s parents were keen to try anything to get their boy to wake up and his young wife, Megan, was also supportive. I didn’t want to offer them false hope but I was keen to try whatever I could to get the breakthrough everyone was hoping and praying for. The human brain had much more plasticity than the scientific community had realised up until recent times. It was an exciting time to be involved with neurosurgery as there were new techniques and advances in technology that brought relief and hope to patients who in the past would have had little or no hope of recovery.
I was on my way to Matt’s office twenty-five minutes later when Professor Cleary stopped me in the corridor. He was Head of Geriatrics and I generally avoided him as I found him so negative. He drained my energy if I hung around him too long. I often wondered how his patients put up with his bedside manner. I always had to remind myself to call him Professor Cleary instead of Dreary. One of the residents almost got fired when he let slip the nickname on a ward round.
But this time Prof Cleary wasn’t frowning or glowering in his usual doom-and-gloom manner. ‘Hello, Bertie,’ he said with a broad smile. ‘I’ve been hearing about your research project at the heads of department meeting.’ He gave a chuckle. ‘Best joke I’ve heard in years.’
I lifted my chin and eyeballed him. ‘What did you find so amusing about it?’
‘S.C.A.M.’ He chuckled again, a deep belly laugh that made the already frayed edges of my nerves rub raw. ‘Harrison Redding is kicking himself for not seeing it earlier. Clever of you to poke fun at the establishment like that. But it won’t win you any favours with the boss. He’s a sharp tack, isn’t he? Got a good reputation for getting the job done. You’ll have to watch yourself. I can’t see him letting you read his palm or his aura or whatever else it is you do.’
I clenched my jaw so hard it clicked audibly. I didn’t respond other than to give him a hard, tight smile and continued on my way to Matt’s office. But the sound of Professor Cleary’s chuckle followed me all the way down the corridor.
My skin rose in a hot prickle. Who else would be laughing at me by the end of the day? I had walked down a lot of corridors during my childhood and adolescence with that sound ringing in my ears. My face boiled with embarrassment. I was furious with Matt but I was even more furious with myself. I had set myself up for mockery and I hadn’t even realised it.
Honestly, a transactional analysis psychologist could conduct a whole conference on me.
I knocked on Matt’s door and he issued a curt command to come in. I stepped inside his office to see him sitting behind his desk with a grim look on his face. ‘You’re late.’
I