15. CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 15
W hen Clara asked for time off work, Sadie hadn’t hesitated. Gleefully telling her friend that she should go, and waggling her eyebrows so much that Clara had been surprised they hadn’t got stuck in her hairline.
Mr Atrosky’s assistant had immediately couriered the script over to Clara and she was sitting at her kitchen table with it that evening, ready to start reading, when her phone rang. It was Taylor on FaceTime.
“Hi.” He waved at her.
“Hi,” she stuttered, surprised to see him. “Are you okay?”
They had only spoken the previous day; she didn’t expect him to ring so soon.
“Yeah, fine. I just wanted to chat.” Taylor grinned, leaning back on a sofa in what she assumed was his hotel room.
“What about?” Clara’s first thought was that something else was wrong for him to be calling.
“Nothing, really. To be honest, I like talking to you. I miss not talking to you. Is it okay?” His voice was hesitant.
Clara couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face. “Yeah, I like talking to you as well.”
“Tell me about your day.”
“It’s very boring. I got up, I went to work, and I came home. I’m going to order takeout to celebrate the fact that I have to do more work now.” She told him, then picked up her phone and swivelled the camera down to show him the front of the script.
“Why aren’t you at the pub quiz?”
“I told Damien’s assistant I would get to this as quickly as possible. So I’ll skip it tonight.” She was a bit sad because seeing her friends in the pub was a highlight of her week.
“It’s not that urgent. You’ve got twenty minutes before the quiz starts. You should go,” he encouraged.
“It’s fine.” Clara shook her head.
“Clara, don’t miss something you enjoy to do more work. If I was close by, I’d come with you. You should go. Mr Atrosky will be fine if you take until after the weekend to finish reading the script,” Taylor told her.
“Well, but—“ She hesitated. She wanted to go, but she felt guilty.
“No buts. Put the script down, get off the phone, and get ready,” he ordered.
“Yeah. Okay, I’ll go. You’re right. I’ll talk to you later.” Standing up from the table, she waved to Taylor, who waved back.
“Talk later,” he replied.
Clara hung up the call and went to get ready for her night out, tucking the script in her room just in case one of the registrars came over.
As she walked out the front door, her phone rang; glancing down at it, she saw it was Taylor. A broad grin crossed her face as she answered.
“Hi, Taylor.”
“Hi, Clara. It’s been a long time since we spoke.”
She could hear the laugh in his voice. “Wasn’t I just talking to you?”
Walking down the front path, she unlocked the door to her car, put the phone between her shoulder and ear, threw her handbag into the passenger seat, and climbed in.
“Yeah. But I figured it was a ten-minute drive to the pub, and we could chat on the way,” Taylor drawled.
“What did you want to talk about?” She started the engine, waiting for the hands-free to pick up the call before she put her car into reverse and pulled out of the driveway.
“I dunno. I enjoy hearing your voice. I don’t mind what the conversation is about.”
Staring at the road, her jaw dropped in surprise. He just wanted to hear her voice. What now? Before her brain could think of anything to say, he carried on talking.
“I could tell you about my day? This girl I know has caused havoc in my workplace.” Taylor chuckled.
“Oh really. She sounds like fun. What did she do?” Clara played along.
“She told my very particular director, whose attention to detail is second to none, that he had been completely fooled and the equipment he had wasn’t what he thought it was.”
“And how did he take that?” She suppressed a laugh.
“Not well. I heard he called the fake doctor into a meeting, and from what I was told, there was shouting and some tears.”
“Tears?” Clara felt bad. She didn’t mean for the imposter to cry; she just wanted to tell them things were wrong.
Taylor laughed as he spoke. “Yeah, Mr Atrosky gets very emotional when he’s upset.”
Clara sputtered, “Sorry. It wasn’t the fake doctor who cried?”
“No.” Taylor laughed. “It was definitely Mr Atrosky. He’s a very passionate man and, as you can guess, a perfectionist. He had spent a lot of energy ensuring his sets were correct, and when you told him there was a lot wrong with them, he got very upset.”
“What did the fake doctor say?” Clara asked.
“I’m not sure of the exact words, but I hear there was an awful lot of swearing. And he said something about being a genius and that no one recognised it.” Taylor snorted with laughter.
“I am so confused. How does not knowing how to do a very niche and specialised job have any reflection on his intelligence.” She flicked her indicators on, waiting for the road ahead to be clear.
“I have absolutely no idea. I do know it then devolved into swearing on both sides.”
Clara turned onto the road that the pub was on and began scanning for a parking space; spotting one not too far from the door, she indicated and pulled in.
“And then what happened?” She switched the engine off.
“The fake doctor stomped off, smashing a couple of windows in the hospital on his way out.”
“Wow.” Clara grabbed her bag from the seat and picked up her phone, balancing it on her shoulder again.
“Have you parked?”
“Yeah,” she said as she began to walk along the street to the pub.
“Alright, stay on the phone with me until you get there safe,” he requested.
“Sure, it’s only a couple of hundred meters.” She strolled along the street, suddenly not in a hurry to get there, as it would mean hanging up the phone. “What else did you do today?”
“Rehearsals, some hair and makeup tests. It was a pretty low-key day.”
“Oh, that sounds more interesting than my day. We did two lap appendix, two bum abscesses, a gall bag, and a c-section,” Clara described her day in the emergency theatre.
“A gall bag?” Taylor sputtered.
“Sorry, gallbladder removal surgery. I forget sometimes that you’re not a medical student.” Clara chuckled.
Arriving at the door of the pub she didn’t go in, instead lingering on the phone at the entrance.
“I would make a terrible medical student,” Taylor confessed.
“Why?” She glanced in the door, hoping that none of her team would spot her and interrupt their conversation.
“I felt sick at least five times while I was with you,” he mumbled.
“What!” she exclaimed. “Why didn’t you say anything.”
“I was too embarrassed to say anything as it wasn’t affecting you at all,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, but it’s literally my job. When I was a medical student, I nearly passed out a few times. In fact, it’s why I never took up surgery; I couldn’t stand for a whole operation without getting faint. Which is why I do a job where I get to sit down while the surgeons stand up.”
“That’s different. That’s not because you’re too much of a wimp to look at a bit of blood,” Taylor muttered, his embarrassment obvious even over the phone.
“I beg to differ. I once tried to faint when a patient was post big abdominal surgery, and every time she laughed, a bit more of her wound popped open. I had to leave the room and only made it two meters down the corridor before I needed to lie on the floor or risk passing out. It’s a little embarrassing to be wearing your medical student white coat while you lie on a corridor floor debating if you’re going to vomit.”
“You did not! You’re just saying that to make me feel better.” The laugh was back in his voice.
“I absolutely did, and that’s only one of many times I tried to faint. Do you feel better now?”
“I actually do. Are you at the pub?”
Clara debated lying when the door swung open, and Sadie stuck her head out; she had obviously noticed her lurking outside.
“Hurry up, Clara. We’re about to start,” Sadie called. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realise you were on the phone. Are you on call?”
“No. I’ll be there now,” Clara mouthed and held a finger up to indicate she would only be a minute, but her friend only stood there, looking at her with interest.
“Is that Sadie?” Taylor asked.
“Yeah,” Clara said and gestured to Sadie again.
The other woman finally waved and retreated back into the pub.
“Can I say hi to everyone?”
“Sorry? What? You want to say hello to my friends?” Clara couldn’t help the laugh that sputtered out. Someone with such a glamorous life wanted to talk to her small-town pub quiz team.
“Yeah, I had a lot of fun with them. They’re a nice bunch.”
“Sure. I’ll head in and put you on speakerphone when we get to the table.” Clara pushed the door open, the warmth and noise of the pub hitting her.
Lifting her hand, she waved to her team, who sat at their usual table and then weaved through the crowded room to them, dropping into the seat they had saved for her.
“Cutting it fine,” Mike called out from the other end of the table.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m here now. Actually, I’ve got—“ She hesitated before she recalled the name they had given Taylor when he joined them for the quiz, “Tom, on the phone. He wanted to say hi.”
She put it onto speaker phone and thrust it into the middle of the table. Purposefully not looking at Sadie, who she was sure had an awful lot to say.
“Hi, guys,” Taylor’s voice rumbled from the phone, so distinctive that Clara wasn’t sure there was any way her friends wouldn’t guess they were talking not to Tom but instead to Taylor Anderson, the movie star.
However, no one flinched, and Mike called out, “When are you coming back? We’ve lost every week without you.”
The whole table erupted in laughter. For a bunch of clever people, they were rubbish at trivia. Maybe because all of them had spent so much time studying their specialist subject, it often left little time for anything else.
“It won’t be for a while. I’ve got work booked out for the next few months. But I’ll come the first week I’m free,” Taylor promised.
“Hi, Tom. We’ll save you a seat next to Clara,” Sadie shouted, then winked at Clara, whose cheeks immediately flushed.
“Great. I’ll put it in my diary,” Taylor replied.
Ron, the quiz master, began to speak, interrupting any further chance of conversation. “Good evening, everyone, and welcome to this week’s quiz.”
Clara picked up her phone and took it off speaker. “We’re just about to start the quiz, so I’d better go,” she whispered, waving her hand at Sadie, who was making kissy faces back at her.
“No problem. Text me that you get home safe. I’ll give you a ring tomorrow if that’s okay?”
Clara’s eyes widened in astonishment; he wanted to call for another chat. Tomorrow? She couldn’t help the flush that rose on her cheeks, but stuff it, she wanted to talk to him as well. It had been even better than the constant texts they were sending.
“That sounds good. Talk tomorrow,” she said breathily.
‘Good luck! Talk soon,“ Taylor replied.
“Bye,” Clara murmured and slowly hung up the phone.
Her gaze rose to meet Sadie’s eyes, who was staring right at her.
“No, you hang up. No, you hang up.” Sadie giggled.
“It’s not like that,” Clara muttered.
“Really?” Sadie said sceptically.
“Yeah. He’s him, and I’m me.”
“And you’re pretty bloody awesome.” Sadie nudged her best friend’s shoulder.
Clara shook her head. “You know what I mean.”
“Did you phone him, or did he phone you?” Sadie questioned.
“He phoned me,” Clara admitted.
“Are you two playing this week or not?” Mike called from across the table, waving the picture sheet at them.
“Yeah,” Clara said back, using it as an excuse not to speak any more about Taylor.
“This conversation isn’t finished. You’re coming round for dinner this weekend, and we’re going to have a chat,” Sadie murmured.
Clara just nodded.