39. Mai
Mai
“What do you mean the locum has refused to come back this week?” Mai rubbed tiredly at her eyes as Nora—the hospital manager she loathed the most—stood there, delivering news she didn’t want to hear.
“He said, and I quote: ‘The doctors in Burra Creek are intolerable. I will not be undermined in my clinical decisions by a poorly trained quack who takes unnecessary risks.’” The manager sneered at Mai.
“So, it seems you wanting to play the hero in front of Taylor Anderson has led to our short staffing problems.”
Mai bit her lip to stop herself from answering the accusation. There was no point in arguing with Nora; she was a total witch to all the female doctors while at the same time sucking up to the men.
“Doctor Johnson is away. So what are you going to do about this issue?” Nora demanded.
Mai managed not to roll her eyes, maintaining her professional facade. “Let me have a look at the roster.”
Nora thrust some paper at her, and Mai controlled herself enough not to snatch it out of the older woman’s hands.
“Thanks.” Mai smiled nicely.
She cursed inside her head. She was on-call today, and the locum was meant to do Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
Her boss was away, and Nora would get in the other consultants’ ears, telling them it was Mai’s fault they didn’t have a locum.
So there was only one solution.
“No problems. I can fill in over the weekend.” Mai smiled even more sweetly, waiting for Nora to make some catty remark.
“Quite right too, it’s your fault we’re in this mess. You should be ashamed of yourself, trying to impress a married man.”
Mai’s eyebrows rose. Bloody hell, was the old bat suggesting she wanted to attract Taylor? What a total lunatic.
Nora sniffed. “I’m sure you’ll be after that singer too.”
Mai maintained the smile on her face, but her cheeks were stiff. “Hmm,” she answered non-committedly.
She was hardly about to tell Nora that she was married to ‘that singer’.
“Anyway, now that’s sorted. I’ve got actual important issues to deal with, not a petty argument between staff.” Nora sniffed again.
Mai had noticed she sniffed a lot and wondered if she could suggest that the manager see an ear, nose, and throat surgeon.
No, she better not.
One, two, three, four, five. Mai counted in her head, trying to maintain her cool. Although she knew she would need to count to a hundred to regain any semblance of calm.
Nora stomped off down the corridor, and Mai managed to stop herself from calling after the nasty woman that she was an old bat.
Great, this was just great. She was supposed to have some time to rehearse with the band before Tuesday, but that was out the window now. But at least being on-call would stop her from having to stay in Ford’s room, as she could just move into the on-call room in the hospital for the weekend.
It had been torture sleeping in a bed that smelled like the man she’d been obsessed with since she was a teenager.
A couple of times, she’d debated creeping out to where he slept on the couch and insisting he come and share with her, but sanity prevailed, and she didn’t.
Although in the morning, as she left for work, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from peeking at him as he slept.
He’d been wearing an old t-shirt, with one arm flung over his face, and the other by his side.
She’d hesitated, staring down at him in the same position he always used to sleep in. The only difference between then and now was that he would use his free arm to tug her into his side.
When he stirred in his sleep, she'd pulled herself together and crept out of the house.
She yanked her mind back to her current problems and took her phone out of her pocket, texting Ford.
‘Work gone to crap. I’ll be here all weekend. I’ll move into the on-call room to make things easier. Just throw my clothes back into my bag, and I’ll grab them when I can.’
‘I’ll bring them in,’ Ford replied immediately.
Mai smiled gratefully, sending back. ‘Thanks.’
The emergency pager she was carrying chose that moment to make itself known, flashing up that they were taking a lady to theatre for a Cat One Caesar. They needed to get the baby out ASAP.
It was the start of a bad weekend.
Every time she sat down for more than five minutes, it felt like someone else asked her something.
A million babies were born by caesarean—okay, it was only seven—but that was a huge number for a small hospital.
Her registrar, who was supposed to work the night shift on Saturday, called in sick. The tertiary centre that she was trying to get a baby retrieved to was full, so she was stuck looking after a premature baby all weekend, who required more support than Burra Creek was used to giving.
To put it nicely, it was a shit fight.
By Tuesday morning, she was exhausted and unsure how she was going to manage to work all day and then play a show with Midnight Thunder.
The only good thing about being so busy was that it kept her mind off Ford.
“Mai, are you okay?” Doctor Rob Johnson walked into the NICU to find Mai with her head down on the desk.
She was so blurry-eyed, it took her a moment to realise it was one of the other doctors talking to her.
“Nope,” Mai said, lifting her head up to shake it, then placing it back down on the desk.
“What happened?” he questioned.
“The locum refused to come back. I’ve been here since Thursday.
I’ve had about four hours’ sleep and drunk seven million coffees.
I think I might start hallucinating soon.
” She closed her eyes, and despite sitting in a brightly lit hospital ward, with a thousand monitors beeping and someone speaking to her, she almost fell asleep.
“You need to sleep,” Rob said firmly.
“I’m clinical today. I need to do the ward round,” Mai muttered. She tried to force her eyelids open, but they remained closed.
“Mai. Go home. Actually, don’t drive. Go and sleep in the on-call room. I’m non-clinical today. I’ll take over the unit. You can’t work like this.”
She prised her eyes open, saw the fuzzy outline of Rob and nodded. He was right; she was in no state to work.
“Thanks.” Pushing herself to her feet, she trudged along the short corridor to the on-call room.
She didn’t even take her shoes off before flopping onto the bed and groaning in happiness. She was horizontal, and no one was going to phone her.
Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she set an alarm for five pm. There was no way she would sleep that late, but if she did, it would give her time to shower and change into her show clothes.
Mai’s alarm, blaring, roused her from her deep, dreamless sleep. Blinking her eyes in bewilderment, she sat up and grabbed her phone. Holy crap, it was five in the evening, and she’d slept for the last seven hours.
She quickly messaged Steve to see if the paparazzi were still around her house, then packed all her things into the bag Ford brought for her on Thursday and headed out to Steve’s car.
It was a shock to be outside in the fresh air after so many days stuck in the air-conditioning and under the hospital's neon lights.
As she climbed into Steve’s car, she got a text from him. ‘All clear. They got bored Sunday when you didn’t come home.’
Well, that was one less thing to worry about. Now all she needed to do was deal with her stage fright to play a show, admit to the entire town who she really was, and, oh, if she had time, tell Ford that she still loved him, and if he didn’t kiss her again soon, she was going to go out of her mind.
They’d spent the whole weekend texting, and food kept appearing outside the door of the NICU for her and all the staff members who were on shift with her. But he wasn’t pushing; he didn’t insist on seeing her. When she said she was busy in work, he took it at face value and still looked after her.
It didn’t take Mai long to shower and change into her stage outfit of black jeans and a black t-shirt that was easy to move in as she played guitar, before she carefully applied Sie’s trademark makeup.
Standing in front of the mirror, she held the wig in one hand, staring at the woman looking back at her.
This was the point of no return.
She could put the wig on and keep hiding a little longer. Or she could take control and get the ‘reveal’ out to the public tonight.
Her head began to itch at the thought of putting the wig on. Mai huffed and threw the stupid thing down onto the bench by the sink. She was done hiding.
This is who she was.
The one thing that didn’t go with the look she was going for were her pink glasses. There was no way she was putting in contact lenses either, wearing them for the photoshoot reminded her why she hated sticking her fingers into her eyeballs.
Striding into her bedroom, she dug through the top drawer in her wardrobe—the one into which she chucked all the old things she didn’t want to get rid of, but wasn’t quite sure what to do with. She crowed triumphantly as she found what she was looking for.
A few years ago, she’d briefly dated a lawyer, and he kept telling her that her pink glasses made her look childish, so after a while, she got sick of hearing it and bought some black ones so he would shut up.
The relationship only lasted for three weeks after she got her black glasses, and she’d chucked them in a drawer to gather dust.
She grinned at herself in the mirror. It wasn’t a bad look. She grabbed her phone, stared at it, gave Sie’s trademark expression, then sent the selfie to the group chat she had with Clara, Sadie, and Hel.
She checked her makeup one last time, grabbed her guitar and headed for the door. Her phone beeped in her handbag, and she stopped to check it, hoping it would be Ford.
Mai sputtered with laughter when she saw it was a selfie from Clara of her and Taylor, with Hayes snuggled between them, both pouting in the same way Mai had done.