At First Sight
By the time Anna makes it to breakfast, she has already run five miles in the gym (the safest place to run in this part of Los Angeles), processed her emails (she isn’t on holiday although it may feel like it), and had her slightly disturbing conversation with her older sister.
Eleanor had been all uptight and very un-Eleanor-like, almost crabby. Maybe she was distressed about Serena; maybe the call with their cousin had put her sister on edge. Even if she wasn’t already looking forward to seeing Serena, Anna promises herself she will move things around or sacrifice networking events in order to make a rendezvous with her cousin happen.
Having been awake since four, she is starving by the time she makes it to breakfast. The noise from the dining room is clear from the foyer. It’s not just the hard surfaces reflecting the bangs and crashes of serving spoons and stainless-steel trays; it seems like every hotel resident has decided this is the optimum time to eat. Chatter fills the space to the high ceilings. Anna looks around the packed room and in one corner spots a head of shiny ginger hair. Perfect.
She gives her room number to the woman manning a tablet on a podium and then navigates her way through the tables to the buffet area. Used to European coffee, she avoids the filter pot of stewed black stuff so beloved by Americans and opts instead for a teabag in a cup and boiling water. Then she makes her way over to the redhead.
He looks up as she puts her cup down and immediately smiles at her.
“Good morning,” James says. “How was your flight?”
“Eventful,” she declares. She drops her laptop bag on her seat and with hands now free, turns to go back to the buffet area. “Can I get you anything?”
He indicates his plate. Knife and fork neatly together and off to the side. Tomato-red smears give way to egg-yolk stains and watery-brown liquid with slimy remnants of mushroom. “I’ve had enough, thanks.”
She picks up a plate as she enters the buffet area. She gives the doughnuts and muffins a miss. The same with the cereals. That much sugar for breakfast and she’d have a headache by the time the first session ends. She settles for fruit with Greek yoghurt and toasted English muffins topped with fried egg, ignoring the rest. If she stuffed herself with pastries and pancakes, she’d have to double her gym time or be the size of a house by the time she goes home. She’ll leave those treats for break time when she’ll probably need a little lift.
As she slides into the chair opposite her boss, she points at the paper on the table. “What have you got there?”
“An itinerary. I worked it out on the plane.”
Anna nods. She might have done the same if she hadn’t been otherwise occupied.
“These sessions and workshops would be my recommendations. I’ll cover these,” James indicates his own list, “and then we can brief each other. I’ll check in with you at coffee time, and then we can meet up at lunch for a proper update.”
“Aye, aye, boss,” she says, gently teasing. James is a good supervisor and a great teacher. She is lucky to have him.
“If there is anything you’d rather go to, it’s no problem.” He looks at her earnestly.
“No. It makes sense to do it this way.” She takes the list. She’s down for In-Utero Foetal Resuscitation at eight. “It’s good.”
“Excellent. I particularly wanted to go to the talk on neuropathic pain, but they clashed. So what was eventful about your flight?” he asks.
Anna starts her story but midway through realises he isn’t listening. His eyes are focused elsewhere. She turns around to track where he is looking and sees him staring at the entrance podium. A beautiful blonde is waiting for the attendant to return. Her presence seems to have had a poleaxing effect on her normally level-headed boss.
“She’s pretty,” she remarks, oh so casually.
“Uh. Yes.” Her boss seems to return to consciousness.
“Why don’t we invite her over? She might be lonely.” Anna bites her lip to keep from grinning.
“That’s not necessary,” James says, flushing furiously. Then, as he sees Anna stand, his words take on urgency. “No, Anna!” And then panic as Anna beckons to the blonde. “What are you doing?”
Anna settles back down in her seat. Her boss has a few seconds to work on calming his flaming face before the blonde arrives.
“It’s heaving in here!” She looks around. “Can I sit with you?”
Anna pulls her bag off the remaining seat and pushes it out. Her boss appears tongue-tied as the blonde bombshell sits beside him. She shakes her flowing golden locks back and he seems to choke on his own tongue.
“James was just going to get himself something to drink. Can he get you anything?” Anna helps her boss along with good manners.
The blonde turns her melting amber eyes on him. “Oh, please. Coffee. Milk, no sugar.” She smiles her appreciation, and James falls over the leg of his chair as he stands to do her bidding.
“You might regret that,” Anna says as James disappears.
But Bella ignores her. “Who’s he?” she asks, nodding in the direction of the buffet bar.
“My boss, James.”
Bella’s eyebrows go up. “He’s young for a consultant,” she says.
“Not particularly. Perhaps he just looks younger. He told me when he first qualified he had to grow a beard so patients would take him seriously.”
“A beard wouldn’t harm. A consultant, eh? And you’re still in London?” Bella stares after him. “Is he single?”
“You’re joking?” Anna might have been lightly ribbing her boss, but it seems the joke is on her. She is so used to thinking of her James as … well, James. She struggles to make the leap to thinking of him as an object of someone’s desire.
“Oh? Sorry.” Bella puts her hand on Anna’s. “Is he yours?”
“Mine?”
“Are you and him …” She nudges Anna’s elbow.
What are they, twelve? Anna frowns. “No. We are most decidedly nothing like that.”
“Great!” Bella lets out a breath. “Then you don’t mind if I have a go?”
“Knock yourself out.” Anna shrugs. She turns to look at James as he walks back with a mug of coffee in each hand. Her boss is kind, clever and unflappable in a crisis. But he’s short, blocky and unattractive, not Bella’s usual type. Anna corrects herself: he’s not the type Bella would have chosen years ago. She’d always tended to go for the Adonis-type. Buff men with waxed chests and all-over tans. Men with ripped sleeves to show off their biceps and tight jeans. Maybe a tattoo or ten. She takes in James’s pristine white short-sleeved shirt tucked into sand-coloured chinos and his black leather brogues. All he is missing is a set of pens in the top pocket to announce his full nerd-dom. Perhaps Bella’s tastes have changed.
James reaches the table and places his bounty in front of the beauty. “Thanks,” she says and beams up at him as if he had hand-picked the beans himself. She brings the cup to her lip, takes a sip, and puts it down quickly. “Yuck!” she says, unable to hide her distaste. “That’s horrendous!” She pushes the coffee away.
James looks crestfallen and Anna can’t help but laugh. “It’s America. The only way to make their coffee palatable is tons of sugar, creamer, and flavourings. Sometimes all three. It’s like drinking a chemistry lab, but they like it. The only safe place for Europeans to get coffee over here is in speciality shops.”
“It’s not that bad …” James tries a sip of his, but even he can’t keep his reaction to the bitterness from showing. “Okay. I’ll get you something else.”
“Don’t worry,” Bella puts her hand on his bare arm and he flushes at the contact. “I need to get some breakfast, anyway.” She gives his flesh a slight squeeze before she stands. Then she bends to extract her phone out of the bag hanging off the back of her chair. Her short, brightly patterned dress rides up, exposing more of her smooth, toned legs as her butt gets dangerously close to James’s face.
Anna bites her lip. Bella is going old school with a Legally Blonde “Bend and Snap”. But it is too much for James. He shuts his eyes and gulps, like a man overcome. When he dares open them again, Bella is five tables away. Anna wants to giggle. Bella’s hip-swaying strut was all for nothing. He completely missed it, even if half of the male diners choked on their breakfasts.
“Is she an actress?” James asks.
“No. Why on earth would you think that?”
“Hollywood and all that stuff.” He shrugs. “She’s probably the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“No. I didn’t mean to suggest …” James trails off. This is the most flustered Anna has ever seen him. She has seen him with a child victim of a road traffic accident crashing on the operating table because of the severity of their wounds, and he was cool, calm and collected. But Bella seems to have left him in a twist with one brief touch.
“Would you like to go out with her?” Anna asks. “I can ask her for you? If you’re shy?”
James is clearly torn. “That wouldn’t be appropriate.” He clears his throat. “And a woman like that wouldn’t be interested in me.” But his eyes follow Bella until she turns to make her way back. Then he looks down at his empty plate. Anna wants to kick him. How can he move around an operating theatre or the emergency room with such confidence but crumble in front of a pretty face?
Bella puts a plate piled with pastries, doughnuts and chocolate muffins together with a glass of orange juice on the table, and Anna says, “You’ll have a sugar crash mid-morning if you eat that lot.”
“Anna!” James’s intake of breath shows his disapproval. Anna waves her hand to bat away his disapproval. Suddenly, she is tired of playing with them. Her game has taken on a life of its own and she is no longer in control. Time to let cupid fire his bow.
“Bella and I go way back,” she excuses her comment, even as she hears her mother’s refined voice in her ear chiming her reminders of manners at the dinner table. It’s rude to comment on other people’s food , Lady Larkford would say as World War III threatened over who had taken more than their fair share of the roast potatoes.
Anna focuses on the two in front of her. “Dr James Morland, please meet Dr Bella Thorpe.” There, she is done. They can take it from here. She will no longer be anybody’s go-between.
“Oh,” says James, suddenly heartened. “Are you here for the conference?”
“Yes,” says Bella brightly. “I’m looking forward to it. I’ve never been to one of these before.”
“Talking of the conference,” Anna gathers her things, “we’d best be off if we want to make those sessions.” She waves the sheet James gave her.
“You go ahead,” he says. “I’ll walk Bella over when she’s finished. As she’s never been before.”
“What about neuropathic pain?” Anna prods.
James looks uncomfortable. Then he raises his eyes to hers as if pleading.
Anna sighs. “I’ll see what I can cover.”
As she exits the restaurant area, she casts one last look at the most unlikely lovebirds she’s ever seen.
Heads together at the table, they seem to have already forgotten about her departure. Bella has half a doughnut in her hand as James is wiping a crystal of sugar from the side of her mouth. One thing you can say about Bella – she certainly moves fast when she sees something she wants.