17. CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 17
C lara parked in front of the old hospital, which was being used as one of the sets for Taylor’s movie. Checking her phone, she saw she was ten minutes early.
Placing her hands on the steering wheel, she took deep breaths, trying to slow her erratic pulse, as the thought of seeing Taylor again had her heart racing.
She felt ridiculous. They texted each other all the time, multiple times a day, but seeing him in person after a few months felt so different. She noticed her hands trembling a little and shook them before giving herself a silent pep talk about her own stupidity. Taylor was a kind and generous person who was so far out of her league that they weren’t even on the same planet, despite what Sadie and George tried to tell her. She reminded herself she was here to do a job and not moon over a movie star.
A knock on her window had her releasing an involuntary scream, and she spun to see who it was.
A uniformed security guard stared back at her, indicating that she should wind down the window so he could talk to her.
“Can I help you, miss?” He leaned down to look in the window.
“Yes, hi. Sorry, you startled me. My name’s Clara Upford. I’ve been hired as a medical adviser,” she informed him, impressed that she managed to keep the tremor of nerves out of her voice.
“Let me check the list.” The guard lifted a clipboard up and ran his fingers down it, looking for her name. “I’ve found you. I’ll get someone to come and meet you.” He pulled a radio off his belt, bringing it to his mouth to talk. “I have the medical advisor, Doctor Clara Upford here. Can you send someone down to meet her?”
A crackly voice replied that they were on their way.
“I’ll show you where to wait,” he said, looking at Clara expectantly, as she had made no move to get out of the car.
“Oh, sure,” she mumbled, hurriedly grabbing her bag and winding up the window before leaping out of the car to follow him.
As she walked, she reminded her pounding heart to calm down; she was here to do a job, however much Taylor’s constant texts and phone calls made her hope otherwise.
She debated texting Taylor to tell him she was there, but that seemed a bit too needy, so she left her phone in her handbag.
The security guard left her at the main entrance of the hospital. Clara giggled to herself as she sat on a hard plastic chair identical to the ones at her work, clearly no one had wanted the uncomfortable seats when the hospital closed.
“Doctor Upford?” A young, very fashionably dressed, blonde woman, clutching an iPad in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, said as she rapidly approached her.
“Yes,” Clara confirmed, trying to smile through her nerves.
“Great. I’m Lacey, the third assistant to the director. I’ll be liaising with you. I assume you’ve read the briefing notes that Mr Atrosky sent. He wants total authenticity, and you have his permission to stop filming if it deviates from reality in any way.” Lacey looked at her expectantly.
Clara nodded. “Yes. I read that.”
“Excellent. He also wants to thank you for the notes you attached to the medical scenes in the script. The changes you suggested have been made.”
“That’s great.” Clara smiled, pleased she had been able to help, even though she hadn’t needed to change too much, as they had obviously researched extensively.
“You’ve got today to check over the equipment we’ve already got. Then we’ll spend four days doing actor and technical rehearsals and be ready to film next week.”
“Okay.” This was exactly the timeline that the second, actually maybe it was the first assistant to Mr Atrosky had previously given to Clara.
“Follow me. I’ll take you straight up to the set,” Lacey said briskly and took another sip of her coffee.
Clara stole a glance at the coffee. She would have loved to grab another cup, but it didn’t look like that was an option as Lacey rushed along the corridor, so she didn’t ask, instead just said brightly, “Great.”
Lacey led the way through the building and up two flights of stairs to the operating theatres. Clara followed close behind, trying to suppress the shivers that ran up her spine as they weaved through the deserted building. She had never felt spooked when she walked around the hospitals she worked in, even in the dead of night. This place was different; it felt empty. She could tell there weren’t wards full of patients around her, and there were no doctors, nurses, or auxiliary staff anywhere in the building; it felt dead.
Unconsciously, she moved a little faster so she was closer to Lacey.
“We’re going to film in the biggest operating theatre, which is number seven.” Lacey shoved open the double doors that would have once been automatic but had long since broken and made an ominous creaking noise, which did nothing to calm Clara’s discomfort in the empty building.
Clara sighed deeply, swearing under her breath as she surveyed the room. It was full of equipment that must have been left behind when the hospital closed, which, from the looks of it, was at least twenty years ago.
The only modern thing was the anaesthetic machine sitting in the corner, which she had asked them to get after the dialysis machine debacle.
“Everything looks great here! We were so lucky that so much was left behind.” Lacey gestured around the room.
“It’s, well, it’s something.” Clara grimaced. “We’ll need to get a few things, as some of this stuff is so out-of-date that we don’t use it anymore.” She wandered across to what she assumed was a diathermy machine, although it was so antiquated that she wasn’t entirely sure.
“Oh,” Lacey said flatly.
Clara turned to the younger woman to see a crest-fallen expression on her face. “Sorry.”
Lacey shrugged. “That’s okay. I’ve got the credit card, so you can order whatever you need. I’ll be with you all day to help you out.”
“Right,” Clara muttered.
She pulled a notebook out of her bag, starting a list of what they needed. She walked slowly around the room, checking everything, opening every drawer, jotting down everything packed in them, and noting what was missing. By the time she was finished, her list was three pages long. It was going to be a mission to have the room ready for filming.
She pulled her laptop out of her bag, put it on one of the benches along the side of the room, and hooked it up to her phone’s internet, ready to start ordering things and calling people.
“Do you need any help?” Lacey enquired.
“I will. I’m going to make a few phone calls. Some medical supply companies will lend us the bigger equipment. I’ll also have to buy a whole heap of disposables.”
Lacey’s brows drew together, and her voice betrayed her worry. “We’ll be rehearsing with the actors all day tomorrow, and we can’t interrupt them to arrange all the new equipment.”
Clara opened her mouth to say that surely the actors could cope with them having to break for a few minutes while she sorted everything out, then closed it again when she recalled the list of actors on the front of the script and knew that at least two were Hollywood royalty. As well as Taylor and Devon LaSalle, who, according to the googling she had done, was a current up-and-coming actress, with whispers about being the next ‘actress of her generation’. So she figured they were an important group of people, and she wasn’t someone who could request that they wait a few minutes for her to do her job.
Instead, she said, “Don’t worry, I’ll do it after they’ve all finished for the day.” Clara sighed internally. She had hoped this job would be a bit of a break from the long days. Obviously, it wouldn’t.
At least they were putting her up in a nice hotel. That alone had been worth it, as the last time she had stayed in a hotel, it was with Jack for her birthday.
Her mind shied away from the disaster that night had been, with Jack in a foul mood as they hadn’t been able to get a table at his favourite restaurant because he forgot to book it—yes, the plan was to go to his favourite restaurant on her birthday. Somehow, it had been her fault for not reminding him, and he had sulked for the rest of the evening, even when they ended up in a lovely sushi place.
She had hidden the bruises he had left on her arms by wearing long sleeves for the next couple of weeks.
“I can stay late and help you,” Lacey said reluctantly.
“I should be okay. As long as everything is brought up here for me, all I’ve got to do is arrange it. And I’d have to tell you where to put it anyway.” Clara shrugged and inwardly cursed to herself for saying no to help.
Getting the room to look like a functioning operating theatre would be a massive job, and it would take her hours alone.
Suddenly, a thought crossed her mind, and she leapt off her chair and dashed over to the anaesthetic machine. After plugging it in, she turned it on and began to check the machine. First, she checked the gas supply pipelines, which were all plugged into the appropriate places on the wall, and then cursed when she saw the dial indicating that no gas was flowing from them. They couldn’t use the machine in a realistic way if there was no oxygen.
“Are the pipelines still working?” Clara asked Lacey.
“The what?” Lacey looked puzzled.
“The oxygen supply to the hospital. Did you get it hooked back up?” Clara tapped the screen, which showed no pressure in the oxygen, air and nitrous pipelines.
“No. I don’t think so.” Lacey shook her head. She grabbed her iPad and scrolled through screen after screen of notes. “Not that I can see.”
“Shit. Sorry, right, this is okay. I can sort this,” Clara reassured herself, and strode to her laptop and typed quickly, finding a local company that could supply oxygen.
She lifted her phone up to call them but stopped when a text arrived and instead checked that, sputtering with laughter when she saw the picture in her messages. It was a close-up of Taylor’s bright blue eye—and yes, she could recognise him just from his eye—rimmed with what looked like eyeliner, accompanied by a message .
‘In makeup. I’m wearing ’guy-liner’, do you think I should throw a tantrum about it?’
Her laugh increased after she read the message; glancing up, she saw Lacey staring at her inquisitively. “A friend sent me a funny photo.”
“Sure.” Lacey nodded disinterestedly, pulled her phone out of her pocket, and started scrolling.
‘Tantrum. Why have they done that to you?’ Clara replied.
She watched the screen and saw the dots appear; Taylor was messaging her.
‘I don’t know. I think they hate me. It looks stupid. Right, tantrum time.’
Clara giggled; she couldn’t imagine the Taylor she knew throwing a tantrum.
‘You just asked them nicely to remove it, didn’t you?’
Again, the dots immediately appeared. ‘Yes, it was a new girl. I asked the chief makeup artist, and she nearly had a stroke, as it was nothing like the continuity photo.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The photos they take to ensure we look consistent from scene to scene. No guy-liner anywhere else in this movie. So they removed it.’
He sent her another close-up of his eye, this time eyeliner-free.
‘So you were just being dramatic?’
‘A little.’
‘You should go into acting.’ Clara chuckled to herself as she typed it.
She had a lot of fun bantering with Taylor and found it hard to reconcile the movie star with someone who sent her some kind of ridiculous photo every day.
‘I should! Ops got to go. Being called to set.’
‘Good luck.’
‘You’re supposed to say, break a leg.’
‘As a doctor, I’m very averse to broken bones, as it means more work for me. So I’m sticking with good luck.’
‘Okay, I’ll take it. I’ll see you later at the hospital.’
Clara stared at her phone as her heart fluttered at the thought of seeing him.