Secrets of a Career Girl

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘One drink,’ Ethan said. Surely she could manage one quick drink. ‘Come on, Penny, I’m asking for some help here. I’m really not in the mood to go out celebrating tonight and I don’t know how to do the baby talk thing.’

  ‘Oh, and because I’m a woman, I do?’

  ‘God, you just don’t let up, do you?’ Ethan snapped. ‘I was just asking for some backup. It would be nice to do the right thing by the guy, the sociable thing. His wife’s just had a baby, it’s right to take him out.’

  ‘It’s right that the consultant takes him out!’ Penny retorted sharply. ‘I’m not a consultant, which means I get to go home and sign off from this place occasionally, and I’m signing off now. Good night, Ethan!’

  Penny closed the door on him and promptly burst into tears. And because Jasmine knew her well, or rather better than anyone else knew Penny, she didn’t try to comfort her at first. Instead, she undid her sister’s skirt as Penny stood there and sobbed. Jasmine looked at her bruised stomach and, finding a suitable spot, swabbed her skin and then stuck in the needle. Penny continued to sob and then, having disposed of the needle, Jasmine went over and gave her sister a hug.

  ‘It’s done.’

  ‘It’s not just that,’ Penny said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I made a right fool of myself just then. Ethan thinks that I’m jealous because I didn’t get the job. I know that’s what he’s been thinking and I’ve just gone and proved it to him.’

  ‘You’re not jealous, though, Penny.’ Jasmine tried to get her sister to see reason. ‘He doesn’t know what’s going on. You turned down the job so that you could concentrate on your IVF.’

  ‘No! I turned down the consultant’s position so that I could have a baby.’ Penny gulped. ‘But the way things are going, I don’t think that I’m going to get one.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ETHAN PAID THE taxi and let himself into his apartment.

  A celebratory drink on an empty stomach, the way he was feeling right now, possibly hadn’t been the best idea and it hadn’t been just the one.

  Given it had only been him with Gordon, he hadn’t exactly been able to get up and leave after one, so instead he’d had to sit there and listen as Gordon had gone into spectacular detail about his day, or rather his wife’s day.

  Ethan had been hoping that now that the baby had been born, Gordon would come back to work.

  He’d had no idea how it all worked.

  As it turned out, Gordon was now on paternity leave and would be juggling toddler twins and a six-year-old’s school run.

  ‘Not a problem,’ he had said to Gordon.

  It was, though, a huge one.

  Ethan had gone through everyone to cover for him in the morning and the only person who might possibly have been able to help had an appointment.

  Well, Ethan had his cousin’s funeral to attend.

  He’d been dreading it, but he would far rather be there than not.

  He would love to just ring in sick tomorrow, to let someone else sort it out, to just sign off on the place, as Penny had tonight.

  Still, he had expected more from her.

  She was senior too.

  Ethan loaded some toast into the toaster and some tinned spaghetti into the microwave and tried not to think about Justin and how he’d be feeling tonight. Though, he consoled himself, Gina would surely be handling things better than his own mother had, given they had broken up a couple of years ago.

  He couldn’t not be there tomorrow and not just for appearances’ sake—Ethan wanted to see for himself that Justin was okay.

  Ethan thought about Phil and the black game they’d played and, sorry, mate, he said to his cousin, because even if he didn’t fancy Penny, he was going to have to play the sympathy card.

  He was scrolling through his phone to find her number when it rang.

  ‘Ethan?’ He didn’t answer her straight away; instead, he frowned at the sound of her voice. ‘It’s Penny. Penny Masters from work.’

  ‘Hi, Penny.’

  ‘I’m sorry to call you so late. I meant to tell you before I left for home—it just slipped my mind. I changed my appointment. I can get into work by nine tomorrow, if you still need me to.’

  ‘I do.’ The words just jumped out of him. ‘Thank you.’ Ethan closed his eyes in relief and it took a second to realise that she was still talking.

  ‘I’d also like to apologise for my words before.’ She sounded very prim and formal. ‘I really wasn’t in a position to go out tonight, but I didn’t explain myself very well.’

  Penny had explained things perfectly, Ethan thought privately, but he was so relieved that he would be able to get the funeral tomorrow that he let go the chance for a little barb, and instead he was nice. ‘I don’t blame you in the least for not wanting to come out tonight.’ Relief, mixed with just a little bit too much champagne, had him speaking honestly. ‘I really don’t think that I’m going to be able to look Hilary in the eye when I go and visit her.’

  ‘Too much detail?’ He heard her smile.

  ‘Far, far too much.’

  ‘That’s Gordon for you. He’s very...’ Penny really didn’t know how to describe him.

  ‘In tune?’ Ethan suggested.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I felt as if I was listening to him describe his labour,’ Ethan said, and was rewarded by the sound of her laugh. ‘Hold on a second.’ The microwave was pinging and he pressed Stop on the microwave rather than ending the call, not that he thought about it. ‘Look, thanks a lot for tomorrow. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.’

  ‘It was!’ Penny said, which had him frowning but sort of smiling too. ‘Don’t rush back.’

  ‘I’ll be back by one.’ Ethan really didn’t want to stand around chatting and drinking and talking about Phil in the past tense. He would be glad of the chance to slip away and just bury himself in work.

  ‘Whose funeral is it?’ Penny asked, and not gently, assuming, because he was fine to dash off from the funeral by one, that it was a patient from work and her mind was sort of scanning the admissions from the previous week as to who it might be, when his voice broke in.

  ‘My cousin’s.’

  Penny closed her eyes, guilty and horrified too, because she’d been so upset tonight she had almost forgotten to ring him. ‘You should have told me that! Ethan, I assumed it was a patient. You should have told me that it was personal.’

  ‘I was just about to call you and do that,’ Ethan admitted.

  ‘Is that why you’ve been so...?’ Penny’s voice trailed off.

  ‘That’s fine, coming from you,’ Ethan said, but it actually came out rather nicely and Penny found herself smiling into the phone as he continued. ‘Yes, it’s been a tough few days.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘My age,’ Ethan said. ‘Thirty-six.’

  ‘Was it expected?’

  ‘Sort of,’ Ethan said, and felt that sting at the back of his nose. ‘Sort of not. He was on the waiting list for a heart transplant.’

  There was silence for a moment. ‘Was he the one you were going to go to the football with?’ For the first time he heard her sound tentative.

  ‘Penny...’

  ‘Oh, God!’ She was a mass of manufactured hormones, not that he knew, and this news came at the end of a very upsetting day. ‘He missed the football match because of me.’

  ‘It wasn’t something at the top of his bucket list.’ Ethan actually found himself smiling as he recalled the conversation he’d had with Phil when he’d told him that he couldn’t get the time off, the one about the sympathy vote.

  And, no, he didn’t fancy Penny, he’d just had a bit too much to drink, he must have, because he was telling her that they’d often gone to w
atch football. ‘He went anyway—with Justin, his son.’ And he told Penny about the illness that had ravaged his cousin. ‘He got a virus a couple of years ago.’ And he could understand a bit better why the patients liked her, because she was very matter-of-fact and didn’t gush out her sympathies, just asked pertinent questions and then asked how his son and wife were doing.

  ‘Ex-wife,’ Ethan said, and he found himself musing—only he was doing it out loud and to Penny. ‘They broke up before he got ill, she had an affair and it was all just a mess. It must be hell for her too and she’s coming tomorrow. She’s bringing Justin.’

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Six,’ Ethan said.

  She asked how his aunt and uncle were.

  ‘Not great,’ he admitted. ‘They’re worried that they won’t get to see Justin so much anymore. It’s just a mess all round.’

  And he told Penny the hell of watching someone so vital and full of life gradually getting weaker. How he hated that he had only just made it to the hospital in time. He let out more than he had to Kate, to anyone, and during that conversation Penny found out that it had been his sister who had dropped him off at work, but there was no room for relief or dousing of red-hot pokers, or anything really, as she could hear the heartbreak in his voice.

  ‘Thirty-six,’ Ethan repeated, and was met by silence. He would never have known that her silence was because of tears. ‘So, while I suppose we were expecting it, it still came as a shock.’ He didn’t really know how better to explain it. ‘And it will be a shock for Justin too.’

  ‘Poor kid,’ Penny said.

  ‘Anyway, thanks for swapping.’

  He hung up the phone, poured his spaghetti on the toast and then frowned because it was cold. He’d surely only been on the phone for a moment and so back into the microwave it went.

  They’d actually been talking for a full twenty minutes.

  * * *

  At five a.m. Penny stood, bleary-eyed, under the shower, trying to wake up. She got out and then dried her hair. At least she didn’t have to worry about make-up yet, given that she would be crying it all off very soon.

  And normally the terribly efficient Penny didn’t have to worry about what to wear because her work wardrobe was on a fourteen-day rotation, except it wasn’t so simple at the moment because her arms were bruised from all the blood tests and so her sleeveless grey top wasn’t an option.

  Even the simplest thing seemed complicated this morning.

  A sheer neutral jumper worked well with her black skirt, except it meant that she had to change her underwear because it showed her black bra, and with all her appointments and tests the usually meticulous Penny’s laundry wasn’t up to date. Racing the clock, she grabbed coral silk underwear that she’d never usually consider wearing for work and then raced downstairs, so rushed and tired that by mistake she added orange juice instead of milk to her coffee and had to make her drink all over again.

  Still, Penny thought, she was glad to have been able to help out Ethan, and there was just a flutter of something unfamiliar stirring. Penny hadn’t fancied anyone for ages. Not since she and Vince had spilt up. Well, that wasn’t strictly true—she’d had a slight crush on someone a while ago, but she certainly wasn’t about to go there, even in her thoughts. She drove for what felt like ages until at last, at a quarter to seven, she lay with her knees up, loathing it despite being used to it, as she underwent the internal scan to find out how her ovaries were behaving. And if that wasn’t bad enough, afterwards she headed for her blood test.

  ‘Morning, Penny!’

  They all knew her well.

  Penny was determined not to make the scene she had yesterday. She was there willingly after all. But her resolve wavered as she sat on the seat and one of the nurses held her head as she cried while the other strapped down her arm—it was just an exercise in humiliation really.

  ‘I’m not doing this again,’ Penny said as she felt the needle go into her already-bruised vein.

  But she’d said that the last time, yet here she was again, locked in the exhausting world of IVF.

  Penny sorted out her make-up in the hospital car park and was, in fact, in the department well before nine.

  ‘Morning, Penny.’ Mr Dean was especially pleased to see her, because it meant that he could soon go home. ‘I hope that you had a good night’s sleep—the place is wild.’

  Of course it was.

  ‘Where’s Penny?’ was a frequent cry that she heard throughout the day and Penny didn’t really stop for a break, just made do with coffee on the run, but by one o’clock she knew that she had to get something to eat, which she would, just as soon as Mrs Hunt’s chest pain was sorted out.

  ‘Cardiology knows that you’re here,’ Penny explained to her patient. ‘They haven’t forgotten you. They’re just a bit busy up on CCU.’ The medication patch wasn’t working and Penny was just writing Mrs Hunt up for some morphine when the department was alerted that a severe head injury was on its way in.

  ‘Can you sort out that medication, Vanessa?’ Penny asked as she pulled on a fresh gown and gloves and her eye shield. ‘Maybe you could give Cardiology another page, just remind them that she’s here?’ Penny said, because one look at her new patient and Penny knew she wouldn’t be back in to see Mrs Hunt for a while.

  ‘Fight at school,’ a paramedic said as they lifted the young man over. ‘Fell backwards...’

  The teen was still in his school uniform and was, she was told, eighteen. Penny shut out the horror and focussed on her patient, feeling the mush of his skull beneath her gloved hands.

  ‘CPR was started immediately and continued at the scene...’ Penny listened to the paramedics’ handover as she worked. He’d been intubated and they’d got his heart started again, but it wasn’t looking good at all. She flashed a torch into his eyes but they were fixed and dilated. Still, he’d been given atropine, a medication that, amongst other things, dilated the pupils, which could account for that.

  Hopefully.

  ‘Has anyone seen Penny?’ She heard Jasmine’s voice.

  ‘Curtain one, Resus,’ Penny shouted. ‘What?’ she asked a moment later when Jasmine popped her head around.

  ‘Nothing.’ Jasmine saw the seriousness of the situation and came and helped Lisa with the young man. The trauma team arrived then as well, but despite their best efforts and equipment things were looking seriously grim.

  ‘We’ll get him round for a head CT.’ The trauma consultant was speaking with Penny and she glanced up as Ethan came in. He was wearing a black suit and had taken off his tie. His face was a touch grey and he looked down at the young man on the resus bed and then at Penny. ‘I’m just letting you know that I’m back. I’ll get changed.’

  ‘Before you do, could you just check in on curtain three?’ Penny said. ‘I had to leave her for this.’

  Ethan never did get to change. Mrs Hunt’s chest pain was increasing.

  ‘Vanessa!’ Penny was trying to concentrate on her patient but she could hear a commotion starting across the room. ‘Did you give her that morphine?’

  ‘I’m giving it now.’

  It was a horrible afternoon.

  Once the young patient was being dealt with by Trauma, Penny had an extremely tart word with Vanessa but she was just met with excuses.

  ‘I was trying to get through to Cardiology and then I was waiting for someone to come and check the drug with me, but everyone was in with the trauma or at lunch...’

  And Penny said nothing. She didn’t have to, her look said it all.

  ‘Two staff members have to check morphine.’ Lisa stuck up for her nurse, of course. ‘And nurses do have to eat!’ Penny bit down on a brittle response, because she’d really love to have made it to lunch too. There was a gnawing of hunger in her stomach but more than that she was annoy
ed that Mrs Hunt had been in pain for a good fifteen minutes when the medication had been ordered well before that. ‘We do our best, Penny,’ Lisa said.

  It just wasn’t good enough for Penny, though she held on to those words.

  The police came in and so to did the parents and as the trauma team had taken the young man from CT straight to Theatre, it was Penny who had to speak to them.

  ‘Do you want me to come in with you?’ Lisa offered, but Penny shook her head.

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  Ethan watched as she walked towards the interview room and thanked God that today it wasn’t him about to break terrible news.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Monroe.’ Penny introduced herself and sat down. ‘I was the doctor on duty when Heath was brought in.’

  And she went through everything with them. They didn’t need her tears, neither did they need false hope. She told them it was incredibly serious but that their son was in Theatre, and she watched as their lives fell apart. As she walked out of the interview room, Penny wondered if she could really bear to be a mum because the agony on their features, the sobbing that had come from Mrs Monroe was, Penny realised, from a kind of love she didn’t yet know.

  ‘How are they?’ Ethan asked when she came back to the nurses’ station.

  ‘They’re just having a nice cup of tea...’ Penny bristled and then checked herself. She was aware she was terribly brittle at times. Jasmine had happily told her that on several occasions, but speaking with Heath’s parents had been incredibly hard. ‘Awful,’ she admitted, then looked at his black suit and up into his hazel eyes and she could see they were a little bit bloodshot. Normally Penny didn’t ask questions, she liked to keep everything distanced, but she had seen his eyes shutter when he’d looked at the young patient, remembered the raw pain in his voice last night, and for once she crossed the line.

  ‘How was the funeral?’ Penny asked.

  ‘It wasn’t a funeral apparently, it was a celebration of life.’ He turned back to his notes. ‘It was a funeral to me.’

  ‘How was the son?’

  ‘Trying to be brave.’ He let out a breath.