by Emily Forbes
‘Boy, you’re in his bad books today. I’ve never seen him that irritated.’ Sarah, a first-year nursing graduate, who had been keeping her head down throughout Rob’s tirade, spoke up the moment he left. ‘What have you done to upset him?’
Ellie blinked back tears. She wasn’t going to let him get to her. She knew exactly what she’d done to annoy him. She’d gone against his wishes and she knew Rob was annoyed over her refusal to continue their relationship but she couldn’t believe he was choosing to take it out on her in this fashion. He had no cause to query her work performance; she was good at her job and she took pride in that. She knew what the problem was but there was nothing she could say, or do, that wouldn’t put her in the spotlight. She couldn’t tell anyone else why he was treating her this way. So she shrugged.
‘Maybe he just got out of the wrong side of the bed,’ she proposed.
‘I see his mood hasn’t improved at all.’
Ellie looked up from her paperwork at the sound of James’s voice. How long had he been standing there, she wondered and what had he heard? She was only just feeling brave enough to face him after seeing him at the beach on the weekend and now he’d witnessed her latest embarrassing moment. She was ready to crawl under the desk at the thought that he’d heard that exchange with Rob.
‘Any idea what that was all about?’ he asked.
He was watching her with his chocolate gaze, seemingly oblivious to her discomfort.
‘He was annoyed because George Poni has been discharged without his say-so,’ Ellie told him.
James frowned, a crease marring his smooth olive forehead. ‘I wonder why he didn’t say anything to me about that.’
Ellie shrugged. ‘Maybe I’m an easier target.’ There was no reason for anyone to think that Rob’s earlier behaviour was related to her in any way, shape or form, especially not if she appeared unfazed.
‘He was biting people’s heads off in Theatre too this morning so unless you did something to upset him before that I think you’re off the hook,’ James said.
And then he smiled at her, a wide smile that brought those lovely creases to the corners of his dark eyes. Instantly Ellie felt her confidence restored, just his presence helped to soothe her frazzled nerves and his smile almost completely eradicated all thoughts of Rob’s tirade from her mind. That hum of electricity she could feel when he was present made everything else recede. Harsh words, colleagues, nothing else seemed to matter so much and once again Ellie had to force herself to concentrate on the tasks at hand.
She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘So it’s not just me, then.’ She paused briefly and mentally crossed her fingers before asking, ‘He didn’t explain why he was so cross?’
‘Are you kidding? He’s an orthopaedic surgeon, he doesn’t have to explain himself to anyone!’
Ellie closed the file she’d been working on and looked up at him. There were two bright spots of colour on her cheeks and her blue eyes were glistening but the panicked look he’d seen there a moment before had vanished. Her earlier nervous expression had been replaced by a smile as she laughed at his flippant comment.
‘Are you here on a social call or is there someone you want to see?’ she asked.
As she spoke her blonde hair bounced around her shoulders, catching the light and distracting him. Why had he come to the ward? He struggled to recall what he was doing there. ‘I’m here to see Mavis Williams. I was paged, something about her temperature?’
Ellie nodded. ‘Yep. Let me grab her file and I’ll come with you.’
She collected the case notes and led the way and he trailed a couple of steps behind, enjoying the way her hips moved as she stepped out in front. She was a petite woman, several inches shorter than him but perfectly proportioned. Her waist was tiny, her hips narrow but they swayed enticingly.
She’d intrigued him since the first time he’d seen her at the Stat Bar and he’d celebrated his good fortune when he’d discovered that not only did she work at the hospital but she worked on the orthopaedic ward. She’d be working with him.
When he’d seen her at the Stat Bar it was as though they had been the only two people in the room. She’d been surrounded by others but it was as if they had receded into the distance, leaving her standing alone, silhouetted by her own golden glow. It had been an odd sensation for James.
He’d felt her presence at the beach too. It had been more than just the feeling you got when you knew you were being watched. There had been something extra. Despite her cap and sunglasses, he’d known instantly it was her. He’d felt her and it wasn’t until she’d walked away that he’d noticed she wasn’t alone. She may have been walking with a friend but he’d only had eyes for Ellie.
She was the first woman to catch his attention in months, in almost seven months to be exact. Perhaps he was ready to move on.
‘Morning, Mavis,’ James greeted the old lady as they entered her room. ‘You’re running a temperature, I hear.’
Ellie retook Mavis’s temperature as James checked her other symptoms. ‘The nurses might be right, Mavis. It’s possible you have a UTI. It’s a common complaint in hospitals, I’m afraid. If you can stomach cranberry juice that’s often a good natural combatant but I’ll organise some tests and if necessary we can treat it with antibiotics.’ He glanced at Ellie, who immediately picked up on his silent request.
‘I’ll go and organise the things for the urine culture,’ she said.
James watched her go. She made him think of summer and sunshine and happy times. She was golden and if he believed in auras that would be how he would describe her. She had a golden aura and it seemed to envelop him whenever he was near her. It ensnared him and made it difficult to think past her and just being around her made him feel good.
‘You’re enjoying your new job, I see?’ Mavis said with a smile.
‘It certainly has some perks.’ He wasn’t embarrassed at being caught watching Ellie. Most of the males on staff did the same, he’d seen them. Almost everyone seemed captivated by her and he wondered if she was aware of the effect she had on men.
‘You’re not married, then?’
He hadn’t been embarrassed until Mavis made that remark. Did she think he’d still be watching Ellie if he were married? He shook his head. ‘No. I never quite made it down the aisle.’
‘Why don’t you ask Ellie out? She’s single too,’ Mavis the matchmaker replied.
‘Is she?’ His heart rate increased with the announcement. ‘How do you know that?’
‘You don’t get to my age without learning a thing or two about people and, besides, I’ve been here so long I’m starting to feel like part of the furniture and when people get used to having you around they forget to watch their conversations. Trust me, she’s single. You should ask her out.’
‘I might take your advice. Thanks, Mavis,’ he said with a wink as Ellie returned to the room. But even as he spoke he wondered if he would issue an invitation. What would be the sensible thing to do? Had anything changed in his life over the past few months? He was still committed to his job, still focussed on establishing his career. Did he have the time or emotional energy for the singles scene? No matter how enticing Ellie was, he wasn’t sure if he was ready to date again.
There was a buzz of excitement in the room. The noise level had been high all evening, as was usually the case in a room full of women, but the level had increased noticeably in the last few minutes. Ellie checked her watch—ten-thirty. Her school leavers’ reunion had been girls only until now and her old school friends were becoming distracted by the arrival of their boyfriends.
They had only been out of school for five years so there wasn’t all that much to catch up on. They’d been doing one of three things—travelling overseas, studying or working or a combination of all of those. A few were married, a couple had babies but they were the exceptions.
Ellie watched as Carol, Amy and Fiona, in fact, most of the organising committee, went to greet their partners as they ente
red the function room. Two things were immediately obvious to Ellie. One, that three hours was the time limit allocated to catching up with friends before the girls needed to let their partners in on the evening and, two, the committee members were all in relationships, which was why the decision to include partners in the evening had been made. A third thing came to mind as Ellie watched the change in group dynamics—she wasn’t in the mood to watch happy couples.
It had been three months since the disastrous dinner with Rob and her heart was well and truly mended. If she was honest, she’d admit her pride and her ego had suffered more than her heart. It was more about her dreams and what his lies had done to them. She was angry more than heartbroken and it wasn’t difficult to be angry with a man who was a liar and a cheat. Her dreams might have been shattered but her heart was intact, though she still didn’t feel like being surrounded by happy couples.
The reunion was being held in Sydney’s infamous Kings Cross district in a private function room in a recently renovated and refurbished building. The building was typical of many in the Cross, with the businesses making the most of limited land by going upwards. There was a ‘gentleman’s club’ in the basement, a traditional nightclub on the ground floor with function rooms on the first floor, and Ellie didn’t want to know what was on the floor above that.
The reunion committee had booked out the function room until midnight and Ellie knew that gave them access to the nightclub afterwards. Normally she would be planning on partying until the small hours of the morning but tonight she was out of sorts. She was tired of the incessant noisy chatter going on about her but it was still too early to go home. To get some respite from the noise she slipped out of the room and onto the balcony that opened off it. Maybe watching people in the Cross, instead of her old school friends and their partners, would improve her mood.
She closed the balcony doors behind her and the change in atmosphere between inside and outside was incredible. Inside the air had smelt of perfume, hair-spray and women and while initially that had been overpowering it was at least a clean smell. Outside the air smelt of petrol fumes, cigarettes, greasy takeaway food, alcohol and men. And the noise had changed from the high-pitched, excited chatter of women to car horns, music and deeper, loud voices.
If she had been down at street level she might have retreated inside but on a first-floor balcony she felt safe enough to watch from a distance. The balcony was divided in two by a low iron balustrade and a second function room opened onto the other half. From her vantage point Ellie could see people inside the other room but for the moment the adjoining balcony was empty.
She crossed the balcony and leant on the railing overlooking Darlinghurst Road. It was still early by Cross standards but the crowds were building. There were no queues outside the nightclubs yet; they were still advertising free entry and cheap drinks in an effort to entice patrons inside. There were the other enticements too and she could hear several men spruiking for customers as they promised visual, and other, delights. ‘We have beautiful women, they will dance just for you!’
Noise to her left caught her attention. A few guys had gathered on the adjacent balcony, beers in hand as they lit their cigarettes. They were all young—late twenties to early thirties at a guess and out of interest, and habit, she gave them a once-over. They weren’t a bad-looking group, most of them looked reasonably fit, if you ignored the cigarettes, and neatly dressed. They were well groomed and looked educated and professional.
Through the open doors she now had a better view into the other function room and curiosity got the better of her. She looked more closely at the crowd—all men. She assumed it was a bucks’ night, Kings Cross was a favourite site for bucks’ parties, and Ellie thought it was just as well they didn’t know about the reunion for St Barbara’s Catholic School for Girls going on next door. That could have been a recipe for disaster.
As Ellie turned to go back inside she caught sight of a familiar face.
Dark crescent-shaped eyebrows above chocolate eyes, full lips and a square jaw darkened by a day’s growth of beard. Long lean lines and firm muscles. Just the sight of him, ten paces away, was enough to start her pulse racing, and the sound of his voice when he said her name sent a shiver of longing through her.
‘Ellie?’
Her voice was husky as she replied. ‘Dr Leonardi.’
‘Please,’ he said as he came towards her, bringing that strange humming sensation with him, ‘my name is James. When you call me “Dr Leonardi” it makes me feel ancient.’
He’d closed the distance between them to a few inches, and they were separated only by the iron railing and surrounded by the humming bubble. She smiled up at him, her spirits buoyed by his presence. ‘James.’
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.
Ellie inclined her head towards the room behind her. ‘A school reunion.’
‘Are you having a good night?’
It just got ten times better, Ellie thought before she remembered her new list—no doctors allowed. She shrugged. ‘It’s been okay.’
James looked back over his shoulder. ‘Co-ed school?’
‘Catholic girls,’ she said with a hint of a smile.
‘Really?’ He grinned at her and his chocolate eyes gleamed. ‘I think you should go back inside and lock the doors before my lot find out who’s in there.’ He leant over the balcony for a better view into the function room and Ellie’s face was almost nestled into the curve of his neck. He still smelt like limes.
Chocolate eyes and lime-scented skin—he was delicious.
He was leaning over her. She couldn’t move. His scent had her mesmerised. She closed her eyes, blocking out the curve of his neck, the firm line of his jaw, the soft swell of his lips, but it didn’t eliminate his smell. With her eyes closed her imagination kicked into over-drive. She could imagine how he would taste—like the rim of a tequila glass, lime with a dash of salt. She licked her lips, disappointed to find that the cheap champagne she’d been drinking tasted nothing like her imagination.
‘Are you all right?’ James’ breath was warm on her cheek.
Her eyes snapped open. ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said as she tried to remember the thread of their conversation. She looked across to James’s side of the balcony. My lot, he’d said. ‘You’re on a bucks’ night?’
He nodded. ‘I’m the best man and it’s only fair to warn you that not all of my friends can be trusted.’ He was still smiling, the curve of his lips widening to reveal even, white teeth.
‘Don’t worry.’ She smiled in return. It seemed his smile had the power to elicit a response from her every time. ‘Most of the girls can handle themselves and, besides, the nuns have all left and the boyfriends have just arrived.’
‘Nuns? Seriously?’ he asked as he stepped casually over the railing and sat on it with his feet on her side of the balcony. He appeared completely at ease but his proximity was making her tremble. He was close enough to touch yet there was space between them. He wasn’t crowding her but she was extremely conscious that he was there. That’s all. She was just supremely aware of the fact he was there.
She needed to step back, to put some distance between them, before she could answer. She nodded. ‘They still exist, you know. Not all the teachers were nuns but the girls were like family to them, especially the ones who boarded. We spent a lot of time with them.’
‘You were a boarder?’ he asked. When she nodded he asked a second question. ‘Where is your family from?’
‘Goulburn.’ Ellie divulged the name of the country town where she’d spent the first thirteen years of her life.
‘I’ve been to Goulburn a few times on the way to the snow. Do you ski?’
‘Not any more.’ As soon as the words were out of her mouth she wanted to take them back. She could see the quizzical expression on James’s face and she willed him not to ask the question she could see waiting in his eyes. She kept her focus on the activity on Darlinghurst Road. The Cross was s
tarting to get busy now and it was easier to concentrate if she avoided looking into James’s eyes. Somehow, the Cross, in all its seediness, was less dangerous. She chose to change the topic, hoping to distract him. ‘So tell me, who’s getting married?’
‘One of my mates from uni.’
‘Will you be next? Is that why you’re the best man?’ In her imagination, James was single and this was the perfect opportunity to find out if she was right.
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘We’ve been friends since for ever, that’s why I got the gig. Marriage isn’t for me.’
‘Why not?’
‘One in three marriages ends in divorce.’
Ellie shrugged. ‘The odds are still in your favour of it lasting the distance, though.’
‘I’m not sure I believe in people’s ability to commit to something of that magnitude. “Forsaking all others till death do us part” seems to be more than most people can handle. The expectations are very high, aren’t they?’
She frowned. ‘Your view makes you a bit of a strange choice for best man, wouldn’t you say?’
‘People are still going to get married, no matter what I think,’ he replied. ‘And Pete and Karen have been together since we started uni. What else are they going to do?
‘You don’t sound that thrilled for them.’
‘I think they’re settling.’
‘Settling?’
He nodded. ‘I get the feeling they think this is as good as it gets. It’s almost as if they can’t be bothered to search for something better.’
‘Maybe it is as good as it gets.’
He shrugged. ‘Possibly, but I would want fireworks and passion.’
Yes, you would, Ellie thought. It emanated from every pore in his body and he wouldn’t be satisfied if that passion wasn’t returned.
