Page 113 of Doc Rock
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 fromhaving to stay in Ford’s room, as shecouldjust move into the on-call room in the hospital for the weekend.
It had been torture sleeping in a bed thatsmelledlike 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 itselfknown, flashing up that they were taking a lady to theatre for a Cat One Caesar. They needed togetthe baby out ASAP.
It wasthe start of a bad weekend.
Every time she sat down for more than five minutes, itfeltlike someone else asked her something.
A million babies were born by caesarean—okay,it wasonly 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 tryingtogeta 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 wasa 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 realiseit wasone 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,sawthe 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.Therewas no way she would sleep that late, but if she did,it wouldgive her time to shower and change into her show clothes.
