‘Goodbye, Charlie.’
She turned and left the lounge room, uncaring about how or if he left. She just had to get away before she crumpled. Before she laid her head against his chest and begged him to love her. Love them.
She wandered into her old bedroom. Dana was fast asleep on a portable bed, all snug and safe. One blonde lock covering an eye. Her daughter was going to be heartbroken.
‘Damn you, Charlie. Damn you for making us love you.’
Carrie felt like someone had put red-hot pokers in her eyes the next morning. She’d been up until four a.m., going over the ideas that Charlie had given her and considering them in context with the centre’s current financial woes. Charlie had been right when he’d said she’d know how to fix it. But she’d been impressed with his thoughts and she’d felt a buzz of excitement and possibility course through her bloodstream, which had kept her awake despite her tiredness.
The potential and possibilities for the centre were enormous. But it needed a lot of TLC and someone who had both medical and administration skills. Charlie was hopeless. He was a fantastic doctor, a caring and dedicated advocate for the community. But his business acumen sucked. In short, the centre needed someone just like her! Not her. Someone like her.
She clicked on the ‘print’ icon on her computer screen and yawned as she waited for the multi-paged document to spit out of the machine beneath her desk. It was her report. Her altered report. It encompassed the problems but also the solutions and Charlie’s grand plans to make it a facility that would do Brisbane proud. She would take it to Charlie and then she would submit it to the board.
She opened another document and clicked on the ‘print’ icon again. A copy of her resignation was in her hands in a matter of seconds. She looked it over. Fear and uncertainty grasped at her gut. But as she folded it to fit into a sterile yellow envelope she knew she was doing the right thing. This job was slowly strangling her. She knew that now. Thanks to Charlie and the centre. She was ready to go back to the coalface.
She passed the boardroom on her way to the medical director’s office, envelope in hand. She felt strangely compelled to enter. On this, her last day, she needed to confront a few ghosts.
She looked around at the rich, elegant décor. She inhaled and the smell of leather and wood assaulted her nostrils. Before her current assignment this room had always given her goose-bumps. There was something strangely seductive about the management nerve centre. The room where all the decisions were made. The power was almost tangible. She had known the minute she’d set foot in it that this was her destiny.
Now the room was stifling. Oppressive. The thought of sitting at this table and talking policies and strategic planning left her empty. She left quickly, wanting no reminder of the mistake she’d nearly made, thinking that this was her path in life. If nothing else, and despite her broken heart, she had Charlie to thank for removing her blinkers.
She strode purposefully to her boss’s office. He wasn’t in. She placed the yellow envelope on his desk, where he couldn’t fail to see it when he returned. And then turned around and walked out of the hospital. Today was a new beginning for her. Her personal life may have been a mess but her medical career was finally back on track.
Charlie was in his office, talking to Joe, when Carrie arrived.
‘Hi, Joe.’
‘Hey, Carrie.’ He winked. ‘We’ve missed you around here.’
Carrie nodded distractedly, her eyes barely acknowledging him as she sought the one pair of eyes she’d come there for. ‘Hello, Charlie.’
Charlie stood up, encouraged by the shimmer in her whiskey-coloured depths. ‘Hi.’
They stood staring at each other hungrily for a few moments. She at the door, he at his desk. Joe rolled his eyes and gave Carrie a gentle push inside, closing the door and shutting them away in a bubble of privacy.
Carrie smiled and took a step forward. ‘I looked over your ideas.’ She threw the document on the table. ‘I think we can save the clinic. This is the report that I plan on submitting later this afternoon.’
Charlie’s heart beat frantically and his hand shook slightly as he picked up the wad of paper.
‘It will take some streamlining. Some adjustment in the way you run things. It certainly involves employing a practice manager. But I think, with the help of some hefty private-sector support, it can be done.’
Carrie paced as she talked in the small space available. She slipped into businesswoman mode, more nervous than she’d ever been at how he would take it.
Charlie’s heartbeat accelerated as he flicked through the report. It was comprehensive and substantive. She must have been up all night.