Make Time For Me

Chapter 8

“Sorry, Paul, not tonight.”

Paul frowned.

“But you didn’t come two nights ago, either, you weren’t on shift then.”

Olivia grinned.

“Well now, you’ve been tracking my shifts, Paul? What would Ellie say?”

Paul blushed a little.

“It’s not like I was looking for it. Your name was right above mine – Leggett, Martinez. And Ellie and I are friends. We like cooking together. It’s not like that.”

“I was kidding, Paul. But I need to catch up on some work tonight so I’ll just be having a sandwich at my desk.”

“Oh, cool, I’ll come over and we can work together, Livvy!”

Olivia tried not to sigh as Angela turned up and invited herself. She’d been doing that a lot lately. It had been fine to begin with, but now that Olivia was trying to find ways to get away from the group and spend time with Jason – as often as she could, because she missed him when she wasn’t with him, yet another thing to make her heart tremble – it was becoming a bit of a pain.

“Thanks, Angela, but maybe next time. I really need to get this done, and you’re too much fun, I can’t get work done with you around.”

She thought she’d handled that well. Olivia walked away from the break room after changing to do her rounds with Dr. Heart, and she was pretty sure that she could get away and spend the night with Jason. It was getting a bit annoying to have to hide it, but she was still not ready to have it be known. She wanted to make sure that she did it on her terms.

Besides, she knew from experience how quickly things could change. She knew how quickly a relationship could go sour. If their relationship went downhill – the thought filled her with dread, but she was trying to be practical – then she was not going to make her friends take sides.

Olivia frowned when she felt something in the pocket of her white coat. She usually cleared out her pockets at the end of every shift because she wrote notes to herself and stuffed them in the pocket when she was too tired to remember them properly. Leaving redundant notes in the pocket screwed up her system.

Sure enough, it was a note. That was funny. She’d thought that she had cleared her pockets. She was pretty sure she had.

She checked, and saw that it wasn’t one of her own notes. She usually used her post-its to leave herself notes. This was something different.

Still, she didn’t expect anything strange as she unfolded it and read it. And her world went grey.

BI*CH, I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND YOU WILL PAY. STOP NOW OR I’LL MAKE YOU PAY.

It had to be a mistake. It had to be a bad joke of some kind. It couldn’t be meant for her. It couldn’t be.

But it was in her pocket. And it had her name on the front.

“Olivia?”

She turned to see Jason walking towards her. She should have stuffed the note back in her pocket and pretended that everything was fine, maybe, but she was so shocked that she couldn’t think. He took one look at her face, one look at her hand, and took the note neatly from her hand.

“What’s this?”

Olivia shook her head as he read it.

“Olivia, who gave you this? Who wrote this?”

“It’s not signed, so how would I know? Do you think maybe a pro-lifer got in and was slipping notes into all the OB-GYN staff’s pockets?”

“I… Maybe, but we would’ve heard about it if that was so. And this is addressed to you, specifically.”

She nodded.

It was. This was specifically about her. This was not a random note to everybody. This was personal.

“Olivia, come with me. We need to tell security about this.”

But Olivia shook her head.

“Liza is coming for her ultrasound today. I have to go. Besides, what can the security do? They’re not Sherlock Holmes. They won’t be able to tell anything from this.”

“The police, then.”

“It’s probably just a silly joke of some kind, I don’t think…”

“This is a threat, Olivia. What are you going to do? Just ignore it? Do you think it will just go away if you ignore it?”

“It’s not… I’m not doing that. I’m just… I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. This is probably nothing. Maybe it’s a patient who’s a bit stressed out.”

“It’s addressed specifically to you, Olivia. Come on, you know that ignoring it and hoping it will go away on its own is not a good option. You know that. Things don’t work that way.”

“They do sometimes. Look, it’s just a note. It’s fine. Whatever, if there’s a second note, then we can tell somebody. This is just a one-off. All right? Now I’ve got to go. Did you hear that there’s a hurricane warning? It’s three days out, it says, but it sounds like it’s not going to be very bad. It’s not a big one. But we’ll still probably have a lot of wind and rain and problems with power. Have you stocked up on candles and batteries and canned food?”

“I have to?”

Olivia frowned at him.

“Of course you do, that’s basic stuff you do when there’s a hurricane warning. You get non-perishables, you get clean water, and you get a lot of light and fire things. And then you hope to heavens that everything will be fine. Ellie and I are thinking of having people over so we can ride it out together. The forecast doesn’t predict anything worse than a few fallen trees and a lot of rain, so we don’t even have to worry too much. Unless a tree falls on the cottage, but Ellie’s been out checking and she says that everything is fine, there are no trees to cause any damage to us. The sea will be pretty spectacular, too. What do you think? Want to come over?”

“Sure, if we don’t get stuck here, which seems likely.”

Olivia scrunched up her face.

“I’ve got hopes. If the forecast is accurate, there shouldn’t be too many emergencies. This is an island, people know how to deal with storms.”

“Yes, but we have tourists on the island now. So we have to be ready.’

“Damn, I’d forgotten about the tourists. Well, great. Forget about the ocean-watching party, then.”

“Maybe we can. We’ll see. And I know you were changing the subject, Olivia. I’m not giving up.”

She felt so much lighter after talking to Jason that she smiled. She didn’t feel threatened anymore. She had believed her own explanation. She didn’t feel eyes boring into her back, watching her.

“The wind is picking up. The hurricane changed course. We’re not going to be affected any worse, but it’s going to be sooner than expected. Everybody is expected to be here and on stand-by if you’re not on shift, understood? There will be emergencies, and we will need all hands on deck.

Olivia nodded. She caught Ellie’s eyes and made a sad face, but Ellie grinned back at her. Angela looked as doll-like as ever. Paul looked like he was ready to ride out the storm. Jason was distracted. He was probably still worrying about that note, thought Olivia. She had wanted to throw it away, but Jason had insisted that she keep it. She’d thought it was excessive. It had been three days since then and nothing had happened. Of course, she hadn’t been able to sneak away and spend time with Jason, either. It had just been too hectic.

Liza had crossed the thirty-week mark, and there had been no more complications. It looked like it would work out just great. She looked happy, and Bud looked happy but terrified. All was as it should be, decided Olivia.

Olivia had assisted Dr. Heart in two surgeries, for removal of cysts from ovaries. Dr. Heart had been full of praise – well, praise for her, she’d said ‘good job’ – and both patients were recovering well.