Page 58 of Anxious Hearts
Kelly stopped walking. Eli took two strides before he realised she was no longer beside him. He turned back.
‘What are you doing?’
Kelly hadn’t told Eli about the video. ‘How do you know about my predicament?’
For a moment, his eyebrows met in confusion. Then his face relaxed. ‘Oh, you don’t remember.’
Kelly felt a hot prickle on every part of her skin. ‘Remember what?’
‘You told me everything last night. Showed me the video. Scrolled through the comments. Mused on your Dr Omelette nickname. I’m actually surprised they let you in here, it being a shopping centre and all. I was expecting a wanted poster with your mugshot at the front entrance.’
‘It’s not a joke, Eli.’
‘I know. And that’s why I’m going to help you.’
‘Help me how?’
‘By writing you a reference.’
Kelly was genuinely confused. ‘But what’s that going to do? You’re just a Registrar like me.’
‘You haven’t seen what I’ve written.’
‘You’ve already done it?’
He scoffed in a feigned judgemental tone. ‘We weren’t all waking up hungover and regretting missing our chance to sleep with one of the world’s most devastatingly adept lovers.’
Kelly smiled. ‘I believe you’re right. Neither of us woke up that way at all.’
Chapter Twenty-five
It wasn’t going well.
Kelly was at the Society’s headquarters in a boardroom with a table large enough for the four committee members plus Stephen, Michael, Juliana and Kelly to sit facing each other. Kelly felt like she was in some sort of cliched legal drama. They were all talking about her as though she wasn’t there. Dressed uncomfortably in her navy skirt and white blouse, her hair pulled back sensibly and more makeup than usual – at Toula’s and Juliana’s insistence – she couldn’t quite decide whether she was the victim or the accused.
Kelly, herself, had said very little. She had no representation other than Juliana and although Michael was there to support her, his definition of support was to refrain from condemning her and nothing more.
Stephen, the Society’s Director of Corporate Affairs, was being all calm and clinical. Easy for him; his life wasn’t being torn to shreds before his very eyes. This was all his fault. If he hadn’t arranged that bloody article and Kelly hadn’t ended up on that bloody telethon, none of this would be happening. But she was still the one who had lashed out at that jerk in the supermarket. And the committee had been hammering on for an hour about how she had to take accountability. Own her actions, they said. Show remorse. Demonstrate a desire for self-improvement.
Eli’s reference had been so full of effusive praise that it had made her blush to read it, but the committee had barely given it a second glance. As she suspected, his position as a Registrar was one level above bottom-dwelling shit-kicker in their eyes and his opinion meant about as much as that of the night-shift security guard, who they would never, ever meet.
The committee chairman, who was also the Chairman of the Board, began outlining the possible sanctions under the Society’s code of conduct, ranging from a warning to suspension or cancellation of her membership. That would be catastrophic. That would mean Kelly could not sit the clinical exam, which was scheduled for the first day of June, less than two months away.
The fear and rage were building so powerfully inside her that Kelly knew she was on the brink of an outburst in which she would question why she was being so severely scrutinised for something that had nothing to do with her job. Why she was wasting her time here when she could be helping sick kids – the very reason the Society existed.
Juliana, who was sitting next to her, must have sensed the imminent explosion. She placed a hand on Kelly’s knee and shook her head slightly.
Kelly took a deep breath. It didn’t help. She was frustrated with Juliana, who was adding almost nothing to the conversation. It was so unlike the communications adviser to be silent and submissive, particularly before a group of middle-aged men – and the committee members were all men, of course. Maybe she feared for her own job if she ruffled too many feathers. Maybe this was about self-preservation.
That made Kelly even angrier. Juliana was supposed to be her ally. Supposed to be by her side. Working with her. Defending her. Making sure this whole fucking mess went away. Instead, she was sitting there like a meek and servile nineteenth-century wife. It was infuriating.
The Chair stared at Kelly through slightly milky eyes, and a chill ran down her spine.
‘In all my years as a physician,’ he said. ‘I have never seen such appalling behaviour. Especially not from a woman.’
Juliana again placed her hand on Kelly’s knee. ‘Stay silent,’ she whispered.
‘You simply cannot unleash a foul-mouthed tirade on a member of the public and then assault him for no reason whatsoever. It is disreputable, unbecoming and completely misaligned with the values we have striven for decades to uphold.’
