When the final session of the day comes around, Anna checks the conference programme. Brad is down for a talk about complications arising from treating those with high-use cannabis consumption. She looks at what James had earmarked and makes her own decision. Britain doesn’t have an oxycodone epidemic nor legalised cannabis, but in some cities the use rates of the drug are similar to America’s. There is some justification to her attending the talk.
She slides into the room at the back. His friends need not have worried, as there is a significant cohort seated in the auditorium. She’s about to walk down the rows looking for a spare seat when she notices two men in the back row gesticulating madly. Rob and Seth. As she nears, they stand and shuffle down a seat each, allowing her to perch on the end.
Rob is beside her. “Glad you made it,” he says.
“We’re playing Brad bingo,” he continues. “I’ve got the phrase ‘my good friend’, the steepled fingers and that thing he does with his hair. And Seth’s got the full-toothed smile, the strategic pause and the words ‘and another point’. If you want in, we’ll let you pick one from each of us. Winner has to bring a box of strawberry donuts.”
Anna shakes her head with a laugh to decline his invitation to the game but accepts the seat.
They are tightly packed together. Rob’s legs are spread slightly. His thigh rubs against hers as he shifts from time totime in his seat. It is inadvertent, but still Anna notices and she also notices her own lack of reaction.
As Bradley’s talk comes to a conclusion, the lights come back up and he asks the audience for their questions. The silence is complete humiliation. Two rows down, a guy gives a little snort in his sleep.
Seth raises his arm. “Given the FDA’s Schedule 1 drug classification makes a trial challenging, do you think pathological analysis is the best way forward?”
“Good question,” Bradley replies. “But as I said to my good friend, the Surgeon General,” he pauses, “I would prefer to save the patient before they die.” Rob nudges Seth twice. There is a little titter of laughter around the auditorium, and the sleeper two rows down jolts awake. Bradley expands on his answer to Seth’s question, but as it references US regulations, much of it is lost on Anna.
As Bradley finishes, she is ready with her own question. “Given the known increased risks of myocardial infarction among cannabis users, do you foresee increasing problems as the cannabis smoking population ages and more of them require major operations with long periods of sedation?”
Even from the back row, Anna can see him smirk. He is pleased she is there. Maybe this was a miscalculation. She is not trying to flatter him or suggest she is romantically interested in him. She sighs. This is another drawback of beauty. Networking is fraught with misinterpretation of interest. Some men, especially alphas, have strong tendencies to confirmation bias. They see what they wish to see and interpret the evidence to fit their preferred narrative.
Even as Bradley gives his reply, preceded by a full-toothed smile that has Seth chuckling, Anna is formulating her escape. Luckily, the first two questions appear to have triggered more. Half a dozen hands are raised. Leaning over to Rob and Sethwho are tallying up their Brad bingo scores, she murmurs, “I really do need to find my boss now. See you later.”
She strides out of the convention centre, slowing her pace once she is outside in the harsh heat. Retracing her steps to the hotel, she messages James:On the way to the hotel. Are you free to meet now? Won’t take long.
The glass doors of the hotel shut behind her, sealing out the traffic noise and the heat. Quickly, she crosses the foyer. The doors of the elevator are closing and she smacks the button to hold them. As the doors draw back, Anna sees James and Bella, arms intertwined. James, at least, has the consciousness to look shamefaced, but Bella gives Anna a broad grin.
“We’ve had so much fun today,” she says. “James has explained all this stuff to me. He’s brilliant. He makes it all seem so simple and logical.” James blushes at her praise.
Anna would be happier for her friend if it had not literally been James’s job to do precisely that for her. She flashes Bella a distracted smile and says to her boss, “Can we have a word?”
He gives a brief nod. When the elevator stops at her floor, he passes a keycard to Bella and says, “Wait for me? I’ll be up in a few minutes.”
She leaves and the doors close behind her. James, clearly uncomfortable, keeps the silence. Anna is in no mood to help him out or ease the tension. He looks along the corridor and says, “Perhaps the coffee shop would be better.”
Together, they wait for another elevator. When they reach the lobby level, the doors open and James gestures for her to precede him. Anna heads for the hotel’s coffee shop area and they sit at a table. No one else is around. The display cabinets are shuttered and the machines have been closed down for the day.
“I’m sorry about missing our meeting today,” James starts.
“Meetings.” Anna is not about to let him off the hook. “Your itinerary had catch-ups at morning break, lunch, and afternoon.”
“Ah, yes. Meetings.” James flushes again.
“You’re the boss. If you want to cancel them, that is entirely within your remit. But if you’d told me they were no longer scheduled, I wouldn’t have wasted my time looking for you.” To be fair, after the abortive attempt to find James at lunch and mid-morning, she hadn’t bothered in the afternoon.
Anna unfolds the itinerary James gave her at breakfast and places it on the table.
“That’s fair.” James seems to have recovered some composure. “I got distracted but you’re Bella’s friend. You must know how much she has been through lately.”
It is Anna’s turn to blink. She is a good friend to those in front of her but inclined to be negligent of those out of her immediate sight. Apart from liking a few social media posts, she has had minimal contact with Bella since they started working in hospitals and Bella departed for the north. Long hours and a pandemic haven’t helped, but Anna is not blind enough to her own faults to think her behaviour would have been any different without those excuses.
Social media posts are hardly an accurate representation of someone’s life. They are an illusion of contact. Still, Anna hasn’t been aware of any particular hardship in Bella’s life. She stays quiet but James doesn’t.
“She was so young and he was so much older. He took advantage of her. It makes my blood boil. I feel like writing to the General Medical Council.”
Anna has to suppress a laugh. It is so typical of James to think the solution is a strongly worded letter.
“But Bella thinks it better to let things lie, even though it’s affecting her career. Stuck in a dead-end hospital becauseshe followed him out of love. Her consultant hardly seems to bother with his junior doctors.” James looks down at the table, obviously disturbed by the unprofessionalism of some of his colleagues. “He’s a bastard!” James’s voice is gruff with emotion.
