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Five minutes until the staff meeting.Fuck!I stuffed my phone in my pocket, a sandwich in my mouth and grabbed my portfolio. I could do this. The place would be transformed when the Doc came back after his recovery. He’d said my ideas had great merit before I’d taken leave for my medical appointments, but the Doc hadn’t seen my final project. Now that I’d received a commendation, perhaps it would be enough to get the approval to do the work.
Everyone was seated in the work kitchen. Even Dr MacIntyre as well as Bev and Margaret, our part-time admin staff, were here. Except Harry.
“Dr Cain is running late at the aged care home and asked that I start the meeting without him,” Pam said as I took my chair. “First of all, well done to Stacey and Dr Cain for their fantastic first aid response last night.”
Everyone clapped and Pam slid a cake towards me. “Hummingbird, your favourite.”
‘Congratulations Stacey and Harry!’ had been piped on top of the cake.
“Looks like an engagement cake,” Bev tittered.
Everyone laughed and I scowled. Bev and Margaret had been not so subtlety suggesting I date Harry all week.
Pam handed me a knife to cut slices for everyone. I sat back with my wedge of cake, realising I had asked Harry out, and he’d said yes. So maybe our resident gossips were right, but would this be just another hook up or something different? What did I want with Harry?
Rules had kept things in order. Neat. Tidy.
We hadn’t even kissed again and it already felt messy and chaotic.
“As you know, Doc Larcombe won’t be here as planned, but I have important news to say on his behalf. I’ll get to the point right away.” Pam placed her half-eaten cake on the table before she continued. “Dr Larcombe has decided to sell the practice.”
A collective gasp went around the table. Dr MacIntyre blinked but was otherwise unfazed. Bev and Margaret asked questions about timeframes for the sale.
My hands trembled holding onto my mood boards. Without Doc Larcombe, this was the end of an era.
“I spoke to George this morning and he’ll see us as soon as he can, but he’s delayed in Brisbane with specialists and post-op care.”
I was numb. “Is he okay? Is he dying or something?”
“No, I want to assure you he’s recovering but they want to keep an eye on him.” Pam held up her hands for calm as everyone began to talk at once. “He sounded … tired but well on the phone.”
“Will his son come back and take over?” Doc Larcombe’s oldest son was a surgeon in Sydney.
“His son has his practice set up down south and doesn’t want to move back here.”
I nodded, smoothing my work pants, my stomach roiling. “Is there another buyer already?”
“Dr Larcombe is exploring interest through his connections as well as suitable business brokers to sell the practice. Most importantly, and I should have said this at the beginning, you must keep this in confidence until he gives us the green light to say something.”
Dr McIntyre snorted, which earned him glares from Bev and Margaret.Good luck with keeping this a secret with those two.
“What about our jobs?” I asked, cringing.
I wasn’t even a qualified enrolled nurse. Receptionists were expendable. All too often, husband and wife teams bought small medical practices like ours; one was the doctor and the other ran the practice. That’s exactly what Doc Larcombe had done with his wife decades ago, before she decided to stay at home and care for their children.
We could be bought out by a national healthcare company who didn’t care about rural health, only profits.
I shuddered. Pam was worried, too.
“It’s too early to know about these things yet. We’ll just have to see who shows interest. But the Doc will take care of us.”
I nodded, swallowing hard. Maybe I could get a part-time job at the homewares shop, or maybe work on a register at the grocery store. Following dreams would not pay bills.
My world was imploding.
But I was wrong.
Thirty minutes later, my world truly imploded.
