“Dr. Manning, you’re paying me to answer the phone—so I will answer the phone. Now, step aside, please, and go do your doctor thing.” Lina sat down decisively in her very nice chair and shooed him out from behind the reception area. This was her turf now. Not to mention the fact it was a bit too cozy having the two of them behind the desk. Very cozy. He’d been there long enough for her to divine that Cole’s mysterious, exotic man scent was not the coffee, the dog or anything else—it was eau de Cole. Olfactory heaven. And strictly off the menu! She might have to mouth-breathe in future to resist the urge to bury her face in his chest and just inhale. And resist she would.
This was a chance for her to get a grip on her life—not play googly-eyes with the scrumptious doctor. She shot him her best “scoot” look, more for herself than for him—but it worked. Which was satisfying.
“Don’t blame me for being all addlepated this morning. It’s entirely Igor’s fault. He kept me up most of the night with his crying.”
“You didn’t stick him in one of those horrible cages, did you?” Lina blurted. She couldn’t help it. She had a soft spot for Igor. And Cole.
No. Just Igor. Not Cole. He was an ogre. Well, not an ogre exactly …
He raised up his hands with an irascible twist to his lips. “Guilty as charged.” Then his expression softened. “That is, until about twenty minutes later when I couldn’t stand it anymore and brought him into my room. He stole my pillow.”
Lina couldn’t help but smile at the picture Cole painted. So he was a softie at heart. A bit different from the pull-your-own-socks-up portrait he’d painted of himself last night.
Cole abruptly pulled out a thick stack of colored sticky notes from his pocket and plonked them on her desk before hightailing it to his office. He’d already given Lina enough office supplies to last a month. She hardly needed more! Not to mention the tour of the clinic, each and every one of the therapy rooms, the changings rooms—separate for staff and patients—the sauna, the steam room, the water-therapy center and the staff kitchen—complete with a tour of the contents of the fridge-freezer. “Best to put your names on things if you really want to eat them.” Talk about a worrywart!
She eyed the phone system warily. Then again …
Okay. Release the breath you’ve been holding for the past twenty minutes. Three. Two. One. Fresh breath in … She watched as Cole turned the corner into his office, where he’d already stashed Igor in his basket … And now you’re on your own.
The telltale tremble began in her hands. She shook them. Hard. It always worked before she went onstage, so why not here?
So what if telling Cole she knew how it all worked had been bravura? At least it had been effective enough to get him out of her hair. Her well-groomed and twisted-into-a-French-knot hair, thank you very much indeed. Sleeping hadn’t really worked out so well the previous night, so a bit of overdue grooming had taken up the dawn hours. Not to mention the fact she was wearing her Sunday—and Monday through Saturday—best. She had one office-appropriate outfit and until she got a bit of money in the bank it would have to do. Not that she was planning on doing this forever. Not by a long shot. She was just playing a role—Tragic Receptionist. She’d even worn her old reading glasses from school for good measure.
Truthfully? Lina needed all the exterior armor she could get her hands on if she was going to convince herself, let alone everyone she would have to come into contact with, that she could do this job. And do it well. Turned out there was a lot more to it than picking up the phone and saying hello.
Answering the phones, greeting patients, pulling up medical records, making appointments, ordering flowers, milk, fruit, office supplies, updating staff schedules—erp!
She forced herself to take another deep breath in lieu of short-circuiting. Cole had left a lot of details out when he’d offered her the position. The only thing she’d really cared about had been the paycheck. Served her right. It was all she could do not to run out the door and go back to her bed and curl up in a protective little ball. It was too much all at once. If she tried to remember every single bit of information she’d have to learn in the next five minutes, her mind could just … very possibly … explode. Not to mention the torture of having to smile and offer warm greetings to working ballerinas all day long. The clinic, it seemed, mostly worked with dancers who could make a full recovery. It explained why her dance company hadn’t really pushed for the clinic to take her on as a patient. Not that she would’ve been able to foot what she imagined would be a very large bill.
The air whooshed across her lips in a panicky sigh. She sucked in a fresh breath of air and forced herself to think of the plus side of her conundrum. She needed to regain the control she knew she could impose on herself.
Once she had a bit of money in the bank she would be able to move on. Who knew what might be out there, waiting for her, apart from a big black void of nothingness? There might be rainbows and daffodils … and unicorns and horses that flew with wax wings that melted at the first sign of spring.
Okay, Lina. Get a grip.
Right now there was no money in the bank and nowhere to move on to. So, that being the case, she was stuck here pretending she knew how to be a receptionist. A blinking light on the phone caught her eye. She glanced at the wall clock. Nine on the dot. She poised her finger over the button, popped on the headset, blew out another steadying breath and here went nothing!
Lina pressed the button and greeted the caller as she’d been instructed, “En Pointe, this is Lina. May I help you?”
Silence.
She pressed the button again. “En Pointe, this is Lina. May I help you?”
Nothing.
Despite her best efforts, her mouth went dry. Just a little. Then another light started to blink. Panic started to set in. Another line lit up. The front door opened and a woman wearing bright purple scrubs entered and gave Lina a broad smile.
“Hi! Are you the new Scarlet?”
“Who?”
“Scarlet—the eloping receptionist,” she explained, extending a hand across the high reception counter. “I’m Gemma Holland, one of the physios. Sports massage by day, aspiring osteopath by night.”
Lina went to shake her hand but then thought she’d better try and answer the three calls coming in, and in swinging her hand back round she managed to get tangled in the headset wire and pull it free from the phone.
“Isn’t it annoying?” Gemma smiled, unfazed as Lina’s discombobulation grew. “I worked on the desk for a year and Cole still hasn’t understood the importance of a wireless headset.”
“You worked on Reception?” Lina couldn’t hide her surprise.
“Yeah. A few of us have—before we qualified. Here …” She walked round the counter, plugged in the headset, popped it on, quickly and efficiently took the three calls and then turned to Lina with a mischievous expression. “Did Cole give you your ‘training’?”
“If you call pointing at it and saying, ‘That’s the beast’ as training.”
“That’s what I thought. Don’t worry. I’ll give you a quick run-through before my first patient arrives. Cole’s useless. He doesn’t do front of house.”
Lina smiled at the term generally reserved for the theatre. She wondered if Gemma had been a dancer. She certainly had the figure for it. Had she been injured, too? There was a part of her that would love to have someone to confide in, make the world feel a bit less lonely.
Gemma quickly talked her through the system, which turned out not to be so complicated after all. “Just flick this switch here on the side and then punch the blinking light …” By the time Gemma had wished her luck and disappeared down the corridor, Lina felt a tiny bit more grounded.
Answering the phones? Check!