It wasn’t a complete solution but for now it was working.
Wow!
It was just after seven. Dinner was done and the dishwasher was on.
‘Can we make the banana bread?’ Adam asked.
‘Yep.’
Oh, the bliss of the absence of parental guilt, Harry thought as Adam mashed bananas. In no time there was the lovely scent of banana bread filling the house as he got the twins bathed and ready for bed.
‘The frosting!’ Charlotte said. ‘You promised that I could make the frosting.’
‘I know, but the bread had to cool.’ Harry looked up the recipe on the Internet and squeezed some orange juice, which Charlotte mashed into cream cheese. By nine p.m. the twins were in bed, there was a slice of banana bread wrapped for Adam’s breakfast and a small bowl of frosting for Charlotte. And there was just a glimpse of order to the home for the first time in a very long time.
Harry lay back on the couch and yawned.
They’d made it through another day.
He thought of Marnie stopping Miriam from going to fetch the children, and the strangest thing was he was actually grateful for it. Harry didn’t want people rushing to pick up his children and he loathed all the favours that he constantly had to ask.
It was Marnie who had done him a true favour today.
She’d given him an evening at home with the twins.
‘EXCUSE ME!’
Harry’s tongue rolled in his cheek as he heard Marnie’s beguilingly soft voice. She walked over to Sheldon, the resident, who was washing his hands at the surgical sink.
Poor Sheldon, he had no idea what was coming.
Harry did. Marnie had delivered Harry exactly the same lecture she was now giving Sheldon.
‘You see these long taps, Sheldon?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, it might surprise you to hear that they’re not designed for helping doctors who happen to have big hands.’
Harry couldn’t resist looking up. He could see Sheldon blushing and Marnie smiling as she delivered a very firm lecture but in the sweetest voice. ‘And, neither were they designed for busy doctors so that they could just push them back quickly. The designers were far more thoughtful than that—do you know why the taps are so long, Sheldon?’
‘Okay, Marnie, I get it,’ Sheldon said through gritted teeth.
‘But I don’t think that you do. You see, they’re designed that way so that you can turn them on and off with your elbows. I’ll show you…’
‘I already know,’ Sheldon said as Marnie demonstrated how to turn the taps on and off with her own elbows.
‘You know that?’ Marnie checked. ‘I’m so sorry, Sheldon, I didn’t think you did because when I saw you just washing your hands…’
Harry shook his head and got back to his notes as Marnie continued to give Sheldon a lesson on hand-washing. She was obsessed with cleanliness and hand-washing was at the top of her list, along with cleaning the curtains and light switches.
‘What,’ Marnie had demanded, ‘is the point of cleaning your hands and then opening a filthy curtain with them?’
Oh, and she had a thing about sunlight.
‘It’s cheaper than bleach,’ Marnie had said when she had called Maintenance down to prise open windows that had never, in all the time Harry had been there, been opened. ‘Sunlight kills everything.’
In the two weeks that Marnie had been at Bayside she had turned the Titanic.
The place was glistening, the cupboards were well stocked, and breaks were being taken, though heaven help you if you left the kitchen without washing and putting away your coffee cup.
Love her or loathe her, there was no doubt that the place was well run under Marnie’s command and, as a consultant in the busy emergency department, Harry should be feeling extremely pleased at that fact.
He was pleased.
It was just…
Marnie did not give an inch. No, Harry didn’t want favours, but a bit of flexibility wouldn’t go amiss either. With Juan now in Argentina and Dr Cooper’s starting date still a few weeks away, for Dr Vermont and Harry the wheels were again starting to come off. They were relying heavily on locums—some were excellent, others not. But locums were exactly that, they didn’t have the investment in the place that the regular staff had. Sheldon, for one, was becoming increasingly exasperated about who the latest boss was and at what point he should call the regular senior staff in.
‘Marnie!’ Harry heard the surprise in Sheldon’s voice and looked up as Sheldon spoke on. ‘Did anyone ever tell you that you could be a hand model?’
‘I get told it all the time!’ Marnie said.
‘I’m serious.’ Sheldon was turning her hands over and examining them. ‘They’re amazing.’
‘I know they are,’ Marnie said. ‘Really, I should just take the plunge and get them insured and go off and make my fortune.’
‘Harry,’ Sheldon called, ‘have you seen Marnie’s hands?’
‘Er, no,’ Harry lied. He’d noticed them when Marnie had given him the little hand-washing lecture the other day and Sheldon was right—they were incredible. Her skin was unblemished and pale, with long, slender fingers that tapered into very neat, oval nails. They really were beautiful.
‘Show Harry,’ Sheldon said.
Marnie duly walked over and held out her hands. Emergency was a mad place at times, so this sort of thing wasn’t in the least peculiar. Even Kelly came over to admire Marnie’s hands.
‘They’re lovely,’ Harry said.
‘Harry’s got a bit of a thing about hands,’ Kelly teased, but even she was surprised when Marnie took it a stage further.
‘Do they turn you on, Harry?’ Marnie said. Harry couldn’t help but smile back and Kelly gave a slightly shocked laugh. Marnie was a minx—sexy yet cold, flirtatious at times but only when it suited her mood. And…Harry liked her.
Yes, it was another reason Harry wasn’t feeling best pleased. Liking Marnie was too inconvenient for words.
‘I have an interest in hands,’ Harry said, and Marnie smirked at his response, ‘not a fetish.’
‘You really should be a hand model,’ Kelly said, peering at them and then at her own.
‘And who would keep you lot in place?’ Marnie asked. ‘Though I do know what you mean. Sometimes I look down at them and find myself smiling.’
No one was smiling a little while later when the nursing off-duty was revealed. It was the first one Marnie had done and a group of nurses had fallen on the diary the moment that it had appeared.
Abby, who loathed night duty, found that she was about to do her first stint after two years of having managed to avoid it.
Harry, who should be moving on to the next patient, couldn’t help but stretch out his patient notes just so that he could listen as Abby voiced her concerns to Marnie.
Of course, they fell on deaf ears.
‘I hate nights too.’