Page 148 of In Sheets of Rain

59

And Michael Got All Growly

When I walked out of Christchurch Airport’s terminal, a crisp blue-sky, winter’s day greeted me. The air always felt clearer down here than in Auckland. I pressed the button on my rental car’s key and waited for the Toyota Corolla my boss had hired for me to light up.

It was white, like the snow, and a manual. I had no problem driving a stick shift, but I would have liked, in the snow, to have driven an automatic.

I had enough as a Northerner to contend with.

I drove out of the airport and headed towards the hospital. My first appointment was in the Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratory in just one hour, and Christchurch traffic could be confusing.

I made it with ample time to spare, so shouted myself a coffee in the hospital cafeteria. When I walked into the Cath Lab, the nurses greeted me warmly. I always felt more at home in the cath labs than the operating theatres. At least here, the blood falling was at a minimum.

I was talking to one of the staff nurses when my opposition walked in. Steve was a big guy, loud and effusive. I’d seen him from a distance before and knew who he was and what he sold and that he was competition for me.

The fact that he was in the Cath Lab on a day I had arranged to be in the Cath Lab grated.

He bounded up to me, grinning, big hand outstretched for me to shake. He was very much taller than me, and for a second, I thought rather like a Golden Labrador. I took his hand, and he shook it enthusiastically.

“So, you’re the TEK rep?” he said.

“And you’re the BioMetrics rep,” I offered.

He grinned at me, then leaned against the wall at my side.

“Why are you working for them?” he asked, boldly.

“Why are you working for BioMetrics?” I threw back at him.

He tipped his head back and laughed. Raucously.

I scowled at him as a nurse told us to keep it down.

“I’ve heard good things about you,” Steve said. “They like you here.”

I arched my brow at him.

“But you have to know; you’re wasted on that little bitty firm of yours. You could do so much more if you played in the big league.”

He pulled a business card out and handed it to me.

“Give me a call,” he said. “I can arrange an appointment with one of the managers. You’d have a place at BioMetrics in a heartbeat.”

My own heartbeat had sped up. I wanted him to leave.

He offered me a winning smile, all white teeth and ruddy cheeks, and then shouted a farewell to the nurses. As he walked out of the Cath Lab, the nurse manager scolded me.

“You can’t come in here and make so much noise, Kylee.”

I sighed and pocketed the business card, then went to work soothing the waves left behind in the wake of my competition’s passing.

* * *

“He didwhat?” Michael said down the phone line that evening.

“Offered me a job,” I repeated.

“Bloody bastard,” he said seething. “Just because he knows he can’t compete with you in Christchurch, he tries to take out his opposition by stealing her.”