Page 57 of Doc Hollywood

“Why aren’t you at the pub quiz?”

“I told Damien’s assistant I would get to this as quickly as possible. So I’ll skip it tonight.” She was a bit sad because seeing her friends in the pub was a highlight of her week.

“It’s not that urgent. You’ve got twenty minutes before the quiz starts. You should go,” he encouraged.

“It’s fine.” Clara shook her head.

“Clara, don’t miss something you enjoy to do more work. If I was close by, I’d come with you. You should go. Mr Atrosky will be fine if you take until after the weekend to finish reading the script,” Taylor told her.

“Well, but—“ She hesitated. She wanted to go, but she felt guilty.

“No buts. Put the script down, get off the phone, and get ready,” he ordered.

“Yeah. Okay, I’ll go. You’re right. I’ll talk to you later.” Standing up from the table, she waved to Taylor, who waved back.

“Talk later,” he replied.

Clara hung up the call and went to get ready for her night out, tucking the script in her room just in case one of the registrars came over.

As she walked out the front door, her phone rang; glancing down at it, she saw it was Taylor. A broad grin crossed her face as she answered.

“Hi, Taylor.”

“Hi, Clara. It’s been a long time since we spoke.”

She could hear the laugh in his voice. “Wasn’t I just talking to you?”

Walking down the front path, she unlocked the door to her car, put the phone between her shoulder and ear, threw her handbag into the passenger seat, and climbed in.

“Yeah. But I figured it was a ten-minute drive to the pub, and we could chat on the way,” Taylor drawled.

“What did you want to talk about?” She started the engine, waiting for the hands-free to pick up the call before she put her car into reverse and pulled out of the driveway.

“I dunno. I enjoy hearing your voice. I don’t mind what the conversation is about.”

Staring at the road, her jaw dropped in surprise. He just wanted to hear her voice. What now? Before her brain could think of anything to say, he carried on talking.

“I could tell you about my day? This girl I know has caused havoc in my workplace.” Taylor chuckled.

“Oh really. She sounds like fun. What did she do?” Clara played along.

“She told my very particular director, whose attention to detail is second to none, that he had been completely fooled and the equipment he had wasn’t what he thought it was.”

“And how did he take that?” She suppressed a laugh.

“Not well. I heard he called the fake doctor into a meeting, and from what I was told, there was shouting and some tears.”

“Tears?” Clara felt bad. She didn’t mean for the imposter to cry; she just wanted to tell them things were wrong.

Taylor laughed as he spoke. “Yeah, Mr Atrosky gets very emotional when he’s upset.”

Clara sputtered, “Sorry. It wasn’t the fake doctor who cried?”

“No.” Taylor laughed. “It was definitely Mr Atrosky. He’s a very passionate man and, as you can guess, a perfectionist. He had spent a lot of energy ensuring his sets were correct, and when you told him there was a lot wrong with them, he got very upset.”

“What did the fake doctor say?” Clara asked.

“I’m not sure of the exact words, but I hear there was an awful lot of swearing. And he said something about being a genius and that no one recognised it.” Taylor snorted with laughter.

---