Yeah, yeah, don’t let it go to your head. He is still Ben and you are still no longer his other half.
He didn’t have another half. Neither did she. But that didn’t mean they’d be joining up again.
Just keep things on an even keel and don’t let that voice trip you up.
Easy as. Be friendly and cool. Easy as.
A little while later Tori sniffed the air like a spaniel on the scent of a bone. They’d walked up Avenue Jean Médecin until they’d found a patisserie with seating on the pavement. The delicious scent of pastries teased her. ‘Look at those.’ She nodded at the array of exquisitely presented delicacies. ‘This is heaven.’ She grinned.
‘You want to try out your French and order for both of us?’ He grinned straight back.
‘Woo-hoo. Yes, I do. What are you going to have?’ Anticipation rolled through her, egged on by that smile beaming at her. Oh, Ben, I’ve missed you. She wouldn’t be sad today. That’d be a waste of Nice. Stepping up to the counter, she pulled back her shoulders and said slowly and carefully, ‘Un café, un café au lait, et deux pains au chocolat, s’il vous plaît.’ She handed over a twenty-euro note to the taciturn woman behind the counter and watched closely to see what she got.
‘Sucre?’ she was asked.
‘Non.’ Who’d have believed she’d be ordering breakfast in French? She glanced around and met Ben’s laughing eyes.
‘It’s looking good so far. That’s two coffees on the go.’ He sounded as happy as her.
Pulling a face at him, she chuckled. ‘Ye of little faith.’ And mentally crossed her fingers they got one white and one black.
When their order was placed on the counter Tori grinned as she handed Ben his. ‘I did it. I got what we wanted without having to utter a single word in English.’ She hadn’t had so much fun since—since she and Ben had been married and sharing the apartment.
Her excitement faded a little as they sat outside, but she refused to give in to the past and instead watched the trams rolling up and down the centre of the avenue, stopping for workers to alight. Tourists wandered by, some stopping to peer in the window at the food on offer.
‘I could get to like doing this all the time.’ The sky was clear blue again, the temperature already warming up. ‘Thanks for suggesting it.’
‘Like you said, why sit in the hotel dining room when Nice is out here? When France is spread before us to enjoy?’
Tori nodded her agreement. ‘Even if I’d got green juice and a baked banana from my badly accented order I’d have been happy. This is what I came all this way for.’
‘Don’t tell Luc. He’d be disappointed.’ Ben’s smile struck her right in the solar plexus, dissolving the last of the tension his sudden appearance yesterday had created.
Not even the child bouncing on the seat at the next table and poking her tongue out at Tori could dampen her spirits with thoughts of what her child would’ve been like at that age.
‘This is the first holiday I’ve had in ages. Or it will be once my talk is done.’ If she remained practical hopefully this little frisson of interest in Benji would go away. Ben. His name is Ben.
* * *
Tori waited for the applause that followed Monsieur Leclare’s introduction to die down. It was show time. She felt good, knew her stuff, had all the notes printed out just in case her phenomenal memory failed her—as if. The PowerPoint display was set up and she’d tested it with a technician fifteen minutes earlier. Yes, she was ready.
When the forum director waved her forward to the lectern she stepped up and looked out across the crowded conference room. And forgot everything. Except that she was there to talk to all those people. Her mouth dried. The notes shook in her fingers. She glanced down at them. Nothing made sense. What was going on? This had never happened before. The room was quiet. Too quiet. Her gaze slid down and along the front row. To Ben. Don’t look at Ben. What can he do? Where else did she look? No way could she cope with seeing all those expectant faces turned to her, those eyes focused entirely on her. Try the screen. Spinning around like a desperate woman—which she was—she studied the heading blinking out at the audience.
Rheumatic Fever and Its Comeback by Tori Wells.
Cardiologist, New Zealand
That should’ve settled her stage fright. It didn’t. Instead, the quivering increased and her stomach got in on the act, preparing to hurl that delicious pastry upward.
A firm voice cut across her panic. ‘Tori, here are the notes you left behind.’ Ben.
Ben was on stage with her, handing her something. Notes. She reached for them as though they were a lifeline. But they couldn’t be hers, she had all the notes she needed on the laptop in front of her. It was knowing what to do with them that was the problem.
‘Read them.’ His expression was filled with confidence.
She glanced down at the top page of what was one of the numerous pads supplied by the hotel for the attendees. Scrawled across the paper in handwriting she remembered well was, ‘Speak from your heart, Tori, as only you can.’
Dared she look at him? Could the whole auditorium hear her rapid heartbeat over the microphone? It was deafening. Was she about to make a colossal fool of herself?
A hand was on her elbow, fingers squeezing gently. ‘Go, girl.’ A whiff of that aftershave and the hand was gone as Ben walked off stage.
Leaving her to do this. He believed in her. Knew she could speak to all these experts and not screw up. Drawing air into her depleted lungs, she faced forward and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure I’m about to tell you things you have known since the first day you walked into medical school, but I believe in my work so much you’re going to have to listen to me anyway.’
That got her a laugh. The show was under way. A quick glance at Ben found him nodding and smiling—at her. I owe you. The tension fell away and Tori opened up to talk about what had driven her for the last few years.
‘I would like you all to meet Thomas Kahu. He needs no introduction. He’s the star of this short clip.’ She pressed ‘Play’ and stepped aside so everyone could watch sixty seconds of high-school rugby.
When the film clip finished she returned to the lectern, her nerves completely under control. If Thomas could see her he’d be saying, ‘Come on, Heart Lady, they’re only people like you and me.’ He was one smart young man.
She told her audience, ‘I come from a rugby-mad country, but that particular game was the one to change me profoundly. It also changed my career direction.’ Her voice firmed as she continued. ‘I attended a school rugby game in which my friend’s son was playing. There was a big, strapping Samoan lad in the back line of the opposition team who was impressing everyone. Thomas Kahu was a natural at reading the game and acting on what he saw. There was even talk on the evening sports news that night of him being considered for the junior national side in a year or two.’ Sadness enveloped her, tightening her heart.
‘Three months later that lad was sitting in my consulting room suffering from carditis that manifested as congestive heart failure. He’d contracted rheumatic fever. His rugby career was over before it had really started. Thomas is the reason I do what I do.’ The emotion she always felt about that day filled her voice, and was amplified through the microphone.
Some people clapped and Tori felt a glow of pleasure nudge aside her distress for Thomas. Ben had been right. Speak from the heart. Heck, she was just about laying the whole pumping mass out on the lectern for everyone to see.
Now for the nitty-gritty of her everyday life. ‘While rheumatic fever is common worldwide, it has been fairly rare in Western countries since the nineteen sixties.
But this leaves no room for complacency as there have been some outbreaks since the early eighties.’ Tori looked out across the room without focusing on any one person. So far, so good. The delegates were receiving her well.
Straightening her back even farther, she felt a vertebra click as she continued. ‘In New Zealand, rheumatic fever has become a small but serious issue for a minority of our population. The health ministry is working hard to put in preventative measures through education, better housing and communal involvement on all levels.
‘Unfortunately I get to see far too many children who don’t come to anyone’s attention until it’s too late and they’ve developed heart disease. This is due in part to the fact that initially parents, teachers and other caregivers believe that when the child becomes ill with a sore throat he or she has an infection and treat it accordingly. In some instances there’s no treatment at all even for a strep throat.’
Sipping water, Tori again looked out at the sea of faces, then inadvertently brought her focus down to the front row. Ben smiled directly at her and gave her a thumbs-up. She smiled back.
‘Ignorance is not the answer. Strep A is easily treated with antibiotics and yet this is often overlooked, especially in the lower socio-economic regions of our society where people can’t afford even a heavily subsidised visit to the doctor.
‘What my clinic is pushing for are standard observations that can be undertaken by trained community nurses at every school in the country. I’d rather run out of young patients with cardiac disease brought on by rheumatic fever than have to perform even one more heart-replacement procedure. I’d prefer to see these kids playing rugby and netball, not dealing with shortness of breath, not terrified because their heart sounds and feels strange. No child wants to be the odd one out, and yet because of the consequences of this disease that’s where they often find themselves.’
Her voice had risen and her hands were fists on the lectern as she tried to lock eyes with every single person in the room. ‘Kids need to belong, to be a part of what’s going on around them. They don’t deserve to be sidelined through a preventable illness.’