‘They look...ready for anything.’ Hannah nodded towards a table where two men were laughing loudly together.
Matt shook his head. ‘Too confident, I reckon.’
‘What about them, then?’
He followed her gaze towards two women, who were talking intently, oblivious of everything that was going on around them. Matt could see the tension in their movements.
‘Too nervous.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘So what are we, then?’
He leaned towards her. ‘We’re the dream team. Flash and Robin.’
That made her laugh. Maybe Flash and Robin could achieve what Matt felt unequal to at the moment and confine their intimacy to that of friends and teammates.
They were shepherded into a large sitting room, and the director of the project stood up. The silence was so sudden and complete that a pin dropping would have made everyone jump. Matt reckoned that you’d even hear the swish of it on its way down.
‘Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome, and I hope you’ve all made yourselves comfortable here. We’d like to thank the Elsynge Hotel for allowing us to set up shop here for the weekend.’ He nodded towards a man wearing a blue jacket with the logo of the hotel on the breast pocket, who returned a benign smile, gauged to imply that nothing was too much trouble.
‘You’ll be wondering what your task is for the weekend. It’s very simple. You all know that the winners will be taking back a cheque for their hospital. We want you to produce a presentation of how that money might be spent, by eight o’clock on Sunday evening.’
There was a hum of whispered conversation, and one of the nervous women raised her hand. ‘What kind of presentation are you looking for?’
The director smiled. ‘That’s up to you to decide. Show us what you think we need to see.’
The two confident men were talking animatedly. Hannah turned to him, frowning. ‘How are we going to do that? It’s up to the hospital board to say how the money’s spent.’
‘I don’t know. It’s a good question, you should ask.’
She raised her hand hesitantly, and Matt jolted her elbow, pushing it up so that she caught the director’s eye.
‘I’ve got a good idea of how I’d like to see the money spent, but it’s not my decision. The board of our hospital would be in charge of that.’ A hum of agreement went around the room. Matt supposed that all of the other contestants were in much the same position.
‘We understand that the final decision belongs to the spending committees of your various hospitals, but this is your chance to influence that. You’ll be submitting your presentations on Sunday evening, and on Monday you’ll have a chance to talk to the judges. We’ve invited representatives from each of your hospitals to attend, and see your ideas. This is your chance to speak directly to them, as well as us.’
Hannah flashed a look at Matt. This was real. And it was a responsibility that neither of them had expected.
O
ne of the over-confident guys put up his hand, and stood to ask his question, so that everyone could see him. ‘Can we leave the hotel if we want?’
‘Yes, you can go anywhere at any time. The only thing we ask of you is that you sign yourselves out, and take along the production assistant who’ll be assigned to you. There may also be a camera crew, but they won’t accompany you anywhere without specific permission, we don’t want to cramp your style. The one thing we need from you is that you don’t use your time away from the hotel to contact anyone other than the specific person you’re going to see. This is a project that you have to complete alone.’
There were more questions, but Hannah seemed not to hear them, sitting deep in thought. As soon as the meeting broke up, she wound her way through the groups of people still talking in the conference room, and Matt followed her as she hurried back to their suite.
* * *
Hannah felt sick. She’d determined to win the money, and had been happy to leave it to others to decide how it was best spent. But now there were a hundred different areas of need, all jostling for position in her head. It was an impossible decision.
‘This is above my pay grade, Matt.’ She flopped down onto the sofa.
‘Yeah. Mine too.’ He sat down, his brow furrowed.
‘Maybe we should make a list of all the various departments. Then we could pinpoint their specific areas of need...’ Hannah shook her head. That was a terrible idea. ‘That alone would take us all weekend. We don’t have the time.’
‘And I’m not sure it’ll get us any further—every department needs something. How would we choose?’
‘Pick names from a hat?’ She sighed. ‘I just can’t think of any one thing that’s more important than everything else...’