The Man Ban - Nicola Marsh Page 0,14

rack of lamb with red wine jus, whitebait fritters, and stewed feijoa ice cream parfait. She knew real inspiration wouldn’t hit until she had the food in front of her tomorrow, but she always liked to prepare by studying various presentation methods online.

She’d touch base with the assistant too, because while she trusted the chef, she wanted to make sure there were no nasty surprises tomorrow.

After thanking the chef, she headed back to her room, where she typed Kylie’s number into her cell and pressed “call.” When the call switched to voice mail after ten rings, she left a message asking Kylie to call her back and hung up, trying to ignore the niggle in her gut. There could be any number of reasons why Kylie didn’t answer: she was in the middle of a job, she had an appointment, she wasn’t near her cell. But the chef had said Kylie was expecting her call and was free all afternoon, prepping for the job.

She was being silly. Kylie would call back and everything would proceed smoothly tomorrow.

She’d make sure of it.

12

As medical conferences went, this one had been more interesting than most. Manny liked keeping abreast of the latest updates in emergency medicine, and the speakers at this conference had been some of the best from around the world. Advances in treatment for acute pneumonia, deep vein thrombosis, upper gastrointestinal bleeding, prophylactic negative pressure wound therapy, and croup had kept him riveted for the last seventy-two hours, but he looked forward to having the next few days off.

He rarely had vacation days at home, which meant whenever he attended a conference away from Melbourne he scheduled some time to relax afterward. He’d never been to Auckland, despite it only being a three-and-a-half-hour flight away, and he looked forward to playing tourist.

After bidding farewell to fellow delegates, he headed for the bar tucked into one side of the foyer. The glaring blues and stainless steel hurt his eyes, but they served a mean martini, a drink he hadn’t sampled since his early days as an intern, when one of his supervisors had insisted his protégés attend Friday night drinks at a pub near the hospital for those not on call.

He rarely drank these days, considering his life revolved around the hospital, and being the chief ER physician meant he had to keep his wits about him most of the time. But he had no such compunction here, and after ordering an extra dry martini, he pulled out his cell to check on Izzy.

His grandmother always answered on the third ring, like she hated keeping anyone waiting.

“Manish, my boy, how are you?”

“Good. Brain-dead from information overload, but good.”

“You love it,” Izzy said, her soft accent never failing to invoke memories of trailing after her as a boy, of rolling out parathas alongside her as a teen, of standing hip to hip at the stove while she showed him how to taste food by tapping the wooden spoon against his opposite palm. “But I hope you’ll have some time to relax too. You work too hard.”

“The conference wrapped up an hour ago, so I’ll play tourist for a few days. How are you?”

He wasn’t sure if he imagined the barest hesitation. “I’m fine. Old and decrepit, but fine. And I’d be finer if my only grandson would marry before I die.”

“Not this again,” he said, but there was no malice in his response. His gran had been saying the same thing for the last decade, since he hit thirty and showed no signs of finding a wife. “Trust me, you’ll be the first to know if I ever lose my mind and slip a ring on any woman’s finger.”

Izzy tut-tutted. “You always make light of this, but I’m not getting any younger, Manish, and I don’t want you to be alone after I’m gone.”

Izzy had always been a bit of a hypochondriac, and he wondered if it was his gran’s way of seeking attention since he’d graduated. He knew his long hours in the ER meant he didn’t visit her as often as he’d like, but while she’d always have some medical complaint or another, she didn’t mention death very often. Probably out of superstition, so hearing her say it twice in this conversation, after mentioning it at the wedding, seemed strange.

“Love you, Izzy. See you next week.”

“Take care, my boy. There’s an Indian dance next weekend, some extravaganza in Noble Park, that would be good for you to attend to meet—”

“I might