Secrets of a Career Girl by Carol Marinelli

and full of life gradually getting weaker. How he hated that he had only just made it to the hospital in time. He let out more than he had to Kate, to anyone, and during that conversation Penny found out that it had been his sister who had dropped him off at work, but there was no room for relief or dousing of red-hot pokers, or anything really, as she could hear the heartbreak in his voice.
    ‘Thirty-six,’ Ethan repeated, and was met by silence. He would never have known that her silence was because of tears. ‘So, while I suppose we were expecting it, it still came as a shock.’ He didn’t really know how better to explain it. ‘And it will be a shock for Justin too.’
    ‘Poor kid,’ Penny said.
    ‘Anyway, thanks for swapping.’
    He hung up the phone, poured his spaghetti on the toast and then frowned because it was cold. He’d surely only been on the phone for a moment and so back into the microwave it went.
    They’d actually been talking for a full twenty minutes.
    * * *
    At five a.m. Penny stood, bleary-eyed, under the shower, trying to wake up. She got out and then dried her hair. At least she didn’t have to worry about make-up yet, given that she would be crying it all off very soon.
    And normally the terribly efficient Penny didn’t have to worry about what to wear because her work wardrobe was on a fourteen-day rotation, except it wasn’t so simple at the moment because her arms were bruised from all the blood tests and so her sleeveless grey top wasn’t an option.
    Even the simplest thing seemed complicated this morning.
    A sheer neutral jumper worked well with her black skirt, except it meant that she had to change her underwear because it showed her black bra, and with all her appointments and tests the usually meticulous Penny’s laundry wasn’t up to date. Racing the clock, she grabbed coral silk underwear that she’d never usually consider wearing for work and then raced downstairs, so rushed and tired that by mistake she added orange juice instead of milk to her coffee and had to make her drink all over again.
    Still, Penny thought, she was glad to have been able to help out Ethan, and there was just a flutter of something unfamiliar stirring. Penny hadn’t fancied anyone for ages. Not since she and Vince had spilt up. Well, that wasn’t strictly true—she’d had a slight crush on someone a while ago, but she certainly wasn’t about to go there, even in her thoughts. She drove for what felt like ages until at last, at a quarter to seven, she lay with her knees up, loathing it despite being used to it, as she underwent the internal scan to find out how her ovaries were behaving. And if that wasn’t bad enough, afterwards she headed for her blood test.
    ‘Morning, Penny!’
    They all knew her well.
    Penny was determined not to make the scene she had yesterday. She was there willingly after all. But her resolve wavered as she sat on the seat and one of the nurses held her head as she cried while the other strapped down her arm—it was just an exercise in humiliation really.
    ‘I’m not doing this again,’ Penny said as she felt the needle go into her already-bruised vein.
    But she’d said that the last time, yet here she was again, locked in the exhausting world of IVF.
    Penny sorted out her make-up in the hospital car park and was, in fact, in the department well before nine.
    ‘Morning, Penny.’ Mr Dean was especially pleased to see her, because it meant that he could soon go home. ‘I hope that you had a good night’s sleep—the place is wild.’
    Of course it was.
    ‘Where’s Penny?’ was a frequent cry that she heard throughout the day and Penny didn’t really stop for a break, just made do with coffee on the run, but by one o’clock she knew that she had to get something to eat, which she would, just as soon as Mrs Hunt’s chest pain was sorted out.
    ‘Cardiology knows that you’re here,’ Penny explained to her patient. ‘They haven’t forgotten you.