Free Mistaken Engagement by Jenny Schwartz

and Emma wondered how many hours they had been tending the sick. One of the women began to speak in fractured English, gesturing wildly with her hands. Spanish slid in and out of her sentences as the others listened on, eating their meals and cradling their coffees. The man in the gown struggled to his feet and left. His phone hadn’t rung.
    “This place is sucking the life out of me,” Emma grumbled. “Everyone’s waiting for something. Waiting to leave, waiting to die.”
    Affni’s fingertips brushed against her wrist—mocha against vanilla. “You’ve been here every day for a fortnight. Maybe you should take a day off. Recharge.”
    Emma shook her head. “I shouldn’t complain.”
    “You’ve every right to. He won’t know, Emma.”
    “I’ll know.”
    Affni squeezed the back of Emma’s hand then began cutting up her schnitzel. She hid her eyes behind her liquorice-coloured fringe, but Emma didn’t need to see them to know there was judgement there. Affni didn’t approve of Emma’s guilt.
    They ate quietly for a time, then Affni said, “I saw Asha in the gift shop again.”
    “Maybe she bought him a pillow with his name on it today.”
    “Maybe.”
    Emma pushed her yoghurt aside and snapped open her container of carrot sticks. They didn’t taste good either.
    A grey-haired woman in a white patterned dressing gown walked past, a loaded plate of stir-fry in her hands and two chattering friends in tow. The three sat down and began discussing grandchildren, a neighbour called Maggie and Donna’s crook hip. Combined they had the appetite of ten men.
    “What will you do when he wakes up?” Affni asked. She kept her head down, her focus on her lunch.
    Emma stopped chewing and considered. That question had haunted her since the accident, and her answer had changed every day. “I don’t know. Maybe I should just buy one of those God-awful cards from the gift shop and apologise in that. Should I even be here?”
    Affni looked up. “I don’t know, Em.” She poked at her potato, as if unsure whether to continue. “Not because it’s your fault, but because of who you are.”
    “Explain it to me again,” Dana insisted.
    Emma struggled to control any sign of her impatience. She didn’t have time to repeat herself; a truckload of steel would be turning into Southbank Boulevard any minute, and she still needed to brief the Auditorium’s General Foreman. But pushing against the client wouldn’t get her out of this meeting room faster, so she took a steadying breath and started again.
    Dana Vickers watched her through narrow pink-rimmed glasses. Her hair tumbled about her face in a kind of controlled chaos, and the enormous peacock broach on her collar winked and glittered in the light. It had been distracting Emma for over an hour. Dana took notes as Emma spoke, her handwriting utterly illegible to Emma’s eye, and made soft sounds in her throat whenever she agreed or understood something. Ten minutes later Emma had heard that sound only twice.
    People around them were beginning to fidget, and some were bold enough to check their watches. Dana was unmoved.
    “If the subcontractor proceeded on the assumption that the technical drawings were unchanged, then they are clearly at fault. The cost should not be absorbed by the project.”
    Emma nodded, not in agreement, but to show that she had listened. “Be that as it may, it is a dangerous step to punish NJK for attempting to keep up with the fast-track program. It sends a bad message. The subcontractors are taking risks for us to keep things moving. If we slam a twenty k bill on their heads for their trouble we could lose a lot more in the long term. Dana, I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to wrap this up. I’m happy to discuss this offline with you but right now I have somewhere I need to be.”
    Dana angled her chin. The woman might have been twenty years her senior, but she didn’t have the authority to question Emma’s priorities. She nodded,