“That’s exactly what I want to change!” Sam exclaimed. Finally Mr. Getty was getting it! “Instead of promoting outdated norms, I’m suggesting a fresh alternative, if you will. Something no other magazine is offering.”
“What you’re doing is trying to branch into investigative journalism, not entertainment journalism. Stay in your lane, Miss Stanton, and leave the reporting to the reporters.”
“I was given carte blanche to write what I want to write. I put my job security on the line for this. If I end up ruining the magazine, as you so clearly think I will, then you can have my head and my job. But if I increase subscription numbers, like I know I can do, you can thank me later. I’ll even save your liver and cure your constipation, if you give me a chance.”
Mr. Getty scoffed. “Not likely.” Then his gaze lingered on the prescription bottle. “If you can give me proof—tangible evidence—of your outrageous claims, I’ll let you run your advice column the way you want it.”
“I intend to.”
“By the end of the week.”
“The end of this week? How am I supposed to prove—”
“Figure it out. You want to be a journalist, then this is what it takes. Deadlines, pressure, chasing leads, fact-checking… now get out of my office before I change my mind.”
Before Sam could reach the door, Getty stopped her with an earnest, “Wait!”
She turned to him, already knowing the words before they parted his lips.
“Drink more water, and I’ll bring you some psyllium to loosen your bowels,” she said. Mr. Getty’s face contorted in confusion. “It’s an herbal seed packed with soluble fiber. You’ll see results within a day or two.”
Seemingly satisfied, Mr. Getty grunted approval. “I’ll expect it on my desk by lunch. Oh, and Samantha?”
“Yes, sir?”
“I’m getting complaints from the secretaries that you’re too… uptight. Relax a little. Show some teeth once in a while. You look prettier when you smile.”
She closed Mr. Getty’s office door, mumbling, “I’ll show you some teeth,” under her breath as the Beatles resurrected in the silence behind her.
Already a plan formed in her mind, the details whirling and swirling in her dark matter. This task would either take her all the way to the top, or throw her underfoot.
A constipation cure by lunch, and proof of Cook Pharmaceuticals’ dangerous drugs by the end of the week? Sam liked a challenge, but this would require journalistic finesse that she severely lacked. Luckily she knew someone who had it in spades and who would travel the ends of the earth—or at least from New York City to Pittsburgh—to help her.
Chapter 10
Desperate times called for desperate measures. And Sam was nothing if not desperate.
It had been more than a month—thirty-four days to be exact—since Sam had last spoken to Raul, but not for lack of thinking of him. In fact, his smile plagued her waking thoughts every morning. His laughter haunted her afternoons, the only company she kept as she ate her triple-decker club alone at the deli across the street from her office, where she imagined bumping into him—and subsequently knocking her own salami sandwich across the floor as she had once done to him the first day they met. And Raul’s was the last face she conjured as she drifted off to sleep each night. But her instinct for self-survival made her hands heel any time she reached for the phone to call him.
Until today.
Today was an exception, because her career depended on a man’s help. On Raul, specifically. The one who had already created a habit of letting her down twice now. But Sam, against her better judgement, had no other option than to risk it all—her pride and her heart, the only two things that mattered—as she picked up the telephone receiver. Placing her finger in the rotary dial, she carefully spun each number Raul had handwritten on her wrist before their last parting, the ink of which she had subsequently smeared to oblivion, but not before she had memorized each digit.
Unlike Raul, Sam had an excellent memory when it came to numbers.
“Hello?” Raul answered breathlessly on the first ring, as if he had been expecting her call.
“Hi,” Sam stated simply, betraying her racing heartbeat. “It’s me.”
“Me who?” Raul asked.
Suddenly Sam flushed with embarrassment and itched to hang up. Perhaps he had already forgotten the sound of her voice, even though she intimately knew the way his words quickened when he broke a story, or how his voice thickened to a low murmur when he shared something deeply personal.
“I’m kidding, Sam! Of course I know it’s you. So you decided to keep my phone number after all, huh?”
Sam glanced up from her typewriter, where people dashed across the bullpen, weaving through rows of desks and idling secretaries. She dropped her voice to a lower decibel.
“Can’t a girl change her mind?”
“But you said, and I quote, that ‘you won’t ever need anything from me.’”
How Raul of him to quote her verbatim.
“Some things change.”
