Chapter 31
“Don’t you see what you’re actually doing?” Bernadette proposed as Sam set a spiny potted plant on a table beneath her open living room window that let in a warm June breeze.
“No, I can’t see anything. The plant is blocking my view.”
Sam had been running errands all day with this plant sitting in her back seat along for the ride. First to the nickel-and-dime store, then to K-B Toys when she hadn’t quite found what she wanted. She didn’t plan to stay long, seeing as poor Fido couldn’t hold his gallon-sized bladder forever, and cleaning up after him required at least an entire roll of paper towels that Sam couldn’t afford to waste.
“I’m not talking about the plant, Sam. And this isn’t a joke. You’ve got to stop digging for dirt against Thomas Cook. You’re putting yourself in his crosshairs. The media is painting you as the antihero, and readers are starting to buy into it.”
As winter had come to an end, Sam and Bernadette bonded over baking and tea since Bernadette had cut back on coffee at Sam’s suggestion. When spring shot colors across their yards full of flowers, so too did their friendship blossom even more. But as summer slid in hot and heavy, Bernadette felt every bit of it as her belly felt heavier than ever, while Sam’s reinvigorated investigation into Thomas Cook was making Bernadette sweat.
Their friendship had grown to a new level of honesty. They were not quite at the place where Bernadette could tell Sam she needed to grow out her hair and attempt a more modern, flattering style. At what point in a friendship would that conversation ever be ready to navigate, just like the proverbial wife asking her husband does this make me look fat? But at least she now felt the freedom to urge her friend to stay out of trouble. Unfortunately, Sam was just as stubborn as Bernadette.
Ever since Sam befriended her, Bernadette realized Sam tended to attract as much trouble as her Black family moving into a white neighborhood. Perhaps that’s what made them such a perfect pair: neither backed down, no matter how much their friends and family tried to sway them otherwise. While Bernadette begged Sam to walk away from her investigation, Bernadette’s own mother had begged her to return to her inner-city home. In typical willful-woman fashion, Sam persisted her whistle-blowing, and Bernadette had just installed a new washing machine. Neither of them would budge.
“No matter what readers believe, at least I’m giving people the truth,” Sam pointed out. “I refuse to compromise that.”
“I get it, honey. I really do. I just don’t want to see you lose everything.”
Lately Sam was getting more hate mail than fan mail, and the readership numbers were starting a slow decline as the media fed lie after lie about Sam’s “underhanded attempts to discredit Cook Pharmaceuticals”—their words, not hers. If it kept going at this rate, Sam would be out of readers—and out of a job—before her twenty-fourth issue, per her agreement with Mr. Getty. But there were those pesky nagging ethics telling Sam not to give up.
“I can’t ignore the facts, Bernadette. I read the medical journal reports on the effectiveness of at least two drugs that Cook Pharmaceuticals manufacturers. The results don’t line up. He’s hiding something… big.”
“Well, ask your boy toy to look into it for you. You shouldn’t get involved,” Bernadette warned.
“Enough worrying about me. You have a growing baby to worry about.”
“If it grows any bigger I’m gonna’ split wide open,” Bernadette groused.
While Bernadette continued pointing out all of the merits of not being a media target, Alonzo Jr. approached the plant Sam had brought, eying its spikes suspiciously.
“Don’t worry, it won’t bite,” Sam assured him. “Though you can safely bite it.”
Alonzo Jr. laughed, then leaned forward with his mouth open.
“No, Alonzo Jr., she’s kidding.” Bernadette eyed Sam. “Right?”
“Actually, aloe is perfectly safe to eat.”
Bernadette examined the glossy ceramic floral pot that didn’t match her décor one bit. “So explain this to me. You brought me a plant, Sam?”
“And I have another one in my greenhouse for you—spinach. It’s packed with zinc and folate, and you can get your daily serving by nibbling a few leaves each day,” Sam explained, forgetting that Bernadette was a grown woman and not a house pony.
Sam knew little to nothing about the needs of a pregnant woman, other than that growing babies and their mothers required plenty of zinc and folate to aid in fetal brain development. Sam wondered how much more of society would have better common sense if they weren’t folate deficient.
“As if I need something else to take care of?”
“Aloe plants are very low maintenance. Ignore it and it will thrive. But they’re one of the best plants for purifying the air. Living in a steel town, our houses are full of benzene, which can cause headaches and red blood cell depletion. The cleaner your air, the better it is for you and the baby. Oh, and the aloe from its fleshy leaves can be used for skin and haircare.”
Bernadette smiled, loving her friend all the more for just how thoughtful she actually was, even if she had old-fashioned style.
“Then thank you for this, Sam. You know, you’ll make a great mother someday.”
Sam scoffed at the now second time someone had told her this. “Me, a mother? No. I don’t plan on having children.”
“Why not?”
“I’m too disorganized,” she said, rooting through her purse for the K-B Toys bag she could have sworn she put in there. “And children are so opinionated,” she added with certainty, though she had very little real-world experience with any other than Alonzo Jr. “And the trouble they get into…” she concluded as she made a mental note to thank her jail guard for the kind fan mail he had written her recently.
“It sounds like you’re afraid of raising a child just like you, but you turned out pretty good, don’t you think?”
“That’s still up for debate, according to my mother. I did go to jail… twice. And piss off a powerful man who could easily put a hit on me.”
Tucked beside the plant, Sam found the bag she had been searching for and handed it to Alonzo Jr., the top overflowing with the latest, greatest toys according to every television commercial that summer of 1971.
“You brought me presents?” Alonzo Jr. exclaimed, pulling out a Nerf ball first.
“And you say you’re not maternal,” Bernadette uttered.
“I got you that so you can practice your throwing while sparing the windows!” Sam exclaimed.
“Okay, maybe I take it back,” Bernadette withdrew. “Alonzo Jr., I don’t care what Miss Sam says, no throwing balls in the house.”
