The day after Sam’s father died, her mother said something that would stick in her memory like Grandma’s dumplings stuck to her ribs:
“Our family is cursed.”
Sam had never been the superstitious type, until example after example seemed to prove her mother right. Generations of Stantons befell tragedy shortly after achieving success, the first known case dating back to Sam’s great-great-grandfather. He and his family had barely escaped the potato blight of Ireland, survived the four-week treacherous journey on a “coffin ship” to the land of the free and the brave, only to step foot on Lady Liberty’s shore and contract typhoid fever a few days after his arrival, which left his penniless, pregnant wife all alone in a new country with not a soul to help her.
With grit and perseverance, the Stantons overcame. Until one fateful day in 1885, Sam’s great-grandmother beckoned the midwife to the birth of her firstborn, which she had been anticipating with great joy, as she was already edging woefully past her reproductive prime at the old age of twenty. It would be her final joy, however, as she took her last breath the moment the midwife placed her healthy pink baby boy, which would become Sam’s Grandpa Stanton, in her arms.
History would prove the curse again and again as four generations of Stantons had finally achieved their lifelong goals, only to have them ripped from their cold, dead hands.
Sam once read that among families with generational curses, 70 percent of them lasted more than four generations. Sam would be the fifth. The article had used the Kennedy family as proof of theory, but Sam wondered if that only applied to noteworthy families worth documenting. And what about the non-noteworthy families—what percentage of curses lasted more than four generations? Statistically speaking, Sam’s own familial curse seemed to be out to get her. And it was making great progress through the efforts of Thomas Cook.
As Sam considered the Kennedy curse, she felt a regretful kinship to their tragedy.
The Kennedy curse began stalking Edward Kennedy, marking the family with loss, scandal, and tragedy when, in 1941, his elder sister Rosemary underwent a lobotomy that resulted in permanent institutionalization. Three years later his eldest brother died in a plane crash during the second world war. By 1948 his sister perished in yet another plane crash. Why any Kennedy would ever step foot on a plane after that was beyond Sam, but clearly the Kennedys weren’t done testing those odds, because their curse didn’t end there.
Sam would never forget the 1963 assassination of JFK as the presidential motorcade rolled through Dallas, Texas. Then a year later, Edward himself narrowly escaped death when his plane crashed in an apple orchard. By 1970, the Kennedys had lost another brother to an assassin, and Edward’s car drove off a bridge into the water below. While it didn’t kill him, his failure to report the accident for more than ten hours left a suspicious stain on his reputation.
Sam felt that same haunting over her own future, so tangible she could smell it. Like the sulfur lingering behind hell’s gate, or the cigarette smoke wafting from Mr. Getty’s open office door.
“I have good news for you, Miss Stanton,” Mr. Getty announced as Sam walked in, coughing as the smoke invaded her virgin lungs. “Somehow your little stunt with Thomas Cook panned out.”
Sam would have amended that it hadn’t been a stunt. And she would have added that Mr. Getty had been the one to start the media frenzy in the first place when he went public with the ledger and attached her name to it. But her boss didn’t give her the chance to speak as he rambled on.
“The fan mail has been off the charts, the magazine is selling at record numbers, and,” he beamed as he stood up, “I’m getting promoted!”
Sam wasn’t sure how that was good news for her, but she smiled nonetheless. “Congratulations, sir.”
“Like I told you, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
“As always, you’re right again.”
“Anyway, since I’ll be leaving the position of editor-in-chief open, it is up to me to promote someone to take my place…”
A breath caught in her chest, and her neck warmed as Sam’s hopes and dreams ran ahead of her. She couldn’t believe it. She was getting promoted! Everything she had worked so hard for finally was coming due, her efforts and successes at last noticed and acknowledged. Damn that family curse back to hell where it belonged!
“… and after a lot of deliberation…”
A little flutter in her stomach added to a nauseating thrilled sensation.
“… and all of the work you’ve put in to turn this magazine around…”
Blood rushed through her as her heartbeat quickened.
“… I’ve decided to give the promotion of editor-in-chief to…”
As for that breath she had been holding? Still tucked in her lungs, waiting for Mr. Getty’s final proclamation:
“Mel.”
And just like that her brain glitched and breath swooshed out in a disappointed syllable:
“No.”
“Did you just tell me no?” Mr. Getty asked.
“I’m sorry, sir, but Mouthy Mel? Mel can’t handle that kind of responsibility. Did you even consider me for the position?”
“Didn’t you hear me? You’re too busy turning the magazine around! You won’t have time to run the whole thing.”
“But you said there was good news for me…”
“Oh, yes, I almost forgot. You are inheriting the newest addition to my collection of gadgets: the Magnavox Odyssey!” When Sam didn’t look impressed, he went on to explain, “It’s a video game that is able to display up to three dots on a screen and a vertical line! Technically it doesn’t come out on the market until next year, so you can’t get this anywhere yet. Far out, right?”
“Sir, no offense, but if it doesn’t type or cook for me, I have no use for it. What about the raise you promised me? Am I at least getting that?”
Mr. Getty seemed to deliberate. “How about fifty more cents an hour?”
Sam had wanted $2 more an hour when she fought for the columnist position, which was still several dollars an hour lower than Tell Mel had earned for his failing column. But Sam knew arguing this point would get her nothing but a foot in the rear and thrown out the door, so she accepted it with a stiff grin. She’d accept the pointless video game and sell it to help pay for her greenhouse rebuild.
“How wonderful,” Sam deadpanned. “Finally I can afford to eat something more than rice and beans. Maybe I can add a vegetable to it now. Perhaps cabbage.”
“See? I told you it was good news. And one more surprise,” Mr. Getty added with a flair. He dragged Sam over to a desk along the wall and pointed to a green case. “Open it.”
Sam clicked open the glistening metal latches and lifted the top. The latest typewriter model on the market, and another huge waste of the magazine’s budget that could have gone toward Sam’s $2 more per hour raise.
