Arthur Hailey - Strong Medicine

Andrew whistled softly.”You're taking on something pretty big. Also some risks.”

"Someone has to take risks if it's. to improve a bad situation. And I'm not afraid.”

"No," he said, "I don't believe you ever would be.”

"I'll tell you something, Andrew. If the big drug companies don't clean house themselves, and soon, I believe the government will do it for them. There are rumblings in Congress now. If the drug industry waits for congressional hearings, and then new laws with tough restrictions, they'll wish they'd acted first on their own.”

Andrew was silent, absorbing what he had just learned and mulling other thoughts. At length he said, "I haven't asked you this before, Celia, but maybe now is a good time for me to understand something about you.”

His wife's eyes were fixed on him, her expression serious. Andrew chose his words carefully. "You've talked about having a career, which is fine by me, and I'm sure you wouldn't be happy without it. But I've had the impression, while we've been together these past weeks, that you want more out of a career than what you're doing now-being a saleswoman.”

Celia said quietly.”Yes, I do. I'm going to the top.”

"Right to the top?" Andrew was startled.”You mean head up a big drug company?" "If I can. And even if I don't get all the way to the top, I intend to be close enough to have real influence and power.”

He said doubtfully, "And that's what you want? Power?" "I know what you're thinking, Andrew-that power can be obsessive and corrupting. I don't intend to let it be either. I simply want a full life, with marriage and children, but also something more, some solid achievement.”

"That day in the cafeteria...”

Andrew stopped, correcting himself.”That memorable day. You said it was time for women to do things they haven't done before. Well, I believe that too; it's already happening in a lot of places, including medicine. But I wonder about your industry-pharmaceuticals. That whole business is conservative and male-oriented-you've said so yourself.”

Celia smiled.”Horribly so.”

"Then is it ready yet-for someone like you? The reason I'm asking, Celia, is that I don't want to watch, and see you hurt or unhappy, while you throw everything into the effort and then maybe it doesn't work out.”

"I won't be unhappy. I'll promise you that.”

She squeezed Andrew's arm. "It's new for me to have someone care as much as you do, darling, and I like it. And as for your question-no, the industry isn't ready yet, for me or any other women with strong ambition. But I have a plan.”

"I should have known you'd have it all figured out.”

"First," Celia told him, "I intend to make myself so good at my job that Felding-Roth will discover they can't afford not to promote me.,,

"I'd bet on that. But you said 'first.' Isn't that enough?" Celia shook her head.”I've studied other companies, their histories, the people who run them, and discovered one thing. Most of those who make it to the top get there on someone else's coattails. Oh, don't misunderstand me-they have to work hard, and be excellent. But early on they select some individual-a little higher up, usually a bit older-who they believe is en route to the top ahead of them. Then they make themselves useful to that person, give him their loyalty, and follow along behind. The point is: when a senior executive gets promoted, he likes someone he's used to, who is capable and whom he can trust, coming up behind.”

"At this point," Andrew asked, "have you picked someone to follow?" "I decided some time ago," Celia said.”It's Sam Hawthorne.”

"Well, well!" Her husband raised his eyebrows.”One way or another, Sam seems to loom large in our lives.”

"In business matters only. So you've no need to be jealous.”

"All right. But does Sam know about this decision-that you're hitching to his star?" "Of course not. Lilian Hawthorne does, though. We've discussed it confidentially and Lilian approves.”

"It seems to me," Andrew said, "there's been some womanly plotting going on.”

"And why not?" For a moment the inner steel 'of Celia flashed.”Someday all that may not be needed. But right now the corporate business world is like a private men's club. So a woman must use whatever means she can to become a member and get ahead.”

Andrew was silent, considering, then he said, "Until now I hadn't thought about it a lot; I guess most men don't. But what you say makes sense. So okay, Celia, while you're making your way to the top-and I truly believe you just might-I'll be behind you, all the way.”

His wife leaned over in her seat and kissed him.”I knew that all along. It's one of the reasons I married you.”

They felt the airplane's engines moderate in tempo and the "Fasten Seat Belts" sign came on. Through windows on the port side the lights of Manhattan shimmered in early evening darkness.”In a few minutes," a stewardess announced, "we will be landing at Idlewild International Airport.”

Again Celia reached for Andrew's hand. "And we'll be starting our life together," she said.”How can we miss?"

On returning to their separate jobs, Andrew and Celia discovered they had each, in differing ways, achieved celebrity status. Like many important medical developments, the news about Andrew's successful use of Lotromycin took time to circulate but now, some six weeks after Mary Rowe's remarkable recovery, it had been picked up by the national press. Morristown's tiny Daily Record had carried the story first under a heading:

Local Medic Uses Wonder Drug Patient's "Miracle" Recovery

The Newark Star-Ledger, which clearly scanned the local papers in its bailiwick, repeated the item which, in turn, came to the attention of science writers at the New York Times and Time. When Andrew returned he discovered that urgent phone messages had been left for him to call both publications, which he did. Still more publicity resulted, with Time, the more romantically inclined, adding to its report the fact of Andrew and Celia's marriage. As well as all this, the New England Journal of Medicine informed Andrew that, subject to certain revisions, his article on Lotromycin would be published in due course. The suggested revisions were minor and Andrew agreed to them at once. "I don't mind admitting I'm consumed with envy," Dr. Noah Townsend observed when Andrew told him about the New England Journal. Then Andrew's senior partner added, "But I console myself with the luster it's already bringing to our practice.”

Later, Townsend's wife Hilda, attractive in her early fifties, confided to Andrew, "Noah won't tell you this, but he's so proud of you that nowadays he's thinking of you like a son-the son we'd both have liked but never had.”

Celia, while receiving less personal publicity, found her status at Felding-Roth changed in not-so-subtle ways. Previously she had been an anachronism, to some a source of curiosity and amusement-the firm's sole saleswoman who, despite an initial and unexpected accomplishment in Nebraska, still had to prove herself over the long term. Not any more. Her handling of Lotromycin, and the continuing publicity which delighted FeldingRoth, had put both the drug and Celia squarely on the road to success. Within the company her name was now well known to top executives, including Felding-Roth's president, Eli Camperdown, who sent for Celia a day after her return to work. Mr. Camperdown, a lanky, cadaverous industry veteran in his mid-sixties, who always dressed impeccably and was never seen without a red rose in his buttonhole, received Celia in his ornate office suite on the eleventh floor-executive country-of the Felding-Roth building in Boonton. He attended to the amenities first. "My congratulations on your marriage, Mrs. Jordan. I hope you'll be happy.”