Chapter Ten
“WHERE HOPE MEETS healing,” Derek Matheson read aloud, squinting at the banner strung across the barricade as the black Suburban crept past a traffic cop. “Who came up with that?”
In the front seat, Carolyn Boyle, his executive vice president of marketing, half turned.
He could see her blond hair against her dark pantsuit.
In her mid-thirties, she had been on board for five years.
With the pace he set and demanded from those around him, Matheson thought she would have burned out by this point.
He often wondered when she found time to keep so fit and toned.
Her mouth curved into something between a cautious smile and a bracing wince. “I did.”
“And the logo,” he said. “Green and gold? Why not red? Genyra’s branding is red.”
Carolyn held her reply for a moment, eyes forward as she considered her answer. “It’s Tulane’s palette,” she said. “And the city favors gold: saints, the Joan of Arc statue, the old flags—”
“We’ll fix it,” interrupted Genyra’s chief commercial officer from the opposite leather captain’s chair.
Walt Kimbel’s tone was smooth, automatic.
Before jumping into the more profitable world of pharmaceuticals, he’d been a public defender with a law degree from LSU.
“Carolyn, put it on the docket for Tuesday’s marketing huddle. ”
“Of course,” she murmured.
Matheson’s eyes cut toward the window. He scratched at the stubble on his chin, carefully maintained at a millimeter or two for just the right look.
“It’s nearly five. Why the hell aren’t we there yet?”
He knew why. His jet had been an hour late taking off out of Atlanta thanks to a detour to drop his most recent girlfriend off before heading to New Orleans after their extended weekend in Turks and Caicos. The two-hour meet-and-greet with hospital staff had been scratched entirely.
“Cops are rerouting everyone. VIP parking’s in the back,” the driver said, eyes hidden behind mirrored wraparounds that looked too small for his face.
Dale Harris’s frame was linebacker-solid, his neck like a fire hydrant.
He was an ex-cop from Baton Rouge, sidelined into the personal protection game after an excessive force charge caught on a body cam had bounced him from the department.
Matheson didn’t respond. He was still hung up on the color scheme. The heat. The rush.
He turned sharply back toward Carolyn.
“Who’s confirmed for media coverage?” he asked.
She perked up. “Actually, good news. Pushing the ceremony to five helps us. Local affiliates will catch the story right before prime time.”
Matheson’s jaw flexed. “Local. Not national.”
“There’s syndicated coverage, freelancers filing pool copy. Might get picked up wider.”
“Might,” he repeated, turning back to the window.
Silence mounted. Dale adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. Walt turned his head and feigned interest in a hot dog vendor on the sidewalk.
“No CNN, no Fox, no MSNBC?” Matheson asked.
“I haven’t…”
“What about at the gala tonight? Any coverage?”
Carolyn’s lips parted. “They… haven’t confirmed.”
“But you called them. We sent the press kits. You followed up.”
“I did. Yes.”
“So why aren’t they here?”
“They thought the opening of the center was a local story.”
“This isn’t about the opening. This is about Genyra breaking boundaries. The opening was just supposed to be the visual.”
“Yes, I understand that, sir. But we…”
“A drug that reduces end-of-life suffering in terminal cancer patients, extends lives, gets full FDA approval, and that’s not a national story?”
She stiffened her back and sat up straight, putting on her executive armor.
“Goddamn it, Carolyn,” he snapped, his voice booming through the cabin. “We used to push harder. You hit a voicemail and quit? You lob one idea over the net and then put down the racket?”
“Sir…”
“You didn’t go to the top? You went to the gatekeepers and let them gatekeep.
That’s not the Genyra way. How many times have I preached our core values—tenacity, determination, pugnacity?
” He shook his head when she didn’t respond.
“So here we are, draped in Emerald City colors, about to hand over… Walt, what was it again?”
“Sixty-three million,” Walt said, without looking at him.
“Sixty-three million dollars for university research,” Matheson said. “For people who can’t return a call. For a media apparatus that doesn’t think it matters. It’s your job to tell them why it matters and make them believe it.”
Carolyn swallowed and Matheson continued.
“You didn’t sell it. My job was research.
Now it’s leadership. Yours is sales.” His voice dropped and his eyes shifted outside, looking at the green and gold banners set up for the event.
“Not a national story. Fuck. Whole thing is a wash. Not even sure I should have come back for this.”
No one spoke. The car slowed.
“We’re here, boss,” Harris said.
Matheson grasped the door handle as a man in an old-fashioned seersucker suit approached, hand raised, smile strained.
“Who is that?” Matheson barked. “Carolyn?”
She blinked at the bright light outside, groping for an answer because she didn’t have an angle. Kimbel cut in smoothly. “That’s Dean Avery. Tulane Medical.”
Matheson thrust the door open without another word to his staff, leaving the air-conditioned confines of the Suburban and stepping into the damp heat of a New Orleans evening that enveloped him like a shawl. He squared his shoulders and buttoned the single clasp of his jacket, no tie, grinning.
“Mr. Avery, it is such a pleasure to see you.”
He grasped Avery’s hand with a firm grip and continued on with how honored he was to be there, to be dedicating this wing, his life’s work. His eyes swept the crowd and saw a few cameras. Too few. Local.
He smiled and waved at them anyway.