"Yes-so I can keep on working. Anyway, I decided the only way to influence Hawthorne was through his wife. It was risky. It almost didn’t work.”
Mrs. Lilian Hawthorne, Celia discovered, was active in several women's groups and thus, it seemed, might be sympathetic to another woman's career ambitions. Therefore, in the daytime when Sam Hawthorne was at Felding-Roth, Celia went to see his wife at home. "I'd never met her," Celia told Andrew.”I had no appointment. I just rang the bell and barged in.”
The reception was hostile. Mrs. Hawthorne, in her early thirties and seven years older than Celia, was a strong, no-nonsense person with long, raven-black hair which she pushed back impatiently as Celia explained her objective. At the end Lilian Hawthorne said, "This is ridiculous. I have nothing to do with my husband's work. What's more, he'll be furious when he learns you came here.”
"I know," Celia said.”It will probably cost me my job.”
"You should have thought of that beforehand.”
"Oh, I did, Mrs. Hawthorne. But I took a chance on your being up-to-date in your thinking, and believing in equal treatment for women, also that they shouldn't be penalized unfairly on account of their sex.”
For a moment it looked as if Lilian Hawthorne would explode. She snapped at Celia, "You have a nerve!" "Exactly," Celia said.”It's why I'll make a great saleswoman.”
The other woman stared at her, then suddenly burst out laughing.”My God!" she said.”I do believe you deserve it.”
And a moment later: "I was about to make coffee, Miss de Grey. Come in the kitchen and we'll talk.”
It was the beginning of a friendship which would last across the years. "Even then," Celia told Andrew, "Sam took some persuading. But he interviewed me, and I guess he liked what he saw, and Lilian kept working on him. Then he had to get the approval of his bosses. In the end, though, it all worked out.”
She looked down at the water in the dinghy; it was now above their ankles.”Andrew, I was right! This thing is sinking!" Laughing, they jumped overboard and swam ashore, pulling the boat behind them.
"When I began work in sales, as a detail woman," Celia told Andrew over dinner that night, "I realized I didn't have to be as good as a man in my job. I had to be better.”
"I remember a recent experience," her husband said, "when you were not only better than a man, you were better than this doctor.”
She flashed a brilliant smile, removed her glasses, and touched his hand across the table.”I got lucky there, and not just with Lotromycin.”
"You take your glasses off a lot," Andrew commented.”Why?" "I'm short-sighted, so I need them. But I know I look better without glasses. That's why.”
"You took good either way," he said.”But if the glasses bother you, you should consider contact lenses. A lot of people are beginning to have them.”
"I'll find out about them when we get back," Celia said.”Anything else while I'm at it? Any other changes?" "I like everything the way it is.”
To get where they were, they had walked a mile from their bungalow, hand in hand down a winding, crudely paved road where traffic was a rarity. The night air was warm, the only sounds the chirrup of insects and a cascading of waves on an offshore reef. Now, in a tiny, roughly furnished caf6 called Travellers Rest, they were eating the local standard fare-fried grouper, peas and rice. While Travellers Rest would not have qualified for the Michelin Guide, it served tasty food for the hungry, the fish freshly caught and prepared in an ancient skillet over a wood fire by their host, a wiry, wizened Bahamian named Cleophas Moss. He had seated Andrew and Celia at a table overlooking the sea. A candle stuck in a beer bottle was between them. Directly ahead were scattered clouds and a near-full moon.”In New Jersey," Celia reminded Andrew, "it's probably cold and rainy.”
"We'll be there soon enough. Tell me some more about you and selling drugs.”
Her first assignment as a detail woman, Celia related, was to Nebraska where, until then, Felding-Roth had had no sales representation. "In a way it was good for me. I knew exactly where I stood because I was starting from nothing. There was no organization, few records, no one to tell me whom to call on or where.”
"Did your friend Sam do that deliberately-as some kind of test?"
"He may have. I never asked him.”
Instead of asking, Celia got down to work. In Omaha she found a small apartment and with that as a base she drove through the state, city by city. In each place she tore out the "Physicians & Surgeons" section from the yellow pages of a phone book, then typed up record sheets and began making calls. There were 1,500 doctors, she discovered, in her territory; later she decided to concentrate on 200 whom she estimated were the biggest prescribers of drugs. "You were a long way from home," Andrew said, "Were you lonely?" "Didn't have time. I was too busy.”
One early discovery was how difficult it was to get to see doctors.”I'd spend hours sitting in waiting rooms. Then, when I'd finally get in, a doctor might give me five minutes, no more. Finally a doctor in North Platte threw me out of his office, but he did me a big favor at the same time.”
"How?" Celia tasted some fried grouper and pronounced, "Loaded with fat! I shouldn't eat it, ' but it's too good to pass up.”
She put down her fork and sat back, remembering. "He was an internist, like you, Andrew. I'd say about forty, and I think he'd had a bad day. Anyway, I'd just started my sales talk and he stopped me. 'Young lady,' he said, 'you're trying to talk professional medicine with me, so let me tell you something. I spent four years in medical school, another five being an intern and resident, I've been in practice ten years, and while I don't know everything, I know so much more than you it isn't funny. What you're trying to tell me, with your inadequate knowledge, I could read in twenty seconds on an advertising page of any medical magazine. So get out!' " Andrew grimaced.”Cruel.”
"But good for me," Celia said, "even though I went out feeling like something scraped off the floor. Because he was right.”
"Hadn't the drug company-Felding-Roth-given you any training?" "Oh, a little. But short and superficial, a series of sales spiels, mostly. My chemistry background helped, though not much. I simply wasn't equipped to talk with busy, highly qualified doctors.”
"Since you mention it," Andrew said, "that's a reason why some doctors won't see drug detail men. Apart from having to listen to a canned sales pitch, you can get incorrect information that is dangerous. Some detail men will tell you anything, even mislead you, to get you to prescribe their product.”
"Andrew dear, I want you to do something for me about that. I'll tell you later.”
"Okay-if I can. So what happened after North Platte?" "I realized two things. First, I must stop thinking. like a salesman and not do any kind of pushy selling. Second, despite doctors knowing more than I did, I needed to find out specific things about drugs that they didn't know, which might be helpful to them. In that way I'd become useful. Incidentally, while attempting all that, I discovered something else. Doctors learn a lot about disease, but they're not well informed about drugs.”
"True," Andrew agreed.”What you're taught in medical school about drugs isn't worth a damn, and in practice it's hard enough to keep up with medical developments, never mind drugs. So where prescribing is concerned, it's sometimes trial and error.”
"Then there was something else," Celia said.”I realized I must always tell doctors the exact truth, and never exaggerate, never conceal. And if I was asked about a competitor's product and it was better than ours, I'd say so.”
"How did you make this big change?" "For quite a while I had four hours' sleep a night.”