Celia described how, after a regular day's work, she would spend evenings and weekends reading every drug manual she could get her hands on. She studied each in detail, making notes and memorizing. If there were unanswered questions, she sought answers in libraries. She made a trip back to Felding-Roth headquarters in New Jersey and badgered former colleagues on the scientific side to tell her more than the manuals did, also what was being developed and would be available soon. Before long her presentations to doctors improved; some doctors asked her to obtain specific information, which she did. After a while she saw that she was getting results. Orders for Felding-Roth drugs from her territory increased. Andrew said admiringly, "Celia, you're one of a kind. Unique.”
She laughed.”And you're prejudiced, though I love it. Anyway, in just over a year the company tripled its business in Nebraska.”
"That's when they brought you in from the outfield?" "They gave someone else who was newer, a man, the Nebraska territory and me a more important one in New Jersey.”
"Just think," Andrew said, "if they'd sent you to some other place like Illinois or California we'd never have met.”
"No," she said confidently, "we'd have met. One way or another we were destined to. 'Wedding is destiny.'" He finished the quotation.”'And hanging likewise.'" They both laughed. "Fancy that!" Celia said, delighted.”A stuffy head-in -textbook physician who can recite John Heywood.”
"The same Heywood, a sixteenth-century writer, who also sang and played music for Henry the Eighth," Andrew boasted, equally pleased. They got up from the table and their host called over from his wood burning stove, "Dat good fish, you young honeymooners? Everything okay?" "Everything's very okay," Celia assured him.”With the fish and the honeymoon.”
Andrew said, amused, "No secrets on a small island.”
He paid for their meal with a ten-shilling Bahamian note-a modest sum when translated into dollars-and waved away change. Outside, where it was cooler now, and with the sea breeze freshening, they happily linked arms and walked back up the quiet, winding road.
It was their last day. As if in keeping with the sadness of departure, the Bahamas weather had turned gloomy. A stratocumulus overcast was accompanied by morning showers while a strong northeast wind whipped whitecaps on the sea and set waves beating heavily onshore. Andrew and Celia were to leave at midday by Bahamas Airways from Rock Sound, connecting at Nassau with a northbound Pan Am flight which would get them to New York that night. They were due in Morristown the following day where, until they found a suitable house, Andrew's apartment on South Street would be home. Celia, who had been living in furnished rooms in Boonton, had already moved out from there, putting some of her things in storage. In the honeymoon bungalow which they would leave in less than an hour Celia was packing, her clothes spread out on the double bed. She called to Andrew, who was in the bathroom shaving, "It's been so wonderful here. And this is just the beginning.”
Through the open doorway he answered, "A spectacular beginning! Even so, I'm ready to get back to work.”
"You know something, Andrew? I think you and I thrive on work. We have that in common, and we're both ambitious. We'll always be that way.”
"Uh-huh.”
He emerged from the bathroom naked, wiping his face with a towel. "No reason not to stop work once in a while, though. Provided there's a good reason.”
Celia started to say, "Do we have time?" but was unable to finish because Andrew was kissing her. Moments later he murmured, "Could you please clear that bed?" Reaching behind, without looking and with one arm around Andrew, Celia began to throw clothes on the floor. "That's better," he said as they lay down where the clothes had been.”This is what beds are for.”
She giggled.”We could be late for our flight.”
"Who cares?" Soon after, she said contentedly, "You're right. Who cares?" And later, tenderly and happily, "I care and then, "Oh, Andrew, I love you so!"
Aboard Pan American Flight 206 to New York were copies of that day's New York Times. Leafing through the newspaper, Celia observed, "Nothing much changed while we were away.”
A dispatch from Moscow quoted Nikita Khrushchev as challenging the United States to a "missile-shooting match.”
A future world war, the Soviet leader boasted, would be fought on the American continent, and he predicted "the death of capitalism and the universal triumph of communism.”
President Eisenhower, on the other hand, assured Americans that U.S. defense spending would keep pace with Soviet challenges. And an investigation into the gangland slaying of Mafia boss
Albert Anastasia, gunned down while in a barber's chair at New York's Park-Sheraton Hotel, was continuing, so far without result. Andrew, too, skimmed the newspaper, then put it away. It would be a four-hour flight aboard the propeller-driven DC-713 and dinner was served soon after takeoff. After dinner Andrew reminded his wife, "You said there was something you wanted me to do. Something about drug company detail men.”
"Yes, there is.”
Celia Jordan settled back comfortably in her seat, then reached for Andrew's hand and held it.”it goes back to that talk we had the day after you used Lotromycin, and your patient recovered. You told me you were changing your mind about the drug industry, feeling more favorable, and I said don't change it too much because there are things which are wrong and which I hope to alter. Remember?" "How could I forget?" He laughed.”Every detail of that day is engraved on my soul.”
"Good! So let me fill in some background.”
Looking sideways at his wife, Andrew marveled again at how much drive and intelligence was contained in such a small, attractive package. In the years ahead, he reflected, he would need to stay alert and informed just to keep up with Celia mentally. Now, he concentrated on listening. The pharmaceutical industry in 1957, Celia began, was in some ways still too close to its roots, its early origins. "We started off, not all that long ago, selling snake oil at country fairs, and fertility potions, and a pill to cure everything from headache to cancer. The salesmen who sold those things didn't care what they claimed or promised. All they wanted was sales. They'd guarantee any result to get them.”
Often, Celia went on, such nostrums and folk remedies were marketed by families. It was some of the same families who opened early drugstores. Later still, their descendants continued the family tradition and built drug manufacturing firms which, as years went by, became big, scientific and respectable. As it all happened, the crude early selling methods changed and became more respectable too. "But sometimes not respectable enough. One reason was that family control persisted, and the old snake-oil, hard-sell tradition was in the blood.”
"Surely," Andrew observed, "there can't be many families left that control big drug companies.”
"Not many, though some of the original families control large blocks of stock. But what has persisted, even with paid executives running the companies, is the out-of-date, less-than-ethical hard sell. Much of it happens when some detail men call on doctors to tell them about new drugs.”
Celia continued, "As you know, some detail men-not all, but still too many-will say anything, even lie, to get doctors to prescribe the drugs they're selling. And although drug companies will tell you officially they don't condone it, they know it goes on.”
They were interrupted by a stewardess announcing they would land in New York in forty minutes, the bar would be closed soon, and meanwhile would they like drinks? Celia ordered her favorite, a daiquiri, Andrew scotch and soda. When the drinks were served and they had settled down again Andrew said, "Sure, I've seen examples of what you were talking about. Also I've heard stories from other doctors-about patients being ill or even dying after taking drugs, all because detail men gave false information which the doctors believed.”