Page 33 of The Fourth Option
“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’tsellit. 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.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DEAN AVERY’S INTRODUCTIONwas measured, if a bit long for the heat, but flattering in the right places. Standing off to the side of the stage, Derek Matheson listened and approved.
Carolyn had written the intro. Maybe she earned a half point for that.
The dean highlighted Matheson’s dual degrees from Tulane, his early vaccine research, the fifteen-year arc that led to Genyra’s founding. He referenced “The Cancer Answer,” the TED talk that had rocketed Matheson into the technocratic elite, where he played in the brighter lights among the tech bros.
The crowd laughed where they were supposed to. Applauded on cue. When Matheson finally took the microphone, tanned from the Caribbean, smiling, dressed to kill in tailored Tom Ford, he spoke with humble warmth.
He opened with a joke, Carolyn’s. It landed. Light laughter. Just enough.
By the end, the standing ovation didn’t surprise him. He nodded once, briefly, a man allergic to humble brags but addicted to applause. He stepped off the stage before the audience sat back down.Always leave them wanting more.
Matheson exited behind the stage, where Carolyn and Kimbel were waiting to shower him in compliments.
