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Sometimes Guinevere’s vocabulary was perfectly adequate.
“Aw, thanks, honey, but maybe I have to get mean to get what I need. Maybe I should write my gossip column with more nastiness and less — what have they called it? — good-natured humor.”
“No-o-o,” Guinevere said again.
Mary spun dejectedly in her chair. “Okay, you’re right. Nastiness isn’t in my nature anyway. I’ll think positive. I’ll find some other way of getting at the man himself to ask for that interview, and when I do, he’ll say yes. I can be pretty persuasive.”
Guinevere nodded.
“After all, it’s not just for me.”
Guinevere shook her head.
“I owe it to the town to help make him famous beyond our little borders. First our little online news magazine, then the world.”
Guinevere raised her nose to the sky in the polite salute of a short but enthusiastic howl.
Mary was gratified that someone saw how important this was. “Think of what he could do with the publicity. His company would sell more fasteners, and workers would keep their jobs, and that would keep the whole town humming, and that’s even before all those amazing new ideas he has. How can you argue with any of that?”
Guinevere flopped her massive head down onto her paws.
“Oh, stop it. I know you think I’m boring when I get on to this rant.”
Guinevere raised her head, too polite to nod, and went back to searching for the escape of sleep.
“I went too far again. Okay, okay. I won’t even go into my lecture about how important it is that all those other tycoons out there know about Francis Van Deventer the Fifth. I mean, I hear he wants out, and he could’ve chopped the company up and sold thepiecesforadozenfortunes.Therealestatealone is worth a zillion. But no, he turned that company around, and now he’s selling it to the employees. Plus a partner rich enough to finance the takeover. Everybody wins. The business world should know it can be that way. It should be that way. Let’s put that in a movie about Wall Street.”
“A-a-a-rrr,” Guinevere moaned.
“I went back into my lecture, didn’t I?”
She ran her hands down the slinky, black, almost-see-through lingerie she’d slept in for courage. She always wore her lucky nightclothes for tough telephone calls when she could do them from home first thing in the morning. Sometimes she was even nervous enough to wear the bottoms under her regular clothes. Feeling like a femme fatale, as long as no one could see what made her feel that way, gave her an extra jolt in doing her job.
Right now, though, she felt about as strong as a five-second-oldSaintBernardpuppy.Thekillerwhale she’d just been speaking to was especially good at taking a bite out of you before she hung up on you. Again.
Mary slumped back in her office chair, and the antique oak creaked. “I need this interview, Guinevere. My brain will get sick and die if I don’t use it.”
Guinevere gave a reluctant whine of semi-agreement.
“What do I do now?”
Guinevere, forgiving Mary for the too-often-repeated lecture, sidled closer, burrowed her head under Mary’s hand and gazed up. Did anyone do sympathy as well as a Saint Bernard? Her soul was in her eyes and was hurting as much as Mary’s.
Mary Samuel always got her interviews. Maybe later rather than sooner, but always. Trouble was, she’d never tried before to get an interview with the tycoon who never gave them, ever.
“Maybe I can’t do it.”
“Owww-uuuu-ruuuuuh.”
“Thanks, hon. You and Mom, you both always believe in me.”
Mary played with the hem of her lingerie, then slapped her palm on her roll-top desk.
“He will give me that interview. He just doesn’t know it yet. Time to put the famous Samuel imagination to work with more oomph. I’ll climb up an extension ladder to his office window and ask for the interview. I’ll dress like a cop and arrest him before he gets into work and clap him in pink polka dot handcuffs until he listens to me. I’ll — ”
Guinevere drowned her mistress out with a whine and heaved herself to her feet. She lumbered over to her leash, which hung from a peg on the back of the office door. She nosed the leash off the peg, mouthed the leather gently to bring it over to Mary, and dropped it in her lap.
“Oh no you don’t. I’m not going out like this.” Mary plucked at her lucky lingerie.
