Page 42 of Spread Your Wings
She nodded. “You’re already doing a wonderful job, Sammy. With some work here at home, you can be one of our top reporters. I’m not doing you a favor. I’m filling a role with the best candidate.”
“Where do you want me to start?”
“Here’s a list of resources.”
Sammy took the report she handed him and used it to fan his burning face.
They spent the rest of the hour discussing the new assignment. By the end of the day, Sammy had lined up enough interviews with CDC employees and local hospitals to fill his week.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sammy fell into his work. He learned as much as he could about the disease decimating gay communities throughout the United States. The CDC reassured him HIV was no longer just a gay disease. Magic Johnson announced he’d contracted the disease from heterosexual sex. Arthur Ashe had also contracted it from a blood transfusion.
“There is no cure, and we need to proceed like there won’t be a cure,” one CDC doctor said. “For now, it’s education, safe sex, and clean needles. We know how the disease is spread, and we know it’s deadly. If we can slow infection rates, we can concentrate on treatment.”
Sammy repeated the sound bite in his first segment. He even appeared on camera. Melody insisted.
A month passed, and there was no word from Mustafa. On May twenty-first, the Thursday before Memorial Day, Sammy returned home to his apartment. He was exhausted after another segment. He’d shared all the latest details on HIV drugs.The CDC was researching, promising new drugs in combination with the most widely used, AZT.
The answering machine light blinked on and off next to his cordless phone stand on the kitchen counter. Sammy pressed the button. He expected a message from his mother about her annual barbecue over the holiday weekend. Instead, Gavin’s voice blared, echoing off the bare walls.
“Hey, Sammy. The landlord gave me your number. Some guy stopped by looking for you. Really inconvenient.”
Gavin didn’t leave a number, nor did he say Sammy should call him back. The asshole. Sammy dug through a box of paperwork to find an old billing statement from the phone company. This one showed the phone number switch he’d unknowingly financed. He dialed Gavin’s new number.
“Who stopped by?”
“Oh. It’s you.”
Sammy wished he could reach through the phone and shake the nasally whine out of Gavin’s voice. “Who the fuck stopped by, Gavin?”
“Mohammad somebody. Calm the fuck down.”
“Mustafa.” Sammy pronounced each syllable with staccato precision.
“Whatever.”
“What did he say?”
“He wanted to know where you were.”
Sammy looked at the ceiling and held out his hands in frustration, even though Gavin couldn’t see him. “Did you give him my address?”
“Are you kidding? I didn’t know who he was or why he was looking for you. He could have been a mafia guy for all I know.”
“A mafia guy?”
“He had an accent!”
Sammy added “nationalist,” to the lengthy list of reasons to hate Gavin. “What did you tell him, if you didn’t give him my address?”
“I said we were still together, so he’d leave you alone.”
Sammy almost dropped the phone. “You WHAT?”
“I thought he wanted to kill you. Besides, you don’t need foreign weirdos in your life. I did you a favor.”
Sammy hung up without saying goodbye. “Favor my ass,” he said as he dialed the landlord.
