Stash by David Matthew Klein Page A

banter. A part of him wished she’d stop losing weight, while another part watched fascinated as if beholding a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.
    The other part of the problem was that Brian imagined Teresa might have a thing for him beyond the harmless. Yeah, she chatted up other guys, but she worked closest with him and when you see a woman every day, even the largely unused and rusty radar of a solidly married guy with kids will detect the incoming. That’s how Brian saw it: as if she’d selected him as a target to lock on to. What was the risk for her—a young, single woman from out of town? None. It wouldn’t be the worst thing for her to get something going with Brian.
    But it wasn’t going to happen.
    Brian got started with work. Because Gwen’s phone call had abruptly ended his presentation, he hadn’t been on hand to refocus the discussion when it got derailed, and Teresa didn’t have the authority or presence to steer the meeting back to the business case of seeking approval for Zuprone as a weight-loss drug. Now he couldn’t present again until all the marketing data had been analyzed and summarized, even though he didn’t think it had bearing on the business case.
    He resigned himself to the task and got started. He opened the spreadsheets and began reviewing the prescription history of Zuprone. A whopping 70 percent of prescriptions written over the past two years for Zuprone were off-label—for weight loss, notanxiety. That in itself wasn’t the problem; some drugs on the market had an 80 percent off-label rate. The problem was whether that 70 percent could be primarily attributed to Caladon’s marketing practices or simply physicians using their independent medical judgment and following customary prescribing patterns. Idealists and the FDA insisted there was a difference; an industry veteran like Wilcox would scoff.
    He noticed movement outside the window and saw Teresa park her Saab next to his car. She got out, reached back in, and shut the door with her foot. She carried a leather briefcase slung over her shoulder and a coffee in each hand. He watched her walk toward the door, holding the cups out in front of her, wearing faded jeans ripped in one knee and a fitted, plunging pink cardigan that gave too much away.
    A moment later she stood at his office door.
    “I took the liberty of getting you a coffee.”
    Her hair hung flat and damp from her shower, and he could smell her floral shampoo or soap. He’d thrown on jeans and T-shirt this morning without showering or washing his face. At least he had brushed his teeth. Had he combed his hair? Too late to look now and what did it matter anyway.
    She set the coffees on his desk and pulled up an extra chair beside him, then retrieved a stack of paper surveys from her briefcase. “How’s everything at home? I mean with Gwen?”
    “She’s okay—six stitches in her eyebrow. But the situation is a little complicated.”
    Teresa waited, but Brian didn’t go on. He shouldn’t have added that part about it being complicated.
    “Let’s get started and set objectives,” Brian said. “It’s hard to know what we’ve got in front of us at this point.”
    He said there were two issues on the table: whether Caladon should seek FDA approval of Zuprone as a weight-loss drug andwhether the marketing practices to date for Zuprone could be construed as illegal.
    “As for seeking FDA approval, I think the business case proves out,” Brian said. “My recommendation is that we move forward with the application, in expectation that the FDA focus will follow the clinical trials and not past marketing practices. It’s too bad I didn’t get to that conclusion in the meeting, or the favorable cost projections. And now they’re clamoring for the marketing data.”
    “What’s your feeling—do you think we’ve crossed the line?”
    “Wilcox has been aggressive in setting direction, but legal has seen all of our programs.”
    “Do you think we