Page 26 of No More Billionaires

Larson sat in a chair opposite the doctor. As I passed by, I handed him a sheet of questions I’d printed out for him. He would have some of his own, of course, but I wanted to show him I’d done my research on the doctor and the procedure, and I might have come up with a few angles he hadn’t thought of.

Sky let Larson know he was rolling, and the interview began.

“You’ve pioneered a surgery where a small pulmonary valve is implanted in the heart through a catheter. It’s ground-breaking because it’s less invasive for young kids—is that right?”

Dr. Yin leaned forward in his chair, the nervousness leaving his face and his eyes lighting with enthusiasm.

“Yes. In the past, children with severe defects like a missing or defective pulmonary valve had to face multiple open-heart surgeries, sometimes starting a few days after birth. It’s necessary to preserve life, but the more open-heart surgeries a child has—the greater the amount of scar tissue. It makes future surgeries much more difficult, and there are other inherent risks. This procedure will help many children delay or even avoid open-heart procedures—like the child you’ll be interviewing today. The medical trial is still in its early stages, but one year into it we are seeing spectacular results. It’s very exciting. It offers a lot of hope for the future of these young patients.”

As it turned out, Larson did ask a few of my questions, after a half hour of conversing with the doctor with no notes whatsoever.

He had a nice interviewing style, authoritative but not intimidating. He was concise, relaxed, and smart but not obnoxious about it.

I was happy to note he didn’t ask the blowhard see-how-smart-I-am-minutes-long questions some anchors did out in the field.

Then I found myself wondering about his background. How had he learned to interview so well?

Where had he worked before WNN? Things I’d never bothered to ask him and had tried not to care about before now.

“Kenley?”

“Yes?” I blinked, coming back to the present moment and realizing this wasn’t the first time someone had called my name.

Larson and the doctor and Sky were all looking at me expectantly.

“Do you think we covered everything?” Larson asked.

I looked down at my own notepad, not actually reading the words there, responding just to say something.

“Yes. I think you’ve got it.”

Everyone rose from their chairs. I crossed the room to Dr. Yin to remove his mic and assured him he’d done well.

“You were right. It wasn’t so bad. Thank you,” he said.

“No problem—you rocked it.”

The doctor stayed while the three of us in the news crew left the office together.

“Nice job,” I said to Larson on our way out to the parking lot.

“Thanks. And thanks for the questions. I hadn’t thought of a couple of those things, but they were important. So, where does our interview family live?”

I checked my notes. “Goodlettsville. I think it’s about a half hour away?” I looked at Sky.

“Yeah. Maybe forty. Y’all riding with me?” He opened the door of the building, motioning for us to precede him.

“We have a rental,” Larson answered. “But we’ll be right behind you.”

In the parking lot, Sky pointed out the news vehicle, a logo-covered SUV of some sort, and walked with us to the rental car, a tiny compact.

“Oh man, you’d better hope the storm doesn’t hit early, or you ain’t makin’ it to the airport in that wind-up toy,” he said with a chuckle.

Larson laughed in agreement. “Believe me, it wasn’t our first choice.”

When I’d made the reservation, I’d been shocked to find all the larger vehicles had already been reserved for today and tomorrow.

All of them.

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