don't worry," I confirm. Cris taps her shoes on the floor impatiently. "Sorry, Mom, but I have to go. I'm in the middle of a meeting with my secretary." "You're not going out with her, are you? I'm not going out with Cris. She's married and has two children, but I can't say I've stopped dating other secretaries. Here, on this same table, in front of the glass wall that covers half the room, while the sunset over the city of São Paulo covered us in orange tones.

The helicopters from competing broadcasters would have been quite a sight if they had been passing near the building at that moment. "I'm not. I really have to go. See you on Sunday." "Okay. Kisses." "Another one," I reply. As soon as she puts her phone down, I hang up mine and turn to Cris. "I always ask her to call me at work only in case of emergency, but you know how it is. People over sixty think, rightly, that they can do whatever they want." I smile and focus my attention on the secretary. "What were you saying, Cris?" "The print media sector wants to know when the contract with the new printing company is signed. They're worried because... Maybe it won't be signed, I think, but I don't have the courage to say. Not yet. I need the board to decide, and even though I took over as CEO of that media conglomerate five years ago, I never wanted to be one of those responsible for deciding whether to shut down an entire industry. It wouldn't be a decision made overnight. Last year, we stopped printing weekly magazines, and it was obvious that it would only be a matter of time before newspapers followed suit, given their meager revenue. Some old-time journalists, who were my partners when I used to hunt for news on the streets, work there. That's right. Even though I'm now at the top of the professional food chain, I was once a journalist at heart, and just like those guys, I would wake up at five in the morning to go to the newsroom, eager to take on the next story and hit the streets in search of news.

As a child, I never had an answer to give when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. As a teenager, I discovered my love for writing. Sometimes, I would make a little money selling short stories to my classmates. I started with the horror stories, until one of them asked if I couldn't spice up the relationship between the young virgin and the bloodthirsty vampire. So I did, and soon I discovered that whoring around paid a lot more. Not that any of us had any money to spare, but for those who didn't have much, any coin was synonymous with extra candy or new superhero comics.

The fun ended when the dumbest of my classmates dropped a sheet of notebook paper from his backpack and one of the teachers picked it up. The scolding was so bad that the boy soiled his pants. And, of course, he ended up reporting me. I vehemently denied it, but the teacher insisted on sending a message to my mother. The old woman was no longer surprised by anything coming from me. Undeterred, she asked me to stop doing that. I stopped, but the words always stayed with me.

Every now and then, I wondered if one day I would be able to use them. As much as I wanted to, my mother couldn't afford to help me with my college tuition. I was smart, but not smart enough to pass the entrance exam for a public university. With my high school diploma in hand, I temporarily put my studies aside and went looking for work. My first job was as a motorcycle courier for a bank in the city center. I needed to earn more than my salary allowed to get into a private college, but a job was a job, and I was happy to have it. It gave me the freedom I valued so much and it didn't take long for me to know the names of most of the businessmen who received my envelopes.

Being known on the streets also gave me the cunning that would help me a lot in my days as a journalist. And the opportunity came thanks to Mr. Omar Turgut. At least once a week, I would go to the headquarters of his newspaper on a street near Avenida Paulista. I had been walking up and down the city for almost a year when the man, instead of checking every page before dismissing me, stared at me from top to bottom. I stared back, curious. A tall, broad man, with a belly hanging out of the belt of his well-cut dress pants, which made it clear how much he liked to eat well. Mr. Omar always treated me politely, but he never spared the delivery boy more than a glance. This time, he opened his mouth to ask if a young man like me didn't want to study. I said yes, but I didn't have the money for it. That seemed to catch him by surprise.

I fidgeted, uncomfortable at the possibility of being rude. It wouldn't be the first time that my loose tongue had gotten me into trouble, and I couldn't afford to lose that job. After the initial surprise, he continued as if nothing had happened. "If you did, would you study?" "Yes." "What?" "Something to do with words." "And why?" "Because I like to write." Something in my decisive tone made Mr. Omar look at me more closely. Suddenly, he took a notebook and a pencil stub from his jacket pocket and held them out to me. - Write a story using only one page. I accepted the objects and looked around, searching for inspiration. A woman was crossing the crosswalk with a baby carriage.

Another was walking her dog and humming a popular song of the time. An old man passed by smoking and, upon seeing me, winked and blew out a smoke ring. Interesting, but not what I wanted. I was starting to get anxious when the traffic light changed again. Inside one of the cars was a man crying. The question rang in my mind like a siren: why was he crying? I made up an answer and quickly wrote it down in my notebook. Two simple, squished paragraphs about a young, passionate husband who, while following his wife, discovered that she was cheating on him. I put a full stop and Mr. Omar took the notebook from my hands. His brow furrowed, but his eyes were wide when they looked back at me. He asked, bluntly, if I had ever thought about studying journalism.

He didn't have one, but his offer was irresistible: I could work for a year at his newspaper as a personal assistant. If I worked hard enough, he would pay for my college education. It only took me six months to start the course. And a few years for his newspaper to grow, move to Avenida Faria Lima and become a conglomerate comprising radio, television and, more recently, digital media. I grew up with the media networks, my heart always overflowing with gratitude for that man. In addition to teaching me everything he knew, there were countless happy hours, where we would meet just to chat. During those happy hours, Omar would talk about the challenges of running that entire network and his disappointment that none of his children wanted to follow in his footsteps.

He was never afraid to keep me up to date with the entire management area and, from time to time, he would send me to management courses. At the time, I didn't understand why a journalist needed that, but I accepted, both for the opportunity to improve myself and for fear of displeasing him. Every now and then, I dared to make some suggestions, and several of them were applied to the company over the years. When Mr. Omar passed away, I felt like I was losing a second father. His children chose to follow in their mother's footste