Chapter Three Nomi
CHAPTER THREE
NOMI
Welcome to Xscape Your Brain: An Herbaceous Experience, this is your cannabis counselor, Nomi.
How can I help you?” I press the headset to my ear to hear the crackly drive-through order, making me feel like a Secret Service agent receiving covert tactical information, or Britney Spears.
Except in my case, the voice that burbles through the headphones is a fourteen-year-old trying to get around the legal buying age.
“Ah, yes,” the child clears his throat, “I would like two pounds of Mom-Mom’s Hasherole, please.”
I glance at the drive-through camera screen and the pack of giggling ninth graders on Huffy bikes. “We don’t sell by the pound, Tom D’Angelo. Or to kids, for that matter.”
“I’m not—Tom,” Tom squeals, then remembers to pitch his voice lower. “I’m Tom’s older brother—Desmond. Are you… busy later?”
I sigh into the mouthpiece. “Vacate the drive-through now, or I’ll contact your Aunt Veronica.”
“RUN!” Tom screeches. Rubber tires squeal as the little doofuses scramble away.
I shift on the drive-through window seat, uncomfortably aware of the pad I’m wearing in lieu of a bandage.
Eve bought me the thickest maxi pads known to woman as penance for ruining my shore weekend.
You can’t dip a healing wound in the Atlantic Ocean.
Not off the Jersey Shore, at least.
I hate drive-through duty. Damon knows it, too. Whenever I irritate him, boom—the next shift I’m on the headset passing out cannabis packed in little boxes with arched handles and psychedelic letters proclaiming: Happy Feels.
Normally I’d never side with a giant corporation over a small business owner, but I sincerely hope McDonald’s sues Damon’s ass.
Besides, he’s not that small of a business owner.
He’s got three Xscape Your Brain: An Herbaceous Experience locations in the greater Jersey Shore area already, which equates to three crimes against humanity.
With white lacquered surfaces and illuminated glass cases, XYB is sterile and echoey, made worse by the deafening electronic music Damon blares twenty-four seven.
If you held a rave at a mall Clinique counter, this is what it would feel like. I hate it with every cell in my body.
But it’s the only dispensary within driving distance, and the employee discounts are decent, so.
“That’ll be two hundred and fifty dollars, please drive around.” I lean through the opening, pass off the Happy Feels, and sigh.
“Customer service, Nomi.” Damon dances toward me with a deeply serious expression he probably thinks is brooding and sexy.
It’s not.
“Could you be less…” He flings a hand at me, hips still moving. “—depressed?”
“Sure, Damon.” I plaster on a smile that makes him flinch out of beat. “Is this better?”
He rolls his eyes and tucks a lock of his limp, brown hair behind an ear. “You’re never going to be promoted to manager with that attitude.”
I’m already manager. Damon’s just the power-hungry forty-something owner who comes by to dance and screw up my meticulous schedules so he can put me on drive-through duty.
I blow out a breath. “Right. Thanks for the feedback, boss.” That honorific usually mollifies him enough to return to the synth hell from whence he came, but for some reason, Damon’s still pulsing in front of me.
“Why did you order a shipment of Orangutan Titties this month?”
Ah. That’s why.
I straighten in my seat. “It’s a great strain. The balance of terpenes and high THC content makes it particularly effective for chronic pain and severe anxiety. With Ms. Fleming’s condition, I thought—”
“Ms. Fleming is one customer, Nomi. People want party pot! Buds N Roses. Donkey Bush. Cuntsicle.” Damon narrows his eyes. “It’s unacceptable to change our standing order to push your medicinal bummer weed.”
“Orangutan Titties is a great time! It’s euphoric and relaxing—not everyone wants to laugh for four hours straight and do donuts in the parking lot.”
Damon arches an eyebrow, making his long face longer. “Everyone wants to laugh for four hours straight and do donuts in the parking lot, Nomi. That is the herbaceous experience we are selling. Not old people getting stoned and watching Jeopardy!”
My jaw clenches. That’s mine and Graham’s favorite pastime.
“But people need medicinal strains, too,” I press, knowing I should shut up.
Eve and I are one month out from opening our dispensary, and the money’s gonna be so tight, I need this job to last until we do.
But this is my biggest frustration with Damon.
“A large portion of your customer base comes here because they want an alternative to harsh pharmaceutical remedies. They need our help.”
Damon leans into my space close enough I can smell his condescension.
Or maybe that’s just the Taco Bell he had for lunch.
“Then help your old, sad bastards with Cuntsicle.”
The doorbell chimes, and in walks Mr. Gutierrez. He’s slower these days and needs a cane, but his grin is as big as ever. “Nomi! How lucky you’re here today!”
I smile back, shifting past Damon to meet Mr. Gutierrez at the counter. “As if you don’t know my schedule by heart.”
Mr. Gutierrez leans over the counter to yell above the music. “You’re the only one here who knows what works!”
Damon scowls and dances toward the sound system. A second later, the volume increases.
After listening, or trying to, anyway, to Mr. Gutierrez’s latest rash of symptoms—rigid shoulders and tremors down his right arm—I find the newest strain I ordered for him.
High CBD, low THC, with promising research on its symptom management for Parkinson’s disease.
Helping people navigate the endless variety of strains to achieve what they’re looking for—whether it’s pain relief, something to quell nausea, or just a good time—is my favorite part of this job.
It took me years to learn how to manage my Crohn’s disease with medicinal cannabis when traditional western medicine failed me.
After the second time I spontaneously developed an allergic reaction to the intense Crohn’s medications my doctors kept prescribing, I decided no more.
No more ridiculously expensive prescriptions, no more collateral damage to my kidneys, no more sitting for hours hooked to an IV pumping me full of chemicals my body keeps rejecting.
My fancy GI specialists wouldn’t listen to me, but Dr. Appa does, and together we’ve searched for a gentler way to live through my disease ever since.
I’m about to ring up Mr. Gutierrez when Damon clears his throat loudly from behind me. I breathe deeply before giving Mr. Gutierrez a tight customer service smile. “Mr. Gutierrez: Would you be interested in learning more about our bestselling strain, Cuntsicle?”
Mr. Gutierrez’s brows pinch together, confused. “Whatsicle, dear?”
I cannot wait to get out of here.
My phone dings an hour later, the message bringing a surge of joy.
VERONICA D’ANGELO-BORK, REAL ESTATE AGENT
Miracle of miracles, I got the first showing for us! I had to pull MAJOR strings. Are you free in twenty minutes, babe?
I glance at the office and curse. Damon’s still inside, his uncooked shrimp of a body hunched in my chair. Fuck. He’s hooked up his Xbox.
VERONICA D’ANGELO-BORK, REAL ESTATE AGENT
Well???
I bite my lips in, then bang out an all-caps !!YES!! reply.
“Hey.” I tap one of my junior cannabis counselors on the shoulder, a guy with shoulder-length dark hair, and motion for him to take over at the drive-through window. “Try to keep your back turned to the store, okay?”
The junior counselor salutes me, knowing the drill well. Despite Henry being six inches taller, thickly shouldered, and a twenty-five-year-old man, once the headsets come on, Damon can’t tell us apart.
I inform the rest of the staff to tell Damon I’m in the bathroom if he asks, with lady problems if he presses, and then sneak out into the beautiful summer day.
After my escape from Xscape, I drive ten over the speed limit all the way downtown, Lil Dom be damned, and pull into the same spot Eve and I parked in during the vulval emergency.
From instinct or trauma or whatever’s possessed me into thinking about Julian and his palm all weekend, I glance at Dr. Appa’s clinic next door.
What is Julian doing here? Surely he can’t be moving back home—he detests Sparrow Nook and always has.
But why is he the “new guy” working for Dr. Appa, then?
I forcibly dispel these questions and gaze upon the red brick building and its original name painted in beautiful, chipping cursive above the storefront.
With large picture windows covered in yellowed newspaper, Strange Drugs Pharmacy is basically a mystery, and I am dying to see what’s inside.
It’s been closed to the public for ages, but the newspaper did a retrospective on it a few years ago with pictures of its old-timey soda fountain, complete with shiny metal counters, red vinyl bar stools, and cozy booths for girls in tight sweaters and big skirts.
When the city council announced its plans to lease the historic building, I knew.
Strange Drugs would be the perfect location for my dispensary, and I’d do anything to get it.
Veronica’s out front, tapping on her phone with a ferocious set of purple nails that could pick locks.
“Babe!” Veronica calls by way of greeting. She calls all her clients babe, probably to avoid forgetting names.
Veronica fixes her shark-black eyes on me and grips me by both shoulders.
“Listen up. I had to buy Ms. Gruber three boxes of chocolates to get the first showing appointment to give us a chance in hell of leasing this spot. There is a lot of interest, babe. A lot. One potential tenant has been courting the city manager for months now.”
“Do we have a chance?” I swallow, already feeling the disappointment of losing our dream spot clump in my throat.