Chapter Nine Nomi
CHAPTER NINE
NOMI
Nomi, honey? You in there?”
Mom knocks on my stall like it’s my office door, which it kind of is.
I found a quiet bathroom on the second floor of City Hall and camped out here with my flash cards rather than slowly go insane waiting in the audience.
This is my way. It’s when I’m stuck in public that the painful spasms usually begin, so starting with the bathroom is like reverse psychology for my colon.
It sounds crazy until you learn the gut has so many neurons, it’s considered the second brain and, terrifyingly, can operate independently of your real brain.
So yes. I do negotiate with terrorists.
“Yep. Is it time?” I tap my flash cards against my thighs.
“We’re one agenda item away from the presentation,” Eve says, her combat boots visible next to Mom’s sensible clogs. “How are you feeling?”
My abdomen feels like I’m being squeezed by King Kong. “Good, fine, okay.” After a second, I add, “Excellent.”
“Lots of choices there,” Eve says gamely, though nerves simmer in her tone, too. “Ready to come out?”
I release a deep breath. I feel like a big, smelly dog balking on its leash before going into the groomer’s.
Instead of being held down while some college student named Bucky clips my nails, though, I have to stand up in front of the auditorium in a sleek black skirt suit Mom convinced me to wear.
And then, I have to be convincing. I have to be fantastic.
I have to persuade three out of five council members to approve a cannabis dispensary on Main Street in our picture-perfect downtown.
I unlock the door and smooth my suit.
Eve’s eyebrows lift. “Wow.”
“Is it bad?” I spin to look at my ass in the mirror, as if it’s to blame. “I feel like I’m in corporate cosplay.”
“No way. This—” Eve gestures to the entirety of me, “—is amazing. I’m listening to you. I’m doing what you say. Have you seen yourself in those shoulder pads? Major top energy.”
“Yeah?” I ask in a small voice.
“You look great, honey.” Mom smiles, her pride evident. Is this what she wishes I looked like all the time? The stable, well-employed office worker Nomi instead of the chronically ill stoner who hates waistbands?
We walk toward the auditorium’s side entrance. The clacking of my heels against the speckled, faux-terrazzo floors clashes with the beat of my pounding heart, which I both hear and feel in my ears.
“So… there’s something you should know.” Eve clears her throat.
My terrorist colon spasms against the tight skirt. “What?”
“They added a public debate on the dispensary prior to the vote,” Eve says in a rush. “Julian’s signed up to speak.”
I stop dead in the hallway. “What?!”
“This doesn’t change anything,” Mom says with forced calm. “Give your presentation, and when he gets up to speak about the medical impacts, you’ll refute them with the most recent studies and can even share your own story.”
“I’m not discussing my health problems in public, Mom.”
“Don’t you think explaining how cannabis has positively affected your own quality of life would be compelling?
Tax profits are great, but a personal connection touches the heart.
” Mom takes my hand, swinging it lightly between us.
“I know you don’t like sharing about your Crohn’s disease, but if there ever was a time to show both sides of the cannabis debate—how it could help the town financially and change people’s lives at an individual level—it’s now. ”
My skin burns red at the words your Crohn’s disease, this life sentence I can never commute.
I glance at Eve, but she’s averted her eyes.
It’s such a double-edged sword to have a disease that’s invisible to others ninety percent of the time but horribly, degradingly on display the rest. On one hand, you’re grateful that your pain is private, that you can lock yourself away in your bathroom and emerge later pretending that you’re fine.
But then, when the pain becomes too much, when you retreat too often, stay away too long, when you lose weight, then your hair, and even your smile no longer feels accessible… then people start asking questions.
Why aren’t you eating?
Where have you been?
Going home already?
And you’re desperate to have that privacy back to shield you from them, and them from the truth, while the other part of you wants to stamp your foot and cry, I’ve been sick this whole time!
I’ve been hurting this whole time! Feeling so angry that nobody really knows you because your humiliating, debilitating pain has become the sum total of who you are.
That’s what it feels like during a flare, and until I got my disease somewhat under control, what it felt like all the time.
Eventually, the healthy days gave me the strength to claw back some of my identity held hostage by the pain, but the fear of active disease returning is always there.
Trying too hard, living too much, or letting go of my privacy all feel like strategic failures in this never-ending war I’ve been conscripted into. I’ve put my neck out enough as it is.
I blink away the tears welling in my eyes, embarrassed yet again (always embarrassed), and huff out a weak laugh. “Nobody wants to hear about my diarrhea.”
“Well, maybe not in detail, honey, but how cannabis kept you out of the hospital and, over time, put you into remission? Yes, I think they would.”
Eve squeezes my arm. “We need to go in.”
“Good luck, baby,” Mom says, resigned. “You’ll do great.”
“Thanks, Mom.” I blow out a big breath. The municipal guard checks my visitor badge, nods, and opens the door for us. The presentation before mine by Mr. Wilson Phillips, whose name nobody thinks is as funny as I do, is concluding.
“And that’s why I hope youse will vote to investigate Sammy’s Steaks, so-called Best Cheesesteaks This Side of the Delaware, for misleadin’ advertising. They don’t even use provolone!” With that, Wilson Phillips saunters away, leaving a trail of mic feedback and a scandalized audience.
The crowd murmurs as Sammy DiFiore, owner of Sammy’s Steaks, makes his way to the podium next. “First of all, Cooper Sharp, or GTFO, am I right?”
The whispering intensifies, the crowd divided on this cheese take.
“Second, half the businesses in this town claim to be the best this side of the Delaware. There’s nothing wrong with pride in your business, and today’s complaint by Mr. Phillips,” Sammy eyes each member of the council, “is another example of the unfair disparagement of my steak shop.”
Council-friend Mike Tonuto, a car dealership magnate, conservative, and Italian man who cherishes his .1 percent Irish heritage for all of March, leans over the desk, his thick, pale lips nearly kissing the tiny microphone head. “Exactly what are you inferring, Mr. DiFiore?”
“You know what I’m inferring, Mr. Tonuto.
” Sammy narrows his eyes. “I’ve been audited, investigated by the zoning commission, and inspected three times this year by the health department.
” He glances at the audience. “All glowing scores, mind you. Your steaks are in safe, clean hands at Sammy’s.
But the city council’s unfair treatment of my shop must stop!
I pay my taxes on time, I’m a good citizen of this town, and I’m sick of being targeted like this. ”
The Council-friends exchange wary glances, and Chair-friend Chester bangs his gavel.
“The city council will vote on whether to investigate claims of misleading advertising at Sammy’s Steaks at the next meeting.
This item is closed.” He bangs the gavel again, which he’s upgraded recently.
“Next up, Ms. Wyeth and,” he squints at the agenda, “the Stranger Drugs dispensary?”
I stand, and Julian’s cruel, ice-queen eyes home in on me.
A smirk twists his full lips into something fantastically obnoxious.
This fool wants to debate me? Doesn’t he remember how I blew his sterling record out of the water?
Hot, competitive energy surges up from my core.
His eyes register the change in mine, and his smirk turns gleeful.
My palm flexes, Mr. Darcy about to slap a bitch.
“I will annihilate you,” I mouth the words to him in exaggerated, bared-teeth fashion as I walk to the front. Annihilate isn’t the easiest word to mouth, but after a confused pause, he registers my meaning.
The red tip of his tongue presses archly against his upper lip as he feigns consideration of my threat. After a second, the expression resolves into an insolent smile.
“We’ll see, Shoulder Pads.”
I take my place at the podium, ready to destroy this jerk. The audiovisual tech loads my presentation, now visible on a large screen where both the council and audience can see it.
I take a deep, steadying breath, wishing I’d vaped the new strain I got for anxiety rather than broach this straight-brained.
Public speaking never scared me growing up—I was great at it, a nationally ranked speaker in debate.
But once Crohn’s kicked in and every stressful event triggered a painful attack, I developed a fear response to the public presentations I used to dominate.
Now, microphones equal pain. Attention equals embarrassment.
Putting myself out there at all equals quality time with the nearest toilet.
But I can do this. I’ve practiced. I’m prepared. And dammit, it’s terrifying, but I want this. If my dispensary’s future isn’t inspiration enough, now I want to defeat Julian D’Angelo, too.
I straighten my shoulders to their full, padded glory. “Good afternoon, council members and citizens of—”
“Council-friends,” Chair-friend Chester corrects into his mic. “We’re all friends in lovely Sparrow Nook, New Jersey,” he recites, sounding anything but friendly.