Chapter Nine Nomi #3
Julian blinks at me, his mouth opening and closing like a fish stranded on land. The audience has been watching us argue like a Williams sisters match, their heads whipping back and forth between our podiums. The air in the room has a distinct oh, shiiiit vibe.
“Marijuana takes people you love away from you,” Julian blurts.
“It makes them less than who they were before, it distracts them from their responsibilities to their families, their lives, and their friends, and worse, it convinces them that’s okay!
To be less than. To hide from real life.
To roll around in mediocrity and feel good about it. And it’s not! It’s not okay.”
His words hit me in one big, physical push.
Is he talking about his father here, or me?
I didn’t go away to school. All those Ivy League acceptance letters went unanswered—the money was too tight with my mounting medical bills, and when every attempt to eat and live a normal life was punished, I was too scared to leave my house, let alone go off to college.
I took the easy route, because I had to.
And even the easy route wasn’t easy. Not for me.
Yet here is Julian, staring me down like it’s an affront to him that I haven’t lived up to my potential.
But what does he know about life? And why does he assume he’s the one winning at it?
He’s mean and judgmental and approaches each day like it’s already done him wrong and he’ll make it pay.
Ambition fueled by spite, where each goal surpassed isn’t cause for celebration, but just another rung up the ladder.
But where does that ladder lead, and why is he so desperate to get there?
A cold satisfaction ices over his eyes. “The fact is, Ms. Wyeth, it’s still federally illegal, and legalizing it state by state is a shameless money grab that comes at the expense of people’s well-being.”
My lips part, and a small puff of air exits. So, this is what he thinks of me? That I’m an underachieving stoner who wants to shake people down and get them hooked on drugs?
Well, it’s a good thing I know who I am.
This underachieving stoner wants to help people, and this is my chance to do it.
I smile ruefully. “Some of what you said is true, Dr. D’Angelo.
Corporate cannabis, with their vertical monopoly capped by a big box store approach to operating dispensaries, shortchanges the people they serve in chase of the dollar.
They slash prices to run small dispensaries out of business, then raise prices once they’ve killed the competition.
Their cannabis is substandard and unvaried, they disregard its medicinal qualities, and they give nothing back to the towns and cities where they operate.
” I turn my smile back to the city council.
“In other words, the antithesis of everything Stranger Drugs and I stand for. Voting to approve my license today will dissuade corporate weed-marts from popping up nearby, because Sparrow Nook deserves more than that.” My gaze swivels back to Julian.
“And no doctor, with his uninformed, prejudicial opinions, who lives in Philadelphia, can convince me otherwise.”
Outrage spills from the chambers. Someone shouts, “Philadelphia?!”
Chester bangs his gavel with gusto. “Is it true that you reside in Philadelphia, Dr. D’Angelo?”
Smug satisfaction curves my mouth. The only thing that pisses off Sparrow Nook more than shore traffic is New Jerseyans who live in Philadelphia. Judging by Julian’s panicked face, he’s picked up on the major downshift in vibe. Before he can say anything, I lean forward.
“Worse. Dr. D’Angelo complains about New Jersey drivers now.” I look at Julian and shake my head slowly. “As if he isn’t just as bad as the rest of us.”
The chambers immediately fill with booing.
“You’re from Georgia!” Julian shouts. “You’re not one of us.”
I step out from behind the podium and walk toward him. His eyes widen slightly, and I’m thrilled to see the rapid rise and fall of his chest beneath his perfect white coat.
I love scaring men.
“I live here because I love Sparrow Nook.” I raise an eyebrow.
“And you cannot say the same thing, Doctor.” I turn my gaze out to the audience.
“Sparrow Nook deserves compassionate care, free from judgment. We deserve respect and the autonomy to choose what’s right for our bodies instead of ignorant, knee-jerk opinions that presume us too stupid to govern ourselves responsibly.
More than anything, we deserve a good time!
” I raise my fist in the air, and the audience rises to a standing ovation.
Ten minutes later, the final vote’s entered into the record—3 yeas, 2 nays—and I burst into the happiest tears of my life.
JULIAN
The cheering chases me from the building. Or maybe it was Mom frowning at me, or seeing Nomi incandescently happy as Eve tackled her in a big, spinning hug, their limbs jumbled together in the kind of friendship I’ve never had.
And never wanted, frankly. Who enjoys being touched like that? That’s how you get norovirus. Pink eye. Hit up for informal loans.
I click my key fob the second I’m outside, repeatedly unlocking it even though my car emits horn blips each time. I can’t get out of here fast enough. I check my phone to distract my furious brain and nearly trip at an email from Dr. Riveras labeled: Re: Update.
Julian,
I received your request to immediately reinstate your position at Philly Gen: the answer is no.
It has been three weeks. I don’t care if you’re unchallenged and bored and “wasting away in a sea of Type II Diabetes,” and frankly, I don’t understand what beer pong has to do with it.
Your outrageous mistake could’ve cost the hospital its brand-new wing for autoimmune disease research and treatment.
I implore you—take this probation seriously, learn your lesson, and after six months, we’ll reconsider your employment at Philly Gen.
More than anything, keep a low profile. I cannot overstate how important it is to keep your head down right now until the Corringtons forget you exist.
—Dr. Riveras
My eyes widen in horror. I never sent an email requesting reinstatement!
I scroll down quickly, my stomach bottoming out when I see that actually I had, the message date-stamped the night of the Pot Luck after Nomi left me on the couch and before the drugs left my system. I don’t remember writing a word of it.
I throw my head back and yell at the sky.
“Doctor.” A man calls from behind me, his voice rough with a veneer of friendliness over top, like honey-coated gravel. “A quick word?”
“What!” I bellow.
The gravelly voice laughs, which catches me off guard. I glance over my shoulder. It’s Mike Tonuto, one of the two reasonable voters against Nomi’s weed hovel. “Sorry to bother you when you’re ah, upset, but I wanted to discuss our mutual…concerns about that sweet girl’s misguided venture.”
I snort. Nomi, sweet? She was a besuited succubus with a PowerPoint in there. It was, admittedly, extremely hot.
“What is it?” I offer grudgingly.
“You brought up an excellent point that my fellow Council-friends failed to consider.” Tonuto flashes that car dealer smile—genuine, sympathetic, deeply wise—as if he could fix all the world’s problems with a gently used Dodge Charger.
“Why would we allow a stoner hangout to open on Main Street, next to your family clinic, no less? The low-life clientele hanging around, the fumes—have you been to New York lately? It smells like weed and halal carts everywhere you go.” Tonuto places a hand over his heart.
“Are we really going to expose our sickly children to mind-altering substances like that?”
I point at him. “Exactly!”
“My Council-friends are taken by Ms. Wyeth’s promises, but I feel that other minds—cooler, more rational, more conservative minds—would feel differently.” Tonuto’s chin dips. “Ones you could find, say, on the zoning commission.”
The zoning commission…My eyebrows slowly lift.
“A well-pled zoning complaint can gum up the works for any new business.” Tonuto shrugs casually, as though remarking on the weather.
“Does a cannabis dispensary classify as general commercial use? Has anyone counted the feet between it and the local school, the arcade, the daycare? The zoning commission would appreciate hearing from you.”
“Hey, Mike! Wait up!” We both glance over to see Wilson Phillips, which, come on, that name’s hilarious, striding over.
“Ugh, constituents.” Tonuto rolls his eyes playfully. “I better get out of here before I have to listen to literal cheese mongering. Consider what I said, Doctor. I’d support you every step of the way.”
With that, Tonuto strides toward City Hall’s side entrance at a clip, entering just before Wilson can grab him by the shoulder.
Nomi’s words curdle in my gut, but all her studies do not change what happened to my family when my father threw away everything he had going for him—good looks, brains, and the kind of personality that drew everyone close.
None of that mattered when all he cared about was staying home, smoking pot in our garage, and building models of our small town to rival that ghost’s in Beetlejuice.
His hobbies and drugs drained his meager disability checks.
Rather than getting back out there and finding something that could support his family, he let Mom work twice as hard while he withered to nothing in a folding camp chair.
The same thing is happening to Nomi. So smart and wry, so funny.
So capable. When she clinched our win at the state championship after delivering the most awe-inspiring smackdown I’d ever witnessed, my heart nearly burst. I felt every emotion seeing her behind that podium that night.
Wonder, pride, jealousy, happiness, sadness, and this inescapable, profound wanting that ran so deeply through me, it hurt.
When we won, I hugged her the way Eve did today, spinning her around, as happy as I’ve ever been.
But then, she kissed me. Right there, in front of the whole auditorium, and blew my world apart.
My vision narrowed to Nomi, just Nomi, and the exceptional futures we’d have together.
We spent one blissful month tangled in each other’s arms. When she disappeared later without any explanation, then resurfaced at the end of our senior year paler and skinnier than before, smoking pot with that deranged Eve Ionides, it felt like Dad all over again.
Choosing to wreck her brain and her life and all that we’d worked for, and for what?
To get high? To leave me behind like I never mattered?
I slide into my car and blow out a long, tortured breath.
“Phone, call Dr. Sampson’s cell number.”
“Eric,” I say when his voicemail picks up without bothering to say hello or who I am.
“Can you get addicted to marijuana after eating one edible? Er, two edibles? Several edibles. Also, how do you file a zoning complaint?” I grimace as I turn the steering wheel, reversing out of the parking space.
Before I end the voicemail, I tack on one last question that I’d been saving up.
“And what is your opinion on neti pots?”
I end the call feeling… if not better, a little more focused.
I have research to do, an unprincipled pothead to thwart, and also the feeling someone may be following me.
My eyes dart to the rearview mirror, where a purple Kia Soul, the most unhinged of cars, follows close behind.
I take a quick turn without using my blinker, the abject lawlessness of it nearly killing me, but the suspicion’s confirmed when the Kia Soul hastily follows.
From the front-mounted Grateful Dead vanity plate, a blank-eyed neon teddy bear head smiles at me through my rearview mirror.
Dread prickles across the back of my neck.
Oh, no. I’ve angered the stoners.
“Phone!” I call out, more desperate. “Call Dr. Sampson’s home number!”