Chapter Fifteen Julian
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
JULIAN
After a week of early mornings at Nomi’s “coffee shop” and evenings studying Nomi’s assigned readings, quiz day arrives.
“Well?” She crosses her arms, which has the outrageous effect of hoisting her breasts even higher. Their rounded tops puff out of her black tank top ominously, like a blowfish about to strike. This helps quell the swirl of heat licking through my groin.
Theoretically.
“Did you do the reading?” She’s looking at me as if I haven’t, but I have. I read, I highlighted, I had an existential crisis about how I ended up back in Sparrow Nook apprenticed to a street pharmacist. Then, I read some more.
I clear my throat. “Yes.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.” And when I finished what Nomi hand-selected for me, I picked through the works cited, reading those articles, too. Let no one ever say I half-assed my homework. I’ve spent a small fortune on PubMed access this week, and I have the twitching eyelid to prove it.
Nomi’s tawny brown eyes narrow, and she points to the counter where the quiz waits. “Then get started. You have fifteen minutes.”
My mouth forms a hard line, and I snatch the pencil. The questions are straightforward but aren’t playing around.
What functions does the endocannabinoid system regulate within the human body?
Explain the dopaminergic reaction of THC within the hypothalamus.
Cannabis with what ratio of THC to CBD is most effective for treating symptoms of Parkinson’s disease? I feel a brief flush of shame as I slash out an answer to that one.
The timer buzzes, and I slam my pencil down on reflex.
My cheeks heat as Nomi takes my paper. She may be wearing denim cut-offs and stacked black lace-up boots, but she is one hundred percent teacher right now, and it’s doing things to me.
She reads my responses through lowered lashes, absently pulling her bottom lip into her mouth.
When she reaches the end, she sniffs, then tosses the paper in the trash.
“Well?” I know I aced it, but I want to hear her say it. I want my gold star, and I want her to give it to me.
Oh, God, I’m getting a boner.
She walks toward the door, her hips swaying in perfect rhythm back and forth, like a metronome ticking away the last of my sanity. “You passed,” she calls over her shoulder. “Come on.”
I grin, then bound after her.
After I squeeze into her car’s tiny front seat and buckle in, Nomi puts on a pair of cat-eyed sunglasses and pulls out onto the road.
I’m almost grateful for how bunched up my limbs are—being this uncomfortable is the only way I’ll survive the way the shorts’ frayed hem dances across her thighs, catching on the tiny blonde hairs there.
The image of her legs spread open before me on the patient table flashes through my brain like a lightning strike, and I flinch, staring out the window instead.
“Where are we going?”
Nomi takes a deep breath. “You passed the quiz, so your shadowing can begin for my medicinal clients. I don’t want to hear about how I’m not a doctor—”
“Point of fact: you’re not a doctor.”
“—how cannabis is a dangerous, unregulated drug—”
“Your own literature admits that THC and CBD levels can vary significantly within the same plant!”
“—or really, your voice at all.” Nomi grips the steering wheel with both hands. “You’re prohibited from speaking once we are inside with clients. Do you understand?”
“So I’m supposed to sit there while you engage in the unauthorized practice of medicine?”
“I’m not practicing medicine—I’m practicing listening, I’m practicing helping, I’m practicing compassionate care for people who are out of options.” Nomi navigates into a parallel spot. “And you’ll sit there as my shadow silently, or else the deal is off. Got it?”
“Fine.” I fold my arms and sullenly look out the window, then do a double take at one of Sparrow Nook’s biggest houses. “Your client lives here?”
“What’s wrong, Julian?” Nomi grabs her bag from the backseat. “Doesn’t gel with your potheads are losers narrative?”
I stare up at the beautiful, sea-blue Victorian mansion and the wide, grassy lawn flanking it on all sides. Nomi makes a curt zipper motion across her lips, then knocks on the front door.
“Nomi!” A woman with silvered black hair answers. She’s in her fifties, fit and dressed sharply in cream-colored slacks and a silky tank. She glances at me. “This is the young doctor you’re helping out?”
“Yes, this is Julian D’Angelo. Thank you so much for letting him sit in on our visit—he’s here to listen and learn. Julian, this is Hillary Frankel, one of my favorite clients.”
“Nice to meet you,” I mumble.
“But you didn’t mention how handsome he is, Nomi.” Hillary winks. “Just how annoying.”
A startled cough exits my throat as she leads us inside. Ms. Frankel settles onto a chartreuse velvet couch in the parlor. With her arms draped along the back and her long legs crossed at the knee, she explains she hasn’t slept a full night without medical assistance since 2023.
“That’s the year I started menopause. The doctor told me to exercise, that it’d wear me out.
That’s what doctors always say to women.
In pain? Lose ten pounds! Have migraines?
Go for a run! Can’t sleep? Must not be moving enough.
As if I haven’t seen a personal trainer four days a week for the last twenty years.
” Ms. Frankel huffs. “It didn’t matter—nothing could shut my brain off.
It makes sense when you’re the founder and CEO of a successful development company, but how can I lead my business effectively when I can’t sleep?
I was exhausted all the time. My doctor started prescribing pills, and while some would knock me out, I’d wake up groggy after these horrible, vivid nightmares.
After I started sleepwalking and had to stop, my doctor just shrugged and referred me to someone else.
” Hillary shakes her head. “That doctor tried the same course of interventions and when those didn’t work, he referred me to someone else, too.
On and on. Everywhere, I heard the same thing—everyone experiences insomnia from time to time.
Everyone suffers from menopause. Well, if everyone’s suffering, why haven’t we come up with a solution yet? ”
“Menopause is a major cause of insomnia—more than half of women experience sleep disturbances that significantly decrease their quality of life.” Nomi’s eyes flash with righteous anger. “Loss of sleep is debilitating, and just because it’s common doesn’t mean it’s something you have to live with.”
I sit with that, turning their words and anger over in my head.
The fact is, lack of exercise is a major problem for many Americans, but the idea that anyone would look at Hillary Frankel and think her problems could be solved with exercise is ridiculous.
She looks like she could out-plank a piece of wood.
It’s a cop-out of a treatment recommendation, especially for a condition where the culprit is known.
It’s not lack of exercise—it’s lack of estrogen, and no amount of push-ups and prescription sleep aids are going to change that.
I feel annoyed on her behalf, and also, a little embarrassed of my profession.
“I’m not a candidate for hormone replacement therapy, so I tried every natural route next—melatonin, valerian root, ashwagandha, magnesium, warm baths—nothing worked. I felt like I was going insane.” Hillary’s eyes crinkle fondly at Nomi. “Until I found good old marijuana.”
Nomi pulls her tablet out and taps the stylus against it in a rapid rat-a-tat-tat. “Last month, we tried the Frankenbush. How’d that work for you?”
“I liked it,” Ms. Frankel says after a beat. “It certainly helped me sleep.”
“But?” Nomi looks up. “Did you experience any unwanted side effects?”
“Unwanted? No, I wouldn’t say that.” She lets out a soft laugh, her fingers lightly touching her silky, straight hair as she pushes it over her shoulder. “Let’s just say it had me looking for batteries and a juicy Beverly Jenkins novel.”
My eyes widen. The horny pot.
Nomi snorts but makes a note in Ms. Frankel’s treatment plan. “That’s the linalool and limonene terpenes at play.”
Linalool. Limonene. I commit the horny terpenes’ names to memory.
Just in case I’m quizzed later.
Nomi pauses, her stylus poised in front of her lips. “Would you like something with a similar ratio of THC to CBD but without the libido-boosting effects?”
“No, dear—I’d like more, to be honest. That’s the kind of exercise I’d enjoy more of.” Ms. Frankel winks at me again, and my entire neck flushes with heat. “Reminds me how good it is to feel things. There’s more to life than working, you know.”
Nomi procures a small, discreet jar of Frankenbush flower, the smokeable, dried buds of the cannabis plant I learn, and hands it to Ms. Frankel in exchange for an envelope presumably filled with payment.
After Nomi promises to research other alternatives for Ms. Frankel, we head out, and it’s official: I’m a drug dealer’s accomplice.
A legal drug dealer, dealing legal drugs, sort of legally, but still.
A weird rush of taboo zings up my spine.
“Well, she liked you,” Nomi says as we scrunch inside her car.
“I have no clue why. I barely said a thing.”
“I’m guessing that’s a big part of it, actually.” Nomi smiles wryly beneath those cat-eye sunglasses as she navigates us downtown. “Let it be a lesson, Julian. When you keep your judgmental opinions to yourself, people respond positively to you.”
“That’s what being a doctor is, though. Observing a person’s problems and telling them how to solve them. If their problems stem from their own behavior, I can’t pretend otherwise.” I fold my arms. “If they dislike me for it, so be it.”