Chapter Fifteen Julian #2
“Okay, but hear me out: What if being a doctor doesn’t make you an all-knowing god?” Nomi’s eyebrows rise over her sunglasses as she parks in front of Stranger Coffee. “What if being a doctor means standing beside someone in need instead of lording over them?”
I blink, reeling from the insinuation that I lord over anyone. That’s not what I do.
Is it?
We head inside, Nomi flipping the sign to Open before throwing me my barista apron. “I’ve got some work to do in my office. Can you… do that thing you did yesterday?”
“Craft a signature coffee drink of the day and advertise it in neat script on the chalkboard sign outside?”
Nomi shoots a finger-gun. “That’s it.”
I straighten, tying the apron tight around my waist. Nomi’s eyes track the movement before flicking up. “I suppose I could.”
I only stayed up half the night coming up with iced coffee concoctions to last through the end of August. Now that I bought and installed the luxe commercial coffee brewing machine that can properly service the demand and arranged for high-quality beans from a local distributor, it’s actually kind of fun, working here.
I’ve always loved coffee—the smell, the taste, the electric way it lights up my brain.
And after this week, I’ve realized I love making it, too.
Word’s gotten around that Nomi hired someone who knows what they’re doing, and every day, the profits I bring her shop increase a little more.
“Good,” she says coolly.
“Good,” I mimic her tone, watching her disappear into the back with a misplaced pang of homesickness.
The following week, Nomi flips the sign to Closed for our second shadowing session. The midafternoon is a slow time for coffee drinkers, and thus, the perfect time to part me from my demanding customer base. “Ready to go?” she asks.
“Yep.” I slide a tall, iced drink to Nomi and untie my apron.
“Oh.” Nomi winces. “I don’t drink coffee. Sorry.”
“I know that. It’s an iced chai latte with cardamom foam and ginger popping boba pearls.”
“A what?”
I sigh. “It’s delicious and tea based. Drink it.”
She picks it up warily, sniffs. After a tentative taste through the big straw, her eyes go round. “Julian. This is—it’s—”
“Amazing?” I smile, smug. “I know that, too.”
“—art,” she finally says after another long sip. “The boba pearls! They’re so fun. Delicious.” She sucks the drink down greedily all the way to her car, and I feel like a million dollars.
As she slurps the last of the tea, she asks, “Did you bring the apology letter?”
All the confidence the iced chai brought me quickly evaporates. “I—yes. Are we—am I—”
“Going to give it to Mr. Gutierrez today? Yes. Unfortunately, apologizing to Mr. Gutierrez requires you to speak, so I beg you—please don’t mess this up. Dr. Appa won’t care how much you learn about cannabis if you piss off Mr. G again. Got it?”
I nod, patting my shirt pocket and the terrifying shape of the folded letter within. Nomi read it for me, and it’s taken four drafts to get an approved version. Even with her help, it still feels scary knowing that my future hinges in part on me successfully apologizing, something I’m not great at.
Nomi knocks first, then after a minute, slides a key into the lock of the small ranch home. “Knock, knock, we’re here,” she calls as we cross the threshold.
The hallway is flanked with metal handrails, several canes hanging from the end.
The floors have been stripped to reveal a smooth, continuous base throughout the house.
The rooms are painfully spare. Someone has thoughtfully taped cotton batting to the edges of the wooden dining table, the coffee table, and the corners of the kitchen bar.
As we pass by, Nomi absently checks the tape, stopping to smooth the peeling edges flat.
Did she do this for him? The thought plucks at my heart.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t answer the door today,” Mr. Gutierrez calls from the living room where he sits twisted up on the couch. His left arm is pinned against his chest at an awkward angle, thumping there erratically, his right shoulder slumped downward. He’s breathing shallowly and in clear pain.
“Mr. G, you should’ve called.” Nomi rushes over. “How long has the dyskinesia been like this?”
“A few hours.” He winces. “It’s getting worse. I couldn’t pack the vaporizer.”
“I finally got the shipment of those sublingual CBD lozenges in—do you want to try one now?”
“Y-yes.” Mr. Gutierrez’s neck ticks to the right sharply. “Please.”
Nomi carefully places a small, rectangular lozenge under Mr. Gutierrez’s tongue. “These melt quickly, and the effects should hit quickly as well.”
He groans as Nomi props up his straining neck with pillows for support, then releases a small, broken sigh. “Thank you, dear. That’s better.”
“We’ll sit with you and monitor for impacts. In the meantime, Julian has something he’d like to say.”
Nomi delivers a sharp elbow to my side, snapping me out of my silent observations of Mr. Gutierrez’s state.
Much of Nomi’s required reading dealt with Parkinson’s disease—not only how cannabis can help, but also the long-term impacts of levodopa, the standard course of treatment for it.
I found the studies fascinating, grateful for the chance to slow down and dive deeply into a condition.
Working in the ER, you become an expert in triage.
Halting system collapse. Stabilizing the body’s core functions, then moving the patient off your floor and into the specialized unit where their long-term well-being becomes someone else’s job.
There are countless ways to die, but those core functions that must be restored are all the same.
It can be incredibly difficult to achieve when the damage is too great, but it’s still the ABCs of life.
Breathing. Pumping blood. Finding the energy to do it all over again.
But just as there’s more to language than ABCs, there’s more to life than survival, and the part of me that compulsively craves harder and more challenging work was unexpectedly satisfied by learning about the complexities of Parkinson’s disease.
I pull the letter from my pocket. “Mr. Gutierrez, I’m very sorry for how I behaved during your appointment.
I treated you unkindly and worse, without the respect you deserve.
I have much to learn about cannabis, and more importantly, how to treat people with compassion and a collaborative spirit.
” I inhale before reading the last line Nomi insisted on: “Also, I’m a huge asshole. ”
Mr. Gutierrez snorts, then straightens slowly from the pillow, his left arm unlocking from its pinned, cramped position against his chest. At some point in the last few minutes, it stopped thumping against his chest. He sags backward against the couch, relief slackening his clenched jaw.
“Thank you, Dr. D’Angelo.” He reaches his right hand for the letter, which I pass to him, mouth slightly open at the fluid range of movement he’s exhibiting. I check my watch, then look at Nomi.
“Four minutes since dosage administration, and the visible dyskinesia has almost entirely abated.” I blink at her, then reach for the small bottle of lozenges to study them.
Her eyebrows raise in appreciation. “Well, the fast-acting claims appear legit. How are you feeling, Mr. G?”
“So much looser.” He breathes deeply for the first time since we’ve been here. “And completely exhausted.”
“After hours of dyskinesia that intense, I bet you are.” Nomi briefly runs through a list of questions about Mr. Gutierrez’s routines leading up to today, how often he’d consumed cannabis and in what method coupled with his current levodopa dosage and symptoms experienced.
Each question is thoughtful, precise, with thorough follow-ups, and I marvel at the patience she has for his longer, more plodding answers.
When she’s finished, she asks him if there’s anything else she can help him with, and unlike most people who ask that, you can tell Nomi means it.
“Yes, dear. There’s a tub of birthday cake ice cream in the freezer. Could you get me a spoon, and—and some Doritos?”
Nomi’s lips curve into a soft smile. “Does someone have the munchies?”
Mr. Gutierrez meets her smile with his own, sweet and silly and full of a personality I hadn’t yet seen.
It’s lovely to witness, and I’m relieved knowing we’re not leaving him here in cramped agony to fight against the slow, miserable progression of his disease untreated, unhappy, and unwell.
The wildest part is, we’ve been here for thirty-seven minutes.
It took only thirty-seven minutes to change his day from awful to bearable to maybe even good.
“Thank you, sweet Nomi. You, too, Doctor Asshole,” he adds, chuckling as he yoinks the spoon and ice cream that I’ve retrieved for him from my hands.
I glance at Nomi, and she smiles, shrugging.
“Well, they’re not straight CBD.”
Another week passes at Stranger Coffee, making Nomi tea drinks, baiting her into delicious arguments, and going with her to appointments that rock my perception of medicinal cannabis. But today, for the first time, Nomi looks nervous.
“You know what? I’m having second thoughts. Stay in the car for this one.”
“What?” I twist in my seat. “I’ve been on my best behavior!”
“I know,” Nomi concedes, tapping her nails against the steering wheel, “but this is a very sensitive situation. I’m not sure you’re ready for it.”
“Ready for it? I piece people’s bodies back together for a living.” I point at the small house, only a few blocks away from the small house where I grew up. “There’s nothing in there that’s worse than what I’ve experienced at Philly Gen.”
“It’s… a child, Julian. He’s twelve years old.”
I blink at her slowly, an avalanche of disapproval within me cracking, ready to bury everything in its path. “What could possibly justify cannabis at that age?”