Chapter Twenty-Nine Nomi
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
NOMI
It’s Labor Day and the last dregs of summer, the sky as blue as the water ice they’re hawking across the street before the parade begins.
Stranger Drugs sits behind me, all packed up except for a few things in my office.
My laptop, those misdelivered packages I still need to return, the shattered remnants of my dreams, et cetera.
After today, I’ll lock up for the last time and try to make peace with leasing a spot in the industrial anything goes zone on the highway.
My top contender shares a wall with a dildo store, so it isn’t all bad, I guess.
I ease into the plasticky plaid retro lawn chair, feeling mellow and smiley.
An emotionally loaded day calls for Unicorn Piss, a citrus-forward, high-THC hybrid that promises giggly bliss for experienced users.
So far, it hasn’t let me down. Even after all the drama, stress, and heartache of the last few months, I feel better than I have in a long time.
My flare has begun to subside, my body feels like my own again, and having Julian there beside me, listening to me and loving me through it all, is a relief I’ve never known.
Plus, I love my bidet.
I hadn’t realized I’d given up on finding my person until I found him.
Now that I have, the shrill whine of loneliness that pervaded my life grows quieter every day, replaced by his voice loudly berating TV medical dramas, musing over the latest Parkinson’s research while his glasses slip down his nose, whispering incoherent praise in my ear as he fills me with his heat, his longing, his love.
Life has never sounded better.
While it’s sad spending Labor Day sitting in front of my failed labors, it’s beautiful out, and I’m here with my best friends, snacks, and front-row seats for the parade, waiting for my giant boyfriend to drive by in a tiny car.
I laugh at the sky, remembering how I helped Julian bobby-pin Edna’s old fez into his waves this morning, and my body thrums with delight.
Ahh, horny pot.
Eve nudges me with a platter of cheesecake brownies which, sadly, I must decline.
“No dairy, remember?” I swat the platter halfheartedly away. “Dr. Rashad has ELIMINATED dairy from my diet. It is ELIMINATED.”
“DELETED.” Graham snatches the platter over me. “FORSWORN.”
“Ugh.” Eve scowls. “I have to make I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Budder now.”
“What? You canna bis-leaf it’s not—” Graham yelps midsentence as Eve squirts him with a water gun, straight in the face. “Aww. You got my brownie wet.”
The dairy elimination diet is the first of many measures I’m trying with Dr. Rashad to address the underlying sources of my chronic gut inflammation.
It’s a frankly rude way to begin a relationship, but I love the way she sends me research articles to support her cruel interventions.
I’ll give up cheese for science. For now.
“Look, it’s starting!” Eve sits up as the high school color guard appears, the marching band’s colonial drumbeat and piccolo morphing unexpectedly into a Sabrina Carpenter song. “God, I love parades.”
Graham’s eyes widen. “Maybe we should build a float next year for the dispensary.”
“Ooh, I’ll make a reminder to do the parade registration!” Eve starts dictating the reminder on her phone, which is nowhere to be seen. Because Unicorn Piss.
“The registration…” I yank my wrist to my eyes, but I haven’t worn a watch in twenty years. “Fuck! It’s due today!”
Eve frowns. “For next year’s parade? That’s intense.”
“No, the LLC’s quarterly report!” I groan, running my hands down my face. “There’s a late fee if you miss it.”
“They’re making you labor?” Graham asks, indignant. “On Labor Day?!”
I lurch out of my chair. “I’ve gotta submit it now. Grab me when the weird honking starts—I don’t want to miss Julian!”
I stumble inside to my office. It takes a full five minutes to remember how to access the NJ Secretary of State’s corporate filings portal.
Because again, Unicorn Piss.
Bleary-eyed, I don’t feel so blissful now as I try, and fail, to find my corporate ID number. Finally, I search by my building’s address instead.
Two entries appear. There’s Stranger Drugs, but weirdly, our Main Street address pulls up a second LLC, too.
I squint at the screen. Am I doing this right?
Yes, there’s definitely a second business registered to this address. JM Enterprises, LLC. I sit back in my office chair. JM Enterprises. The stack of packages I need to return stares at me from the corner. Are those… I scramble up and check, and yes—they’re addressed to JM Enterprises!
But who would claim this address, and why?
A weird, nervy feeling coils in my belly as I click on JM Enterprises, LLC.
It leads me to their registration page, which shows their status as inactive for failure to file.
Was JM Enterprises the other business vying for the lease?
My heart pounds as I click on the documents tab and bring up the Certificate of Formation.
It’s short and bare bones, but there at the end, it lists the directors. Each name lands like a punch.
Wilson Phillips.
Jacqueline Lombardi.And… and…Michelangelo DiFiore?
After Wilson and Lombardi, I was sure that last name would be Tonuto. I frown at the screen, trying hard to understand. Unless… is Mike Tonuto’s real last name DiFiore, like Sammy’s? They are half brothers, and didn’t Sammy say his dad adopted Mike?
And Jesus, does that mean his first name is Michelangelo?
I launch myself at the top box in the stack. It’s a legit felony to open mail addressed to someone else.
“Unless it’s an accident,” I say in my most innocent voice. It sounds like an anime character, God help me, I’m stoned. I rip open the box, uttering oops! in case I’m being filmed, which I’m not.
A letter sits on top.
Dear Mr. DiFiore,
Welcome to the Jersey Mike’s family! Enclosed you’ll find our franchisee welcome package…
A Jersey Mike’s? A chain cheesesteak shop directly across from Sammy’s with the name MIKE in the title? I laugh incredulously.
“Ho-lee shit. Holy SHIT!” The impact of this finding hits me like an avalanche.
I take a picture of the Certificate of Formation on my phone and run, clutching the letter, out the front door where I collide with Eve to the sound of wild, manic honking.
“I was coming to get you.” Eve catches me before I fall to the pavement. “You okay?”
“I’ve got it, Eve! I’ve got the proof!” I wave the letter in the air.
“Proof? Of what?”
“Proof tying Tonuto and Jackie Lombardi to the dispensary’s sabotage!
” I shake the letter again. “I… I think.” The Unicorn Piss is making it hard to process the difference between colors, let alone government corruption.
“I need to talk to Sammy DiFiore right now.” I start to cut across the street, but Graham grabs my arm before I walk into oncoming float traffic.
“Sammy’s not at the shop—his food truck’s at the parade’s end at the big picnic area.”
“At the bandstand?”
“Yeah, I saw him setting up earlier.”
I launch up the sidewalk, but there’s no getting through this maze of chairs and tents and blue-mouthed children high on water ice. I moan at the sky and turn back to Eve and Graham, helpless. “What am I supposed to do?!”
Beep-beepity-beep-beeeeeep!
In a sea of big men in tiny cars, Julian appears in a little red convertible, the hottest one of all.
On the car’s hood is a picture of Edna laughing, her face lifted to the sky in a joy you can feel, an expression perfectly reflected on Julian now as he zips his beloved aunt’s glorified Power Wheels down Main Street.
Coupled with the maroon fez perched jauntily on his head, Julian looks completely unhinged.
Good. Because that’s exactly the energy this plan’s gonna require.
I race out in front of his car, and he slams on the brakes.
“What’re you doing?!” His head whips around as I hoist myself onto the back of the tiny car.
“Get me to the bandstand right now!” I wrap my legs around a squirming, outraged Julian like a lap belt from behind. “It’s a matter of grave importance!”
“What?! I don’t—” Julian struggles helplessly between my thighs, a hot, pink flush rising high on his cheekbones.
Poor thing, he’s definitely getting a boner.
“Listen to me, Julian.” I take him by the cheeks. “I have proof tying Tonuto and Lombardi to sabotaging the dispensary!”
“You do?!” He squints. “Wait. Are you stoned?”
“Yes. Extremely. But I’m sure of this. Do you trust me?”
“More than anything.” He smiles at me so tenderly that I give him a passionate kiss before pulling away and thumping his fez.
“Okay. I need to get to the front of this parade now. Will you drive me?”
“But all these people…” He’s still dazed, staring at my lips.
“It’s time to be D’Asshole, Julian.” I tug at his shirt collar to bring him back. “Now, are you my real ruff bitch or not?”
His jaw tightens, and he nods once. We jolt forward, me wrapped around Julian’s back, his fez’s tassel slapping me obscenely in the face.
The tiny car is now noticeably back heavy, but my extra weight doesn’t stop us from zipping beneath the VFW banner and scaring the ever-loving Jesus out of Carl as Julian lays on the maniacal horn. Beep-beepity-beep-beeeeeep!
Sparrow Nook gasps as their new doctor rips through the Girl Scout troops, shouting obscenities as Thin Mints rain upon us.
I try to grab one—they’re dairy-free—and nearly fall off.
In a stunning lack of conscience, Julian cuts off the Sparrow Nook High School Band, causing a ripple of discordant notes in Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” as we jolt to the parade’s front and veer toward the bandstand.