Page 16 of Pot Shot
“Wrong,” Damon spits out. “Well, right. It is a big state, but you were wrong aboutme, finding out,” he adds unnecessarily. “Because Idid.”
This is why I can’t respect him.
“Andyou’re fired!” he says again, watching my face gleefully like he’s hoping I’ll cry.
“Come on, Damon—let me finish the month. We’ve just started the inventory clean-out, and I still need to put in all the new orders. Half the staff is on vacation, for God’s sake! You’re screwing yourself over if you fire me right now. Please reconsider?” The cringe gripping me is so intense, it feels like Pilates. “Boss?”
“No.” Damon’s S-shaped spine straightens a few degrees as a tight, satisfied smirk dimples his face. “Little Miss Tummy-aches thinks she has what it takes to open a successful dispensary? There’s nosick leavewhen you run your own business, Nomi. There’s no one smarter, older, and more successful around to rescue you when you make your dumb decisions. And there’s gonna be no job waiting for you at XYB when your girly joke of a dispensary fails to get its license next week!”
My brows draw together, and now I’mpissed. Pissed that Damon’s shooting himself in the platformed boot to spite me, pissed that he’s ruining my careful balancing act of a budget, and more than anything, pissed that he’s standing here inmyhouse, fouling up the vibes with his toxic presence. I’m going to have to sage the whole place!
“Stranger Drugs isgoing tohappen.”
He steps forward again, the vinyl lining his taint groaning and shrieking as if captive against its will. His lips curl in a malevolent smile.
“You sure about that?”
CHAPTER SIX
JULIAN
I should’ve known I wouldn’t get to eat dinner. It’s the full moon, and per that rock’s capricious influence, minor emergencies trundle into the clinic all night. Broken arms, stitches, the gruesome removal of a rusty nail from Randy Thompson’s foot—none of which quells the hunger pangs throbbing in my gut. When it slows down around nine p.m., I heat up a piece of sad, cheese-less veggie lasagna I made in a weird fit of Wyeth preoccupation. As I’m putting the first bite in my mouth, my phone buzzes on the table.
My eyes narrow. If it’s the goddamn D’Angelo family text chain I’ve left and been aggressively re-added to three times, I’ll harness this hanger to reply so obnoxiously they’llfinallyleave me alone.
DR. SRINIVASAN
Hello, Julian. I have polluted my body and impaired my judgment and thus require you to pick me up. We need a ride home.
DR. SRINIVASAN
It was not with cheesecake.
Then, a gif of Snoop Dogg with 8-bit sunglasses that slide down his nose, revealing marijuana leaves for eyes, appears.
Dr. Srinivasan’s sendinggifs? Aboutweed?!
An address comes next. Where is he, a bar? No, the address is residential. And who is this “we”? Dr. Srinivasan is a confirmed bachelor and has never been married. I can only surmise from the gif and texts that Dr. Srinivasan has gone to apartyand gotten intoxicated bymarijuanawithfriends.
After several seconds of internal rage at being asked to do this and yet knowing I can’t say no after the number of complaints I received this week, I bang out a quick affirmative that I’ll be there soon. With a pang of frustrated longing, I shove my uneaten lasagna back into the fridge, turn the clinic’s sign to Closed, and lock up.
It’s a Friday night, and the June air feels heavy and liquid. When I get to my car, I throw off my doctor’s coat, then groan at what I’m wearing. The flat-front navy chinos and linen button-down were fine for doctoring, but now I have to bust into some party to haul off Dr. Srinivasan looking like a yacht police-boy. I quickly undo the top two buttons, then roll up the sleeves to my forearms. To tuck, or untuck? Or that strange, mysterious compromise—the front tuck only?
I stand there frantically assessing my reflection in the window when hushed laughter makes me whip around. A mother and her two teenage daughters watch me from the sidewalk.
“Well?” I snap. “I’m going to a marijuana party. Should I leave this tucked in or out?”
“Out,” the daughters say in unison, but the mother lifts her hand to her chin, pondering.
“Turn around.”
Exasperated, I do as I’m told. When I finish revolving, her eyes twinkle. “In,” she says. “Definitelyin.” She leads her daughters past me, then gives me a lascivious wink over her shoulder.
Unsettling, but I leave the shirt tucked in.
The closest parking spot is two blocks away, but it’s soon evident where the party is based on the happy chatter emanating from the crowded lawn. My stomach squeezes in a sour twist all the way to my sternum, the uniquely high school feeling ofeveryone’s hanging out without mestill hurtful after all these years. You’d think I’d be used to it by now. I’m always so busy focusing on my work I don’t see units of casual friendship forming untilwham, there’s a happy hour or a party or a weekend trip that everyone else enjoyed together without me. Even worse are the times I find out beforehand and am awkwardly invited last minute to join. Standing there, holding a beer I don’t intend to drink, trying to make small talk with people politely waiting for me to leave before the real fun begins?Ugh.
I walk up the front path, squinting around the lawn. “Dr. Srinivasan?” I lean over to peer at a man sitting at a crowded table, but it’s not him. I don’t recognize anyone, in fact, until a man in a Hawaiian shirt narrows his eyes. “What’reyoudoing here, Doc?”
