“Been so done. And I don’t know how you do that without a fungicide.”
“We just find the right one.”
“Nobody wants pesticide in their weed, Joey.” A look of disgust came over her face. “That may be the only thing we did learn from Damian! I still think we should consider going back. I think we should ask Lydia—”
“But she doesn’t do anything. She doesn’t make any decisions. And I sure as hell don’t want to go back there for less pay.”
“That’s why we need to ask her.”
They were silent for a moment. “You know,” Joe said, “Goldilocks once told me he was doing her. Lydia. He said she was insatiable.”
“He was just fucking with your head!”
“I know. But he does live at her place. He got the same offer too, from the lawyer.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s had enough of the Northeast.”
“Yeah. Good work with the pH probe there, Cas!”
“He’s such a jerk. I can’t believe he has a girlfriend. She must be baked 24/7.”
“He’s got a kid somewhere too, you know.”
“He tell you that?”
“Yup. Hasn’t seen the boy since he was two and the mother ran off with him.”
“Well now there’s a testimonial!”
“I wonder if that’s why he hated us so much? ’Cause we’re together.”
“I think he’s just a fucking idiot. I’m going to talk to Lydia.”
Chapter 50
Sanjay tapped Petra between her breasts. They weren’t sagging much, but Petra regarded them with growing disdain. The slow decline of her body was yet another thing she must learn to tolerate she supposed.
“You have an extraordinarily wide sternum. It’s quite stellar.”
“Thank you,” she replied, a little surprised but pleased, since he seemed pleased.
He bent and kissed her collarbone. “This too. A most excellent bone.”
“Really.”
“And usually visible too on any given day, so I have something to remind me of this when we’re working so hard.”
Petra guffawed, not quite sure whether it was the notion of screwing someone she worked with, the vodka they’d consumed or the actual conversation that was striking her as outlandish.
Sanjay took her prominent right nipple gently between his thumb and forefinger and rolled it ever so slowly before moving in to kiss it. Petra gasped and laughed in the same breath. Very few men ever seemed to catch on to her nipple sensitivity, but Sanjay was naturally gifted, as with many endeavors he undertook.
“It’s a pity you never had children,” he said airily as she moaned. He cupped her breast while rubbing the now glistening nipple with his thumb. “I think you would have been a very happy mummy.”
“Oh for crying out loud. What is it with you and the mommy stuff?” She moaned again.
“Just observing. And thinking.”
She reached down for him. “I’ll give you something to think about.”
“Oh God, I really hope so. Holy Mother!” Sanjay moaned as she brought him into her and wrapped her legs around him. They made love for hours, with the odd break for food or a little more vodka and chitchat. They talked about the potential of cannabis as a sex aid. It had a long history there too, according to Sanjay, who’d been brushing up on the matter. And in California and Colorado, they were coming up with everything from yoni sprays to canna-condoms.
“Clearly time for a little research project.”
It was Sunday for Petra, a lapsed Protestant in every way imaginable, and probably some sunny god’s day for Sanjay, who expressed a fondness for so many exotic deities Petra had lost count. Accordingly, it was a day of holy reckoning and illumination respectively. Petra faced the fact she’d been starved of intimate affection for the last three years, and approaching menopause was making her hornier than ever. It was her body’s last kick at the can, and she figured she’d lost all her better judgment in the mad flush of hormones. Sanjay was looking on the bright and blazing side of opportunity. He wanted no sins of omission on his karma. His bride would be arriving in less than two months, and there weren’t likely to be more chances for this kind of affair.
Later, cutting up a spectacularly large pineapple, Petra broached the subject of Sanjay’s upcoming marriage. “I still can’t believe you asked for an arranged one.”
“In my case, it’s the only smart option.”
“What are you talking about? You have absolutely no trouble hooking up. Everyone, no matter what sex, falls in love with you on sight, Sanjay.”
“That’s probably true.”
“God, you’re sure of yourself. Omnivorous! And a heartbreaker too.” She was thinking of his effect on Percy. “Why get married at all?”
“Actually, that’s the problem. I find it impossible to choose any one person or lifestyle over all the rest.”
“So an arrangement made by someone else would somehow make it all work? What if you don’t even like the person they choose for you?”
“I’ve made lots of choices for myself, and they haven’t been so great.”
Petra snorted, shoved a piece of pineapple in her mouth and chewed slowly. “What do your parents think? I suppose they’re pleased.”
“My parents? They think I’m bonkers. But I have plenty of relatives happy to help out.”
“Your parents’ marriage wasn’t arranged?”
“Absolutely not. They met at Cambridge.”
“So you’re a social throwback!”
“How many insults do you think you can deliver in a single afternoon?”
“In your case, I can make a special effort.”
Sanjay sighed. “I’m tired of games. Chasing happiness this way and that.”
“Come on. You live for the rush of it.”
“I do not.” Sanjay threw his head back. “Besides, for whatever reason, an arrangement takes the worry out of this type of commitment.”
“Like taking the train takes the worry out of traveling.”
“You could say that, though back in India the trains aren’t necessarily without hitches. But yes, on the whole.”
“You know what I think? I think you just don’t want to have to take any responsibility when it all goes tits up.” Petra put another piece of pineapple in her mouth.
“It’s not going to go tits up. Tits-up marriages are American, Petra. Indian marriages are forever. She’s from India and I still have India in my bones.”
“You haven’t even met her. You could be the worst-matched couple on the planet.”
“No, we’re well matched. And I did meet her. We skyped.”
“What if she can’t stand the way you smell? Did you think of that? You know body odor is highly personal.”
Sanjay sighed. “Here we go with the evolutionary theory again.”
“Hey, that’s what I do. And you do too.”
Sanjay picked up the pineapple top and balanced it on his head. “This is what I do.”
“What, grow pineapples out of your head?”
“No. Play the fool.” He spun around. “And the fool is often lucky. Favored. So he finds love.”
“Good lord, you’re betting on luck and magical thinking. And I just recommended you to the only academic who’s still speaking to me. Does your bride have a clue what she’s getting into with you and your various” — Petra paused for effect — “predilections?”
“She knows everything.” Juice dribbled onto his chest. “In fact I think she already knows me better than myself.”
“Really.”
“Yes, really. And you’d like her. She’s a real oddball. Nobody in India wanted to marry her.”
“Really. All of India.” Petra perked up a little at the crazy math and the thought that socially unacceptable attributes in one country could be successfully plied in another. “And why is that? She’s a Gorgon? One-eyed? Three hundred pounds?” She leaned over and whispered in Sanjay’s ear, “A castrating man-ea
ter?”
“More likely three-eyed,” Sanjay whispered back. He tapped his forefinger between his eyebrows. “And she looks like a goddess, by the way,” he added at full volume. “Much, much prettier than I am.”
“Anything else?”
Sanjay shrugged. “She’s twenty-eight, a palm reader, an astrologer, and I hear the local men are scared of her. She didn’t even want a picture of me, just my birth date and a set of palm prints.”
Petra cut another large piece off the pineapple, managing to slice her finger too. “Ow! Oh my God! That juice stings.”
“Wait. I’ll get you a Band-Aid. Don’t bleed all over the pineapple!”
Petra put her finger under the tap and let it run while Sanjay ran to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. He came back with some iodine and the package of Band-Aids.
“Here. Disinfect it first.”
Petra ignored the iodine and instead poured vodka over her finger. Her eyes were a bit red when she looked up and reached for the Band-Aid.
“Would you like me to kiss it better?”
“You know, she should have asked for a pair of your dirty shorts too. Or a sweaty T-shirt.” Petra knocked back another shot. “I’m telling you, body odor is very important,” she said, putting the glass down. Then she pulled him to her, buried her face in his neck and took a long deep inhale.
Chapter 51
Alice had been on the warpath since the DOH inspection report came back. She’d expected most of the findings, except one. One big one. One that had made her life and her staff’s lives hellish for the last two weeks. Because of the laboratory test results from the random samples the inspector had taken, CannRose was ordered to recall two product lines.
It wasn’t mold. It wasn’t E. coli or pseudomonas lurking. There weren’t bugs in the product or any other foreign matter. No ma’am. What violated the specifications — and Alice had to admit, violated the very essence of medicine, its purpose and its promise — was the label itself. The label with the dosage. The percentage of active ingredients. The medicine, baby!
And hardly surprising, it wasn’t the CBD, the nonintoxicant, that was so badly mislabeled. Of course not. It was the blast, the jam-jam, the bobo bush buzz, as Damian liked to call it. In two of the products, the THC amount wasn’t fifteen and twenty-two percent, respectively, it was thirty-two and thirty-eight! Not only was the labeling off but the THC content violated the code. Percy was mortified and had no clue how this could have happened. There had been the arguments with Caldwell about the high THC in two of the harvests, but Percy himself had overseen the milling with trim, as well as the in-house analyses that eventually cleared the product. And then he’d overseen the sampling for the state lab tests.
Now, chemical analysis of any sort has a percentage of uncertainty associated with it. And testing for cannabinoids in a sample that was once alive can hardly be expected to be exact in its repeatability. Precision is hard-won in biological testing, Percy had often pointed out. Had the results been out fifteen or even twenty percent, one could have claimed natural product heterogeneity and the normal spread in analytical results. But to be out this much, Alice suspected sabotage. Not only was a drug recall a major pain in the ass, it was a strike against the company’s already dicey integrity. A different DOH inspector, albeit less zealous than Ms. Ligner, was hanging around both dispensaries, double-checking the recall process. All clients who’d bought the product had to be located, notified and instructed on the return protocol. It took time, and of course CannRose had to refund everyone.
Most clients reported they’d already used up the offending cannabis. When Alice reported this to Luther and the others at a meeting, Caldwell had laughed. “Of course they have, even if they haven’t. They know good product when they’ve got some. And,” he pointed out, “I notice our sales are up since this hit the news.”
Alice was incensed by the comment. She, Sammy and Percy had to troubleshoot the whole mess and figure out what went wrong, so it couldn’t go wrong again. And they had to document their efforts in a report for the DOH. Alice requested access to the CannRose video records. There were hours and hours of viewing from the dispensary cameras and from five of the cameras in the cultivation facility. Because of Caldwell’s comment, Alice wanted to review recordings from the vault cameras, the ones in the curing rooms and the one in the packaging room. Everybody was bug-eyed after four days of watching videos in addition to all their regular work.
Late Friday night, just before the long weekend, Alice got a call from Percy. He’d found something.
“My God, Alice. There’s a five-minute sequence of Caldwell in one of the curing rooms shifting bins of product and taking a small sample, labeling it and putting it in his pocket, and then it conks out.”
“What conks out?”
“The tape, the record, whatever. Nothing until somebody else activates the sensors the next morning. And Alice, just before it goes blank, there’s another pair of shoes visible. Somebody else is in the room. I don’t know who. I don’t recognize the shoes, and according to the other camera records leading up to that time, there’s no activity in that area. They must have figured out a way to disable the motion detectors.”
“We’re absolutely sure it’s not some technical glitch showing us a scrap from a year ago? I hear that was happening at some point.”
“I don’t know. The time on it is midnight. The sequence before it is four o’clock p.m.”
“A date?”
“Yes, but only the day and the month, not the year.”
“Oh lord! We need that new IT guy to check it. Maybe he can tell.”
“I’ll give it to him first thing Tuesday.”
“Make sure he keeps this quiet. We need to be absolutely sure before we say anything to anybody. This is serious.”
“I know.”
Alice put down the phone and felt like crying. Much as she disliked Caldwell, she didn’t relish the thought of going to Luther, and especially Lydia, with this. He’d have to be fired. He should probably be fired anyway, but Alice didn’t want to be the one to initiate the process. And now she had a whole long weekend to stew about it.
Chapter 52
Lydia was going for a ride. A nice hack around Rosefields to soften her disappointment. Her daughter had again cancelled. She couldn’t make it this month, just like she couldn’t make it all those other months. Lydia’s children made her fully aware that they did not approve of her life. Just when Lydia felt like she was finally starting to enjoy it.
Lydia’s favorite old mare was Shasta. She was easygoing, and as thoroughbreds went, an anomaly. Heavy-boned. So much so that the breeders had never bothered sending her to the yearling sales. They’d made cracks about dog food. Shasta came from a good line but they figured she was a throwback. One of the English cobs was resurfacing with a vengeance; the riffraff were winning in the lineage. She had a rump like a Clydesdale and a heavy neck. Big chunky hooves. She was lacking in the finer characteristics, except for her head, where the Arabian heritage was apparent; she had a lovely dish to the nose and big soulful eyes. She was also a dappled gray, and Lydia had fallen in love with her at first sight. Seeing Lydia’s reaction, Jordan had bought her on the spot and the breeders were very thankful. The mare had grown on them too. But she certainly wasn’t a keeper in the tony world of invitation stakes and sales-topper fillies. They were delighted to find a home for their gentle lubberly freak.
Shasta was happy to munch on Lydia’s offering of carrot chunks. She’d lain down in a little manure at some point so Lydia had busied herself right away with the black rubber currycomb, gently breaking up the dried matted coat on her hind quarters. Satisfied with the preliminary cleanup, Lydia moved back to her neck and started the grooming ritual. Shasta hung her head low between the two leads attached on either side of her halter. She leaned a little into Lydia’s circular movements.
“You’re a sweet girl,” Lydia said.
Shasta’s ears flicked and one stay
ed permanently back to catch more cooings. All of these were welcome. Sugar too, in any form. Watermelon, apples, pears. When it was the season, Shasta could smell these things in the air, the delicious odors of late summer. It was as if Shasta knew very well she’d landed with the horseshoes up her butt rather than on her feet. The best time of all — and she had groaned and sighed with the pleasure of it — was when Lydia had hired a massage therapist for her. He was a swarthy man, hairy and hearty, but with the hands of a god. He’d cooed too and softly whistled. That certain humans could be a horse’s dream was not lost on Shasta. She waited. Waiting was easy. Lydia offered her another carrot chunk.
The grooming went on for a good hour. Lydia enjoyed that often more than the ride itself. Just being with Shasta, talking to her and getting a feel for her mood without trying to make her do something was pure pleasure. There was no rush and no expectation. Eventually Lydia saddled up and got on her horse. Carl walked into the barn just as they were heading out.
“Shasta’s looking pretty pleased with herself,” he remarked.
“Well it’s nice to be able to ride so often. You know I don’t think I miss the city at all.”
“Well, you’re doing a fine job up here! You should be proud.”
“You think so?”
“Of course. Everybody in town talks about CannRose now. Few more people got jobs too. People takin’ a new interest in life. What’s not to be proud of?”
“Well that’s lovely to hear. Thank you for that, Carl. Gives me a real lift.”
“Say, you still looking for more security people? I know a guy.”
“Tell him to call Greg. I think they still might be.”
“So what’s happening with those kids who tried to break in?”
“Oh, Carl, I just don’t know.” Lydia shook her head. “The oldest was a Bradford. The grandson of one the board members! I’m staying right out of it. Let the lawyers settle it.”
“Kids!”
“Drunk kids!” Lydia clicked her tongue and gave Shasta a little leg pressure. She waved at Carl as they went out into the late afternoon sun. They took the path around the side paddock. Lydia decided to take a closer look at the expanded Great Pond. Her daughter, the one who hadn’t shown up again that weekend, wanted to put a jump at one end and Lydia hadn’t paid much attention to the idea. Lydia didn’t like water jumps much. She’d been dunked a couple of times and took a nasty fall when her horse (not Shasta) bucked, swerved and bolted in another direction at the prospect of water. Soaring over a two-foot fence and landing into water with solid ground two feet below its surface was just too much for the horse. Or perhaps it was really just too much for Lydia. Horses have a knack for smelling fear and can be very obliging. “Horses can show you a lot,” Lydia thought out loud. “Maybe they’re the best medicine.” Medicine was on her mind all the time now.
The Buds Are Calling Page 24