Petra felt a surge of sadness and panic as if she might start sobbing right there and then without having even spoken a word. She turned away quickly and focused on the oriental carpet that graced the room. There were armchairs and a sofa with a small desk facing out in one corner. She concentrated on putting her knapsack down and taking her coat off. She felt in those first three seconds of meeting Dr. Grange — Phyllis — that she could not bear to look her in the eyes without crying.
Dr. Grange picked up the box of tissues. “Have a seat. Wherever you think looks most comfy.”
Petra crumpled into the biggest armchair as the flood gates opened and the therapist handed her a tissue. Petra wept for several minutes. Her shoulders shook, the tears streamed and the snot ran. “I don’t know why I’m such a mess,” she said.
Dr. Grange handed Petra another tissue.
After more tears, Petra babbled, “I’m going to lose my job. But I don’t care that much about it. My research isn’t going very well, anyway.”
“I see.”
“I’ve kind of lost the thread, I think. It’s very complex. The physiology is tricky and the plant itself is bred for difficulties. It looked like we were going to move in a new direction with an animal-science group. But I’m pretty sure they’re killing the deal now. And . . . and I’ve had equipment breakdowns.”
Dr. Grange got up to get a glass of water. She pondered the human capacity for suffering and speculated to what extent it was fueled by denial. Honesty with self was always a challenge.
“Tell me more about your research,” she said as she handed Petra the glass. It was a roundabout way to get to Petra’s issues. Shoptalk or small talk. It didn’t matter which. As it turned out though, this shoptalk grabbed Dr. Grange’s attention. She’d never had a credentialed marijuana scientist show up at her door before and she soon found herself plying Petra with questions.
“Well,” Petra said, “it’s a slog no matter how you look at it. Way more clinical trials are badly needed. And there are issues around dosage and cannabinoid profiles. It can have very different effects on different people. For one person it’s a depressant and for the next it increases their anxiety. It’s a real cipher. We’ve been collecting data and a lot of it relies on self-reporting from the clients. It’s a new approach for me and I never feel it’s particularly good data but patterns are starting to emerge. I think they really are. I’ve been focusing on the terpenes mostly. I’ve only talked to a few other researchers, but we’re putting together an information bank. The company didn’t seem to care much. This new group of executives are different though. If it’s not proprietary then it’s a waste of money. They’re just arrogant and ignorant.”
“I guess that’s the nature of private research.”
“I don’t think it has to be at all. It’s completely short-sighted.” Petra sat quiet for a moment. Then she smiled. “There is something I’m finding that might be profitable . . . but I’m not telling them. I don’t care if it’s totally illegal from the employer’s perspective. I didn’t tell the little DEA guy either when he came snooping around. I’m hanging on to the research and the seeds. I’ll make it open source if it ever comes to anything.”
“And what’s that?” Dr. Grange noted the retaliatory hostility and was fascinated all the more.
“One of the guys at work, an ex-cop, brought me a seed collection just before he disappeared!” Petra let out a little laugh. “He thought I might find the seeds interesting. Said there was definitely old-timer weed in there. Most is pretty low THC by today’s standards. Other people have brought me samples too. One batch of stuff was just growing on its own in some cow pasture since who knows when. I sent some of the samples to another researcher with access to good genome technology. A couple of them are lining up with what they have on some Himalayan strains. They’re very stable too, comparatively. And the cannabinoid and terpene profiles are unlike anything I’ve seen. It’s exciting, but I know the company’s going to shut down my research. So screw ’em. They’re not getting anything out of this. They think what I do is irrelevant anyway. So they can have all the ‘irrelevant’ client survey studies and all the ‘irrelevant’ profile and yield work on the strains they grow. Fuckers.”
Dr. Grange had to refrain from her inclination to say, “Good for you!” She merely nodded instead.
Chapter 65
By her own appraisal, Lydia was disintegrating. Getting wobblier by the day. No matter where she was she felt she was barely present. The loss of Caldwell still weighed heavily on her, and CannRose wasn’t the same. So many of the people she’d grown fond of over the last two years were gone. She’d been especially sad to see Stoyan leave, though they kept in touch. She wasn’t sure who to turn to anymore. Initially she’d confided in Luther but he was in no shape to help. He was hardly a rock. Lydia only got more anxiety from him. Sometimes even annoyance and irritation. They barely saw each other these days. His divorce was bending him right out of shape and Cyrus was out for his blood because he’d lost a big client at the law firm. And that dicey business with Greg cast a pall over all of CannRose. Came right out of the blue! Repulsive little man from the DEA asking everybody all sorts of ridiculous questions. CannRose was mostly inaccessible to her now. It could be disintegrating right along with her for all she knew.
She called her daughter and tried to explain a little of what she was experiencing. “I don’t know where the company’s going now.” She laughed a little, to make light of it all. “Come for a visit. I’ve put in the new water jump you wanted.” But her daughter only reminded Lydia she’d told her getting involved with the weed business would turn out badly. And no she couldn’t come; she was busy for the weekend.
Lydia walked like a ghost into CannRose in the mornings and closed her office door. Occasionally she would stay late, suit up for the cultivation area and go sit in the grow rooms. The quiet security guard often sat with her as he had done the first time. They barely spoke. He seemed to know she was feeling fragile and that it gave her peace to sit among the plants. She would dream about marijuana afterward of course. Mostly they were cheery dreams. Lots of green things growing. Sometimes the plants turned into little animals that nestled and cuddled. And propagated! She’d wake up feeling oddly rejuvenated. They wanted her to keep them growing. They were persistent. They wanted her, in particular. As some ambassador maybe. She just wasn’t sure how she could have all that much influence now with Guido in control. He seemed to have more energy and move faster than Jordan ever had.
He didn’t care about the plants. They were no different from shoes, except the cannabis industry was still unpredictable. She realized Guido fed off unpredictability. Swooped in for the opportunities in a crisis. She saw that clearly now. It was odd he played the violin so beautifully. His sensitivity didn’t make him any less cutthroat. Maybe that was just all part of the skillfulness of the man. He’d even swooped in and charmed Sammy, the beautiful young pharmacist working out of the Lyston dispensary. At least he wouldn’t be firing her.
One day Lydia booked off sick and shut herself up at Rosefields. She refused to answer her phone and the only people she talked to were Carl and his wife. At that time Damian was back in Colorado for his routine month off. The tin of weed he’d left by mistake when he’d last come over for Saturday morning coffee sat on her kitchen table. She’d planned to return it to him as soon as he got back. But instead she smoked the whole thing over the space of a couple of days. Then she took Shasta out for a three-hour ride and a frosty winter picnic by the Great Pond.
When Lydia finally resurfaced she told Guido she’d be working from home for a while. She took other initiatives too. With her considerable disposable income and without the knowledge of Cyrus or Malcolm, she hired another accountant, another lawyer and a private detective. There had been a Plan X from Jordan for her blue eyes only. It sat in an envelope in a safe at Rosefields, to be used if she ever felt things weren’t adding up. So Lydia opened the envelope and read. Then s
he crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it in the fireplace. She was sick of Jordan still trying to run her life. She was going to be her own businesswoman from here on in. And she was going to either take charge and head up a division of CannRose to lobby for veterinary cannabis products and get some real research happening, or sell up everything and do something else. Photography. Get spiritual maybe. Go live in a hut.
She called a meeting with Guido, Herbert Cuttle, his money men, the other executives and of course Luther. When Herbert Cuttle started to talk in the subtly patronizing way he had adopted especially for her, she told him to shut up.
“I called this meeting, Herbert. The agenda is on that piece of paper in front of you. If you don’t like it you can leave. I’m still the president here.”
Chapter 66
Cassie stayed late to get ready for the harvest the next day. She wanted to make sure everything went smoothly. Make sure the barcode scanner for the plant tags was working. Make sure she had enough clean bins. Make sure the drying rooms had been sanitized and the racks too. She’d lost two of her staff in the recent spate of “layoffs.” Nobody knew who’d be next.
She’d heard CannRose would likely be ditching the research program too. That would mean no more advice from Petra. She’d been very helpful since Cassie came back on her own. They’d troubleshoot problems in the grow rooms together. Petra didn’t mind taking the extra time. Since Sanjay left, Petra practically lived at the grow facility. Must be a lot of extra work for her and they hadn’t hired a new tech. It occurred to Cassie the new CEO might be arranging the failure of certain people. At least Cassie would have something to go to even if it was another start-up. Joe had joined forces with an energetic soil microbiologist. They were developing better cost-effective organic grow media, and they already had a handful of clients.
Cassie made her way to the hallway. There were still a few racks stored in one of the drying chambers and she needed to sanitize them. She put on a Tyvek bunny suit, hot and airless, took out the autoclaved cleaning rags from the bag and picked up the bottle of isopropyl alcohol before heading into Chamber III, where she scrubbed down two sets of racks. She had one more to go.
“Aren’t you the committed employee!”
The voice made her jump. It was Damian, the last person she wanted to talk to. He appeared of late, often out of nowhere with his little goading remarks. It was as if he was conducting a slow and subtle retribution in lieu of suing her like he’d promised. She tensed up immediately. She’d have to fend off the urge to smash him in the face. It could be tricky. “Yeah, well some of us have a job to do.”
Damian smiled. He noticed how the color in her cheeks rose so quickly and thought aggravation made her look splendid. And there was something about her mouth too. “I have to hand it to you. It’s a nice-looking crop in Flower Room III there.”
“Thank you.” Cassie wondered exactly how high he was. She ducked back and continued wiping the racks. The smell of the alcohol was starting to make her a little dizzy. She’d hardly eaten a thing all day. She’d been too busy.
“You know, I’m not against how you do things.” Damian inspected one of the bars on the rack that separated the two of them.
“Thank you for your support.”
“Not at all.” He smiled, enjoying her predictable acid chirpiness. “Yeah. I think I like what you’ve done with the place. You have a real knack for technology. I think I got stuck on the glitches. Don’t you?”
“I just work with what’s in front of me, Damian.”
“Are you all right, Cassie? You were looking a little flushed there and now you’re looking very pale.”
“I’m fine, thank you. I just have to finish this up and then I’m going home.”
“Ah. Home sweet home!”
“Do you have a point you’re trying to make?”
Damian sighed. “No.”
He wasn’t moving or looking like he was going to leave. Cassie started feeling woozy again. Too bad she hadn’t at least had a coffee before starting this. She grabbed the rack as she felt herself almost black out.
“Sure you’re okay?” Damian looked a little startled.
“Skipped lunch.”
“Never a good idea. Long past suppertime too!”
“I think I’m done here. If you don’t mind, I need to move this rack.”
“Sure.” Damian stepped aside, still staring at her. As Cassie pushed the rack away she stumbled and then really did black out. He caught her as she fell forward. In fact she fell right into his arms.
It was only for a second, but when she regained consciousness, Cassie had no idea where she was. She just felt warm. Supported. Enveloped. She looked up.
“Hey there, you,” he said in a whisper.
Maybe it was just the way his pupils were dilated but she’d never seen concern like that in anyone’s eyes before. Not for her. Not even from her husband when she was birthing those babies! And then it happened so fast. It was a kiss like no one had kissed her before. It was gentle but it reached into her, right down to her toes. A fearsome desire welled up. And it startled. The urge to rip off Damian’s bunny suit and the rest of his clothes right there in the drying chamber was almost overwhelming. But she remembered where she was and also that sanitizing the chamber took over an hour and it would have to be redone after use of any kind. She resisted the unfamiliar impulse. And then she remembered what an asshole Damian was. What the hell was she doing? The thought made her open her eyes and pull back slightly, and the first thing that came into focus was the surveillance camera. She looked at Damian in panic, and he let her go.
Ten minutes later, as she was walking out to her car, still shaking a little, he appeared again. He had a bottle of orange juice. “You should drink this or let me drive you home.”
“Thanks.” Cassie took the juice. She couldn’t look at him. “I’ll be OK.” But then she did look at him. She saw the same concern in his eyes. There was something very grown up about it, maybe. Nothing was expected in return. It was simply given. It wasn’t anything she’d anticipated. Certainly not from someone like him. She cried the whole drive home. He was such a fucking jerk! And he was the only person in her life she’d ever physically assaulted.
That night Cassie couldn’t sleep. And she couldn’t bear to look at Joe sleeping either. Instead she spent the night on the couch watching the ceiling fan slowly revolve and trying to convince herself that Damian was the worst, most despicable, presumptuous, ignorant cretin of a pothead she’d ever come across in her life. But then the body does remember, and it vividly recalled that minute or so in the drying chamber. And the orange juice and the straightforward offer to drive her home — the care and basic decency of it. She could never tell Joe. It was all just too much.
Chapter 67
“This lady’s lookin’ sad.”
“Check for bugs, brobe.”
“They got ’em in Flower Room I now.”
“What are they?”
“Nobody knows yet.”
“What do they look like?”
“Bugs!”
“Check under the leaf.”
“This isn’t bugs. It’s a virus. Look at the mottling.”
“Or toxic nutrients.”
“This is all basic.”
“Hey, my cousin just grew the best shit ever.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Like, it’s gotta be forty percent.”
“Yeah?”
“What is it?”
“Raspberry Kush.”
“Fire!”
“Hydroponic too.”
“Seriously?”
“Hydroponic’s basic!”
“Not this. It’s fire!”
“You brought some?”
“No. Savin’ it.”
“For what?”
“Saturday, man!”
“Why?”
“Why? Why you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“Seriously?”
&nbs
p; “You got a birthday?”
“April twentieth, dude! April fuckin’ twentieth!”
“Four-twenty. Who cares?”
“Yeah. I mean, yeah. Who cares?”
“Well. I thought it was a nice thing to honor.”
“Like your mom and dad, maybe.”
“Your mom does four-twenty?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. She does Dab Day.”
“What’s Dab Day?”
“Oil Day. What do you think?”
“Oh yeah, right.”
“But . . . but what’s the occasion?”
“There’s no occasion.”
“But . . . what’s it in honor of?”
“It’s the word, brobes. Oil.”
“What?”
“O-I-L. Turned upside down, looks like seven-ten.”
“Seven-ten? It’s twice a year then!”
“Yeah! July and October.”
“Awesome.”
“Let’s do Dab Day.”
“With rolls instead!”
“July’s too far away.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Let’s do four-twenty on Saturday. Wake and bake.”
“Brobes, I’m moving to California.”
“What?”
“You heard me. I’m moving to California.”
“When?”
“When we get fired.”
“We’re just techs. They won’t fire us.”
“Yeah, they’ll need techs.”
“I’m sick of being just a tech.”
“Me too. I still want to be a chef.”
“You should talk to Ernie.”
“I’m sick of the stupid regulations and everything screwing up.”
“That creep who questioned us about Greg?”
“Fuck. I threw up when I got home.”
“Dude, we know already. We heard you.”
“They talked to my mom for ages.”
“Did she know?”
“Nothing. They told her he had fields of it.”
“I just thought he had six plants like your mom.”
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