by J Hoffman
“Not going to try for sixty, forty?” She teased.
“Nah, this is your game, Natalee, I’m just helping you make the rules.”
Natalee smiled, “Seventy, thirty it is.”
They shook hands again. Liz texted her friend again, and told her it was fifty for a bag, then planned to meet up with her two hours from then. Natalee set off to prepare herself for the meeting. Liz padded home in her slippers and promised to text Natalee a few minutes before she left so they could ride in separate cars.
***
As Natalee was getting dressed, she contemplated her decision. She couldn’t figure out if she feared this turning out to be a bad idea, or if she was afraid it was a good idea. She had never done a drug deal in her life. Even when she smoked pot as a teenager, she never bought it, Svetlana did. She wasn’t sure what to wear, if she should do her makeup, or if she should even take a shower.
She decided to take a shower.
As she was towel drying her hair, Jonah asked if Gage could come over, and Natalee agreed. Liz texted her to ask if it was okay, and she agreed again. Liz told her the other kids had a babysitter so they would be going alone. A few minutes before they were ready to leave, Liz texted her and told her that her friend, Shananne, wanted a weeks’ worth of this potential miracle plant. Natalee sat in shock, staring at her phone.
Natalee: But that’s like three hundred and fifty dollars.
Liz: Are you saying no?
Natalee: Maybe it’s a hundred a bag.
Natalee laughed to herself and knew Liz was laughing too. She didn’t respond right away, so Natalee said goodbye to the boys and she backed her car out of the garage, and sat in the drive.
Liz: Okay, seven hundred coming our way.
Natalee stared at her phone, gawking. Before she could respond, Liz texted her again with the address. Natalee linked it to the GPS in her phone and the two of them pulled out of their driveways simultaneously.
At the park where they were meeting Shananne, Liz walked up to Natalee’s car and motioned for her to roll down the window. “I’ve seen a lot of movies so I’m going to get the money and bring it to you, and you’ll give me the bag and I’ll give it to her.”
Natalee shook her head, “I’m going to give you the bag and you’re going to make the exchange with her and then get in your car and go home. Come to my house with the money.”
Liz’s jaw dropped, “You’re going to trust me with all of that money?”
Natalee shrugged, “If you don’t bring it, you won’t get any more of the plant. Your choice.”
Liz grinned, “Touché.”
Natalee handed her the sandwich baggy with seven little branches and seven little leaves, “Tell her we don’t know how well it’ll work because we broke it off so early. And tell her to crush it up in a drink. And tell her I don’t know if there are any other side effects if you do it some other way.”
“I’ll tell her to put the leaf in some water, but that’s all she’s getting out of me,” Liz held her hand up to stop Natalee.
Natalee sighed, “Fine, just don’t let it come back to me if it goes south.” Liz nodded and turned toward Shananne’s car. Natalee took this moment to drive off toward home. If it was going to look like a drug deal, Natalee didn’t want to be involved in it.
A few minutes later, Liz pulled into her driveway and walked to Natalee’s. She went through the garage and into the kitchen. Natalee was startled by Liz’s sudden appearance.
“Holy shit! Warn a bitch before you just barge into her house!”
“I’m sorry! I thought we were on that level. I’ll go through the front, I swear!”
“I just wasn’t expecting it! You scared me,” Natalee clutched her chest.
“I’m so sorry!”
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” she took a deep breath. “Just stop apologizing.”
Liz smiled as she threw seven hundred-dollar bills onto the counter. “Boom, a hundred bucks a pop.” She pulled her hand away from the counter, wiggling her fingers like a firework as it fizzled out.
Natalee picked up the money, gaping at it. She counted it over and over, trying to comprehend how all of this fell into place. She tried to talk herself out of the excitement, “That’s for now. If she hates it, this is the most we’ll ever see.”
“She will not hate it, I assure you.”
“This is unbelievable,” Natalee shook her head back and forth slowly.
“Believe it,” Liz smiled.
Natalee thumbed through the cash and handed Liz three hundred dollars. Liz looked at it strangely, “Can you not math?”
“I figure the first deal is a big one, right? You deserve a better cut for setting it up.”
“Well thanks, Nat. I really appreciate it,” she shoved the bills into her front pocket.
“Now I’m really anxious about tomorrow.”
Liz snorted, “Oh my God, me too.”
“I’m even more anxious about day three, though,” she confessed.
“I’m not so worried about that. I mean, it didn’t affect you and it didn’t affect me. Maybe it’s the vodka,” she shrugged.
Natalee nodded, “That’s a very possible observation.”
After their encounter with Shananne, Natalee spent most of that day pacing through the kitchen. She knew she wasn’t going to get any answers that day, but she couldn’t help but worry about it. Liz wasn’t much help, all she wanted to do was reach out to more people and spread the news. It took everything in Natalee to keep Liz off her phone so she wouldn’t bring anyone else into this without some more solid evidence that it was okay to consume it the way they were.
While she was pacing, she ended up creating a system for Jonah’s lunches. He usually bought lunch at school, but Natalee was feeling clever and managed to put together a meal for all five days of the week. She set up fruits, vegetables, protein, and dairy, in all their appropriate portions. She took a moment to stand back and admire her work as Liz peaked over her shoulder.
“What the fuck is that?”
“Jonah’s lunches.”
She rolled her eyes, “You’re ridiculous. I have never once packed a lunch.”
“Me either. Maybe a handful of times, but not regularly.”
“That’s like a whole week right there,” she pointed.
“It is exactly a week. After that, we’d be bordering on the line of no longer safe to eat for most of this stuff.”
“You just did this just now?”
Natalee nodded in response.
“But you’ve never done this before?”
Natalee shook her head.
“You’re something else. I’ve been sitting over here counting the tiles on your floor and you’re making a weeks’ worth of lunches for your kid.”
Natalee snorted, “Shut up, you did not.”
Liz nodded, “There’s seventeen between the counter and the stove, nine between the stove and the sink. Twenty-eight between the counter and the dining room and thirteen between the counter and the washroom.”
Natalee looked at her strangely, “Alright then, Rain man.”
Liz grinned, “That movie was pretty incredible.”
Natalee nodded, “It really was.” She took a deep breath and forced herself to sit down at the breakfast bar for a moment. “I kind of feel like that sometimes.”
“Like what?” Liz sat down next to her.
“Like I can just…” She trailed off as she considered the rest of her sentence, “Look at something and figure it out immediately.”
Liz shrugged, “That’s kind of cool.”
“No,” Natalee pressed. “It’s weird.”
Liz raised an eyebrow, “You don’t like it?”
Natalee sighed, “I don’t know. It’s just different. I can’t usually do that stuff. I don’t know why everything just seems clearer now. Not just things I purposely want to focus on, like the lunches, or the grocery list. It’s anything. Jonah’s robot, and the issues with the schools.”
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“Issues with the schools? Did you hear about that interview they sent home?”
“Interview?” Natalee glanced at her then nodded, “Oh! Yeah, the questionnaire. That was me.”
“That was you?” Liz questioned.
“Yeah,” she smiled. “I wrote it and asked the school to distribute it.”
“Why?” Her eyebrows scrunched together, creasing just above the bridge of her nose.
“I designed it for the kids to give answers that will decide which way I take my approach to take over the PTA.”
Liz gasped, “You’re infiltrating the Rachels?”
Natalee giggled, “Yes, if that’s how you want to put it.”
“Ooh, I need in on this too!”
“Now it feels like you’re infiltrating my life,” Natalee narrowed her eyes.
Liz nodded proudly, “Hell yeah I am. Don’t worry, I won’t bounce to a perma-frozen country in three years.”
“Don’t say that. The military can send you anywhere.”
She giggled again, “Yeah you’re right. I better knock on wood.” She leaned down and knocked on the leg of the bar stool beneath her. Natalee knocked on hers too, just for good measure.
A few hours later, Liz’s phone vibrated from inside the junk drawer next to the sink. “That’s my phone! Give it back.”
She pulled it out and slid it to her across the breakfast bar. Liz unlocked the screen and spent a few moments reading her newest text message. With a big grin on her face, she looked up at Natalee.
“What? What is it?”
Liz slid her the phone without a word. Natalee picked it up and enlarged the text on the screen to read it faster.
Shananne: Hey girl! Just wanted to say thanks for the gift you gave me. I think it’s working out really great. I haven’t taken a single handful of anti-inflammatories all day and that’s a pretty big deal for me. I’ll keep you updated, doll!
Natalee slid the phone back to Liz, “It’s just day one. So, what? She didn’t need to swallow any pain pills today.”
“She said that’s a big deal for her!”
“I don’t know her, so I don’t know that. I’m not getting excited until she’s not writhing in pain in two more days.”
“You’re such a wet rag.”
Natalee shrugged, “A realistic rag, though.”
“Yeah, maybe. But I highly doubt it’s going to affect her that way,” Liz declared.
“We should find someone who drinks a lot of vodka and try it on them.”
“Why? Why would you want to purposely trigger it?”
“Well, it wouldn’t be purposely triggering it if we have no idea if it will trigger it or not, right?”
Liz took a deep breath, “Maybe. If that’s our hypothesis, we wouldn’t be surprised if it did happen, right?”
“Maybe,” Natalee shrugged. “But if it doesn’t happen, then we know it has to be something else.”
Liz shrugged, “Maybe Svetlana was just trying to prevent you from figuring out that it’s fucking amazing to ingest it this way.”
Natalee thought for a moment, “No, I don’t think she would do that.”
“Why not? She just showed up here out of the blue after a decade and a half with this weird ass plant and told you to throw the leaves away. Plus, you said she was being super weird and mean the entire time, too.”
Natalee slumped over the breakfast bar and let out a heave of air, “Yeah, you’re right, but she’s also still my friend.”
“I’m not saying she’s not, but don’t you think it’s weird that she told you the outcome would be awful and two of us have done it for the same number of days she said it took and we’re totally fine? Better than fine! We’re perfect, Nat.”
She nodded in agreement, staring off into the dining room, fixating on a blank area on the wall, “Yeah. It is weird.”
Twenty-Five
Natalee and Liz discussed the possibilities until dinner time and agreed to cook together to feed their mini army. Liz had the babysitter drop the kids off and Jonah and Gage welcomed them happily, making sure everyone was occupied with something.
Just before they served dinner, Judah walked through the front door with a big grin on his face. Natalee met him in the hallway between the front door and the kitchen and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Hey handsome, I sure missed you.”
He kissed her gently, and then picked her up by the waist. “I missed you, baby.”
Natalee squealed as he spun her and caught her balance the moment her feet touched the ground again. “You’re in a good mood.”
Judah’s eyes lit up with pride. He leaned in and ran his lips across her ear lobe as he whispered, “I got a raise.”
Goosebumps started at the nape of her neck and traveled down her spine through her arms and her back, leaving a trail in their wake. She stepped back to examine his body language, “Are you serious?” Her eyes shot back and forth between his as she analyzed his grin, “You are serious!”
Judah’s smile stretched from ear to ear, “I am dead serious.”
“What kind of raise? For what?”
He shrugged, “They just pulled me in the office after my flight. Told me I was getting great numbers from surveys. They asked how long I planned to stay with the company, and I told them I didn’t have any intentions on leaving.
“The next thing I know, I’m signing an agreement for a salary position adding an extra three grand to my monthly income.”
Natalee’s jaw dropped. Her eyes searched his for some type of clue, thinking this had to be some sort of joke. All she could see in his eyes was genuine excitement. After she had wrapped her brain around everything he had said, she let out a shriek that startled all the house guests.
She grabbed his hands and jumped, launching herself onto him. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and he caught her, spinning her around again, with a grin on his face that couldn’t stop.
Liz ran to the hall, with a ladle in her hand, “What in the hell is going on out here?”
“Judah got a promotion!” Natalee squealed.
Liz grinned and shrieked, too. It didn’t affect her one bit, but the excitement was incredibly contagious. Soon, all six kids were in the foyer with them. Everyone was jumping up and down, spinning in circles, and screaming with happiness. Soon the whole entryway was filled with laughter and congratulatory high fives.
Once everyone calmed down, Natalee squeezed Judah’s hand, “Wow, I wish I would’ve cooked something nicer for dinner.”
“What did you cook?”
“Haluski!” Liz piped in.
“What the hell is that?” He unbuttoned his uniform shirt and hung it on the coat rack, leaving him in a plain white shirt and his navy-blue dress pants.
“Cabbage and noodles. It’s Hungarian. There’s some ham in it, too.”
Judah shrugged, “A new meal for a new job. Sounds good to me.”
Natalee grinned, “I’m ordering cake. We have to have cake!”
“Ooh, can you get banana ice cream too?” Jonah yelled from his place at the dining room table.
“Absolutely, son,” Judah nodded.
Natalee grabbed her phone and placed a delivery order for banana cake and banana ice cream. She requested the cake to read ‘Congratulations Judah’ and within three minutes of placing her order, she got an alert that it was approved, and her delivery driver had been selected.
The kids took over the dining room table while the adults ate in the living room in front of the television. They didn’t turn the tv on though, they just enjoyed each other’s company until their bowls were empty and the doorbell rang almost immediately after their last bite. Natalee tipped the driver a little extra for having perfect timing.
They divvied up the cake, and everyone got a scoop of ice cream. They cheered for Judah one last time before parting ways for the evening. This time, Jonah asked to spend the night at their house. Liz said it was fine, so he went on his way with them.
Later that night, Judah and Natalee climbed into bed. It was the first time they had been alone in the house in a very long time. Longer than they could remember. Typically, Tyler always spent the night at their house because Jonah always said his house smelled funny. Natalee had never been inside his house so she couldn’t tell him differently.
As the two of them were lying in bed together, Natalee tilted her head to look at him. She gave him a sweet smile, “Something happened today.”
“What’s that?” Judah turned on his side to look at her directly.
“Well, you know that bush Svetlana gave me?”
Judah nodded, “Yeah it’s kind of weird. Do you ever water it?”
Natalee looked at him oddly, “No, actually. I never have. But that’s not important right now.”
“Okay.”
“So, Svetlana told me to eat a branch every day in order to help with everyday ailments like headaches, backaches, et cetera.”
“Right, I knew that much.”
“Well, she told me to throw the leaves away. She said they’re ‘rubbish’.”
“Then why is there a pile of dead leaves under it?”
“I saved them on accident at first, but then I started crushing them up and putting them in my water in the morning.”
Jonah eyed her suspiciously, “That’s not what she told you to do at all.”
“It’s not. But it’s doing something incredible to me.”
Judah sat up and looked at her, “Like what?”
“I built Jonah’s robot in less than ten minutes. I figured out how to play his football game in two plays. I designed an entire set up to infiltrate the current parent-teacher association.”
Judah raised an eyebrow, “Okay. Well, those things are...” He searched for the right word, “Unusual. To say the least.”
“I remembered every single item on a forty-seven-item grocery list when I left the list at home.”
Judah stared at her for a moment, reading her facial expression. Finally, he spoke up, “Wow. That’s very impressive.”
“I know! I couldn’t believe it.”
“Do you think Svetlana gave you some type of… Brain plant?”
Natalee shrugged, “I have no idea, but I let Liz try it, okay?”