Mike fucking Tonuto saunters up to the front. Except for a dark red flush on his rounded cheeks, he looks perfectly at ease as he clasps his hands behind his back, approaching Julian.
“Youmay, Council-friend Tonuto,” Jackie Lombardi announces with bloodthirsty interest.
“Objection!” Vinny cries out. “As a city council member, Mr. Tonuto is an interested party to the outcome of this hearing. It’s inappropriate for him to intervene.”
“Vinny D’Angelo.” Mike Tonuto puts his hands on his hips. “I ask you, is it a crime to love my town?”
“No, but—” Vinny begins, but is quickly cut off by Mike’s loud, theatrical laughter.
“Okay, then! Sit down and give someone else a turn to talk.” Mike’s eyes glint with meanness, even as his smile is cranked up to eleven.
Jackie bangs the gavel. “Objection overruled. Proceed, Council-friend.”
“Dr. D’Angelo,” he begins. “Is it true that you and Nomi Wyeth are now in a relationship?”
Julian blinks, visibly taken aback. “Um, yes, but I made the decision to withdraw well before that—”
“Asexualrelationship?”
“Objection!” Vinny stands and shouts. “The nature of Dr. D’Angelo’s relationship with my client is entirely irrelevant to the legal matter at hand, which is whether Ms. Wyeth’s dispensary constitutes a pharmacy for all intents and purposes under the ordinance.”
Jackie sighs, fully put out. “Mr. D’Angelo. Whether your witness’s testimony is credible is of utmost importance to this matter. However, I’ll sustain this objection. Council-friend Tonuto, please continue with a different line of questioning.”
The objection doesn’t matter, though, because the revelation causes shockwaves through the Commission’s expressions. Looking from Julian, to me, to my painted-on eyebrows and Kardashian cheekbones, back to Julian, wariness radiates across their faces.
“I apologize for the indelicate nature of my questions.” Tonuto salutes the Commission. “I have no further questions for this witness.”
Vinny, obviously ruffled, stumbles through calling me to the stand. It’s been a while since I stood up, and I wobble on the sharp points of my heels, feeling lightheaded and underfed. Vinny offers me an arm, and I take it.
“Ms. Wyeth, is it true that you majored in chemistry in college and went to pharmacy school after graduation?” Vinny runs both his hands through the stiff hair at his temples, grimacing at the resistance there.
I frown a little. This wasn’t one of the planned questions we rehearsed. “Yes, but—”
“And is it true that you use your pharmaceutical knowledge to assist your clients in selecting the drugs that would best suit their conditions and needs?”
My heartbeat picks up even faster. “Well, yes, but—”
“Is italsotrue that you always wanted to be a pharmacist when you grew up, and now you basically get to be?”
I glare at Vinny, then Veronica. None of this is planned. “Well, I wanted to be a doctor, but—”
“Even better!” Vinny cries, clapping his hands. “There you have it, members of the zoning commission. Ms. Wyeth comes to the dispensary business by way of a true foundational interest in medicine that she nurtured through extensive formal education, ergo, this will be a pharmacy the way Ms. Wyeth plans on running it, basically a CVS!”
“Now that’s notentirelyaccurate.” I lean over to speak more fully into the mic, my entire body clenched like a fist. I try to laugh a little todiffuse the tension caused by openly contradicting my own legal counsel, but it falls flat. “Stranger Drugs will be like a pharmacy in the most classic sense of the word. A place where people can buy products that suit their medical or recreational needs after consulting with a trained, knowledgeable sales associate, but also a place where the community can gather and enjoy a soda, or a brownie, or even burn some cannabis flower on our back smoking patio. It’s more than a CVS could ever be, but it’s exactly the kind of classic pharmacy that our town’s beloved Strange Drugs was for Sparrow Nook. Just with fewer poodle skirts in our booths.”
I smile nervously, but the zoning commission won’t even look at me. I glance at Veronica, terrified, and she subtly points up at her right eyebrow, eyes wide.
Oh, fuck. There’s something wrong with my eyebrow? Ihavebeen sweating like crazy, andoh, God, I did briefly put my head in my hands, too. I flip my hair in front of my shoulder, hoping it will hang in front of the offending brow, only to see Veronica gesturing at her left eyebrow, too.
Internally, I whimper. The god-forsaken Imodium hasn’t kicked in yet, and swells of cramping pain wash over me, bearing down on me like a tide crashing to shore.
“Thank you, Ms. Wyeth,” Vinny says glumly to the floor. “No further questions.”
“My turn, then.” Tonuto smiles patiently as he’s back on his feet, the only one in these chambers willing to look at me. It’s a smug, pleased expression, which is how I know my makeup must be truly fucked.
“Ms. Wyeth, did you graduate pharmacy school?”
I sniff. Iknewthis is where it would go if my brief stint in grad school came up. “No.”
