I would become good friends with my mango in the comfort of my apartment, where no one would witness me make a fool of myself while I indulged. Once I picked the best one of the lot, I went on a hunt for asparagus berries.
I struck out in the fresh produce section, so I headed for the aisle dedicated to bottled oils, salad dressings, and spreads; I could see a producer trying to make full use of the plants adding the berries to something like olive oils or salad dressings. Someone ignorant about food safety might do it without intent to harm, but if someone wanted to get a lot of people sick, artisan products would be a good way to target those belonging to the upper castes.
An infused olive oil might contain enough of the toxin to make someone sick. I avoided artisan oils for cooking; when I used olive oil, I got the best bang for my buck and used it sparingly. In my classes, olive oil rarely lasted long, a central ingredient in many of the recipes the elites preferred.
With my mango in hand, I checked labels for asparagus, and I found an entry on an herb-infused olive oil. I cringed at the thirty dollar price tag, but if it was contaminated, I’d have a very common product to use as a starting point. After some thought, I checked the dried fruits, nuts, and berries for references to asparagus without finding anything.
Armed with my work badge and a pair of twenties, I headed for the register.
The cashier barely acknowledged me when I paid and she handed over my change. She kept her eyes glued to her register, and the times she needed to look in my direction, she kept her gaze lowered.
I then realized what Elana had meant about how others in my caste behaved around them. Those from the upper castes sometimes made me nervous, but I’d been around them long enough to understand who I needed to be wary of. The elites had power and wealth, but they were people, too.
People appreciated eye contact.
But there were utter bastards in the world, people who desired subservience, and if I put myself in her shoes, I understood why she kept her head bowed. Like in the food industry, those in my caste would do almost anything to keep a job in a grocery store meant for the elite.
With one potential culprit in hand, I decided to test my luck at a different store, repeating my tactic. The one I picked dwarfed the first in selection, and the produce section filled me with wonder. Unable to resist the urge, I picked out persimmons and a dragonfruit. One day, I might try one of the sealed packets of durian—if I could swallow its price tag and decided to brave its stench.
In a section dedicated to mixed vegetables, salads, and berries, I struck gold. If I hadn’t been looking for them, I wouldn’t have noticed the asparagus berries mixed in with the greens, asparagus stalks, blueberries, strawberries, acai, and other assorted fruits and vegetables, something meant to be turned into some monstrosity of a smoothie or a salad.
I would never understand people from the higher castes, who’d eat the weirdest foods.
I picked one up and went to the register, handing over my office badge and debit card. The man frowned and scanned my badge. Then he smiled. “Your badge has been linked to the credit system, so you don’t need to use your personal card, sir.”
Instead of heading home, I’d have to return to the office and explain why I’d bought poisonous food along with some treats for myself.
I was going to have a fun afternoon.
Thanking the cashier, I returned to work, dread forming a tight knot in my chest. The pair behind the security desk in the lobby waved at me, and I swiped my badge to access the elevator, controlling my breathing so I wouldn’t start hyperventilating.
A jet black horse stood in the reception of the executive floor. Why did the elites of Sundale Reserves Industries insist on bringing their horses to work? The animal gleamed in the overhead lights, standing with picture-perfect patience.
“Pat?” Elana squeaked. “What are you doing back this time of day?”
I held up my bag of groceries. “I think I may have found the source of your food contamination problems.”
“What? Really?” She hopped to her feet, dodged the horse, and hurried to me. “You’re serious?”
I stared at the horse. “I’m not sure I want to take this out when there’s a horse here. I don’t know if it’s safe for horses.”
A tanned, older gentleman wearing jeans and a denim button-up shirt came around the horse, which followed him like an overgrown puppy. He nodded to me, and I returned the gesture.
Elana huffed. “Well, it’s certainly not safe for people. Mr. Hemmington, this is Mr. Laycal.”
Crap. Of course the boss would bring a horse upstairs. That’s what crazy executives did. I hadn’t been at the company for long, and I’d already figured that out. “Mr. Hemmington,” I greeted.
“What’s this about a lead on the food contamination issue?”
I set my briefcase on the floor at my feet and fished the bottle of olive oil out of the bag, lifting it up. “I’m not sure about the saponin levels in here, but it contains asparagus berries, which has the toxin.” I returned the oil to the bag and dug out the mixed greens, fruits, and berries. “This is the most likely culprit. It includes salad greens, asparagus stalks, fruits, and a lot of berries, and among them are asparagus berries. This is a source of saponin. Five or six will make someone unhappy for a while. Not lethal, not normally at least, but you’ll get sick eating them.”
“And because there’s regular, safe asparagus, the labels are correct and there’s no reason to think there’s something amiss.”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“How’d you figure this out?”
“Miss Elana told me the name of the toxin, and I recognized it from my food safety courses. Asparagus fern is commonly grown, and many like using as much of the plant as possible when cooking. The problems happen when people don’t realize only parts of the plants are edible.”
“Like potatoes,” Mr. Hemmington stated.
While it’d take a lot of potatoes in any form to get someone ill, it made a good starting place. “That’s right. Potato leaves aren’t likely to kill you. That applies to tomato leaves, too. I wouldn’t suggest making a big salad out of them. Honestly, nutmeg is more dangerous than potato or tomato plants.”
“Nutmeg?”
“It doesn’t take a lot of nutmeg for it to pose a substantial risk. It can, in the right dosage, actually kill you.”
Mr. Hemmington frowned. “I’ll never look at my Christmas eggnog quite the same ever again.”
“The amount used in eggnog isn’t dangerous. Just don’t pop a few of them into your mouth, chew, and swallow.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Elana? Please send those to the lab and see if we get a match on the toxins.”
Elana claimed the olive oil and the salad mix from me. “Which ones are the culprit?”
I pointed at the asparagus berries. “They’re the bright red, round ones.”
Mr. Hemmington brought the black horse over and thrust the reins into my hands. “Hold her a sec, Pat. Which berry did you say it is?”
Elana pointed while I tried to make sense of how to hold the reins so the horse wouldn’t escape me.
“And you say it takes five or six to get really sick?”
“Thereabouts.”
“What’ll happen if I have three?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
Before I could stop him, he tore into the package, plucked out three of the berries, and popped them into his mouth. “Let’s find out. Elana, get that to the lab and make sure sampling is limited.”
I’d been hired by a lunatic. “You’re about to have a bad day, sir.”
“Ah, yes. That’s true. But I’m about to have a traceable bad day with solid evidence of how I got sick, which will be very useful putting an end to these poisonings. A little discomfort is worth that. Go on home and have yourself a nice day, Mr. Laycal.”
I knew a dismissal when I heard one, and I handed over the black’s reins and escaped while I could.
; As I expected, my new employer got sick, and as I worked for a bunch of rich, crazy people, five others tried the berries to see what they tasted like. They got sick, too. The rest of the container went to the lab, which confirmed the berries were the source of the saponin sickening people. The olive oil also contained saponin, too, but in lower amounts.
The source of the illness hit the news by the time I went to my classes, which resulted in yet another safety check of the kitchens. To my relief, the news hadn’t mentioned how the saponin had been identified. Several olive oil producers and two farms ended up in the line of fire for introducing the asparagus berries to the food supply. While the salad mix took the brunt of the blame, I believed the olive oil was the most likely culprit of the unexplained illnesses.
People loved fancy olive oil and used way too much of it in their food.
With the source of the poisonings identified, I expected Princess Jessica to vanish out of my life, but I discovered her in my apartment as scheduled, her feet propped up on my coffee table and a bag of groceries beside her. “Has anyone ever told you you’re brilliant? I did some investigations and guessed at the ingredients for you to make yams and chicken.” She checked her phone. “No one is expecting me until tomorrow morning, and I have a reservation in a hotel not far from here, so I thought I’d visit. I saw the news.”
I closed the door behind me, joined her at the couch, and peeked into the bag, grateful there was no raw chicken sitting out. I had no idea why she thought I needed a ten pound bag of yams, but I chuckled and hauled it to the kitchen. “Not really. I don’t know how long it’ll take for the toxin to get out of the food supply, but it should be over soon. At the culinary school I go to, we spent our normal class going through every ingredient we had to check for contaminants. I expect all kitchens in the city are doing that tonight.”
“The news said someone thought it was a good idea to experiment with flavors and used something poisonous in the olive oil. That would explain why my mother got so much sicker than my father. My mother loves olive oil. She dips bread in it all the time as a snack. It drives my father to the brink of insanity because he doesn’t think it’s healthy. Still. You helped find it, didn’t you? My father got a special report about it, and they named your employer. Is it true?”
“Yeah. I went to the upper caste grocers and browsed until I found the asparagus berries. I told my boss, who’d already had labs done of the kitchen on the executive floor. The toxins matched.”
“Seriously, thank you. You didn’t have to do anything you’ve done for me. You didn’t need to put in all that effort.”
The truth made things easier on me. “I would’ve done it for anyone who’d asked.”
Few asked, few would, but I could live with that. For a brief moment of time, I’d played at being something other than the lowest of the low. All things came to an end, and I’d walk away with a sense of wonder that I had managed to catch hold of a little magic of my own.
She’d changed my world. Without her barreling into my life, I’d still be cleaning dishes for a cranky boss who would take advantage of my hesitation. While it would be a while until I saw my filly much, I owned a horse.
I had a future.
I had her to thank for everything. If I hadn’t bumped into her at a convenience store, I wondered if she would’ve returned to the restaurant.
“I know.” The princess smiled and set my book on my coffee table. “When most tell me that, I know they’re trying to sell me a load of shit. But that’s not you. I could have been anyone, and you would’ve done the same. That’s rare.”
I couldn’t imagine what it was like to have everyone try to earn my favor. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s the price of being Royal.” The way she spat the R led me to believe she would’ve rather had it all taken away so she could join me at the bottom of the ladder. “No one is ever as they seem—except you. You are. You’ve asked nothing of me.”
What sort of dark and dreary world did Princess Jessica live in? “Well, my couch could use occasional warming. You’re welcome to come visit any time you want. I can’t offer you much, but I make a mean chicken. Does that count as asking something of you?”
She laughed. “Close enough, I suppose. I’d like that. Dad’s going to be cracking down on me wandering off, I think. Security was tighter than I liked getting away today, so I don’t know how often I’ll be able to stop by, but I’ll come when I can.” Her expression darkened. “He said he was proud of me for protecting the kingdom’s interests.”
The bitterness in her voice hurt, and I wondered how she managed to sit so straight and tall with so many responsibilities burdening her shoulders. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault he’s an asshole. No, if he had his way, I’d be married to a man of his choosing and popping out children, all boys, so Texas wouldn’t be ruled by a woman for long. He’s always viewed me as a baby factory. That’s all I am to him.”
I worried her blurted proposal had been her one chance to try for an impossibility: a choice in her future.
The king would learn soon enough he couldn’t catch the wind, same as me. I didn’t pray often, but I’d spend a few minutes every night beseeching the powers that be to transform Princess Jessica into a tempest. I decided I’d never be able to respect a man who treated his daughter like property rather than a woman ready to take on the world.
More than anything, I’d pray she win the war she waged for something as simple as a choice in her husband. “He’s an idiot.”
“Well, at least someone thinks so. Heaven forbid my ovaries don’t do their job to his satisfaction. I swear, if he could change the laws to dictate when I had babies, their gender, and the exact date and time of their birth, he would. It’s bad enough he’s already pushing through a ‘family protection law’ meant to give men more control over a woman’s reproductive health. Well, Daddy’s about to get a rude wake-up call. I’ve convinced one of those conservative guppies in the congress to push through an amendment requiring men to undergo the exact same scrutiny as women, including equal treatments to ensure they are able to contribute to healthy babies. My victory will be in the clause on who gets to have the little blue pills meant to help them get it up! Fuckers. If us women have to go through this health monitoring shit, the men get to join in, too. And while I’m blind-siding him with that bill, I’m going to slip in my birth control bill.”
I’d somehow stumbled into the heart of a mine field. I retreated to the kitchen to start making chicken for us before asking, “Birth control bill?”
“I suggested that if a woman’s reproductive health was so important and family units needed to be properly prepared for a child, birth control for both genders should be refined, especially in terms of addressing common reproductive health issues. I wrangled it in on the grounds of family values, which means making sure every child was wanted. Better birth control ensures that—and it’s been proven hormonal treatments can make a huge difference for men and women alike. It didn’t hurt that there’s a lot of prejudice about unwed mothers in Texas, and this solves that problem. You should’ve seen some of those old goats having to swallow that bitter pill. I told them I’d grudgingly accept their damned bill if they made it equal across the board and backed my birth control bill. I won the argument. It’s one of the few things I can do. Even if I become the queen, I’ll always have to fight these damned old prejudices.”
“If one group has to suffer, at least make all groups suffer equally?”
“Exactly. It’ll help push through better general health care, too. The state-level required care must be offered at cost, and the state still controls what is mandated. If I can make it work, insurance premiums for most will be less than a hundred a month for a family.”
My brows rose; like everyone else in my caste, until my new job, I hadn’t been able to afford health insurance but I hadn’t been able to afford not having it. “That’s not bad at all.”
“For the
lower castes, it’ll be maybe ten to twenty a month for insurance. It’s going to slow down my father’s precious bill, too. Serves him right. And since he’s a spiteful bastard, he’s probably going to account for every minute of my time starting tomorrow.”
I read the writing on the wall; I’d be amazed if I saw her again, but rather than worry over what I couldn’t change, I did the one thing I did well: I cooked.
It wasn’t until she left that I realized everything I wanted in a woman had walked out the door and likely wouldn’t be coming back.
Chapter Seven
It took two weeks to finish my first cleaning of the executive floor. The Tech Menace existed to vex me, creating a new man-made disaster every day I needed to conquer before the clutter took over again. Everyone else, as a general rule, figured out how to use their new trash cans, which made my work easier and freed up a lot of time to worry about the kitchen.
An hour into my rounds, Elana found me, carrying a thick stack of papers. “I’m sorry this took so long to finalize, but here are What’s the Story, Morning Glory’s papers. I made a copy of the vet and boarding agreement for you, too. Now that the papers and agreements are finalized, we can push forward with her first round of treatments. That’ll be this week. We’re going to see how she does. You excite her, and for the first surgery, the vets want her as quiet and docile as possible. If her morale drops, we’ll send you to the center to give a hand. We expect to ship her back to Dallas within a month, then you’ll be able to spend a lot of time with her. So far, the prognosis is better than we expected.”
I hadn’t held any hope of seeing her soon, not with an operation looming on the horizon. “That’s great. Is there anything I can do in the meantime?”
“Not really. We’re all going to be biting our nails to see how she handles the cast. They’re going with a full sling since she’s so young, which should keep her hooves sound. We’re lucky; the vet we’re using loves the underdog, and when he found out she was going to a horse empath with a stunted talent, he added some extras. There’s no guarantees, but it’s looking much better than three weeks ago. The odds of her survival are at ninety percent.”
Storm Called Page 8
