Della had grown up in Edmonton, one of five children. Her father worked at a chemical factory and her mother at the front desk of a motel. Both parents worked shifts while her grandmother, who lived with them, raised the kids. Money was always tight. Della attended community college. It was there she was introduced to her future husband. When he was offered a job in Toronto she went with him.
“I’ll meet you by the store at two, okay?” she said to Roy.
“Yes, that’s fine.”
She slipped into a light blue summer dress, carefully applied makeup to her attractive, oval face and ran a brush through her short, auburn hair. A last glance at the mirror reminded her she appeared younger than her age.
She made her way down to the parking garage, dropped her shoulder bag onto the passenger seat of her Subaru and drove east toward Eglinton Avenue and Bayview. She found a parking spot in front of an ice cream parlor on Bayview, south of Manor Road. Old two-storey red brick buildings lined the street on that section of the boulevard. North of Manor Road, however, rows of bland seven and eight storey condos had supplanted the delis, shoemakers, dry cleaners. By 2019 the surrounding neighbourhood had long been gentrified, houses renovated or replaced by monster homes.
Roy and Della’s future cannabis shop was on the older, more picturesque stretch of the road. The store was to be called Preferred Puff Cannabis. Until recently the store had been a ma-and-pa pizza parlour. It was flanked on one side by an Armenian bakery and on the other by a flower shop. The sidewalks were wide and inviting to young couples dating, parents pushing strollers, old men leaning on canes. The city had years earlier planted trees which now shaded the pavement and, along with the shops, gave the area a cosmopolitan feel. It was a prosperous community perfect for a soon-to-be flourishing marijuana dispensary.
“It looks great,” Della said to Roy as they strolled side by side, up and down the block and back again. There was a slight, doubtful tremor to her voice, a tremor that suggested looking great didn’t mean all was well.
“Yes,” he said.
“So what does your wife think? Is she still agreeable?”
“As long as I’m the silent partner and won’t actually be working at Preferred Puff she says it’s worth the financial risk.” The way he spoke the words ‘financial risk’ made Della shudder.
Roy was a rotund man with a pleasant, toothy smile that seemed to be fixed to his round face. He was sixty-two years old, average height, balding, with laughing brown eyes. Off the job he liked to wear casual, fashionable clothes; slim pants, linen or cotton shirts, wire-framed glasses. “And of course my son will drop by from time to time just to keep an eye on things.” She knew his son, Ken, had counseled Roy against going into marijuana sales, even if it was now officially legal.
