YN—Love Roses

2026

Red, purple, and gold wrapped around the counter. A fan in the corner pushed hot air but the idea was that the air conditioner would be fixed soon. In walked Kirstie Brodwick. Thirty-four, with a waiflike demeanor although she paid her dues to the motel manager every two weeks, she walked with change in her hands. Coins contacted her skin and made that tinny smell once combined. She also held dollars.

“I’ll take a pack of Marlboro’s and some glass,” Kirstie said. Her white skin looked smooth and contrasted against her gray sport top and black basketball shorts.

“I’ve got the cigarettes for you, but no pipes,” Jugante Malismo, 29, mentioned. He wore a dark blue shirt with slight sweat stains gathering under his brown arms. He wore a gold necklace with the Virgin Mary pendant.

Kirstie looked around the counter as if a detective inspected a murder scene.

“You said what, now?”

“I’ve got your Reds, but there is a nationwide halt on selling drug paraphernalia,” Malismo explained. “It’s like the curse on my family name. They’re trying to take my business. Personally, I don’t care how high you get as long as you pay me my money.”

Kirstie put the heel of her palm to her head. She spun around. “Look, I’ll buy these chips. Just get me a stem!”

“I told you, Kirstie, there are none! I’ll sell you a 7 Up and you can drink it or dump it out or whatever. Crinkle it up when you’re finished with that and then make a small hole in the can. You can smoke your stuff that way,” Malismo outlined in detail.

“Goddamn, muchacho, you know your stuff. I’ll do that.”

Kirstie bought the cigarettes, the potato chips, and the soda and left the corner bodega.

“Gracias.”

Malismo waved.

*****

At his desk in Downtown Wilmington, Delaware, Pharoah Waller looked at his watch. It told him his heart rate, the weather, and the time of day amongst a whole litany of different pieces of information crucial to his existence. He opened his eyes wide. He got up from his chair and walked to the window. The light cascaded like a stream of water, golden and piercing to the eye against the shaft of steel that made up the skyscraper he occupied. He was twenty-three.

His secretary talked to him in his ear.

“You have a Mrs. Vuna Boulden waiting for you out here.”

“Please. Let her advance.” He noted his own formal speech.

She walked through the door with a business suit the color of apricot and a small satchel which housed her personal computer, lipstick, and feminine care products.

The room looked accommodating. The desk sat in the corner and a wide swath of space allowed for guests to sit on a gray couch set with purple pillows and peer out of the window from time to time.

“They’re going to eat you alive,” Vuna mentioned.

“Good afternoon to you, too,” Waller announced with equal amounts of sincerity and sarcasm.

“We’ve had to switch up our whole supply. All of the glass has been converted to candles but the demand is less,” Waller stated.

“I see. Well, that’s because of the stricter laws on the manufacture, production, distribution, sale, and consumption of scheduled substances. The orange men aren’t the only ones cracking down on the dealers.”

“Yes, the orange men are doing a fierce job. But they’re all cutting into my business. The government and these strange beings. We have to keep going with the whole idea that the love rose is a product that can be used like vaping. The oils for those sticks can easily be replaced by crack cocaine.”

Vina sighed. “I just hope you’re sure you’re right.”

“I am. I started this business when I was twelve years old. Made my first million a year later. Now, I’m sitting on close to two hundred billion dollars. When I’m right, I’m right.”

Vuna rubbed the back of her neck after listening to Waller’s brief soliloquy.

“I think that the candles….”

“The candles are keeping us afloat. We surged before the laws came to swallow up eighty-five percent of my business. The ‘love rose’ just has a sound to it, doesn’t it? Those stems made me my business. Of course we’ve got other lines. The marijuana bowls perform the same function but you need a license for them and most corner stores don’t carry those. They’re on their way out, too.”

With wistful intent, Vuna asked, “Will you keep your money flowing with the other products or fight the government?”

“There’s an old saw I won’t repeat about going to battle with the state. I would need a dream team plaintiff squad to try to even compete with the powers that be.”

Vuna shrugged. “I just thought you’d be gung-ho about establishing a foothold on the businesses…I mean more than you already have.”

“Now, what do you mean by that?” Waller shoved his fists in his pockets and rested against his desk. Vuna still sat, clutching a purple pillow.

“You own six percent, don’t you?” he asked.

“I do.”

“Then that’s all there is to that.”

“We’re down a product.”

Waller walked around his desk. “We’re down a great product. It’s something that we all know people used for…extracurricular purposes.”

Like a fish swishing in a bowl showing off its magnificent colors under the light of the sun, an idea struck Vuna.

“Maybe we can repackage them,” she suggested.

“How so?”

“We can just alter the design a smidge, and sell them in actual heartshaped tubes. We can have a new patent and everything.”

“I see your vision…but it still won’t work. We’ve gotta come up with an idea that will satisfy our needs and make the customer satisfied by using the glass pipe.”

“Okay, I’m fresh out of ideas,” she announced.

“No, wait. There’s still something riding on this. We can take your thoughts and apply them…I think….”

“I’m telling you, it’s a whole new product. Hell, we could even put in the copper mesh to transfer the heat.”

“That’s a good idea. They can’t ban that because like you said…the patent….”

“It’s only one thing….”

Waller turned his head to face the door.

“What’s that?”

“We’ve still gotta get all the documents together to even initiate the process of making a ‘Love Rose II,’” Vuna mentioned.

“We can get them. But we’re going to have to fight. We’re going to have to fight for it.”

“Who’re you fighting? You said there was ‘an old saw’ that you didn’t want to tell me about. You’re about to go up against it. And I’m going with you. And we’ll win,” Vuna’s green eyes sparkled in the light. Waller walked around his desk and put both hands on his vest. He straightened his tie.

“Yes. All we have to do is put a warning on it. That’s how we get around the regulators. We slap a giant notice on the package or along the side of the glass that reads: ‘Warning do not use this product for ingesting scheduled substances.’ Of course people are going to ignore it but that’s America, right?”

Vuna sighed.

“Why sigh?”

“I’m just thinking of all the money we’ll be making off of this new and improved love rose.”

“We haven’t made it yet.”

Vuna looked at the ceiling. “I know. What do you think about putting more money into the company?”

“An IPO? No, no. Not after we had one product stripped right from under us.”

“C’mon. It’ll be fun. We can actually be part of the quadruple comma club.”

“Sounds great, but on paper, our ledger balance is bleeding red,” Waller explained.

“You don’t have to remind me. I’m focused on getting this product to the shelves, too, but we should have capital pumped into the firm to make it more viable amongst the other markets,” Vuna advanced her argument.

“This is all smoke, pardon the pun, and mirrors, pardon the old chestnut.

We’ve experienced every emotion since the inception of this company when we were tweens. Now, we’re at the precipice of greatness. We cannot have this IPO because the clientele is going to be totally different. It’s going to consist of a struggle.”

“Struggle….” she phrased like some new word that had just sprouted into a garden from his mouth. She razed the entire bed of plants.

“I don’t think you know how to run this company. We’re not going to struggle. We’re going to prevail and rail against the bastards who set up these government impediments. We don’t use. But that doesn’t mean other people who wish to get high can’t use our product from time to time. We get high off of money, remember?” Vunva walked over to Waller. She stood askance with the light of the sun trickling through a sharp shaft, blazing through the carpet.

“I hear you talking. But I don’t like the fact we have to be so evasive.”

“Tuh! This from a man who knows his product is used for fiends.”

“Clients. They’re clients like my cousin used to say.”

“Whatever you want to call them, they were our bottom line up until a few months ago and we had to rely on blown glass orbs and other shit that nobody cares about. You did say we were in the red….”

“It’s true. Once we unveil the Love Rose II, we’ll have them begging for it. They’ll hit up their corner store and form lines around the block to ‘give to that special person in their lives who gives them the most romantic love.’ It’ll be like sending doves up during the end of a funeral. Their fluttering wings will be our dollars and we will be so black that they’ll think our documents got into a fight with the heavyweight champion of the world.”

“You still must remember that we’re a cosmetic glass making company. We have no ties to kitchenware or industrial strength glassware.”

“So?”

“So those companies might want to step on our toes with every patent we pass on the shapes of the love rose. I mean, there’s a lot going on here that you have not considered,” Vuna pointed out.

“I don’t have to consider it. Why do you think you’re my COO?”

“Ah, yes,” she clasped her hands together. “I’m just the day-to-day role you’ve always savored.”

“If you put it like that….”

“I’ve been with you all these years. There’s no sense in you going back and destroying everything I’ve made. There’s no sense in you shattering the windshield on the Mercedes G Wagon that we’ve been traveling in all this time. You’ve got to make the executive decision as the chief executive. How about that?”

“Your sass doesn’t intimidate me. It only makes me want to go further, go farther.”

Vuna crossed her arms. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to start by diluting your stock in this company and pouring it into R&D for the Love Rose II.”

Vuna’s mouth hung agape for a full three seconds. “Wow! So, I guess this decade meant nothing to you, did it?”

“You can speak to my lawyers. I hope you have some good ones. Freddy still is on your team, isn’t he?”

Vuna walked out of the office in a great huff. She came back to grab her bag and flip off Waller. He just grinned. The fuse had been lit. His mind’s gears turned and he felt the sense that he could continue with the battle over the controls over his product. He felt a warmth after dismissing Vuna. It was like his grandaddy’s cognac settled in his chest. He knew she would still get the $50 million diamond parachute, but she was worth ten billion dollars. She spent that kind of money on a beach house in Rehoboth. He looked at his timepiece. He approached the window and looked out at the banks enveloping his business. He smiled.