“The FDA would never give approval without human testing.”
“We could market it as an herb, rather than a drug, and bypass the FDA.”
“Here’s a flash, Charles. You are not turning this love potion into a commercial product, until it is proven safe and effective under at least six months to a year of human testing,” she asserted. “I may not be entirely certain of all my legal rights, but I do know I have the authority to stop that insanity.”
“It’s not up to you. Any work done on this property belongs to the company,” he asserted.
“Not if you don’t have the formula. Besides, you’re forgetting one not-so-minor point. I own an equal share in this formula.”
Charles’s face turned pale and greenish.
Thank God she’d had the foresight to seek legal advice last year when she’d first stumbled on this promising venture. She’d offered to resign from Terrebonne Pharmaceuticals and set up her own private lab. And she could have done it, too, thanks to a substantial trust fund left her by generations of independent Breaux women. But Charles had talked her into staying… the incentive being an equal interest in the project results.
“Now, Sylvie, don’t go off half-cocked. I’m sure we can straighten out the situation. We need a cooling-off period, though.”
She snorted her assessment of that wheedling suggestion, picked up the closed Happy Meal box by its cardboard handle, then slung her handbag over her shoulder, about to leave. “Remember, Charles, we have signed legal documents. But you’re right, we need each other.” She’d completed too much research on company property to veer off on her own now.
In a more placating tone, he said, “Go home and think about it, Sylvie. Take a few days off till this settles down. The board is meeting tomorrow night. Why don’t we talk again on Wednesday? Maybe we can work something out that will be mutually beneficial.”
Mutually beneficial? He and this company didn’t care diddly how this news could ruin her personal life and professional career, so long as they could make a profit. She stared at him, really seeing him for the first time. What a fool I’ve been! “Do you mind if I ask a personal question, Charles?”
“No. Anything,” he offered magnanimously.
“Are you gay?”
She saw the surprise in his eyes, but only for a second. “Yes,” he said.
Yes? Just like that, he says yes. Then something else occurred to her. “You’re gay, and you were going to participate in my experiment. Why? Did you have your own agenda in mind… like maybe proving that homosexuality isn’t genetic?”
“Hell, no,” he said, face flushed. “I intended to tell you before we began experimentation. You need to provide all types of statistical samples, Sylvie. In fact, I was going to suggest all kinds of additional combinations. Man-woman. Man-man. Woman-woman. Gays. Straights. Different ages. Maybe even different ethnic or race groups. Without all those, there would have been too many questions left unanswered. You were severely limiting the trials.”
He was on track about the necessary adjustment in trial samples, but still Sylvie’s mind kept going back to the one fact she had overlooked. Gay? Charles was gay.
Much as she hated to admit it, Luc had been right.
She could only wonder if Luc had been right about anything else.
Luc awakened Monday morning in his Houma apartment with a head the size of the Goodyear Blimp, a tongue with enough moss to fill one of those bonsai terrariums, and a lower body part that felt as if it could double as a pogo stick.
That latter called to mind the fact that even a bender hadn’t been able to wipe out the effects of Sylvie’s love potion, or whatever the hell it was.
“Wake up, sonny boy. Time, she is a wastin’.”
He cracked one eye open, just a tiny bit, and saw a blond Chia Pet standing next to his bed.
Both eyes opened wide at that discovery.
Oh… my… God!
Correction. It was his great-aunt, Tante Lulu, with a blond Chia Pet on her head. She was wearing purple spandex biker’s shorts, K-Mart sneakers with little white anklet socks sporting pink pompoms, and a T-shirt with a logo that proclaimed, “Ask Me To Yodel,” all topped by what looked like a helmet of tight blond curls.