He surveyed the room. The other attendees were diverse in age and ethnicity, most fat but not all; it was a rare weight loss program that wasn’t overrepresented with average-weight White women who hated themselves. At least he wasn’t the biggest person there. One man in the front row had to be pushing 450.
Emmett broke his gaze with a guilty reflux. Why did he always default to bitchiness and self-comparison? He had been that man. In most rooms hewasthat man.Cut the guy a break.
At half past nine, a nerdy-cute twentysomething appeared at the front of the room before the title slide of a PowerPoint:Obexity™—The Future of Weight Loss.
“Morning, everyone,” he said, winning no awards for enthusiasm. “I’m Blake, I’m an intern here at Monstera. Before we begin, we’ve got water, coffee, and fruit in the back—feel free to get up and help yourselves.”
“Fruit and water?” Lizette muttered. “That’s a hate crime.”
Emmett smirked as she squeezed out to make herself a plate.
“Restrooms are down the hall to your left,” continued Blake. “If there are no questions before we begin, I’m going to hand it over to our presenter, Dr. Saito.”
The crowd sent up a smattering of applause as a petite Asian woman approached the front of the room. She was in her mid-thirties, pretty, cheating her five-foot frame with thick wedges. Her black dress flattered her professionalism and shapely figure. She smiled at the carpet as she walked, a natural darkness showing at the roots of her tousled blond lob.
“Good morning, everyone,” she said, turning her smile upon the crowd with a double-handed wave. “Thank you so much for being here bright and early this morning. We couldn’t be more excited to tell you about our new weight loss miracle and how you can help make it available for millions of Americans—and make some money doing it. We like that, right?”
Emmett joined in the polite laughter, so instantly enamored with the presenter he hardly registered that Lizette had returned to his side.
Dr. Saito clasped her hands, crossing her ankles as she continued. “First of all, allow me to introduce myself.” The slide flicked over to a brief bio. “I’m Jennifer Saito—you can call me Jenni—director of product development here at Monstera. I’ve been with the company for abouteight years, in PD for five. I oversee the development and manufacture of an exciting portfolio of pharma and therapeutic solutions and sometimes products that incorporate both—we’ll get to that shortly.”
The slide changed again. “Just a little bit about the company. Quick show of hands, how many of you have heard of Monstera BioSciences before today?”
A pair of hands inched up.
“Couple of you? I always like to ask that. Although you might not’ve heard of us, Monstera has been quietly revolutionizing the biopharmaceutical industry for over a decade. We’re a publicly traded company founded in 2011 focused on innovating solutions to overweight and obesity. If any of you have heard of the appetite suppressant ConsuMin—looks like a few of you know it—that was a Monstera product. We’re small compared to the Pfizers and AstraZenecas of the world, but for our size we’re in the top two percent by market cap. We’re a SoCal operation through and through, and we take our inspiration from the split-leaf philodendronMonstera deliciosa—a special favorite of our founder. It’s named for being abnormal, even ‘monstrous,’ but with a little TLC is capable of producing such sweet fruit.”
“This bitch did not,” Lizette said.
Don’t, Emmett mouthed.
The slide changed again, revealing a trademarked Obexity logo: simple, bright, colorful, with the telltale blandness of having been market tested to within an inch of its life.
“And now, the reason you’re all here. We’re excited to be seeking willing participants to trial our cutting-edge, multimodal weight loss product, Obexity, a first-of-its-kind gene therapy treatment paired with a new, specially formulated pharmaceutical known generically as ephaloma-copiramate, or EmaC-8 for short.”
“I’m sorry, your weight loss drug is calledemaciate?” Lizette called out.
Emmett wanted to slide down his chair into a puddle of goo.
“EmaC-8,” Dr. Saito repeated without breaking her smile. She raised a French-tipped finger toward the screen, sounding out each syllable as she pointed. “E. Mack. Eight. Hope that helps.”
Emmett could feel Lizette’s anger radiating off her. “Bitch,” she muttered. “I know how to read. It fucking saysemaciate…”
“Representing the marriage of these two groundbreaking treatments,”Dr. Saito continued, “Obexity is unlike any product currently available on the market. Rather than suppressing appetite, it’s designed to alter your genetic composition, to actuallyrewritethe segment of your DNA related to energy conversion. Our patented gene therapy procedure, when combined with the activating agent delivered through regular doses of EmaC-8, vastly accelerates metabolism, enabling you to lose weight rapidly without altering your diet or your exercise routine.”
Disbelief rippled through the room. “No diet or exercise?” Lizette said to Emmett. Not even she could hate the idea.
Dr. Saito glowed. “Incredible, isn’t it? Obexity is the future of weight loss, the end of obesity for every American who’s ready to become the very best version of themselves.”
“If you can afford it, right?” snarked a man at the front.
“Well, yes.” Dr. Saito laughed.
“How much will it cost?” a woman asked. “Ballpark.”
“We’re still running the numbers. The procedure itself we think will fall in the region of two to three hundred thousand.” She pretended not to notice the room’s collective inbreath. “Then for your prescription of EmaC-8, anywhere between one and three thousand dollars a vial. Ballpark, between fifty and a hundred fifty thousand a year.”
Dr. Saito’s smile buckled under the weight of the shocked silence that followed. The incredulity, the anger, the crumpling of hope into all-too-familiar despair.
