Scent

by Kelly, Clint L.

  Beth got up for a minute to grab a diet cola from the fridge. She offered her mother one but she declined.

  There was something else they couldn’t hide. The competition, the insecurity, the constant struggle to survive in an industry that ate its young — all of it had conspired to make her an only child. No time or energy for more kids. I probably made it in just under the wire. What I wouldn’t give for a sister or brother to hang out with. It’s no fun to fight the kid-parent battle alone. And if they do find the fragrance that wins the prize, I’m only going to end up fighting it for my parents’ attention. Been there, done that.

  Out of the blue, the phone call. Dad vanishes into the night. Every day since, Mom makes references to the great importance of this trip. “This trip Daddy needs our prayers.” “This trip is the big payoff.” And behind it? A darker truth. Find success on this trip or we go under.

  They didn’t think she knew, but she knew plenty. She didn’t dare wear something of Chanel’s or Ralph Lauren’s. Good thing they knew nothing of the tiny vial of Blaise by Bill Blass that she carried in her purse just for Andre. She always washed it off before leaving the salon. Thankfully, Mom has stopped going with me to get my hair done.

  And yet, dutifully, her dresser drawers were stuffed with Azure products, what she privately disdained as her mom’s “thirty-one flavors.” She hated hurting her parents’ feelings —especially her dad’s — and some of the scents were nice.

  She took a deep pull of the cola. On top of everything else, she had lost the expensive silk pullover they’d bought for her birthday. Probably earlier at Nutley’s when she tried on the tight purple top she knew her parents would hate. What if the next person in the dressing room stole it? Her mother didn’t want her wearing the pullover except on special occasions. I can’t risk phoning the store without Mom finding out.

  “Beth? What planet are we on?” Beth jumped and saw a bemused expression on her mother’s face.

  She hopped up to check the freezer for a low-cal microwave dinner for them both. Beth was pretty sure the last sentence had contained the words “can’t afford.” “Sorry, Mom, but I kept the receipts. If you want me to return the stuff I bought, I’ll do that tomorrow.”

  “Oh, Beth.” Hurt and defeat filled the void between them. “Just for now, until the new launch is out; then you’ll never want for anything again, I promise.”

  Beth popped the dinner into the microwave, set the time, and returned to her seat, avoiding her mother’s gaze.

  “That’s okay, Mom. No problem. And I’m sorry about the call-in today. I shouldn’t have fooled around with all the stress going on lately. Forgiven?”

  Her mother smiled and pecked her on the cheek.

  “Forgiven.”

  Beth hesitated, then said, “You were great on TV today, Mom. You had that Barb Silverman on the ropes. I only caught the last part of the interview, but when you stuck up for Azure after she pounced on you, I was like, ‘Go, Mom!’ I’m glad you’re giving the scent your name. Is that woman in the hospital going to be okay?”

  Her mother patted her arm. “She’ll be fine. We still don’t have all the facts, but we will, don’t you worry.”

  They sat in silence until the microwave dinged. Beth went to retrieve the dinners.

  “And you, my dear daughter, for being such a trooper these last few crazy months, shall have one of the first vials of Cassandra ever made.” Her mother stood. “Now to bed with me. I’m too tired to eat and I need to be up early, so you can give my dinner to Gretch. Finish your homework, please, and lights out by eleven. And if the phone rings, unless it’s Daddy’s signal, let it go to voice mail.” Before Beth could frown she added, “You just spent three hours with Andre the Magnificent. I’m sure he must have other business to attend to. Tonight we make sure no reporters breach the moat around Castle Dixon, agreed?”

  Beth fumed. “That’s your department, Mom. I just want to have a normal boyfriend that’s not under constant watch. You and I aren’t going to be roommates at college, you know. I’m going to date who I’m going to date, and I’ll come in when I want to come in, if I come in at all!”

  “I thought you wanted to attend cosmetology school so you and Andre could have his and her salons. Sorry, that was petty. All I’m saying, Beth, is that for now and the rest of your high school career, your top priorities are good grades and well-rounded extracurricular activities. No one’s ever listed their boyfriend’s name on their college application.”

  Beth tossed her hair in annoyance but left the rest unsaid. She gave her mother a quick kiss on the cheek, grabbed her dinner, and started for the stairs to her room.

  “What was that?”

  At the sound of her mother’s voice, she halted midstep and looked back into the dining room. Her mother was staring at the window.

  “What was what?”

  “That sound. Somebody outside the house. I’m sure I heard something.”

  “Mom, get real. Gretch would let us know if anyone was around. You’re just spooked ’cause Dad’s not here. Don’t get paranoid.”

  Her mother started to walk to the window, then hesitated. “I’m not paranoid. I can’t hear it now, but I thought sure — ”

  “Maybe it’s one of your wounded dahlias calling for backup. No more cop shows for you, young lady!”

  “Very funny. I’m going to check the locks.”

  “Whatever.” Beth bounded up the stairs two at a time. She went to her room, set the dinner on the edge of the desk to cool, turned on the bedside radio to the FM jazz station Andre listened to, and flopped on the bed, glad to be away from her mother’s jitters. Why does two years to freedom feel like an eternity?

  She waited and hoped. Her father’s special code was three rings, hang up, followed immediately by a redial. Anticipating the call should help keep her mind occupied, that and a five-page paper due on the boring French Revolution for Mr. Raymond. He was still her favorite teacher, but only because he also coached tennis.

  Cassie’s mind raced. Beth would be fine. Just the normal mother-daughter growing pains. She returned Gretchen to her run.

  Upstairs she drew a bath, tossed in two teal-colored beads of Hidden Springs, and sank beneath the suds. Not wishing to fall asleep in the tub, she ignored the massage jets for one night.

  She inhaled deeply the sweet scent of buttermint.

  The affable Ruggers had agreed to mount a search if Nick did not make contact within four days of their parting. The jungle doc had also promised to relay the contents of any emergency transmission to Cassie day or night, no matter the difference in time zones. It had been four days, eight hours since Ruggers had phoned to say, “The parrot has taken wing,” their code for “Nick has begun the search.” She told herself it was too soon to panic, that she should allow sufficient time for international communication — and miscommunication — from a primitive location.

  Restless, Cassie soaked only fifteen minutes before rising from the water and toweling off. She would wash her hair in the morning. She slipped into her cotton pajamas, turned down the bedcovers, and sprinkled the bedsheets with the as yet unmarketed Block & Tackle talc. Then she pulled out the blue denim shirt he’d worn just a few hours before his departure, and buried her face in it. Nothing triggered memory like aroma, and her heightened sense of smell detected the nuances of perspiration and man-musk that were so uniquely his.

  Nick Dixon enjoyed driving his Ford pickup into the forest and cutting fallen cedar for the fireplace. She loved doing his laundry immediately after he finished stacking the wood under shelter. Cassie would hold his shirt against her face and breathe deeply of hard work and tree resin. Once she’d toyed with a perfume blend called Chainsaw, for guys too busy to get out in the woods. He’d teased her and threatened to counter with a blend of motor oil and bus fumes called Inner City Exhausted, a unisex fragrance for working guys or gals feeling the strain.

  She couldn’t remember the last time they’d felt carefree enough to be th
at playful.

  She snuggled deep into the sheets and wrapped both arms around his pillow. Pheromones were funny things — odors and subliminal scents that strongly influenced how humans and animals lived their lives, from finding mates to recognizing offspring.

  Royce the Nose lived in fear of losing his sense of smell and along with it the zest for life. Anosmics, it was well known, suffered a high rate of suicide.

  Well, Cassie thought, aren’t I just Suzy Sunshine? She tossed about in the king-size bed, which only emphasized Nick’s absence. She got up, turned on the light, tried to read.

  Why didn’t she just meet Brenda’s terms and be done with it? The Dixons could move to Tuscany like they’d always fantasized. They’d open a bakery, eat pasta till they popped, and marry Beth off to a dark-eyed Italian boy who would give them a bevy of chubby grandbabies. She wouldn’t mind growing large in Italy, where plus-sized women were treated like royalty.

  Never! Never would she sell to Brenda; never would she give that woman the satisfaction. Cassie would not be frightened off by a leech, be it worm or of the human variety. She dozed off and dreamed of a grandbaby under each arm.

  A sound outside the window startled her awake.

  Gretchen growled from her dog run. A warning bark. A car engine gunned. Headlights played across the blinds. A squeal of brakes sliced through the night.

  A snarl. A gunshot. A dog’s yelp.

  Cassie jumped out of bed. Ran to the window.

  Another gunshot.

  She dropped to the floor. The blinds blew in, peppering her with shattered glass. A man’s voice yelled. But she couldn’t make out the words.

  The front door crashed open. “Beth! Beth!” someone called.

  A scream. A car engine gunned again, followed by a screech of tires.

  Beth!

  Cassie stumbled up from the floor, glass cutting her feet.

  Beth!

  Footsteps pounded up the stairs. “Mom! Mom!”

  Cassie ran for the door just as it burst inward.

  Andre stared at her, wild-eyed, framed in the light from the hall. T-shirt smeared bloody. Diagonal gash to the forehead dripping blood. In his fist Beth’s blood-soaked silk pullover.

  Cassie shrieked and charged.

  Chapter 10

  Cassie flew at him, fists flying, feet kicking. He stood his ground. Granite. Immovable.

  Protect Beth. Nothing else mattered. Wildly she pounded and flailed, fighting the bloody invader. She clawed at his face and was going for his eyes when someone jumped on her back and tried to pull her off.

  “No, Mother, no!” Beth’s sobs tore into Cassie like shrapnel. “Stop it! Andre saved us. Let go, Mother, I’m fine! But Andre’s hurt, he’s hurt!”

  Cassie felt the fight go out of her. She released her hold, Beth let go, and both swayed on wobbly legs. The gash across Andre’s forehead was deep, and now she was smeared with his blood. Pale, his face covered with blood, he pressed Beth’s pullover to the wound and leaned back against the doorjamb. Beth rushed to his side and took over the compress from his shaking hand.

  “I . . . I . . . ,” Cassie stammered, then stopped. The gory scene knotted her stomach and made her eyes swim. Confused, she thought she might faint. “Saved us? From what?”

  “The guy, there was this guy,” Beth sobbed. “He . . . he had a gun. He was trying to . . . to . . . I don’t know what. He shot Gretchen! Then Andre drives up. Surprises him. Tries to catch the guy. He grabs him and the guy hits him with the gun, then tries . . . tries to run him down with . . . with his car. I ran downstairs . . . heard him calling my name . . . found Andre bleeding on the front stoop. An ambulance. We need an ambulance!

  She ran to Andre, who slid down the doorjamb, staring in shock. Her voice was almost a whisper. “Andre was just trying to return my pullover, Mom.”

  The house and yard were brightly lit in the garishly festive revolving lights of emergency vehicles. Temporary floodlights exposed the shrubbery and made cold ghosts of the dahlias. Police and medical personnel streamed in and out of the house, while still other officers combed the property for evidence and to make certain it was secure.

  Cassie and Beth stood draped in warm blankets while the gurney with Andre was positioned for loading into the back of the ambulance. Cassie reached out a shaking hand and squeezed the hairdresser’s arm. “Thank you,” she said, voice cracking. “Thank you for being here, for protecting us.”

  A somewhat revived Andre smiled weakly. His young face and brown hair, highlighted the color of toasted meringue, were still streaked and matted with blood. “When I get cleaned up, I’d like us to start over.”

  Cassie patted his shoulder. “I’d like that too.”

  Beth said nothing but embraced the man on the stretcher and gave a little wave as he was loaded into the ambulance. Andre’s curled fingers gave the barest of acknowledgements.

  “I’ll come see you in a couple hours,” Beth called as the ambulance doors closed. “Thank you, I love you.”

  Beth and Cassie had already discussed riding in the ambulance. She wasn’t about to let Beth out of her sight.

  “You love him?” Cassie said. Beth said nothing.

  The ambulance started slowly up the drive, parting the sea of investigators and onlookers with a series of otherworldly whoop-whoops from its siren.

  Cassie closed her eyes and breathed the night air. Her heart ached with an odd mix of affection and doubt for her daughter. A sixteen-year-old girl loved clothes and pets and her parents, not men who ran salons named J. Primo. What Cassie did know beyond a doubt: if Andre hadn’t come when he had, the morning newspapers might have been filled with sketchy details of a double homicide. As it was, she shuddered to think what the headlines would be. Not in the way she had imagined, Azure World had gone page one.

  As for the media, she was grateful that at her request the police had cordoned off the journalists and TV camera trucks, along with curious neighbors, and kept them from coming onto the property. For now she had no comment.

  They found Gretchen huddled in the far corner of her run, very much alive, licking an ugly graze to match the hairdresser’s, only this one had been caused by the business end of a gun and had torn the surface muscle of the dog’s left flank. Dr. Grayson, the pet’s devoted veterinarian, arrived with his on-call assistant to fetch the patient. It took four men to gingerly lift the sedated 150-pound animal into the back of the clinic van. When it seemed as if Beth might climb in the van with the Great Dane, Dr. Grayson restrained her.

  “Truly the Apollo of dogs,” Dr. Grayson said, a firm arm around both Cassie and Beth. “You two need your rest. Remember, her ancestors used to hunt wild boar and stags, guard the castle, pull the work carts, and participate in battle. It would take far more than this to bring Gretchen to a halt. She’s in the peak of condition and will recover quickly, with a war scar to impress her doggie friends.” His kindly face clouded. “It’s you two I’m worried about. Your feet are bleeding, and” — he reached out a hand and gently pinched a tiny glass fragment from Cassie’s cheek — “you’ve taken a bit of shrapnel to the head. I really ought to examine you.”

  She squeezed her friend’s hand. “Not to worry, Gray; it’s just a sliver or two, really. I’ll go in shortly and have a look. You just look after our brave Gretchen. They’ve scoured the property, and whoever it was is long gone. The lieutenant’s done his homework and has been asking plenty of pointed questions. He says they’ll post a guard here for the first forty-eight hours anyway.” She prayed Nick would be home by then but knew in her heart that if he was, it would be a miracle.

  There was a commotion behind them, and they turned to see Lt. Lloyd Reynolds approach. “Found the weapon,” he said. “The perp must have dropped it in the tussle with Roth.”

  “Roth?” Cassie said.

  “Andre Roth, your daughter’s boyfriend and savior.”

  It was the first Cassie had heard the young man’s last name, and it annoyed her that it
had come from a police investigator. Had Beth even mentioned it?

  “Thirty-eight special, fairly common. We’ll dust for prints.” He glanced at the still-open clinic van. “Say, is that a Great Dane? Handsome creatures. Bighearted. Pity they eat so much and their sight is sharper than their sense of smell, or I’d have ’em in the Canine Unit.”

  Lt. Reynolds shouted orders, and four investigators hurried off to fulfill them. He turned back to the Dixons. “Hope you’ve got it in the budget to hire yourself some extra security at the office. Between this, the intruder at Azure, and all the media coverage of the leech incident, I’d be extra cautious. Too much of a coincidence that all this should come at once. Maybe take a little family vacation and leave town altogether until we get this sorted out. I know it’s a bad time for you, what with the launch of this new mystery perfume and your husband out of the country and all, but these are crazy times, ma’am. Crazy times.”

  Cassie nodded and thanked him for his concern. He didn’t know that the timing was worse than bad. She was thinking about the ridiculous notion of a vacation when a stone-cold realization numbed her insides. Office break-ins and bottled leeches were one thing; getting shot at, their home violated . . .

  She needed to talk to Mark Butterfield. No, she needed to talk to Nicky. Oh, how I need him!

  From the head of the drive came sharp words, a shouted exchange. A knot of officers jostled down the drive to where Cassie and Beth stood, someone in the middle holding them at bay. Cassie shrank back. Where was crowd control? She would not speak to reporters and was in a mood to inflict a little violence of her own.