Scent

by Kelly, Clint L.

  “Give us life everlasting through Christ our Lord . . . Let our cry come unto thee . . .”

  She reached out a tentative hand, stopped, swallowed hard, and cautiously touched Brenda’s arm. Like an electric shock, a tingling spread up her arm, and she pulled her nemesis close. “Lean on me, Brenda,” she whispered. “For once in our sorry relationship, let’s swallow our pride and see if between us there might be enough strength to carry on. Can we?” She glanced back for reassurance from Nick and Beth. Beth smiled and Nick gave her the thumbs-up.

  Brenda stiffened at the touch and the sound of Cassie’s voice. Then she allowed her shoulders to yield, and when she whispered in return, there was resignation in the words. “I . . . I don’t know if I can. You’re too much like my mother. Pigheaded. Unrealistic. Relentless. And now you’ve created an unholy brew that messes with the biocircuitry in man and beast. What have we in common?”

  “We have Mags in common.” Cassie didn’t have the fire to answer Brenda’s outlandish claim.

  Brenda blew her nose. “We are so different, Mother and I,” she said, hurt in every word. “But as God is my witness, I never wished this upon her. I guess I was jealous of your friendship with her and too stubborn to have one of my own. She can’t die without knowing I love her, and you need to know it was my ex-husband who was out to wreck you and your reputation. He died tonight, the way he lived, taking all the way.”

  Cassie patted Brenda’s shoulder. “Tell Mags. You may not see signs that she hears, but you’ve got to tell her you love her.”

  “I tried,” Brenda said. “At the hospital I did try.”

  Pausing in the liturgy, Fr. Byron regarded the two women, then smiled at his ragtag congregation. “I lift you up as a sweet-smelling offering to the Lord,” he said. “By sola gratia, grace alone, are we saved. Isn’t that the best news you’ve heard tonight?” There was a general nodding of spiky, shaggy, and shaven heads, and an amen or two. “And those of you who have come from dark places and inky crises, I have more good news. There will be no more night terrors in the New Jerusalem to come. We shall inherit a kingdom where the Lamb of God is the lamp. There will be so much glorious light that the sun and the moon will be redundant. Central lighting, people, in a place where power bills are paid for life!”

  “Come on,” Cassie said to Brenda. “Let’s slip out for a moment.”

  They rose and left by the side aisle, going around a wall emblazoned with the words “Come unto me” and into a small alcove.

  “The authorities believe that Cassandra is behind all the strange animal attacks in the state,” Cassie said without preamble. “They have seized all of our stock of the new perfume pending further investigation. It may be what caused the attack on your mom.”

  “And my ex-husband,” Brenda said softly. “I know what that scent is capable of. You’ve got to destroy every ounce of it.”

  Before Cassie could ask what she was talking about, Brenda, the old bristle back, rushed on. “I’m sorry for your troubles, I really am. No matter how resentful I was — and I was! — once I caught the scent of Cassandra, I knew you and Nick deserved every accolade and more. I applauded your achievement as vigorously as anyone tonight. But that perfume is a destroyer. It’s volatile. Unpredictable. It’s almost as if it possesses an intelligence of its own — one with no conscience.”

  Cassie felt her stomach tighten. She spoke pointedly. “We will fully investigate all claims against Cassandra, no matter how outrageous.”

  Brenda nodded, fatigue granting an odd tilt to a normally ramrod posture. “I don’t expect you to believe me, despite the fact that this evening I saw a man leap to his death to escape the consequences of Cassandra. Nor am I asking to be your friend, Mrs. Dixon. I’m asking you to look after that beautiful daughter and handsome husband of yours and to keep them close. I’m asking you to teach me how to get closer to Mags. She’s one tough customer. If, in the process, we should bury some of our animosity, neither of us can be blamed.” If it was a smile that punctuated the last sentence, it was a small one.

  Cassie shook her head in amazement. It was surreal to be standing in a church at midnight discussing painfully personal, even unthinkable, matters with the one woman she had been prepared to despise until the day they sang “In the Sweet By and By” at her funeral. “It is fair to say that the fruit did not fall far from that tree,” she said.

  Brenda dropped the fierce gaze and sighed wearily. “What if we trade maxims? For the time being, perhaps we could subscribe to ‘Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.’ ”

  Cassie studied the calloused negotiator who, even in crisis, exuded a stylish cool. Despite the best effort to suppress it, Cassie permitted herself an awkward grin. “When’s the last time you were on a swing?” she asked.

  They built an altar of forgiveness and praise that night. Cassie marveled when pockets of conversation erupted all over the sanctuary, with perfect strangers praying for one another in twos and threes. It was announced that such intercession in recent days had resulted in four job proposals, six offers of housing, and a dozen bags of boxed and canned goods supplied from the St. John’s pantry. Corporate prayer was made for Mags and the other victims of the animal attacks, and spontaneous thanksgiving erupted as the congregation expressed gratitude that the Dixons had survived the attempts on their lives. The assembly hushed when Brenda told of her husband’s scheme to punish the Dixons and the sudden fall to his death. When her role in foiling the plot was revealed, the gathered voices rose on a fresh wave of praise for divine intervention.

  “I suspect this is awkward for all of us,” Brenda said to Nick, “but my hope is that one day we can get past it.”

  Nick drew Cassie close. “That remains to be seen,” he said.

  Cassie gulped. She was not so naive as to think all would be solved this night. It was a beginning, only a beginning, but how could she express that here, now, with everyone striving for “one accord”?

  Spiky Mohawk prayed fervently out loud for Gretchen, asking God to “spare that righteous Dane.”

  Nick used his cell to call Mark Butterfield, who, true to form, was not only awake but strategizing a plan for aiding the people affected by the rash of animal attacks. Nick thanked him for his loyalty and friendship, for monitoring the status of Mags, Joy, and Gretchen — all, even Mags, reassuringly stable at that hour — and apologized for unfairly criticizing his work. Nick took full responsibility for any shortcuts taken to rush Cassandra to market.

  Then Brenda asked Fr. Byron for the floor. She was once again composed and assured, as if addressing a board of directors who believed in extreme diversity. “I am by my actions and my relationship to the late John Lexington culpable in what has happened at Azure World. I ask not only for Nick and Cassie’s forbearance but also that they keep my mother’s dream alive by assuming her business, Choice Brand, until such time as, God willing, she can herself resume the leadership. I am authorized by deBrieze to buy the full line of Choice Brand products for all our stores, and this will require accelerated production facilities which, I believe, the Dixons possess and, due to unforeseen developments, are immediately available for retrofit.

  “Now if you will excuse me, I must get back to the hospital.

  My mother needs me.”

  Cassie watched her go. The leaden numbness she had barely held at bay since the Fairmont overwhelmed her. She rushed from the sanctuary into a night braced by chill marine air. She made it as far as a garden bench before she sank to its cold stone surface and allowed herself to weep.

  Royce arranged a double bunch of scarlet tulips in a plastic hospital water pitcher. He had spent a small fortune on multiple bouquets and begged, borrowed, and commandeered every possible container along the hallway leading to Room 212 to place them in. An orderly had reclaimed the bedpan filled with red and white carnations, but thus far everything else remained secure.

  When Joy awoke from the trauma of the shooting in Room 207, he wanted her to co
me to consciousness in a floral garden. His stupid act had nearly cost her life a second time, and if he had to lay down a carpet of rose petals before every step she took for the rest of their lives, he would gladly comply.

  Anything to erase the awful memory of her terror-stricken face and the sound of wailing from another world.

  He brushed her hair, plumped her pillow, wet chafed lips with an ice chip, and hummed the theme music from Dr. Zhivago. He held her hand and when it squeezed back, he felt a thrill unlike any he had ever before experienced. Royce lightly brushed her cheek with the back of his hand, and Joy visibly relaxed. He bent over the bed and kissed her.

  Kissed her on the very tip of her nose.

  Chapter 24

  Suspect Perfume Sealed

  at Undisclosed Location

  Cassie let the morning Chronicle drop to the floor and drained the glass of merlot, her second. She cared little for wine, except as an anesthetic.

  She bent to tighten the laces on little-used running shoes and felt light-headed. The headlines were like snakes that slithered through the mail slot instead of letters. They’d been showing up for days, cold-blooded serpents that attacked without regard. People magazine barely refrained from printing a special section devoted to the fall “of the most promising scent in cosmetics history.”

  The has-been crown was all hers. All hers and Nick’s. Good thing he was off doing damage-control interviews and didn’t have to witness today’s meltdown. What’s the matter with me? When’s the last time I thought straight?

  Next to the lead article was one that galled even more.

  DeBrieze Makes Bid to Save Choice Brand

  Spokesperson Brenda Gelasse, with the power of attorney she had somehow coerced out of her incapacitated mother, took controlling interest in the booming beauty line her mother had created, and wanted to form a partnership with Mags and the Dixons. How did Brenda always land on her feet and get what she wanted? Not Nick, though. Not Nick.

  Nick. He had been humbled by the fall of Azure. Cassie didn’t deserve him and she should cut him loose. He’d have sufficient gas left in the tank to marry some kindly, twiggy socialite with gobs of daddy’s money with which to finance his poking about in this jungle and that backwater for the rest of his days. The new Dixons could have two-point-five blonde babies that grew up to be world-class surfers with enough photo power to supply celebrity spreads from Miami to Madrid.

  Babies. Beth. The girl — woman, really — could have been a pop sensation or Mother-blessed-Teresa if the orchid hadn’t harbored a monster. Now she was “that Dixon girl. ”

  If.

  Cassie emptied the wine bottle into the glass and finished the contents off in one swallow. Draining wine bottles before the breakfast oatmeal. Not a good sign, Cassie dear.

  The living room swayed as a room does in a mild earthquake. She laughed a joyless laugh and gripped the back of the sofa until the walls once again stood still.

  Run, Cassie, run.

  In a pair of Nick’s gray sweatpants and faded Azure T-shirt, she ran as if demons nipped at her heels, wobbly at first, then with desperation, ran until the pounding of heart and head deadened the cruelty of what had been snatched from them. What she could not outrun, even for a moment, was the terrible vexing irony that bound her and Mags and Brenda together. Brenda’s offer to save the day with stepped-up production of Choice Brand beauty products was like nails on a chalkboard. That the woman who had for so long conspired against her should now be her rescuer made Cassie sick to her soul.

  She would outrun the awful truth.

  Zigging and zagging across streets and around parked cars, she lurched downhill like some crazed animal caught in rush hour traffic. Car horns blared, joggers shouted warnings, dogs barked, and children scattered in her wake.

  She cared little for their alarm. They could take it up with God, who might have the time to listen now that it was painfully obvious he’d gone deaf to Cassandra Dixon.

  Pride on every side. Proud mama keep on burning.

  Heart about to burst from her chest, Cassie pitched headlong onto the grass at a pocket park. Ignoring the wet lawn and the grass blades tickling her nose, she panted and sobbed and tore at the ground. A mother with two small children smelling the flowers in a tiny nearby rose garden herded them to safety.

  Fr. B retreated inside his Latin and the rituals of the faith. He could dress up in vestments, surround himself with stained glass, or sport a goatee if he desired to be someone else. The entire church and two thousand years of history were his sanctuaries. Without holy office or ecclesiastic authority, where did the person in the pew take refuge without confronting the Almighty head-on?

  For the life of her, she could not recall one of Fr. B’s jokes. Nor could she, her brain fuzzy with wine, remember the list she had compiled of ways to kill Brenda. Hard as she tried to think, her wandering mind could produce nothing remotely amusing.

  Then it occurred to her. That morning’s Chronicle. When at last she flopped onto her back, it was with a lopsided smile. The federal authorities had rented an empty warehouse, swooped down on Azure and its bottling vendors on four continents, and seized every ounce of Cassandra for quarantine — or so they thought. They did not know that she had kept one bottle back for herself.

  The last laugh.

  And why not? It had her name on it. It was the embodiment of all she had planned and slaved for. God was not going to deny her one last indulgence in the very breath of beauty.

  She ran home without stopping, uphill, knives of pain stabbing at lungs and legs.

  Cassie finished her makeup and stared at the woman in the mirror. The transformation, helped along by more merlot, was striking. Freshly showered; hair caught in a tasteful swirl of amber waves; blush, shadow, and lipstick in place, she wore a strapless Pierre Laroze that fell away from neck and shoulders in ripples of velvet black as midnight. The latticework lacing that loosely restrained the bodice allowed for plenty of fleshy peekaboo. The formfitting fabric ended long before Cassie’s yet-shapely thighs met her knees. An impulse buy to ease the depression of Azure’s dwindling market share, the dress had gone unworn once cooler heads had prevailed.

  I am a wife and mother, she remembered thinking when she brought the dress home. In the privacy of her closet, the purchase had morphed into something scandalous. Despite its having what Mags liked to call “a decency jacket” to put over the shoulders, Cassie had consigned it to the back of the closet with a firm, “This is the dress of a high-priced escort on an expense account.”

  But this evening the dress was only what she deserved.

  She slid her feet into a pair of spidery thin black and silver heels and adorned her ears with the tiny diamond teardrop earrings with which Nick had surprised her for their anniversary. She left the matching necklace in the jewelry box, liking the illusion of nakedness conjured by its absence.

  She called and ordered a taxi to arrive in twenty minutes.

  Cassie seated herself at the dressing table made of dark cherrywood. Box quickly discarded, slender, black-lacquered fingernails caressed the curvaceous neck of the perfume bottle from bottom to top. The stopper parted from the bore of the cruet with a soft pop, and Cassandra enveloped the room.

  Cassie gasped involuntarily. A scent so succulent as to defy human language curled and eddied about her body. At first she applied the scent with the stopper, slowly brushing skin and hair with liquid strokes. But frenzy took hold and she frantically splashed face, neck, and limbs with the craving in a bottle.

  A terrible, violent need shuddered along her spine, and Cassie cried out. She sucked the air for oxygen, but all the respiratory passages were thick and saturated with the unrelenting fragrance. There was not an easy breath for the taking.

  The aroma expanded in the confines of the room, refusing to allow the existence of anything else.

  “Stop!” Cassie thought it; what came out was a ragged gurgle. And to whom had she spoken? It was as if something were
in the room, a presence, a genie, unseen but enormous.

  She struggled to stand, to break free of the presence. She stumbled for the bedroom door, horrified to watch her hand lift the bottle and rapidly douse her head in perfume. A scream died in her throat. She would drown.

  A smooth, round object in her hand. Cool against hot palm. Doorknob. Must turn. Throat closing. Must drink. Cassie opened her mouth. The bottle of desire rose, tipped.

  Before she could drink, her shin slammed into the three-legged stool at the foot of the bed. The muddle of her mind cleared. She bit her lip against the hurt and jammed the stopper back in the bottle. She threw the jacket across bare shoulders and with a vicious twist of the doorknob flung open the bedroom door and careened into the hall. She half fell down the stairs, snatched her handbag off the dining table, jammed the cruet inside, and ran from the house.

  The cabbie had no sooner pulled up to the home than Cassie wrenched open the cab door and flung herself inside. She all but spit the destination at the startled driver. “St. John’s Cathedral.” And because she’d always wanted to, she added, “Step on it!”

  She was going to return God’s stinking perfume, and the Devil had better not get in her way.

  Fingers of evening shade lengthened over the manicured grounds of the imposing cathedral. The spires that pointed to God held back the sun and forced it to go around. Chittering bats called from the belfry, anxious for the coming night.

  They had driven with all the windows down. Still, she had not liked the awful longing that shone in the cabbie’s eyes as he too was ensnared in the scent that drenched her. She could just hear Mags. “What do you expect? It’s the good stuff. Thirty percent extrait perfume oil in ninety percent high-grade alcohol. You should ease up on the dosage, sweetie.”

  The cabbie, in five o’clock shadow and short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt bright with bananas and pineapples, kept glancing in the rearview mirror every five seconds, and the look in those eyes could only be lust. Cassie was grateful for the seat between them.