Scent

by Kelly, Clint L.

  She ordered him to wait and climbed the steps to the cathedral. At the top she uttered a quick “Thy will be done,” drew back an arm, and hurled the elegant cruet with all her might against the heavy ornate wooden doors. The bottle shattered into countless glittering shards, a few of which peppered her face.

  Picking glass fragments from her flesh, careful not to smear her makeup, Cassie backed down the steps, mind a roiling cauldron of ambiguities. Her beef was not with Fr. B. Her beef was with the grace-filled, redeeming God of life. How could the maker of heaven and earth craft a flower that was both gloriously beautiful and stupefyingly toxic? Why tie her fate to that flower? Why lead her on for years only to use her dreams against her? What was the Latin for “big divine laughingstock”?

  Never in twenty years of highs and lows had Cassie felt so defeated.

  “You kind of doing a Martin Luther back there?” the taxi driver inquired when she climbed back into the cab. “You know, nailing your beefs to the church door and all like that?” He held out a clean handkerchief. After a moment’s hesitation she took it and dabbed at her bloodied forehead and cheek. He turned the rearview mirror so she could inspect the damage.

  Cassie watched him warily, but seeing that the threat level in his eyes had dropped from lust to longing, she answered, “That particular door belonged to the Catholics, but yes, something like that.”

  “Me, I’m a lapsed Baptist m’self. Nothing like a good protest now and then.” He smiled sympathetically. His was a wide, friendly face, eyes alight with a merry outlook. “You’re that perfume lady what got shafted by your own sword, am I right?” He must have read the defeat on her face, and quickly added, “Mukta told me about the time he picked you up from the TV studio. Said you was a little deranged but nice and a big tipper. Just so you know, I don’t want no tip this trip. Fact is, the whole thing’s on me, you maybe being out of a job and all. Keep the snot rag too, come to think of it. Now, lady, I ain’t no high-class perfume expert, pardon the expression, but I’m thinking that whatever flavor you’re wearing right now has hit written all over it. Hope it’s one of yours.”

  Cassie stared out the window and said nothing.

  With a sigh of disappointment, the cabbie asked, “Where to now, lady?”

  Cassie blew her nose. “The zoo,” she said. “I want you to take me to the zoo.”

  The San Francisco Zoo was northern California’s largest zoological park. An oasis that beckoned her as a young girl, the zoo had exerted its pull over Cassie ever since. She loved the lemur park with its incredible leaping primates, and the African Savanna exhibit replete with giraffe, zebra, ostrich, and big cat habitat.

  It was where she loved to bring Beth whenever Nick would go off on one of his scent-finding missions. They felt closer to him when gazing at animals from Madagascar or the Brazilian rain forest, or wherever on the planet he happened to be at the moment.

  “Will Daddy bring me a lee-moo?” five-year-old Beth would ask. Cassie would distract her daughter by explaining how much care lemurs required, including feeding and cleanup. When Beth had impishly inquired about “lee-moo poo,” both mother and daughter had giggled at the sound of it. To this day one of them only had to say the words if the other was taking life too seriously. It saddened Cassie to think of how long it had been since the last time they’d giggled together.

  With barely an hour to closing, Cassie bought a bag of popcorn and made straight for the big cat habitat, where male and female lions roamed in a natural setting that brought them closer to the public than ever before.

  Fighting the fear and nausea that churned inside, she all but ran to the fence in front of the big cat enclosure and steadied herself by holding the low rail between her and the fence. Her scanty late-evening wear drew stares. She forced herself to eat a little popcorn to show she was, despite appearances, just another lion lover out for a gawk.

  Between the eight-foot fence and the lions was a concrete pit ten feet deep and fifteen feet across, forming a man-made cliff at the boundary of the lions’ domain.

  Cassie felt woozy, disoriented, callous. Or was it careless? The twin effects of the wine and the Cassandra yanked her between languid bon ami and coarse impropriety.

  A baby protested with wails of fatigue. A couple ten feet away with their backs to the enclosure fed each other the remains of two hot dogs. In a nearby pen, a peacock wandered in front of the patrons, stopped, and fanned its shocking blue feathers for a crowd of appreciative shutterbugs.

  I should fan something for the crowd. The thought made her giggle.

  Across the divide, a lioness roared and cuffed her cubs into line. A hoary male with an impressive mane huffed repeatedly, as if in the act of dislodging a kingly hairball.

  Cassie exhaled. Alternating waves of silliness and impudence washed over her. One certainty was paramount. The horror of feeling unable to breathe was fresh in her mind. She kicked off the heels and set her handbag and the popcorn on the ground. She vaulted the handrail, grasped the fence with both hands, and raised up on tiptoe. There was a tightening in her bare calves. A strong breeze from behind whipped at the dress where it could ill afford to be whipped. The mane on the old lion blew forward over its face, like that of an ancient rock singer in need of a clip.

  The beast turned, sniffed the air, and opened its fang-filled maw to emit a thunderous roar. The other cats rose, tested the wind, and as if of one mind crept forward to the edge of the cliff. Even the new mother abandoned her cubs and trotted to join the pride there.

  Proud pride. Proud mama. Pride goeth before a pretty perfume. Cassie grinned like a gargoyle.

  The lions paced the rim of their enclosure, sometimes stopping to stretch front legs and paws down over the ledge, as if gauging the drop and testing the concrete’s grip with their claws.

  Suddenly the separation between creatures and spectators felt chillingly inadequate.

  Her heart raced. The urge was strong within her to climb the fence, drop into the pit, and scale the cliff opposite. What then the headlines? Not of defeat nor of derision but of collective guilt. “City Mourns Promising Perfumer.” “Critics Honor Creator of Suspect Perfume after Deadly Mauling.” Poetic. Just. A fitting end for the sorrow Cassie had caused.

  The lions eyed the pit and the fence beyond. Their roars grew more insistent, their agitation plain. The visitors, even those viewing other habitats, took notice. Heads turned. Fingers pointed. A young child shrieked in fear.

  She climbed the fence and teetered near the top. She waited for the world to stop spinning. I must go over with dignity.

  “Hey, lady, we done here?”

  Startled, Cassie turned. The talkative cabbie stood a few yards behind, hands in pockets, Hawaiian shirt exploding with tropical fruit. She shook her head. “Did I ask you to wait?” And then she knew she hadn’t. “Bartenders and cab drivers,” she said without feeling. “There’s no fooling them.”

  He smiled. “Add librarians, barbers, and fifth-grade teachers named Mrs. Pritchard, and I think you’ve got yourself a list.”

  He joined her at the fence, looked up, then averted his eyes. “Come on down, lady. Aren’t you cold in that outfit?”

  “It’s warmer than it looks,” she said, sounding braver than she felt. “’Sides, I like it up here. The lions are nicer without bars in the way.” She put one foot on the crossbar, braced herself, and tried to swing her other leg over. The alpha lion watched and paced. The other cats, sensing his agitation, circled at his back. Their roars intensified.

  “No, lady, please, this is not a good day for this. I gotta couple more fares before my day’s done, but first I need you down here, on the ground, by me.” He reached up and took her foot.

  She considered the hand with the hairy knuckles gripping her ankle. “Do we look as ridiculous as I think we do?”

  “Yeah, we do, and speaking of looks, I been seeing the warm ones you get from the guys out here.” He stared hard at one middle-aged ogler in safari shorts, straw hat,
and sandals. “Hey, buddy!” the taxi driver shouted. “You got a problem, or should maybe I create you one?” The man hurried off, pink-faced.

  Cassie cringed. When it was apparent that her champion was about to verbally accost a soldier in camouflage uniform, she kicked loose of his hand. “Okay, point taken. I’ll go quietly, if you will.”

  The cabbie grinned. He picked up the handbag and the sack of popcorn while she made an ungainly descent. Holding out the bag, he said, “Mind if I have some corn?”

  She took the handbag and shook her head. “Help yourself.”

  He licked up some popcorn and stuck out his hand. “I’m Lenny. Lenny Feletti. After you left the cab, I’m thinking I’m a little too attracted to you. You’re not safe out here . . . like that. Thought maybe I could see you back to your nice family and that nice home of yours. No charge.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “An Italian Baptist?”

  He shrugged. “Told you, I’m lapsed. Membership under review.”

  “Lapsed from the Italians, or lapsed from the Baptists?” She retrieved her heels, trying to match his optimism.

  The cabbie shrugged, stuffed his mouth with a handful of popcorn, and hurried Cassie away from the big cat habitat.

  The effects of the perfume and wine were wearing off, though the scent still lingered. But even so, Cassie was sorry to see Lenny Feletti drive off. He had waited until she was inside the front door. She stood with one foot on the porch and the other inside the entry until the red of the cab’s taillights vanished out of the drive.

  “Cass? My God, Cass, where have you been?”

  If Nick was surprised by her choice of evening dress or the appearance of her face, he said nothing. Instead he wrapped her in strong arms, kissed her neck, and waited until she wished to speak. He smelled good. The last of the Block & Tackle.

  She knew she smelled fantastic and could tell from the way his nostrils flared and his eyes widened that he was receiving the signals. Desire and alarm shadowed his face and left him confused.

  “I’ve been at the zoo,” she said, not caring to elaborate. “I had to get away.”

  “You’re cut. Hold still.” She did and he removed a splinter of glass from her scalp.

  “Don’t ask for details, Nick. I’m fresh out of explanations.” He kissed her neck. She pulled back.

  He kissed her again. “I could take an educated guess at why you smell of Cassandra and our bedroom reeks of it. The room is unlivable until we get it fumigated, the furniture reupholstered, our clothes and bed linens cleaned. I just shut the door until we can deal with it. But right now, I want you — ”

  She slipped from his grasp. “You don’t want me,” she said. “Face it, Nick. You want my namesake, and but for the grace of God, you might not care who was wearing it.”

  He looked sad but did not contradict her. “Are you okay, Cass?”

  She didn’t know what to say. She’d thrown a bottle of disappointment in God’s face and gone to the lions to do something unspeakable. Had she been lured there by some dark force or the unrequited longing for something more, a yearning that was so central to her DNA?

  Cassie’s exhaustion was bone deep. She needed to sleep, but to sleep meant more time alone in her own head, and it was plain where that had gotten her. “I-I’ll shower it off before bed.”

  “You take that couch and I’ll take this one and we’ll see what tomorrow brings,” Nick said. “Honey, we’ll get past this. You’re — I’m — we’re all grieving for the loss. Beth’s spending the night with her friend Mindy Lowery from school. I figure she needs her peers to help process all this.”

  Cassie nodded, unable to express an opinion either way. Everything in her life moved at half speed these days. She wanted to sleep and not have to think.

  She awoke to moonglow slanting through the dining room windows. Her head ached. Nick’s even breathing and inert, blanketed form told her that he had at last given in to sleep. When she had finally nodded off sometime after midnight, her head was in his lap and he was stroking her hair.

  Cassie listened to the silence of the house, the home they had shared for thousands of nights. Without Beth and Mags and Gretchen, it felt empty and forlorn. Not unlike the life that was being stripped from her one dream, one loved one, at a time. She understood why at times like this, some people’s thoughts turned to the Golden Gate Bridge and a watery demise more than two hundred feet beneath. San Francisco drew its share of dreamers and very practically provided them with the means for a swift and dramatic exit should the dream die. Every couple of weeks on average, someone made use of it.

  She felt guilty for thinking the macabre thoughts. Were she still alive, Cassie’s mother would prescribe work as the cure to depression. Polish the silver. Paint the trim. Scrub the tub.

  Banish the blues.

  Disbud the dahlias.

  Disbudding was the process of removing the side buds to encourage bigger flowers to grow from the tip buds. Cassie had neglected the flowers for weeks and needed to get out there, gather in what blooms were fit for the house, and do the disbudding. Ancient as the Aztecs, dahlias gave pleasure when pleasure was in short supply.

  She moved quietly so as not to disturb her husband. In white sweatshirt, mint green pajama bottoms, and a worn pair of moccasins, Cassie slipped out the side door armed with gloves, a sharp knife, a plastic bucket of warm water, and a burning desire to put something right. She was not troubled in the least to do the gardening at half past three a.m. The best time to cut dahlias for bouquets was in the evening or early morning, when the air was cool and the stems coursed with moisture.

  Beneath the yard lights, she examined a sea of white, yellow, red, and maroon blossoms sturdy and alert in the chill of the predawn air. They were showy and decorative, some measuring as much as ten inches across. Their geometric beauty filled her with order and calm. Their minimal fragrance allowed her nose to remain clear for the important work of fragrance distinction. At least it had.

  Upon closer inspection, the stems and flowers were ratty from neglect. Cassie felt an unreasonable irritation at the disorder of discolored leaves, rogue shoots, and arrested blooms ruined by her inability to keep up with the disbudding. They were as worn down and diminished by her quest for the holy grail of scent as she was.

  Suddenly it was as if the dahlias mocked her. As if her greed and defeat grew outside her door as surely as inside her heart. Their sad, dilapidated appearance advertised her weakness, shouted her failed priorities. They were her accusers.

  The knife slashed downward, decapitating a giant reddish orange bloom that landed on her moccasin. Savagely she kicked it away and swung the knife in a slicing arc that severed a half dozen blooms at once. For the first time in days, Cassie felt a tingle of genuine satisfaction.

  She kicked the bucket of water and received soaked feet in return. Another roundhouse kick and the now-empty bucket rattled and bumped across the driveway, coming to rest against Gretchen’s empty dog run.

  Breathing hard, intent on mass destruction, Cassie wielded the knife indiscriminately. Blossoms flew, stalks fell, and what wasn’t knifed in two was trampled beneath.

  With little grunting cries, she took the knife in both hands like a samurai and attacked the dahlia beds with a rising sense of achievement. With every hacking blow, she shed a little of the thick, tarry pitch of grief and hate that had disabled her spirit as surely as an oil slick incapacitated a seabird.

  “Take that, Brenda!” she yelled at a large pink bloom that had gone brown at the edges, and sent it flying into the night. She knew she would feel vindicated by the action. What she did not expect was the sense of closure that came with it. She would no longer need the “hit list” with Gelasse’s name at the top.

  Two strong arms came out of the darkness and encircled her upper body, but a last surge of resentment gave her strength. She broke free, whirled, and missed cutting Nick with the knife by the slimmest of margins.

  “Whoa, Cass!” He was
barefoot but had pulled on a pair of jeans and a windbreaker. He took in the destruction of the garden and the sight of his wild-haired, knife-wielding wife braced for attack in sweatshirt and pj’s. The look on his face was equal parts shock and sorrow. “For the love of heaven, what is this?”

  Cassie’s answer was to turn and, with another satisfying sweep of her arm, put another dying dahlia out of its misery. “That’s the past, Nicky — Brenda, Azure, Cassandra, selfishness, covetousness, pride — all of it. Maybe it was idolatry, but that’s it. It’s gone, all gone.”

  The look on her husband’s face went from anxiety to a loving anxiety, tinged with a healthy respect for the butcher knife still in carving position. “Please drop the knife, Cass.”

  She took in her surroundings, then studied the weapon. It was as if for the first time she saw the results of the morning’s work. She looked back at Nick, and the old fire was there. “Maybe I’m not done.”

  He waited. Minutes passed before she let the knife fall to the ground, then went to her knees and began to gather all the severed blooms into a pile.

  Nick dropped to his knees beside her, grabbed her arms above the wrists, and held her still. “Cass,” he said, his voice low and gentle, “you’ll always be my ginger dust. Let it go, babe, let it go. There’s nothing more we can do.”

  Tears in her eyes, Cassie said, “You’re wrong, Nick. There has to be something to take the ache away. Help me build an altar.”

  He studied her and the gathering of torn and wilted dahlia blooms. The dying embers of stubborn resistance flickered in his eyes for a moment, then were gone. Silently they collected the rest of the scattered blooms and added them to the heap.

  Cass took his hand and faced into the faint light of the new dawn breaking over the Twin Peaks above San Francisco Bay.

  “I don’t know if I’m done swearing,” Nick said, voice breaking. “I don’t know if I’m done shaking my fist at God. I don’t know what to do with Azure’s ashes.”