Heiresses of Russ 2012

by Connie Wilkins

  The two girls sat in Ana Celina’s room. Ana Celina’s gray cat rubbed at their ankles, demanding affection. They talked about college; it was all anyone talked about these days. Elisabeth was going to a state university three hours away. Ana Celina was headed to a school in London. “I need a break from Neve,” she explained.

  “Neve?”

  “My mom. Come on. I’ll introduce you. She’s probably down in her secret lab.” Ana Celina rolled her eyes.

  Elisabeth followed Ana Celina through the house—down the stairs, past the kitchen, to a closed door. Ana Celina knocked, then paused, waiting for the muffled “come in.”

  Ana Celina opened the door and fragrance rushed out like the surf. Fleeting florals, ripe fruits, fresh greenery, ancient spices: each scent struggled to make itself known. Stunned, Elizabeth gazed around the room. It was large, and filled with shelves. Each shelf was lined with trays. Each tray was packed with finger-sized vials.

  Neve sat in the middle of the room, at a desk stacked high with tumbling sheaths of paper. She wore a crimson tunic. Her dark hair was short and curly; her eyes were gray, dancing with light, just like Ana Celina’s. “Hello, girls,” she said, smiling. “You must be Elisabeth. Welcome to my secret lab. As you can see, this is where I concoct my brews.”

  “She’s a perfumer,” Ana Celina explained. “She works on contract for perfume brands. She creates new scents for their lines.”

  “Like Calvin Klein and stuff?” Elisabeth asked.

  They nodded.

  “Are those all perfumes?” Elisabeth asked, gesturing at the vials that lined the walls.

  “Not yet,” Neve said. “More like ingredients, really.”

  Neve was unlike any mom Elisabeth knew. Elisabeth’s own mother was a housewife—except for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, when she worked mornings in the office at their church. She didn’t even wear perfume.

  Elisabeth wanted to stay and ask Neve dozens of questions. She wanted to sniff every vial, maybe even sample a perfume that no one else had ever worn before.

  But Ana Celina seemed anxious to leave. “Come on,” she said, pulling her away. “I’ll make you a snack.”

  Elisabeth helped Ana Celina grill cheese sandwiches and slice Granny smith apples. Sitting at Ana Celina’s kitchen table, eating off fine china and drinking from a blue plastic tumbler, Elisabeth was totally content.

  •

  Days passed, as summer sprawled uneventfully. The girls began spending the evenings together and then sleeping over. They went to bookstores and coffee shops and art supply stores. They explored the woods that bound their neighborhood together, connecting the streets and cul-de-sacs like musculature. The woods became their favorite place, cool and quiet during the hot afternoons.

  Then a day came when everything changed.

  It began like all the other days. They were in the woods, sitting side by side on the surface of a large boulder, watching the creek as it flowed below. It streamed through wooded hills, fast and narrow at some places, wide and still at others, collecting silt and wishes on its way. The drought had left banks of muddled red clay; summer thunderstorms would choke the creek with rain once more. Elisabeth’s feet dangled over the water’s edge; her palms lay flat against the stone. In the breeze, Ana Celina’s hair tickled whisper-soft against Elisabeth’s bare shoulder, an accidental intimacy. They were silent, thinking private thoughts, appreciating the music of chirping birds, running water, quarreling squirrels.

  Then Ana Celina turned and looked at Elisabeth.

  “I have a secret for you,” she said.

  Elisabeth’s heart beat faster, a rhythm that spiraled into itself. “Okay,” was all she could manage.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s about my mom.”

  “Oh,” Elisabeth said, her breath whooshing outwards. “What is it?” she asked, confident that this secret couldn’t be as interesting as her own.

  “She’s a witch.”

  Elisabeth laughed, but Ana Celina didn’t laugh with her.

  “I’m serious. It’s not black magic or anything like that. But she knows some spells. Most of them have to do with perfume.”

  Ana Celina tended to exaggerate, making this revelation a bit hard to take. Elisabeth waited for further explanation, but none came. “Like, real magic?” she asked finally.

  “Yes,” Ana Celina said. “Real magic. Her mother taught her. And her mother taught her, I guess.”

  “What other spells does she know?” Elisabeth hoped for the classics: spells to make yourself beautiful, or rich, or beloved by the one who meant most to you.

  “Little things. Finding lost socks. Mending broken dishes. Making flowers grow.”

  “No beauty potions?”

  “No.”

  “No curses against your enemies?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh.”

  “The perfumes she makes for work have just a teeny-tiny bit of magic in them. The ones with real magic, she keeps for herself.”

  “Have you tried them?”

  “That’s the thing. I found this box.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Perfumes. Twelve of them. They’re magic. I held a couple of the vials in my hand. They have that tingle. I feel it in my fingertips.”

  “And?”

  “I want to try them. With you.”

  “Does your mom know you found them?”

  “Maybe,” Ana Celina said, looking away and twirling a strand of hair around her index finger. “I think she wanted me to find them.”

  •

  The box was in Ana Celina’s bedroom, beneath the bed. The girls sat facing each other, solemn and cross-legged, the box between them. It was the size of a shoebox, made of wood. The lid was a paper collage of exploding roses and foreign architecture.

  Inside the box were twelve vials, each the size of Elisabeth’s little finger.

  The girls watched each other, tense and tingling.

  “Let’s do it,” Ana Celina said finally. “You pick.”

  The vials weren’t numbered; their titles were hand-written in black ink on white labels. Elisabeth chose First Herb Garden in the City. Trembling slightly, she handed the vial to Ana Celina.

  With practiced fingers, Ana Celina popped the stopper from the vial. She placed her index finger over the opening, and tipped it to the side so the liquid coated her finger. She dabbed it onto her collarbone and the insides of her elbows. Then she handed it to Elisabeth, who did the same.

  They stretched out on the bed with their hands tucked behind their heads and their eyes closed.

  The fragrance washed over them and created a world.

  Notes of bay leaf, basil, and parsley evaporate first, complex and aromatic…then subtle sage and French lavender…and the ethereal sweetness of honeysuckle. More complicated scents: moist potting soil, the musty rot of old gardening gloves, and the sharp tang of cedar wood, warmed by the sun.

  Scents evolve into sensations: the sun warming the wood is hot on her neck. The traffic is a far-away voice below, murmuring and bellowing by turns. A gray haze of pollution floats over the city skyline, thickening in the distance.

  Neve tends her garden, teaching her plants to flourish with the kindest and gentlest spells she knows.

  The scent faded. Or rather, the memory faded—the world it evoked shimmered and then disappeared. The scent remained, a fragrant whiff of basil and honeysuckle.

  The girls smiled faintly at one other. Elisabeth blushed, looked away, unable to speak.

  Ana Celina sat up, resting her arms on folded knees. Her hair curtained her face, flowing straight on either side. “See?” she said, her mouth laughing, her eyes inscrutable. “I told you. You didn’t believe me, did you?”

  “I didn’t know what you meant. Ana, can you do this? Will your mother teach you the spells?”

  “I’ll never let her.”

  “Why not?”

  “Ma
gic devours people. I’m never going to be that person.”

  “But—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  •

  In silent agreement, they waited several days before returning to the box, until the lingering scent in the creases of their arms had faded completely.

  Ana Celina deliberated, stroking fingertips along the white labels, inspecting her mother’s looping cursive. Elisabeth waited.

  Eventually Ana Celina spoke: “This one.”

  Chance Meeting in Istanbul

  Opium-bitter and cinnamon-rich smells of incense, washed with faded curls of tobacco. A whiff of crushed grape leaves. Dark-roasted coffee. Aromas of food: spicy meat dripping fat, eggplant sizzling in fresh olive oil. The air is thick with pollution, a heaviness to every breath that stinks of ozone and leaded fuel. Base notes flutter with a slight ocean breeze.

  Neve navigates crowded streets, the scents carrying her, noise blending in uneven registers. She turns a corner, and there he is. His face emerges from the faceless crowd. He’s exactly as beautiful as she remembers: the dark hair, studious eyes, three-day old shave. His smile is quick. Recognition hits her, a punch in the stomach, and then her chest soars upward, leaving her bruised stomach behind. It’s him. Always him, in the middle of nowhere, in the center of everywhere.

  Elisabeth dragged her fingers across the surface of Ana Celina’s puffy comforter, remembering the man’s face—handsome and familiar.

  “That’s your father,” Elisabeth said.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember him?” Elisabeth asked.

  “Not really. He left when I was small. I don’t think he liked magic very much.”

  Elisabeth wondered how anyone could dislike magic this fragile and perfect, but the expression on Ana Celina’s face told her not to say more. Instead, they rested together, fingers barely touching, until they fell asleep. They napped through the late afternoon until the sun slanted low through the windows.

  •

  A Day in the Orchard, Gathering Peaches

  Mellow essence of peach, sweet as syrup. The green leaves rustling in the summer breeze. The stickiness of sap trickling down bark. The living smell of warm dirt. The sun warming the aluminum ladder. Sheer fuzz sticking to Neve’s fingers and hands. Neve is young, girl-sized, full of curiosity. There’s an ache in her shoulders as she reaches above her head, and the muted “thunk” of each peach as she drops it into the pail. A fleeting scent memory, as she imagines the cinnamon-clove spice of hot peach pie. Her mother wears a colorful head scarf and sings an incomprehensible song. One day she’ll teach Neve the words, but not yet.

  “Tell me about your grandmother,” Elisabeth asked.

  So Ana Celina explained her family history, and how secret knowledge passed from mother to daughter. For generations, the family lived in Grasse, the perfume capital of the world. In the old days, Ana Celina’s great-grandfather had been renowned for his fragrances. But Ana Celina believed that his signature perfumes were really the work of her great-grandmother. “That’s what Neve thinks, anyways.”

  •

  Elisabeth returned home one afternoon to find her mom dusting the guest room.

  “Back from Ana’s house?” Margaret asked as she cleaned the lamp.

  “Yeah,” Elisabeth said. “Who’s coming over?”

  Margaret shifted her attention to the desk, rubbing the dust cloth in expert circles. “Trey’s bringing his girlfriend over for the weekend.”

  Elisabeth’s brother was a junior in college. His girlfriend wore red baseball caps over a swinging blond ponytail, and short denim skirts over long tan legs. She fulfilled their mother’s expectations completely.

  “Run get some clean sheets, sweetie.” Elisabeth’s mom gestured toward the hall closet.

  Elisabeth found a fresh pair, scented of laundry detergent and the clothes line. (In summer, her mom aired the linens outside before putting them in the dryer. It was one of Elisabeth’s favorite things about warm weather.) Together, they stripped and remade the bed.

  “I’ll probably be making this bed up for your boyfriends before too long,” Margaret said. “Can’t believe my little girl’s going off to college so soon.”

  Elisabeth smiled, but didn’t answer. The moment evoked a memory: a day several years ago, her brother’s first big date. Their mother had hugged him by the door, straightening his shirt collar, telling him to have fun and be real careful. After closing the door, she’d turned to Elisabeth, sitting at the kitchen table with her homework. “I’ll probably be telling you the same thing before too long,” Margaret had said, looking misty.

  She said it differently now. Like she was reassuring herself most of all.

  This was why Elisabeth never answered. It was the kind of secret that became too big to tell anyone, even yourself. It was the kind of secret that fell apart when you forced it into words.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m going to miss you guys.”

  She helped her mother straighten the bookshelves and fluff the pillows. She wondered if her mother knew how silly it was to enact this guest room charade; undoubtedly Trey’s girlfriend would sneak up to his bedroom once the lights were out. Elisabeth suspected that her mother did know this, yet observed the ritual anyway. Rituals were the straight lines they walked along, charades the defenses that kept their lives in check.

  •

  Cabin in the Mountains, with Him

  Maple syrup and the rich oils of freshly chopped walnuts. Tender golden waffles, hot off the iron. Crackling fireplace, dancing flames tinged with pine smoke and sizzling sap. The dense warmth of the cabin air. Earthy smell of goose-down comforters. Pungent coffee brewing, drip-drip-drip. She’s warm all over, shuffling in wool socks. He drizzles syrup on her waffle in a complex pattern of circles and stars. With his index finger he rubs the tip of her nose. They grin at each other. They don’t need to say a word, so they don’t.

  “Do you wish you could see him?” Elisabeth asked.

  “Maybe. Yes. Of course.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Somewhere in Europe. Neve doesn’t like to talk about it. Maybe she doesn’t know.”

  “Why did he leave?”

  “I don’t know. Because Neve was always more wrapped up in making perfume than anything else. Because she wanted to have adventures. Because she’s never really gotten around to understanding that she is a grown-up and this is real life. I guess she thought that magic excused her from all that.”

  Surprised by Ana Celina’s outburst, Elisabeth was quiet for a moment. Though she accepted it, she never understood the tension between Ana Celina and Neve. Neve was interesting and charming, and let Ana Celina do whatever she wanted. Sometimes she even gave them a bottle of red wine, or money for dinner at restaurants they could never afford.

  Elisabeth thought for a while. “Maybe he left for the same reasons that people always leave.”

  “Like what?” Ana Celina asked, strangely hostile. But Elisabeth didn’t have an answer. She thought about her own father, who lived with them, yet had seemed absent for years. She had no scents with which to remember him, not even a scrapbook. She wanted to tell Ana Celina that fathers didn’t matter. We don’t need fathers, she would say. We don’t need men, we don’t need boys. We can be perfectly happy on our own, together. But she was afraid that Ana Celina wouldn’t understand.

  •

  Cooking Dinner with Him

  The crisp sweetness of red bell peppers and refreshing cucumber. Sweet mango and acidic pineapple. Conflicting scents of mint, cilantro and basil. Fresh pressed garlic. Mingled juices messy on her fingers.

  His aftershave is citrus, aromatic—notes of lemon, bergamot, musk, cedarwood. His smell is something different, a scent that only exists in her mind… Comfort.

  “She was so happy then,” Ana Celina said, speaking first. “Doesn’t she seem happy? Not like now. Always sitting alone, working or drinking wine.”

  “She seems comfor
table,” Elisabeth said cautiously.

  “But she could never be comfortable,” Ana Celina grumbled. “Oh, no. We have to travel around the world, always searching for new scents and things. She acts like her whole life is about finding new stuff, just so she can remember it later on.”

  “I think she knew that she couldn’t be happy unless she lived a life with lots of adventure and excitement,” Elisabeth said carefully. She thought this sounded very much like Ana Celina herself. But she wasn’t sure if Ana Celina knew it yet.

  “I don’t understand why we can’t just live a normal life,” Ana Celina said. “No perfume. No stupid magic.”

  But why would you want a normal life? Elisabeth wondered, but didn’t say aloud.

  •

  “How come we never go to your house?” Ana Celina said. “I want to go to your house.”

  “Because it’s boring,” Elisabeth said.

  “So?” Ana Celina said, then: “No it’s not.”

  “Okay,” Elisabeth sighed. “We’ll go to my house this time.”

  They walked through the woods together, Ana Celina leading the way. They emerged from the woods in Elisabeth’s backyard, blinking in the blazing sun. The world smelled of warm pine straw and melting asphalt.

  It was a Thursday, which meant that Elisabeth’s mother would be at home and her father would be at work.

  Her parents had a bad marriage, but it was the boring kind. They never got into fights because they never talked. Elisabeth’s father spent his time mowing the lawn, washing the car, and organizing the garage. Elisabeth’s mother spent her time vacuuming the floors, polishing the furniture, and making balanced meals. The garage was very neat, with a spotless concrete floor. Dinner was very predictable, with a meat, a starch, and a vegetable. Occasionally, her parents discussed the news, or how messy the neighbor’s yard looked.

  I will never get married, Elisabeth vowed whenever she thought about them.