The Secret of a Heart Note

by Stacey Lee

  “I felt like banana scones, too.” Their caramel goodness swirls like a halo of scent above each buttery wedge.

  Smell and emotion are closely linked in the brain. Pleasant smells trigger positive emotions, which then give off more “feel-good” smells. I fed Mother banana scones before asking permission to attend high school. It worked, too. She let me go.

  The earthy scents of vetiver and French sage warm the air. Good, she’s relaxing.

  “I haven’t changed my mind about algebra.”

  Though I keep my expression neutral, the scowlish odor of molded lemons gives me away. I grasp the back of a chair and focus on a narcissus flower engraved on the window frame.

  “You’re already taking too many classes.” She waves around a scone. “What is so urgent about that subject?”

  “Math is useful. We might be able to formulate algebraic expressions for the elixirs using ratios of base notes to hearts and tops.” Maybe there are even formulas for calculating attraction, maybe even love.

  Her scone slips from her grasp and detonates the eggs. Yellow blood oozes forth, sulfury with a hint of sunflower seeds, which our chickens love to eat. “Why would we do that when we have our noses? It would be so cumbersome.”

  “For future generations.” As the only two aromateurs left on the planet, the survival of our kind is hanging by a spider thread. “We could leave a roadmap behind after we’re gone.” Maybe the gene pool would spit up another aromateur.

  The eggs seem to stop oozing, held in place by the sudden chill in the room. “Why? Are we planning to go somewhere?”

  “No,” I quickly say, regretting the turn in conversation.

  Her eyes tighten. “Each client is unique and elixirs can’t possibly be reduced to a formula. Our knowledge has been passed down from mother to daughter for thousands of years. That is all the formula we need.”

  I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Arguing the point will not help my cause. “Fine. But how exactly does algebra break Rule One?”

  “Mr. Frederics could unintentionally favor you in grading.”

  “I’m not going to college, so grades aren’t important. I’m just there to learn.” I hold my breath, hoping I didn’t just send lie odors into the environment. It’s mostly true.

  “We have to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Our business is built on reputation. If people don’t trust us, they’ll stop coming. Our skills, our noses, will go to waste. Don’t you want to be an aromateur?”

  “Of course.” This is the third time she’s asked me that since I brought up the issue of school. It’s like asking me if I want to be Persian, Welsh, Inuit, Chinese, or any of the other seventy-two ethnicities in my genetic makeup. I didn’t choose them, I just am them. “But people will never stop coming. We’re the only love witches in the world besides Aunt Bryony—”

  “She is no longer an aromateur,” Mother says of her estranged twin, and the vetiver and sage drain away. When my aunt lost her sense of smell, she became, in Mother’s opinion, “useless.” The two lost contact twenty years ago when my aunt left. “Honestly, Mim, people don’t go to high school to learn. They go there to suffer. Teenagers are a different species, angsty and hormonal with that canned apple juice smell. It’s much nicer here.” She gestures toward the window, which offers a glimpse into our ten-thousand-plant garden. “Plants are our books, and we have a full library.”

  I groan. It occurs to me that it isn’t just dropping algebra that bothers me. It’s also Mother’s refusal to care about my interests. Of all people, she knows how multilayered people are. We spend our lives decoding people’s complexity. For once, maybe she could decode mine. As hard as it sometimes is to believe, she was a teenager once. Didn’t she ever wonder if there was more to life than mixing elixirs? “I have a whole life of weeding ahead of me. I just want to—”

  She puts a hand on her hip. “You want to what?”

  Take up a sport, like football, or crew, and limp away, flush from victory. Join the debate club, and say things like “That’s a logical fallacy!” Scream over boy bands. I don’t want to waste my teen years elbow-deep in soil and begonias. But if Mother knew I wanted to have a life outside the briar walls, she’d think I was planning to defect, maybe like Aunt Bryony. “Not weed.”

  I gather my books and my lunch into my messenger bag, almost knocking our chipped guacamole bowl off the counter. If I was the type to throw things, that ugly bowl would make a satisfying crack against the wood floors. The frustrated scent of loosestrife peels off me, a noxious weed that smells like garlic breath. “I’m late.”

  “Mim.”

  I pause in the doorway, but don’t turn around.

  “I’ll think about algebra,” she says.

  In front of the library, a modern building with large glass windows, I remove the vial of elixir from my bag. A tiny fragment of Mr. Frederics’s handkerchief with a sample of his saliva floats inside. Saliva’s a key component of elixir.

  I warm the vial in my palm, then shake it vigorously. Usually, we shoot the arrow by sprinkling the elixir directly on the target, or something we are certain the target and no one else will touch. Elixirs are clear, tasteless, and virtually undetectable by the regular human nose. They’re also the same temperature as skin, and lighter than rain, making them nearly impossible to feel. The elixir affixes to the target and in a few days, the target starts subconsciously “noticing” the client’s scent. Magic.

  Through the windows, I spy Ms. DiCarlo at her desk, rubbing an alcohol-soaked cotton ball over a book cover with such vigor, she might erase the picture. Her red hair bounces around her shoulders, flipped up at the ends into a single fat curl.

  I walk right up to the librarian’s desk. “Hi, Ms. DiCarlo.” Beside her keyboard lies a small Starbucks cup filled with a shot of espresso, still steaming, with a D marked on the side for what must mean “decaf.” I could drop the elixir into the cup. Mom made it so concentrated, a single drop will work, even if Ms. DiCarlo doesn’t finish her drink.

  First thing’s first. Our Rulebook requires us to verify that the target is not married and is not a sociopath. We learn about these things during the client interviews and a background check. I simply take a few whiffs of the target to confirm.

  Windex and bran muffins with splashes of peaceful green notes, like holy basil, the scent of pensiveness. Decoding a person’s scentprint—peeling away the outside package to see the person inside—is usually my favorite part of the job. But it’s not what I came for today.

  She blinks at me with her doll-like eyes. “Hello. Are you new?”

  “Yes. I’m Mimosa,” I say, feeling dumb at my lack of a last name. “Please call me Mim.” Another sniff. I don’t detect sour mash or black rot, which could indicate psychosis.

  Ms. DiCarlo sits up so straight, her chair rolls back a few inches. Even faculty isn’t immune to the rumors about me. “Oh yes. I’ve heard you were here. May I help you?”

  “So far, no one has signed up for the Puddle Jumpers’ teachers’ team.” Kali put me in charge of recruiting for the charity event she leads every year, buddying troubled youth with SGHS teachers and students. She thought it would help people get over their hesitancy toward me by showing them that I can be fun, too. Plus, it’s something we can do together outside of the garden. “Are you interested? You’d be perfect. Kids always love librarians.” I sniff deeper. I don’t detect any male odors on her whatsoever. No female ones, either, other than her own. Single for sure.

  “Oh, well, yes, that’s true.” She tries to suppress a smile, but it doesn’t work, so she waves my comment off. “Well, when is it?”

  “Next Friday during homecoming week.”

  “Let me check my calendar.” She opens a drawer and pulls out a bound stack of papers that looks like a manuscript. Under the manuscript, she finds her day planner, which is thick as a bible. As she replaces the manuscript in the drawer, I catch the words, Avoiding the Torture Chamber of Medieval Library Collection
s, by Sofia DiCarlo, on the cover page. She’s a writer.

  She flips through the mostly blank pages of her planner and finds the right day. “Looks like I’m free.”

  “Great. Is there anyone I might ask to be your faculty partner?” If she says Mr. Frederics, we definitely have a match.

  Her traffic-light green eyes shift to the corner, while she thinks it over.

  I help her along. “Mr. Frederics, maybe?”

  She tilts her chin to the side. “Why not? He always makes the students laugh.”

  I catch a zing of anticipation, the one that smells of iced tea, followed by happy puffs of apple blossom, meaning compatibility. Check. Moving on. “One other thing, I’m searching for a book called Women in Nineteenth Century America: Socialites to Spinsters.”

  At the word spinster, I detect a note of something salty spiking her natural scent. Something wistful. She’s definitely open to love.

  She types something on her computer, then frowns. “It’s in special collections. I’ll fetch it.”

  Standing, she smoothes her blouse into the waistband of her tailored skirt, then hurries toward a back room. When the door closes behind her, I dump in the contents of my vial. More than enough.

  A minute later, she returns empty-handed. “I’m afraid the book is missing, but City Library has a copy if you want me to make the request.”

  “No, that’s okay. Thanks, anyway.”

  The Rulebook requires me to witness Ms. DiCarlo take the bait. I exit the library and spy on her through the library windows. She goes back to polishing book covers, still not touching her espresso.

  When I pick up the scent of a campfire, my heart jumps.

  Court treads toward the library, his arms swinging easily, eyes unfocused and relaxed. The school songbird, Cassandra Linney, bounces alongside him with her arm hooked through his. The two might have stepped out of the pages of a J.Crew catalogue. On him: cashmere V-neck in moss green, size medium. On her: the clambake skirt in seaport blue with cropped pinstripe jacket, size petite. Cassandra flips back her corkscrew hair with a snap of her wrist.

  For reasons I don’t understand, my secondhand sundress suddenly feels as shabby as it is. The Aromateur Trust Fund set up by our medieval benefactors only covers business expenses, meaning we live frugally. Still, did I have to choose this cable-knit scarf and this ratty hat? Looks like something out of a grandma’s closet. I wish I didn’t care so much. After all, once my stint here at Santa Guadalupe High has ended, I will disappear back into the briar, as always.

  I shrink into the shadow of a building post as they approach, hoping Court’s too distracted by the living mass of Cassandra’s hair to notice me. The sound of her trilly laugh makes my teeth hurt.

  I return to spying on the librarian. She still hasn’t drunk her beverage. What’s wrong with her? No one likes lukewarm espresso.

  “Mim,” comes Court’s smooth voice.

  I straighten back up. “Oh, hello,” I say, as if I just noticed them.

  Cassandra’s blue eyes grow large at the sight of me, and her corkscrew hair seems to straighten momentarily in fright. Her unease wafts over me, the slightly molded smell of rained-on pavement. “You’re Kali’s friend.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, if you see her, tell her I’m looking for her.”

  “Okay.” I hope she’s not still mad about the homecoming half-time show. Kali said Cassandra threw her sheet music when she learned Kali, a junior, would be sharing the stage with her.

  “I’ll catch up later,” she tells Court. After a last look at me—the fruity rooibos smell of curiosity joins her unease—she sails off toward a group of seniors.

  “H-how are you feeling?” My voice sounds unnaturally chipper.

  “Good as new. Thanks again for saving my life.” He touches his arm where the bee had stung him. His dimples appear, one on the left, and two on the . . . I shake myself free.

  “You’re welcome. You should really carry an EpiPen.”

  “I usually do, but I left it in the car. What was in that jar?”

  “Crushed plaintain weeds.”

  “You saved me with weeds? Wow. Someone could make a fortune.”

  “They have to be fresh.” I shrug. “The power of the flower.”

  “So what happened to the kid?” When I don’t say anything, he adds, “Queen of Sheba? King Solomon?”

  “Oh.” So he did hear my story. Curls of blushing bromeliad, smelling like sun-kissed pineapple, rise from under my scarf. “He became the emperor of Ethiopia. But I’m sure we had our share of dirtbags and pond scum, too.”

  He moves closer, and his shadow slips over me. “Maybe you can tell me about them over burgers sometime.”

  “B-b-burgers?” I stutter. “You mean like eating with you?”

  He laughs. “That’s generally what happens.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that.” I squeeze wrinkles into the worn cotton of my sundress.

  “Why not?” His voice softens. There’s a freckle on his neck right in the notch below his ear.

  “I have dietary restrictions.”

  “You’re vegetarian?”

  “Yes. I can’t eat refined sugar, vinegar, or salt.” Our overdeveloped sense of smell requires us to follow a finicky diet. Nothing too pungent, like garlic or onions, and absolutely no salt. A single bite of a honey-baked ham almost did Mother in one Thanksgiving. She lost her sense of smell for a week and refused to eat anything but rice.

  “But doesn’t that get a little bland?”

  “Actually, most of what people perceive as ‘taste’ comes from our sense of smell. So when we smell foods, we’re getting the full flavor experience.”

  He grins, and I detect the amused vanilla scent of animal crackers. Maybe I don’t need to be so truthful all the time.

  “Well, maybe we could just go enjoy some dinner smells together. It’s the least I could do to thank you.”

  Of course. An appreciation dinner. The BBG would’ve neutralized any feelings he might have developed for me. “Thank you, but it’s not necessary.”

  Disappointed notes of blue hydrangea weigh down the air like sad jazz music. He probably doesn’t hear no often.

  A woman in a sweat suit riddled with rhinestones steps out of the library with a shaggy pet under one arm, a stack of books in the other. A ukulele is slung against her back.

  “Hi, honey. I stopped by to get more books.” She pecks Court on the cheek. Court’s mother could be mistaken for one of the seniors with her trim figure and hair done up in pigtails, with only a bit of gray to give her away. Her scentprint is a complicated mix of rare plants, lying under a thick fog of blueberries. You would never guess her heart was aching by looking at her.

  Court relieves her of the books and the pet, which turns out to be a purse. She keeps her ukulele.

  “Couldn’t you leave it in the car?”

  “Of course not.” She bats at his arm. “The sun warps the wood. Who is this?”

  Court tips his head toward me. “Mim. She’s the one who saved me.”

  “Oh, you’re Mim! I can’t thank you enough, darling. I gave Court hell for forgetting his pen.” She fishes keys from the purse Court is holding and hooks them onto his pinky. “Fetch the car for me, dear. I parked by the Cat in the Hat.”

  I must look stumped because she adds, “That’s what we call the wind sock. Get it?”

  “Oh, right.” The red and white wind sock on the street fronting the school does look like a Dr. Seuss hat.

  Court flashes me a smile that spreads a strange warmth throughout my body. As he jogs away, I avoid watching.

  Mrs. Sawyer focuses her bright eyes on me. “You’re the perfumer’s daughter, right? Melanie mentioned you started school here.”

  “Yes.” Court’s younger sister, Melanie, has never spoken a word to me other than, “I sit there,” when I chose the wrong desk on my first day of algebra.

  The woman steps close enough to count my nose hairs. I know becau
se I can count hers. Taking my chin, she steers my face from side to side. “Nice bone structure. What a sweet little bump.” Her eyes almost cross. “And those amber eyes, like that cougar I saw on Big Cats. A little mascara and gloss, you could do runway. You’ve got the height and the lines.”

  “Thanks.” I’m not sure what kind of lines she’s talking about. Far as I know, models don’t really speak at all.

  “Talofa,” Kali calls out a Samoan greeting as she rolls up from the parking lot on her Vintage Schwinn.

  I gently extricate myself from Mrs. Sawyer. “Hey, K. Where you been?”

  “Went for a ride. Trying to get healthy so I can be stealthy.” In one smooth motion, Kali hops off her bike and steers it into its usual spot at the library bike racks. Despite being the biggest girl in the junior class, limbs thick and large like the rest of her Samoan family, she moves as gracefully as a gazelle.

  “Hello, Kali,” says Mrs. Sawyer. “You’ve grown up since Girl Scouts.”

  “Haven’t seen you here in a while, Mrs. Sawyer.”

  “Call me Alice, both of you. The divorce is final.” She flashes us her beauty queen smile. She is a former Miss California, which makes her the most famous person in Santa Guadalupe. “Now I’m on a reading kick.” She pushes a shoulder down toward her books. “Sofia, er, Ms. DiCarlo, orders the best romance novels. I never go to City anymore.”

  Ms. DiCarlo. With a start, I turn back to the library window. Ms. DiCarlo is no longer at her desk, though the Starbucks cup is still there. I groan. I’ll be late to Cardio Fitness, waiting here for her to drink it.

  “But enough about me. Congratulations on winning the half-time spot,” Mrs. Sawyer—Alice—tells Kali.

  I wasn’t surprised when Kali was selected to recite a poem as part of the entertainment for next Friday’s game. She wins every poetry contest she enters, and her monthly slams for the Puddle Jumpers are legendary. She could be the next Poet Laureate.

  Kali beams. “Thanks.”

  Alice touches Kali’s arm and leans closer. “I was on the committee. Your submission was very Gertrude Stein.”