by Stacey Lee
“Thanks. My mom didn’t think so. Made me see a shrink on Saturday and our pastor on Sunday.”
So that’s why Kali didn’t stay for lunch yesterday. No, the world does not revolve around Planet Mim. “I’m sorry. How is she now?”
“We’re still working on it.”
“And . . . how are you?”
“Good. It felt like I had all this lint clogging up my trap, and now it’s cleaned out. Doesn’t mean I won’t catch more lint, but for now I’m running smoothly.” She pops her neck from side to side.
I hand her the iris. “I should’ve trusted you to handle your own business.”
“Thanks.” She takes the flower and puts its frilly petals to her nose. “But that wasn’t why I got mad.” She frowns into the yellow center of the bulb, her lips a tight rosebud. Then her dark eyes probe mine. “Look, why do you think I like hanging out with you?”
“Lifetime all-you-can-eat salad?”
She gives an emphatic shake of her head.
“You’re trying to steal my dance moves?”
Her eyes flick to the sky. “Definitely no. When I got suspended back in eighth grade, Dad gave me a choice—take that weeding job with your mom or highway cleanup. It was a close call, believe me.”
I remember that day Kali’s father brought her to us. She barely spoke a word and smelled so blue and lost.
“It was the best thing I ever did.” She opens a hand large as a catcher’s mitt, moving it gracefully to accentuate her points. I feel a rush of love for her. “You and your mother are true to yourselves, even if it means not getting paid, or spending half of your day up to your ears in dirt, just like those earthworms. Made me think I could be an earthworm, too. My poetry started flying after that.”
I swallow hard. Kali had never told me that before.
“I needed you to stand up to Vicky, so I could stand up. I needed to see you wouldn’t cave.”
“I’m sorry I disappointed you.”
“You didn’t disappoint me.” She points the toe of one slip-on, then the other. “The thing about you is that, even when you’re wrong, you’re still trying to do right, even when most people would’ve punched out, called it a day. It’s like you have to take the hardest route possible or it doesn’t count.”
“It’s a survival instinct. We hail from a long line of women who don’t want to face our mothers.”
“It’s more than that.” She cocks an eyebrow at me. “You’re honest as a Sunday shirt. I guess I never expected to see the shirt get wrinkled.”
That chafes a little. “All shirts get wrinkled, even the polyester ones. I was trying to be there for you.” I can hear the injury in my own voice.
Kali’s mouth bunches up. She’s either thinking, or about to clobber me. Then her face relaxes. “I’m sorry, Nosey. I should’ve been there for you, too. I guess I have a lot of wrinkles of my own to iron out.”
I nod.
“How can I make it up to you? You need me to be there when your mom comes home?”
An image of Mother’s angry face springs to mind. I consider. Mother can’t explode with Kali present, but maybe she would just store up more anger for later. “It’s okay. I like to make it as hard as possible for myself, remember?”
“Your mom’s not so bad. She’s got a big heart, though she doesn’t like to show it. I guess it’s just her way.”
“It’s not just her way. It’s the aromateur way. We have a saying, Though cowslips line thy mapled cart, the wise will catch a falling heart.”
“Cows’ lips?” A smile lurks behind her lips.
“Cow slips.” We share a chuckle. “They were used in love potions. It means, though we deal in love, we must keep our own feelings in check. Aromateurs have never been the life of the party.”
She wedges her chin between her thumb and forefinger. “But you’re not like that—restrained. Neither is your aunt. You don’t push people away. I think you like them a lot more than I do.”
“Guess I should work on that,” I mutter.
She paces in a circle then faces me square on, arms crossed. “I think you’re reading it wrong. It doesn’t say catch your falling heart; it says catch a falling heart, meaning anyone’s. It’s like the saying, ‘catch a falling star.’ Just like love, stars don’t fall too often, and if you see one, you don’t close your eyes. You don’t let the love go splat.”
I squint at the Jupiter grass, wondering if she’s right. Kali is a poet. If anyone can untangle a verse, it’s her. Larkspur was wrong about romantic relationships, so perhaps there’s room for this new reading of Carmelita’s Last Word, too. If she’s right, life just got a lot more interesting. Still. “Mother won’t believe it.”
“Tell her it makes sense from a business perspective. You can’t sell the product if you don’t use it yourself.”
Cassandra starts singing again, holding her hands out to Kali. We watch her a moment.
“You better finish your cheeseburger. Thanks, Kali.”
She bumps me with her elbow. “Good luck.” She starts off toward Cassandra, then turns around again. “Hey, Nosey, if you get sacked, can I still keep my job?”
I make a face. She laughs as she treads away, arms swinging easy and free.
I pick my way through the grass, around the cheeseburger crowd and toward the school.
“Mim!” Lauren trots up to me, pulling Pascha behind her. “Help us. Pascha’s dad said she could go to the dance and she wants to ask Whit, but she’s wussing out.”
Pascha clutches an unwrapped cheeseburger to her chest. Oil from the burger seeps through its papery envelope. “I’ll just dog myself. He likes Mim, not me.” She sniffs loudly and wipes her nose with her headscarf.
“Where is he?” I ask.
“Over there.” Lauren points to a cluster of guys tossing around a Frisbee. Whit leaps, his hair whipping in all directions, and plucks the disc out of the air.
Not seeing Court anywhere in the vicinity, I square my fedora on my head and pull my sleeves down to my knuckles. “Follow me.”
We troop across the field to the target. When Whit sees me, a goofy smile spreads across his face, and he opens his arms wide enough to hug one of the huge recycling bins set nearby. This time, I’m ready for him.
THIRTY-FIVE
“EVEN THE TOUGHEST PHILODENDRON CAN GO INTO
SHOCK IF THE WEATHER DROPS SUDDENLY. I WRAPPED
MINE IN A WOOL SWEATER AND IT DID JUST FINE.”
—Hazel, Aromateur, 1901
“HELLO,” I TELL Whit brightly. “This is Pascha.”
Pascha’s gone as white and still as a saltshaker. While Whit takes in the girl resisting Lauren’s efforts to push her forward, I hit him with a double serving of BBG from behind. Whit’s goofy grin disappears. He takes off his sunglasses and squints at all of us.
“Pascha likes spicy food,” I say.
Lauren gives her friend a final push. “I slipped a jalapeño in her smoothie once and she didn’t even notice.”
Whit switches to me again and a smile creeps up his cheeks. My mouth goes dry. Don’t tell me Aunt Bryony’s batch is defective, too. Maybe something’s wrong with the formula. Now I’ll have to make another disclosure and—
“Do you have a library card? Because I am checking you out.” Whit beams at Pascha.
Pascha blushes, and Lauren claps her hands together.
I let out a held breath, then back away slowly. The only person who notices me leave is Lauren, who gives me a thumbs-up.
I take a shortcut around the crowd back to the library to grab my bike. After lunch, instead of regular afternoon classes, the whole school does “school-spirit-building exercises on the field, like tug-of-war and three-legged races. I might as well go home and talk to Mother. No use putting off the inevitable. Plus, then I can stop worrying about running into Court.
On my way to the library racks, I pass an equipment shed, wincing at the acrid smell of cigarette smoke. That odor could seep through a brick wall. A fi
gure leans against the back of the shed, looking out toward the street. Melanie’s cigarette’s short enough to burn her fingers. When she sees me, she chuckles, then throws her stub to the ground. “Well, hello, witch.”
I don’t remember smelling tobacco on her before. Must be a new habit. Maybe she was sick of getting hand-me-down fumes from Vicky and decided to make her own. I’m tempted to throw something back, but then I notice her knees, both skinned and bleeding.
She snorts. “I tripped.”
I think about asking her if she’s okay, but she would just ignore me. Her trembling fingers reach into her purse and pull out a lighter and a fresh cigarette. I hike my messenger bag more securely over my shoulder. I should just leave her alone. But I can’t, either because I’m genetically predisposed to meddle in the lives of others or because I feel like she has earned the right to a few punches in my direction. “I can find you some aloe.”
“You think plants can fix everything.” Her face is blotchy with dry patches above her mouth.
“Not everything. We’re still looking for the cure for the common cold.”
She fumbles with her lighter but manages to light her cigarette. “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?”
“What do you mean?”
“Mom and Mr. Frederics were good together.”
I swallow my surprise and lick my dried lips. “I thought you didn’t want them to be together.”
“At first. But they’re like, made for each other. Anyone with half a brain could see that. It would’ve been easier on everyone.” Spittle flecks her mouth.
I lift my chin. “Easier doesn’t make it right.”
“Harder doesn’t make it right, either.”
Touché.
“You live up there in your fairy-tale garden, thinking you’re so special because you bring love to the world.” She draws out the word love as if it’s a disease. “But what happens after you make those matches? What happens if Prince Charming turns out to be more like Prince Loser? Life is not all roses for the rest of us. Sometimes the right thing is the wrong thing.” Smoke curls out her nostrils.
I shift from clog to clog. She has a point. The Rulebook prescribes one course, but it’s not always the most humane.
When did the path grow so crooked? At first, undoing my mistake seemed all important. Then things changed, relationships changed.
The blood is starting to clot on Melanie’s skinned knee. I suddenly remember the business card in my bag. The words “Evelyn Salzmann, Sculptor to the Stars” are printed in typewriter font with a phone number. I hold the card out to Melanie.
She barely glances at the name and doesn’t take it. “Yeah, so?”
“She’s looking for an intern.” I stick the card in the hedge right where she can see it. Then I leave. If she decides to keep the card or burn it, I don’t want to know. I have enough Sawyers on my mind at the moment.
I collect my bike and walk it through the courtyard. Students lounge around a flagpole, eating lunch. Once I reach the parking lot, I hop on my bike.
Court’s Jeep is toward the back. The sight pours a giddy kind of poison into me. I think back to our kiss in Neptune’s court, knowing that the smell of the ocean, the miso scent of bladder wrack, the California lilac, even the Styrofoam smell of neoprene will always remind me of the pain and the joy of knowing Court.
A Volkswagen brakes hard right next to me and I stumble off my bike, but catch myself before I go splat.
Through the open window, the driver, a girl in a drill-team uniform, yells something at me. I hardly hear the obscenity when I recognize her passenger.
The sight punches me in the gut.
Court Sawyer, his face stricken, is holding a cheeseburger.
Everything goes cold inside me. It’s like someone poured in ice cubes and shook me up, and I can hardly make sense of which way’s up. The door opens, but I push off, hurtling away like a meteor in search of her orbit.
My chest shakes when I inhale, and I press one arm into my stomach to cage my sob. Somehow, it hurts to breathe even worse than when I was underwater, drowning. If this is how love feels, it makes you wonder why everyone’s so obsessed with finding it. Maybe our elixirs should come with a warning label: product comes with serious risk of total meltdown.
I wanted him to get over me. I should be happy he moved on.
I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. It’s better this way. Relationships just distract us from our life’s work. Grandmother Narcissa only became great through devotion to her craft. Assuming I can get my nose back, think of all the matches I can make, undistracted by other people. Undistracted by the one commodity in which we trade.
My legs feel shaky and tired even before I get to Parrot Hill.
Should I tell Mother straight out, or come into it sideways once she’s had a chance to tell me about her trip?
As I round the curve toward the home stretch, a singular sight makes me slam on the brakes. A bamboo-green hybrid with a Honk If You Love Math bumper sticker sits in the driveway.
Mr. Frederics is here.
Mother already knows.
THIRTY-SIX
“LOOK ABOUT, THE HUMBLE EDELWEISS GROWING ON THE
MOUNTAINS HAVE BROKE THE ROCKS.”
—Limonia, Aromateur, 1598
MOTHER AND MR. Frederics sit outside the workshop under the nutmeg tree and its buddy, the ylang-ylang. Their backs are to me, with the tops of their heads peeking out above the shrub line. As I approach, Mother calls out my name without turning around. She can smell me from a hundred yards away.
Mother’s still in her traveling clothes—blue pullover, loose-fitting pants, and a scarf knitted by a client. She stands to give me a perfunctory hug, not smiling. Her nose wrinkles, catching a scent of something it doesn’t like. It could be a dozen things, Aunt Bryony, the stink of deception, unwashed hair. But a single word causes a chill to snake up my spine: “Blueberries.”
I forgot about that one. Of course she smells my heartbreak.
Mr. Frederics nods at me. “Afternoon, Mim.”
“Hi, Mr. Frederics.”
“Mr. Frederics was sharing with me something very interesting.” A muscle in her cheek twitches.
“Oh?” I sink onto the bench opposite them. My big eyes don’t fool Mother for a second.
Mr. Frederics laughs sheepishly. “Well, Sofia, Ms. DiCarlo, isn’t interested in me after all. You were there at the Puddle Jumpers event. I was trying to teach the children mathematics with the grapes. She told me to give it a rest, not everyone likes math. Imagine that.” He scoots back on our teakwood bench and matches his fingertips together. “Anyway, no matter. Turns out, I’m in love with someone else.”
Mother’s nostrils flare and she twists around and peers at our solid wooden gate. “Seems we have another visitor.”
Who does she smell?
“Hello?” calls the familiar voice of a former Miss California.
Mr. Frederics hops to his feet and shades his eyes. “It’s her. Now what could she be doing here? Allow me.” He starts toward the gate.
Mother fixes me with an unblinking stare. “How long was Bryony here?”
She smells the remains of my aunt’s presence. “Two days.”
“Why’d she come?”
“I called her.”
The blood drains out of her face. “You called her? Whatever for?”
“I lost my nose.”
“I know. You smell like boiled beets.” Her voice becomes a whisper.
Mr. Frederics trails after Alice, his face animated as he speaks to her. Alice picks her way toward us without looking back at him.
“But the good news is, I still have the rest of me.” I laugh shakily.
She blows out an irritated breath. Something catches her nose, and she sniffs. Her eyes snap to mine. “Is that bladder wrack? And thirty-two-thousand-year-old narrow-leaf campion from Siberia. What have you done?”
My words trip out. “About the bladder wrack, that’s
the one I told you about, the one with the silvery finish, like miso soup. I found it, er, in the ocean, and as for the campion, it was bushy. Meyer won’t even notice—”
“You stole it?”
Our visitors reach us. A film of hospitality barely conceals Mother’s anger. We both stand to greet Alice.
Alice holds out her hand. “Hello. It’s nice to see you again.”
Mother’s eyes grow round, but Alice doesn’t notice. She’s distracted by Mr. Frederics behind her, who’s furtively pressing a handkerchief to the damp spots of his head.
I better pipe up. “Oh, this is actually not my aunt—”
Mother swipes a finger in the air toward me, telling me to shut up. She recovers herself. “How nice to see you, too.” She slides me a questioning look.
“Mrs. Sawyer, won’t you have a seat?” I help Mother out, still puzzling over why she doesn’t want me to tell Alice of her real identity.
“Please, it’s Alice.”
“Alice.” Even Mother’s heard of the infamous Sawyers. Her nose twitches as she inhales sharply, trying to figure out the situation.
“I think I hear the kettle boiling,” I fib.
“Sit down, Mimosa.” Mother shifts her gaze between Alice and Mr. Frederics. “Mr. Frederics, would you be so kind as to fetch the tea tray from the kitchen?”
“My pleasure.” Mr. Frederics hurries away.
Alice gives Mother a grateful smile that turns panicked. “It’s not working,” she hisses.
“Oh?” says Mother, steering her raised eyebrows to me.
I marvel at the power of a single uttered vowel. My insides wring out and sweat pools on my back and neck.
“Why do you think the PUF isn’t working?” I ask.
Mother straightens up like an arrow shot her in the back. “The PUF.”
“You know, the orchid we swiped on her wrist.”
Another invisible arrow shoots Mother, this time in the front, and her breath sweeps out of her. She grabs her palm and begins kneading it with her knuckle. Her mouth flattens into a grim line.
Alice glances toward the kitchen. “You said it would be immediate, but I can’t stop thinking about him. I mean, I started to make an omelet this morning, and before I knew it, I was making cake batter.” She presses her hand to her heart.