by Cassia Leo
“Incense.” A pale purple arm, encased in the tight sleeve, waved at a pair of sticks in a glass vase. Thin streams of smoke curled upward from the ends.
“Like in church?” Stella had only been to Mass three times in her life, but she distinctly recalled the preacher, minister, whatever he was, swinging a smoking metal can on a chain. Pretty much the worst thing she had ever smelled.
“It’s to cleanse the air,” Beatrice said. “So I can find inner peace.”
Stella dropped her purse on the back table. “It’s going to overpower the whole shop. People are going to think we sell that crap.”
“Maybe we will. Maybe we won’t.”
Stella slipped out of her jacket. Something was way wrong here. “What has gotten into you?”
Beatrice heaved herself up with some effort. “Yoga. Newest thing. Well, the newest old thing. I am going to become a yogi!”
“Like the bear?” Stella wanted to avert her eyes now that the full form of her boss in the lilac stretch suit was in view.
“No, no. The ancient art. Finding your center.”
“So why aren’t you centering at home?”
Beatrice lifted one of the sticks and stuck the smoking end into a bowl of sand. She picked up a pair of tiny cymbals and clanged them twice.
“Beatrice—”
“Shhh. You’ll disturb the balance of the room.” She crammed another stick in the sand, clanging the bells again.
God. Stella brushed past her and through the curtain to the shop. She unlocked the door and propped it open to let some air in. Her mother had found Jesus when Stella was sixteen and smashed all her Bee Gees albums and, most horrifically, her soundtrack to Grease. Hopefully Beatrice’s middle-aged obsession with yoga would be less destructive.
Maybe she should hide the good stuff in the shop. Anything Beatrice might foolishly destroy to banish materialism.
The phone rang. Stella picked up the heavy receiver, wishing Beatrice would break down and get a modern push-button phone rather than the old rotary dialer. “Good Scents,” she said.
“Stella? It’s Joe. You forgot the car this morning.”
“Right.” She hadn’t forgotten but wasn’t up to facing Dane at dawn’s early light. Not after he had a night with that rat Darlene. She glanced at the curtain. “Beatrice is a little, hmm, busy this morning. I don’t think I’ll be able to get over there for a few hours.”
“No problem. We can hold on to it. Or I can send one of the boys over with it.”
Stella’s heart hammered painfully. In an instant, she changed her mind. This would be on her turf, not his. “Dane, maybe?”
Joe cleared his throat in a half-chuckle. “Haven’t seen him in yet. Late night for him, sounds like. He’s usually pretty reliable.”
Stella twisted the cord between her fingers, her mood dashed. “I guess it doesn’t matter.”
“I can wait for him to get in.”
“No need, Joe. Thank you. I’ll come by during lunch.” She hesitated. “Or maybe I’ll send Dad.” If he’ll get up.
Joe knew what she was thinking, both about her dad and about Dane. “Don’t worry your pretty head about a thing. I can always send Ryker.” He paused. “How’s Angie?”
Stella leaned her head against the back wall. “Sleeping, mostly.”
“All right. Well, you take care of her.”
“I will. Thanks, Joe.” She hung up quietly, her shoulders heavy.
Joe was a good guy. Grandma Angie had actually taken a shine to him for a bit, and the whole town had buzzed about the possible romance. Vivian had intervened, calling the whole thing “a sickness at their age.” Then Grandma had actually gotten sick. Even if she could have kept things going, Joe backed off. He’d watched one great love fade out when his first wife died slowly and painfully from cancer. He probably just couldn’t do it again.
She didn’t think Joe would send Dane now. She pictured Darlene straddling him and burned with disgust and misery. No doubt that girl had unloaded her entire arsenal. Stella had to let it go. Forget about him. Not worth the trouble.
She reached beneath the counter and pulled out a binder stuffed with travel brochures, newspaper clippings, and letters she’d gotten from employment agencies. She flipped through the book, pausing in the section on St. Louis. She could go to secretary school there, learn shorthand and some other skills. She typed fast. They were interested. They might even offer her a work-study to pay her way while she finished the course.
Postcards of New York spilled from the next section, so she ripped a piece of scotch tape from the spindle by the register and affixed each card to a page. She wouldn’t seriously consider such a drastic move, but the pictures were beautiful and frightening. Buildings so tall you had to stretch your neck to see the top. They seemed to blot out the sky. Maybe that could be her first real vacation once she was a bona fide professional.
She wanted to skip the Texas section, knowing that that was where Dane came from. Lots of people in town called Ryker “Tex” or “Cowboy,” even though his leather and tattoos didn’t fit the part whatsoever. Dane was more clean-cut, but still retained that biker air. Nothing country about either one of them. Most of what Stella knew about Texas, she’d learned from Dallas. J. R. and Sue Ellen and Southfork.
But the brochures from there were super nice, from the oil rigs in the fields to the fancy ball of light in the big city. She liked Houston a lot, the giant supermalls and bright stores. She could make a lot more in a shop there, if she didn’t want to do the secretary thing, and she was pretty sure she didn’t.
Stella didn’t have a whole lot of skills, but she could sell anything. At Good Scents, Beatrice made a few perfumes of her own, custom mixes for her best clients. Stella learned some of that, but she didn’t think it would be useful to her out in the real world. She liked managing the business side, understanding costs of goods sold and overhead and profit and loss. She wasn’t college material, so this was the best way to learn.
The door jingled and Mrs. Kramer shuffled in, her gray hair carefully spun into a cotton-candy web to make it appear she had volume, when really the entire coiffure was made of air. As usual, she wore a ball gown, this one fuchsia taffeta with giant puffed sleeves and layers of ruffles that cascaded to the floor.
“Hello, Mrs. K.,” Stella said, swiftly rounding the counter before the elderly lady’s walker could knock aside anything breakable. “In for another bottle of Shalimar?”
Mrs. Kramer kicked at the loose tennis ball on the base of the silver leg of her walker, revealing white sneakers. “Thought I’d shake things up a bit, Stella. What’s new?” The old woman lifted her head finally, her pale eyes foggy and liquid beneath an inch of ice-blue eye shadow and fake lashes.
“Well, we have a new one in.” Stella pointed inside the glass case. “Paloma Picasso.”
“Like the painter?”
“It’s his daughter.”
Mrs. Kramer shoved the walker forward another step and almost tripped on her hem. She peered into the case. “Is it any good?”
“Let’s take a sniff.” Stella headed back around the counter, extracting the key from the register to open the case. She wondered if Beatrice was still doing yoga or if she’d come out in that horrid outfit.
She pulled the tester out and spritzed a card. “Here you go.”
Mrs. Kramer lifted the card to her nose. “Rubbish.” She tossed the card on the counter. “We’ll stick with Shalimar.”
This was an old routine. Stella simply smiled and lifted the royal-blue box from the row.
Mrs. Kramer heaved her purse from where it hung on a bar of the walker to the counter. Stella smiled, feigning patience as she waited for the woman to extract a worn gold wallet and peel two twenty-dollar bills from a roll inside.
“I love your gown today,” Stella said.
“This old thing?” Mrs. Kramer laid the money on the counter. “I wore it in 1943 at a Mardi Gras society dinner hosted by the Krewe of Proteus.”
“It’s lovely.” A movement in the window caught her attention. A car was pulling up. Her grandmother’s car. She stuck the bills in the register and rapidly made change. Who had brought it? The glare made it impossible to see through the glass.
She dropped the change in Mrs. Kramer’s outstretched hand and hurriedly slid the perfume into a bag. The door to the car opened, and Stella couldn’t bear it, so she left the counter to move closer to the front.
Her chest tightened as she recognized the black waves, the sharp jaw. Dane. Joe had sent Dane.
The door jingled as he pushed through. He’d layered a flannel shirt over a T-shirt today, blue and gray plaid. A smiley face with a bullet hole in its forehead peeked out as he lifted his arm to rattle her grandmother’s key chain.
Mrs. Kramer turned with painful deliberation, pushing the walker in a tight circle. “Young man, have you a date for this weekend’s ball?”
Oh, boy. “Let me help you to the car,” Stella said.
Mrs. Kramer lifted the walker and slammed it down again. “I’m a modern woman. I can ask a man if he’s available to escort me to a dance.”
Dane stepped forward and bowed deeply to her. “I must most regretfully decline your very tempting invitation. I am spoken for this Saturday eve.”
“Oh, poot.” Mrs. Kramer pushed the frame ahead of her and took mincing steps toward the door. “And I have the perfect dress to match your gray eyes.”
“Now that would be a stunning color,” Stella said, hoping he’d turn them to her. He did, and the bright mischief she saw there squeezed her heart. Damn. She was going to have to fight after all.
Dane offered his arm to Mrs. Kramer, and she gladly abandoned the walker, leaning on him as he led her out the door. Stella snatched up her perfume bag and the metal frame, holding the door as they passed through.
“I’ll come back for that,” Dane said, and she knew what he meant. He wanted to see her alone for a second. She tried to suppress the smile but didn’t quite succeed.
Rather than watch their slow progress to Mrs. Kramer’s ancient Lincoln Continental, Stella busied herself with randomly rearranging perfume bottles on the wall shelves. Where was Beatrice? Still cleansing her workspace? Vivian had forbidden Stella to do yoga. “The devil’s way to steal you from Jesus,” she’d said. “Call it exercise when it really brainwashes you into some ancient heathen religion.”
Stella seriously wished her mother had never been saved. It wasn’t about the religion. Stella liked Jesus just fine, and church was nice and the women there were great in the community, making sure the sick got checked on, and funerals had food, and little kids had Christmas presents. But Vivian’s brand of Bible beating felt like a punch line in a Johnny Carson monologue.
The door jingled. Stella kept her back to it an extra moment, resisting the urge to check her hair or straighten her shirt. She didn’t want to seem too eager.
“Stella?”
He’d never said her name before. She squared her shoulders and turned. Her heel caught and she lost her balance, grasping at the nearest table. Her fingers grabbed a useless tuft of tissue paper. Tugging it upset a row of Jean Naté Bath Splash bottles.
Dane leapt forward, trying to catch the breakables before they hit the floor.
“Oh, no!” Stella caught two bottles in her hand. She moved too fast, and their heads crashed together. Dane bumped the display, sending another set of bottles falling into each other like bowling pins.
Everything finally settled, and they started laughing uncontrollably. Dane set his bottles on the table and took the ones Stella was holding. “Bulls in the china shop,” he said.
“Who you calling a bull?” Stella said, still laughing.
“You. I’m calling you one.” A tiny set of fine lines crinkled out from his eyes.
A horn honked outside.
“Mrs. Kramer,” Stella said. “She wants her things.”
“What’s with the ball gown?” Dane picked up the walker and hefted it onto his shoulder.
Stella handed him the bag with the Shalimar. “No one knows. She seems to be living in some other era. Always been that way.”
He tugged on the door. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
While he was loading the walker into Mrs. Kramer’s car, Stella dashed to the curtain that closed off the storeroom and peeked through. Beatrice was nowhere, her yoga mat rolled up in the corner. The incense sticks poked up from their position in the sand, no longer smoking. The air was still heavy with the smell, but the curtain kept it in.
The door jingled again, and Stella thought of Pavlov’s dog. She wasn’t salivating, but her heart hammered painfully each time. She turned carefully. No more perfume needed to die today. She’d have to repair the display before Beatrice returned.
But no matter. Dane was here. And Darlene wouldn’t be showing up to interrupt them.
***
7: Dane’s Proposition
DANE looked over the frilly shop, wondering what the hell he was doing. Even though he’d brushed Darlene off last night, it was clear she wasn’t giving up. She’d be pissed.
Stella watched him, a quizzical look on her face at his silence. Behind them, just out the front window, the old lady ran over the curb as she pulled away.
“So, you’re here,” Stella said.
He took pride in being smooth, always saying the right thing, making the right move. But he couldn’t think of a damn clever word. “You born here?” he finally managed.
“Not sure this shop was here twenty-two years ago.” Her eyes crinkled in the corners with her smile. “But yeah, I grew up here in Holly.”
He forced a little laugh. “Seems like a nice enough town.”
“I’m not planning to hang around,” she said. “I got bigger things in mind.”
He understood that. “Where you think you’re headed?”
She picked up a pink bottle, sort of absently, turning it in her hands. “Not sure. St. Louis, maybe. Looked at New York.” She glanced up at him. “Texas.”
He shuffled his boots, the chains on his hip jingling. “Big state.”
“I like big.” She flushed at this.
He cleared his throat. He wanted to be there, but he wasn’t sure why. He couldn’t explain it, this draw to her. She was pretty, fair and blond and tiny. He could have encircled her waist with his hands. Something about her was tough, but something else was fragile.
“I guess I should get back to Joe’s.”
“Do you have to?” She said it in a rush.
Joe had sent him. That meant he liked Stella, maybe wanted Dane to like her. He wouldn’t meddle, not Joe, and he’d never said a mean thing about Darlene. Not about anybody. But he was here. It meant something. “I can stay.”
And so Stella moved, with a bit of hesitation, behind the counter. She reached below the register and brought out a big binder. “I’ve been researching places to go. Cities.” She opened a page pasted with pictures and cut-up brochures.
He approached the counter, watching the whir of color and text as she flipped through the book. “That’s a lot of work you’ve done.”
“I’ve been planning my escape for a while.” She paused on Texas. “Is this stuff even right? Or all commercials?”
He turned the binder a bit to look over the pages. “Everyone thinks Texas is all oil wells and cowboy hats.”
“Well, is it?”
“Nah. I mean, sure, there are cowboys. And people have oil.”
“But.”
“Well, most people are just, you know, normal. Def Leppard. Gimme caps. McDonald’s. I don’t know anyone with an oil well.”
“You have a cowboy hat?” She rested her chin in her hand, her light-brown eyes on him.
She had to know how she looked, coy and flirty. But yeah, it worked.
“Hell, no.” He hated the whole country scene. The look. The attitude. He’d had many a run-in with a shit-kicker.
Her botto
m lip came out.
“Well, I mean. Sure. I could wear one.” What the hell was he saying?
“I think it’d look good on you.” She flipped the binder closed. “You know, all by itself.” Her face shifted in color. She’d embarrassed herself.
He kicked the corner of the counter. “That might could be arranged.”
But they both looked away, as if simultaneously thinking of Darlene.
He exhaled in a rush. “On that, I guess I’ll head on back.” But he didn’t move.
“Yeah, Joe will be calling.” She didn’t move either.
He wanted to see her again. Hear about these plans. Find out where she came from. Teach her about Texas.
“Will you be?” she asked. She didn’t look at him, tracing some pattern on the glass above the rows of perfume boxes.
He didn’t get it. “Will I be what?”
She bit her pink lip. “Calling.”
Shit. He’d embarrassed her again. Made her ask outright. “We could just meet somewhere. I hear you like the water tower. That you’ve been up it a time or two.”
She flushed fully red then. “Oh. I think I’m done with heights for a bit.” Then she seemed stricken. “Not that I’m afraid. I just. I had a moment. On the tower.”
“You don’t seem like a girl afraid of much.”
She straightened up suddenly. “Nope. Not afraid. So yeah. Top of the tower. No problem. Midnight?”
“Tonight?” He was supposed to see Darlene again, something they’d planned before last night’s mess, but he could get out of that. Figure things out.
“You got something else to do?” She clearly knew he did, knew his hesitation.
“Not a thing.” Not anymore.
“Then midnight. At the top. Like that movie.”
“Which one?” he asked.
“An Affair to Remember.”
“Don’t know it.”
“They’re supposed to meet on the top of the Empire State Building.” Stella tapped the binder. “In New York, you know.”
“Supposed to? So they don’t?”
“She has an accident. She doesn’t make it. And he thinks she doesn’t love him anymore.”