Notes: wedding perfume
Experiment #1, 4-12-90
Notes: not civet. Try costus, very light
Mark Ruley was my best friend when I was seven, a boy with glossy brown hair and blue eyes, who suddenly and inexplicably woke up sick one day—“A rare blood disease,” they said— and died the next. It scared my mother to pieces. She cried and cried and cried. Cried till her eyes were swollen and red and her cheeks had cowlike splotches all over them.
I’d cried over many things, my lost bracelet from the Garden of the Gods, which no one would take me back to so I could get another one; my favorite pink sock that I’d accidentally let go of when I’d been letting it fly like a flag out of the car window; my father shipping out to Vietnam.
I sort of expected that sooner or later I’d get around to crying over Mark. We’d been planning to be married when we grew up. For my birthday that year, he’d given me two things, both of which he’d picked out himself.
The first was a small velveteen cat with a pink feather and glowing pink rhinestone eyes holding a small bottle of Golden Woods perfume. Cat and bottle were protected by a clear dome, and my sisters were keenly impressed and jealous that I should have inspired such a gift. I didn’t like to wear the perfume because it seemed to draw mosquitoes, but I did like to take the dome off the cat, open the bottle, and smell it. I liked the name, Golden Woods, and I’d breathe it in, trying to pinpoint the threads that made it smell like the name. Light, I thought, and leaves, and bark. Trees and sunshine and Saturday afternoons.
The other gift, which I’m sure my mother did not remember, was a fistful of pink carnations he knew I’d like for the scent.
I didn’t cry over Mark dying, and they couldn’t make me go to the funeral because I hid in my closet with the dome and cat for the whole day, only coming out when I finally heard my mother talking in low tones to a neighbor about it.
I didn’t cry. Not then and not over the following months. I didn’t let my mother wash my tennis shoes, because I’d been wearing them the last time we played outside together, down by the creek, where we were not allowed to go. The reddish mud smeared over the fabric of the shoes reminded me of him every time I looked at it. In the afternoons when I got out of school, I’d walk down there and sit. It smelled of the pine tree that stood over the bridge, and of faint dankness, and cool water and sunshine. It smelled like Mark.
I never did cry. But now, whenever I catch an unexpected whiff of a certain combination of elements—water and woody perfume and that dusty softness of summer—I almost always do.
This afternoon in my beige apartment, I pulled out essences and began to mix them recklessly, blending light and pine and carnations into something that smelled like a Saturday afternoon in the seventies, and a boy who had been gone five times longer than he’d lived.
And as I did it, I felt a thousand things moving in my body. Memories. Losses. A day walking along the river. A moment with Giselle in the middle of the night. The moment of kissing Niraj for the first time, his lips so lush and delicious. I lifted bottles to smell essences and let them call up whatever they would.
Moments, moments, moments. What did that have to do with Mark?
A wisp of an idea swirled around the edges of my brain. He was important to my life, to what was happening now, but how? I didn’t see the connection.
It did seem to me that it was strange how much a person could influence your entire path. The smell of him. The carnations. The cat.
What was it? The connection eluded me.
After working so hard all week, it was good to have a day off, to sleep in until eight, and amble through breakfast, reading the paper and drinking coffee. Instead of taking a shower, I put on my tennis shoes and headed up to Ute Valley Park, which wasn’t a valley at all, but a hilly, wild area not far from the apartments.
The morning was crisp and cool, the sun breaking over pine needles in a wash of aromatic deliciousness. It made me think of Niraj, and I wondered, without trying to solve it, what it was about his particular scent that was so appealing to me. I’d had the same reaction to Daniel, of course. We all do to our partners, but I didn’t remember noticing it so much.
I noticed it more when we were splitting up. Daniel has a scent like Irish Spring soap, and notes of lemon and man. Clean and healthy. I liked it on his T-shirts, and ended up throwing a few pillows away after a while, when I couldn’t stand it anymore.
The strong scents made me think of the perfume store idea again. What would it really take to make it happen? I had the perfumes. I’d need bottles, names, some branding. The shop. It was dirty and neglected, but the space was honestly just so perfect.
Could the shop be the answer to what I was meant to do?
It seemed it might be worth a try. When I got home, I got online to look for perfume bottles on eBay. There was every sort of bottle imaginable—old liquor and medicine bottles, which I liked a lot, to 1930s atomizers and Avon collectibles. I lingered with yearning over a matched set of blue, ribbed Laliques, and again over a stamped rose bottle in shades of pink and purple that was very beautiful.
That bottle, filled with Wedding Afternoon would be spectacular, but I would have to charge $75 minimum to make it worthwhile. If I even won the auction.
I had, briefly, considered offering my perfumes on eBay, but people needed to smell fragrances. It wasn’t as if they knew me or my product, and although I was quite sure I had a genuine talent for it, they were somewhat unusual fragrances, individual and distinctive. One needed to smell such perfumes.
But it occurred to me that I was procrastinating. Bottles were something I would settle on later. If I seriously wanted to consider the shop, I needed to have an official look at it, find out how much it rented for.
Before I lost my courage, I jumped up, crossed the room, and punched the number into my cell phone. A gravelly voiced man barked, “Hello?”
“Hi, I’m calling about the store you have for rent in Manitou?”
“Yeah. How can I help?”
“I was just wondering how much it is. And how much will you kick in toward cleaning it up?”
“Three-fifty a month for the shop alone, eight-fifty if you take the apartment and the store.”
“Really.” I was paying nearly $1,000 for my apartment alone. “And what about cleanup?”
“You want to do the cleanup, I’ll give you two free months. But I still gotta have a deposit, and you’d have to sign a lease.”
I paused, my heart suddenly beating faster. “How much of a deposit? And how long a lease?”
“Two months, and the lease is negotiable. I’d prefer a year.”
I twisted a lock of hair around my thumb. “Let me think about it.”
“You want to take a look at it? I got time this afternoon.”
“Let me check my calendar and get back to you, okay?”
“Sure thing.”
After I hung up, I sat with the phone in my lap and mulled the possibilities. Two months, if I took the apartment, would be $1,700. Plus utilities. Plus cleanup costs, which would be substantial. Then decorating and—
My heart swelled in a sudden opening that nearly hurt. If I didn’t have to live here, it would be possible, but that would mean I’d have to pour elbow grease into the apartment, too, and there wasn’t time before the tourist season started on Memorial Day to get both done. If Giselle was to spend any time with me at all this summer, she would be much happier sunning herself by the pool while I worked rather than knocking around a tiny mountain hamlet she’d always dismissed—along with her father—as baby-boomerlast-stand-ville. Were there even two bedrooms in that apartment? I didn’t think so, but maybe I could sleep on a futon in the main room and let her take the bedroom.
And I’d need to generate some more inventory. Which meant I’d need to lay in a few supplies, and get very focused about having some labels printed attractively, and—
I jumped up, unable to be still, and paced toward the patio door
s, the plants starting to green very nicely now. What if I really did this?
You could fail.
True. Fall flat on my face. Realize that it was absolutely not a way for someone to get ahead, make money.
You could succeed.
And then what? My heart felt as if someone was pounding on it. What if, what if, what if?
Before I could chicken out, I flipped my phone open and hit the redial button. When the same gruff voice answered, I said, “I just called a minute ago. I’d like to see the place, if you still have time to meet me.”
“Yep. One o’clock?”
I glanced at the clock. I had a little more than an hour. “Great. I’ll see you there.”
It wasn’t until I was in the shower that I wondered where the hell I thought I was going to get the money. My credit was non-existent. I’d made a thousand small mistakes during my marriage and then had blown up my only asset, so it wasn’t as if there were any savings. The insurance company was still dragging its feet. How much money would it need to be?
I had about three months of savings to cover rent and expenses for that much time, if I fell ill or something, and considering my precarious circumstances, that seemed like an important bit of cushion. What if I sprained an ankle and couldn’t work at Annie’s? And what if I did that while Giselle was staying with me? How could I even buy groceries without that small savings account?
Scrubbing my face, I thought about it. How much would it really need to be? Five or six grand, all total? It was a huge sum of money to me now, but surely I could find a loan for such a small amount. Sooner or later, the insurance company would give me something.
It wasn’t really about money. It was—Oh, I just wasn’t sure. What did I know about running a business? What did I know about retail? What did I know about anything?
My thoughts seesawed back and forth like this all the way through my shower, through the drive to Manitou, and the whole way up the street after I parked. The door to the shop was open, and a heavyset white man with a baseball cap on his head was kicking through the papers on the floor. “Sheesh,” he said. “There musta been some bums in here or something.” He stuck out a baseball mitt of a hand. “Jim Flannigan.”
“Nikki Bridges.”
“Go ahead and take a look around.”
Since I already had—but of course I couldn’t say that to him— I looked in a circle around the small shop. It was the same long, narrow area, with the excellent front window. The kitten was nowhere in evidence.
“Utilities are in your name, too,” the man said. “Wiring and plumbing are in good shape, believe it or not.”
“Oh, I believe you.”
He picked up a sheaf of papers. “I reckon I’d give you three months free, if you want to do the cleanup, since it’s in such bad shape. I’m ashamed to see it, but my wife’s just passed. I been busy with her awhile.” His rheumy eyes watered, and he took a handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped his nose quickly.
“I’m so sorry.”
He cleared his throat, wiggled his heavy, flying white eyebrows, and moved away, pointing. “Let me show you the apartment, huh? I haven’t been up there, so I don’t know what it’ll be like.”
“That’s fine.” I followed behind him down the short dark hallway to the narrow stairs. We emerged into the main room of the apartment, and I felt the peace in the rooms again. The long windows, the transoms over the doors, the stained glass. It was a wide-open space, with half walls in a couple of spots. I imagined my computer desk near the stairs, with a view toward the mountains, that blue and green vista.
“My daughter used to look after this, but she moved to Minnesota,” he said.
“Ah.” The mention of the daughter made me see the apartment through Giselle’s eyes, and my heart sank. Even if I said it was a cool loft, Giselle’s sophisticated tastes would never be fooled. She was driven, ambitious, and sophisticated, and I doubted very much if she would like this slightly tattered Victorian apartment in a hippieish neighborhood.
Not to mention, would there really be room for her? I crossed my arms. Even if I put a futon in here—
“I got some nice carpet if you want it,” he said. “My son-in-law could lay it for you. It’s them big roses, pretty colors. I’ve been meaning to get it done.”
“Cabbage roses?” I said.
“Yeah.” He gestured. “You gotta see the wallpaper in the bedroom, and there’s a pretty porch there, too.”
“A porch?” I hadn’t seen that. I followed, unable to resist. He flung open the bedroom door to reveal the open space, the window overlooking the same high branches as the kitchen and the creek. A door I hadn’t noticed the other day was at the other end of the room, and Flannigan opened it to let in a spill of light.
“My knees can’t take so many steps in one day,” he said. “Go on, take a look.”
The steps were narrow, painted white. I followed them up a twisting circle to a small rooftop garden. The air was light and fresh, and it was like a magical, secret thing. “Oh!” I said. My plants would love it here.
Once upon a time, I had been filled with a good many wishes and dreams and hungers—small things, mostly. When I was ten, I wanted to go to camp. At seventeen, I wanted to learn everything there was to know about cooking raspberry desserts, about perfumes, and ached, with a wide vastness of longing, to walk the streets of London and see the sun set in a new sea.
When I met Daniel, all my desires and longings coalesced in the fineness of his strong hands and robust laughter, and I married him with nary a wisp of regret. When Giselle was born, I felt full-up, brimming.
Over the years, the yearnings and wishes returned. I wanted to learn to tango and I burned to collect the best plants for scent, and grow a perfect pocket garden of delphiniums. Soft passions, soft hungers, as warm and peaceful as my life was, but no less rich or pleasing for all that. I never was the kind of girl who wanted to save the world. I just liked making it beautiful and comfortable.
And when the great surprise of my divorce began, when Daniel suddenly turned traitor and broke my heart, over the grim breaking up that seemed to last forever and ever and ever, all my longings had again been focused on him, on trying to save the marriage, the family, the life I so loved. I gave up wanting anything but that.
When nothing I did, no amount of effort or good behavior or prayer, could save it, it was as if my heart just could not stand to wish for anything new. I was numb for months, my limbs dull and heavy, my brain half-dead. I didn’t care. About anything.
Standing on that rooftop, with the apartment below my feet, and the shop below that, I felt yearning unfurl. I felt like a warrior who had finally returned to the land of her birth—the losses and tragedies immovable and wearying, but all the same . . . in the past.
I felt a wish for a new life, the possible life I could have in this spot, the dreams I might be able to fulfill, the things I would learn.
I had paid three months down on the other apartment. That would see me through until Giselle came to visit, surely. I’d keep the ugly, cast-off furniture for her sake, and in the meantime sink my desires into this place, into a dream that was all mine, and had been for a long time.
Scent of Hours Perfume.
I stood on the roof, imagining the furniture I would carry up here, and the plants in their pots, and breathed in hope. It smelled of sun-heated pine blowing down from the mountains and the ghost of lavender to come, and marigolds, sharp and astringent.
Marigolds. Hmm. It seemed too early. I inhaled again. No, I was right: distinctly, definitely marigolds. Maybe someone had a pot of them in a windowsill or something.
Marigolds. I let the note expand in my head. Pungent, orange, deep, strong. Maybe that was the undernote in Niraj’s skin. I turned in the direction of the hill where his house sat, and looked for it. A large pine obscured it from where I stood, but if I moved— and I did—I could see it clearly.
I went back down the stairs and said, “Okay, I w
ant it. What do you need from me?”
The figure he named took all but $300 of my reserve, but I wrote the check without even a tiny hesitation. I thought of Roxanne, and her droll voice saying, “What has practical gotten you?”
Exactly.
“Roxanne!” I cried as I came up the stairs to my apartment. She was standing outside her door, smoking. “Guess what I did?”
She still looked worn, and even thinner, if that was possible. But her voice was encouraging when she said, “Tell me.”
“I rented that shop! It’s so crazy, I can’t believe I did it.”
“That’s fantastic, babe!” She shivered a little on my behalf. “You should come out with me and Wanda to celebrate.”
“Are you guys going out?”
“Tomorrow night. It’s her birthday. I was going to ask you anyway. We’re just going to have some dinner and a couple of drinks.”
I fit my key into my own door, thinking of those dwindling reserves in my bank account. “Where are you going? I don’t have a lot of cash.”
“She likes Jack Quinn’s, the pub downtown.”
“That’s one of my favorites!” I wondered what I could give up for the evening out. “I could just have soup and bread, I guess. Help you buy Wanda a couple of beers.”
“Sure.”
“What time?”
“Not until around six-thirty. It shouldn’t be busy on a Tuesday, and we’ll just have some supper and a beer and come back up here.”
“All right. Thanks, Roxanne.”
She stubbed out her cigarette in the pot she kept by the front door. “No problem.”
Her movements were stiff. “Are you okay?” I asked.
She waved a hand. “Just a little overexertion,” she said, and gave me a sly lift of an eyebrow. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Alan again?”
“Um.” She bowed her head. “No, actually.”
“Oh.” If this had been my daughter, I would have been very worried. Her body language broadcasted signals of secrets and dismay. Lightly I said, “You wretched slut, you!”
Madame Mirabou's School of Love Page 17