“A month isn’t a huge amount of time,” I point out.
“It is for love,” she says stubbornly. “She would know if she liked me.”
“That’s different from taking action on it. She talks to you, so she clearly likes you.”
“She talks to everyone,” Ana says, jabbing her spoon into the bowl. “She owns a bar. It’s her job.”
“True. However, as a dispassionate observer, let me say that Jayne treats you much differently than me.” She does, too, softer and more attentive. She looks at me, but she watches Ana.
“No, she doesn’t.”
Ana is committed to feeling sorry for herself, so I try a new tactic. “What do you like about her?”
Ana looks offended. “What’s not to like? You’ve seen her.”
Jayne is mixed, with a Haitian father and a Japanese mother—atall, rangy, gorgeous woman who wears ripped jeans and tank tops that show off her tattoos. There’s a lot to admire. “Besides that. Also, you’ve known her for longer than you’ve been into her, and she’s always looked that good.”
Ana’s eyes shift away and she gets a little smile. “It’s because she was nice to the cats in the alley.”
“What?”
Ana puts her glass down, the better to talk with her hands. “You know that alley down the street? Where the garbage cans are?”
“Yeah.”
“I always thought Jayne was a dog person because of Roscoe, but one day I noticed someone had been leaving food for the cats. Good food, too, the same as I buy.”
“It was Jayne?”
She rolls her eyes. “Of course it was Jayne. This story wouldn’t make much sense if it wasn’t.”
“Sorry.”
“We showed up to feed the cats at the same time one day, and that’s when we started talking.” She smiles. “She’s a kind person, you know? Not only nice.Kind.”
“Then you know she’ll be respectful and honest if you talk to her about how you feel.”
Ana buries her face in the couch cushion, so I have to lean close to interpret her muffled words. “You haven’t heard a thing I’ve said. I don’t have the guts. What I need is a magical potion to make her fall in love with me so I wouldn’t have any doubt. I’d give anything for that.”
People say this so often that I’ve long since learned to avoid an obvious reaction, but this time I’m unable to help myself. “Would you?” I blurt out. “Really?”
She pulls her head out of the cushion and blinks, a little taken aback by my sudden apparent passion. “Why, you got one?”
“Of course not,” I scoff. That’s true enough.
“Perfumes are kind of like that, though, aren’t they?” she asks. “Smells attract people.”
“Attract, yes. Make them want to spend their lives with you and see how miserable you are in the morning before coffee, not really.” I’m pleased with my insouciant tone.
“I wonder if any of your perfumes have done that,” she says dreamily. “Caused people to fall in love.”
I do my best to keep from wincing and train my eyes on the streetlight shining through a gap in the curtain. “I can assure you they have not.”
“What if they did, though? What if you could spray on a love attractor?”
I pick up the bowls to take to the kitchen in an attempt to change the conversation. “Do you want more?”
“Wine’s good.” She chugs it down as if to make her point. “Don’t you think that would be cool?”
