I thought Mom’s presence would get on my nerves, but it’s peaceful. She takes one of my empty notebooks and spends the morning with the concentrated expression I know I also wear when I’m focused on following an idea. Occasionally, she gets up to take one of my vials, slipping in a blotter and holding it to her nose with distant eyes before going back and jotting more notes down. If I look at them, they’ll be full of small squiggles and letters, her personal shorthand that I learned to decipher years ago.
Rafe is in another round of meetings but texts me around noon.
Rafe:What do you think about going out for dinner tonight? I understand if you need to put it off because of your mom.
I tell him I want to go. This date has been built up so much in my head it’s almost a relief to simply have it happen. Although our ongoing text conversation makes me happy because I like talking to him, it’s unsatisfying. I can admit how hard it was to have him out of my life now that he’s here again. I want to see him. I want to see his face as he talks and to make up for our lost time. He suggests a place and time, and is off to another meeting.
The weather keeps all but the most dedicated shoppers away, and by early afternoon we’re alone, with the rain beating hard on the windows. Mom calls us to the back for a tea break. It’s a pleasant, lazy Sunday-afternoon feel.
As Ana sips, she looks around my worktable. “How do you become a perfumer, anyway?” she asks curiously. “Is there a school or something?”
“There are, and there are also apprentice programs with the big fragrance companies,” I say. “Our training for Yixiang is done in-house.”
“In-house?” Ana looks at my mother, who nods.
“The women in our family have always taught the next generations,” my mother says. “My mother and grandmother taught me, and we taught Luling.”
“At first, I didn’t know what Mom was doing,” I say. “When I was a kid, she talked to me about how things smelled to make sure I was aware of scent in my life.”
Ana points at the gardenia I have in the back waiting for more soil. “Like flowers when you went on a walk?”
“That, but everyday things too.” Mom takes an orange from the bowl and holds it out to Ana. “Take the difference between the oils in an orange peel”—she sinks her nails in and the room sings with zest—“and the orange itself.” She peels into it to reveal the bright pulp, and Ana leans in to breathe deep.
She sits back. “How do you go from that to making perfume?”
“Awareness is the beginning,” I say. “Most people take smell for granted, but by the time I was twenty, I could recognize almost two thousand scents.”
“Are you kidding?” Ana looks stunned. “There are that many smells in the world?”
Mom smiles at her. “Far more. You can’t write without words, and you can’t create perfumes without knowing scents and materials, so you need a vocabulary for what you’re doing. An olfactory library.”
“A library of flowers,” says Ana.
“And spices and herbs and chemicals,” Mom says.
“How do you do that?”
“Practice,” I say. “Lots of patience.”
“I taught Luling to connect smells to memories,” says my mother. “That helps. We process smell in our olfactory bulb, which is connected to the parts of our brain involved in building memory.”
I pull out a vial and dip in a blotter, then hand it to Ana. “For instance, dihydromyrcenol is synthetic, so it’s not something you can instantly connect to, like a rose. The first time I sniffed it, I happened to be looking at my grandmother’s purple scarf,” I say. “Now, in my head, it’s a cool purple scent, and that’s how I remember it. The scarf matched the lavender notes.”
“It totally smells like purple.” Ana looks fascinated as she waves it in front of her nose, then sighs. “I’ve always wanted a signature scent but never found one that matched me.”
“I can make you something, if you want. One just for you.” I can see the kinds of fragrances that will suit her. Chocolate and red chili, with amber for a scent as expansive as Ana herself. Creamy balsamic. Or gardenia and frangipani—big, gorgeous blooms that will fill a room if she wants to take up space.
“Really?” She looks thrilled.
“Absolutely. Do you have something in mind or want a surprise?”
She gives me a look. “What do you think?”
“Surprise it is.” I’m a little astonished I know her well enough to say it with such certainty. Friendship was sneaking up on me solely through proximity.
The door bells ring, and Ana runs to the front of the store so fast the socks she’s sorting tumble to the ground. She’s back before we’ve finished picking them up.
“It was only the mail.” She’s obviously upset.
