Before I can reply, she grabs her coat and umbrella, then leaves. It’s so sudden I expect to see a little puff of smoke where she sat.
“Goodness,” says Mom after a pause. “What an interesting girl.”
The door slams open and Ana comes rushing back in.
“What do I say?” she moans.
This time I almost shove her out the door. “Just make conversation. Like usual, the way you did before you started having this crisis.”
“Right.” She draws herself up tall. “Be cool. I am cool.”
“As ice.”
“Ice.” She gives a decisive nod. “I can get a drink.”
“You can,” says Mom. “You said it was a bar.”
After a little more cajoling, she’s off again.
Mom looks at me, eyebrows high, and I shrug. “That’s Ana,” I say.
“I think a scent with a long sillage would match her,” says Mom, walking to the window. “Very long.”
I trail after her and watch as she adjusts the curtains. “Did you mean what you said about people disappointing you?”
“I was speaking in generalities,” she said. “Do you disagree?”
“I don’t know.” Feeling a little uncomfortable, I turn to my phone and see a new commission has come in. I show the brief to Mom to break the silence.
She reads it over. “All the instructions say is that it should smell like ‘home.’”
They didn’t tick any of the boxes I include to help narrow down their preferences, but wrote a cheery “Dealer’s choice!” in the Additional Notes box, which is less than helpful.
“I’m thinking flowers and apple pie,” I say to tease her.
“Apple pie.” She makes a face at these uninspired choices. “Really, Luling. I trained you better.”
“I was kidding,” I protest. “What would you make?”
She looks at me, and her smile is mischievous in a way I haven’t seen in years. “Waipo and I used to compete over client requests sometimes,” she says. “We’d each take the brief and see who interpreted it better.”
“You want to compete?” This is so not like Mom. Or maybe it is and I’m only just now learning.
“Who can create the best ‘home’ perfume,” she says. “Two hours.”
“You’re on.”
After a brief delay to help a customer who braved the rain because he wanted to surprise his fiancée with matching his-and-hers scents for their upcoming wedding, I pull out my notebook to think about the home scent.
The shop feels calm, but my mind is somehow simultaneously empty and frantic, making it impossible to settle on an idea. It doesn’t help that when I glance at Mom, she looks serene as she pulls the ingredients she needs.Home. Home. Home.The word repeats in my head until it loses meaning.
The strangest thing that happened when I left home was how badly I wanted my mother, who was one of the very specific reasons I was leaving in the first place. I knew it would be asking too much for her to reassure me I was doing the right thing by leaving—Mom made it crystal clear she thought I was acting like a child and making a huge mistake—but I would have settled for a mom who at least cared enough to check in and shame me out of living from my suitcase for two months because unpacking was too overwhelming. She never did. I’d thought she would always be there, but once I left, she faded away. No, took herself away. That upset me, because how could she be the one to separate herself from me?
Only I was allowed to do that.
I sigh and hunker down to my work. I decide on the smell of night in the garden at my parents’ house. I put in black water and wet sand and rocks, then cover it with the butterscotch of a ponderosa pine. I consider adding an echo of Rafe’s cologne, that smoky light tobacco that’s nothing like a cigarette and instead is everything sexy. I find myself reaching for a pristine and chilly iris. Mom’s scent.
She’s writing away on one of the formula sheets. A discarded pair of gloves and a capped vial sit in front of her.
