“How are you doing?” I ask.
In reply, she holds out the vial. I exchange it for my own and we dip in our blotters. It takes me a moment to absorb what my mother has done. It’s almost identical to my own, minus the iris. Instead—I close my eyes. Yes. She’s incorporated the Turkish rose note from the scent I wore in high school, a deconstructed version of a high-end perfume that I didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on, and over it, a breath of citrus. Waipo’s lemon.
“You did the garden,” she says with satisfaction.
“What night is this?” Because somehow I know her creation is referencing a specific memory.
“It was a Saturday night. You were sixteen. Your brother was out with friends, and your father was on a business trip. We’d spent the day in the lab with Waipo and then went home and ordered a pizza to eat outside.”
“You picked fresh basil from the garden and put it on the top.” I remember that night.
“Always better than what the restaurant uses.” She waves the blotter. “Cheaper too.”
I want her to comment on the iris, or that we had the same fundamental theme, but she says nothing except, “The winner?”
I take her vial. “I’ll send samples of both and let the client decide.”
She puts away the gloves and I watch her. She hasn’t mentioned my moli once today, and I wonder if that was the thing standing in the way of us getting along all these years. If perhaps Kelsey was right and the moli is a curse, at least for me.
25
Hua Dongmei
Ming dynasty. Dongmei was the first Hua to use a pig-bristle toothbrush. She created her own cleaning paste from cloves.
Heart note //Diminish yearning
Base note //Ginger
After work, the rain stops, leaving the air cool and fresh. Mom is happy for me to go out for dinner with Rafe, although she tries to convince me to go for something other than sushi, muttering darkly about parasites and worse. I lie and promise her I’ll stick to donburi. She heads home and I go to meet Rafe, who is waiting outside the restaurant on Spadina.
When I catch sight of him lounging against a wall as he waits, I stumble. How did I not realize I compared every man I met with him over the years? They were all lacking and I never understood why until now. They simply weren’t him. He waves when he sees me and I speed up.
We’ve hit the tail end of the dinner rush and are seated at a small table for two that’s far more intimate than I anticipated. After the initial conversation about our day and how Mom is settling in, we stop.We’ve been texting, but there are huge gaps in what we know about the last thirteen years. This makes it hard to be completely easy with each other, although the echo of that comfort remains and resurfaces often enough to give a false sense of familiarity. Rafe holds his mug of green tea in both hands and looks at the table. A frown has drawn long lines across his forehead, and we listen to the couple beside us gossiping cozily about their work colleagues.
Finally, he smiles at me and I take my courage in hand. “We haven’t had a chance to talk about what’s happened to us over the years,” I say. “I don’t even know if you have pets.”
He nods. “It’s weird to try to catch up on so much time. I don’t remember half of it. Maybe most of it.”
“What if we do a highlights reel?” I suggest. “We’ll trade the top five things we should know.”
Rafe puts aside his cup. I watch him greedily, hungry for his face after all the years of telling myself I didn’t care. Lies to yourself are almost impossible to get over. “My top five life highlights.” He sounds baffled.
Although it was my idea, I’m also struggling. It’s not so much a list as a judgment call about what I find valuable. What do I want him to know about me? By the time the server comes by for our order, I’ve only got three items and second-guessed a dozen others.
“Who goes first?” Rafe asks.
“You asked.”
He groans. Our tradition is, the one to ask is the one to go first.
“Fine. No comments until we’re both done.” Rafe clears his throat. “These are in no particular order,” he warns.
“Mine neither.”
Rafe thanks the server for the Asahi Super Dry and takes a sip. “Work. You know I work for the family real estate business. We branched out from residential and I want to move us into the luxury space, more high-end real estate.”
He glances at me and I nod.
