She points me to the soap. “Hands.”
“Mom, is Yixiang okay?” I ask tentatively. This is finally my chance to ask.
“It is, Luling.” Her voice is assured. Can I believe her? Or do I believe Eric? Why would she lie to me? I decide to wait and see because that’s the coward’s way out of a conversation I don’t want to have.
Dinner is delicious. Mom made spaghetti and cheesy garlic bread. The flavors are perfect in their simplicity, the tomatoes simmered down with basil. Yet it also makes me sad. Maybepensiveis a better word.Forlorn.Like everything she’s cooked, it’s one of my favorites from childhood. Everything she thinks she knows about me is from the past.
“I can do dinner tomorrow,” I say. “I make a good tuna couscous salad, and the asparagus is good this time of year.”
“You don’t like canned fish,” she says.
“I didn’t,” I correct her. “I do now.”
She’s quiet for a second. “That would be nice. Perhaps you can make it for Rafe as well. He can join us.”
“Maybe.”
We tidy up after dinner—or I try to tidy while Mom sits down, but she insists on helping. While we work, she asks if I’ve heard back from the client about the home-perfume options I sent (no) or have any new commissions. I fight against taking the question as a commentary on my ability to generate business and do my best to answer her words, not any perceived tone, like an emotionally actualized adult. “I got one today.”
“Oh?” she asks, looking interested. Before the moli issue got in our way, talking to Mom about perfume had been one of my favorite things in the world. It still is.
“It’s a young woman. New job. New boyfriend, new apartment, and everything is exciting instead of causing her stress. She wants to bottle that feeling so she can remember this moment when she needs it.”
“Intriguing.” Mom takes the kettle off the stove. “I wonder why she doesn’t think her regular scent will do that, the one she wears every day.”
“I asked the same thing. She’s never worn perfume.”
Mom’s hand halts with the kettle midair. “Never?”
I share her disbelief. “Her father hates all fragrance. He didn’t allow anything—not a scented candle or detergent or shampoo—in the house. He wasn’t allergic, the woman said, just didn’t like it. She moved away from home recently and wants to explore.”
My mother vibrates with ideas, and I give her the opening instead of hoarding this challenge for myself. “What do you think?”
To my surprise, she only smiles at me. “What doyouthink?”
I settle down at the table. “Something light so I don’t overwhelm her?”
“Did you do a consultation?”
I grab my bag and pull out the sheets I’d brought home with me. Mom pages through, tapping her fingers on the table. “She doesn’t know what she wants,” she says. “Did you have her smell anything?”
“She liked all of it,” I say. “It’s truly wide open, but I don’t know where to start.”
Mom thinks. “Sometimes it’s better to watch instead of listen when a client is trying the blotters. Do you have the register?”
I fetch it, and Mom flips through the pages until she finds Zhengyi’s chapter. “Here,” she says. “Zhengyi’s rules when she opened the store cover this.”
“What didn’t they cover?”
Mom laughs. “She was a thorough woman. Your grandmother said Zhengyi went to the store each day until she was bedridden to run her fingers along the baseboards. After that, she made your grandmother do it and demanded she come home without washing her hands, to show her the place was dust-free. Waipo refused and they compromised on using a tissue as proof.”
I didn’t know that, but I can imagine the look on a young Waipo’s face as she tried to negotiate with a crotchety old woman born in the previous century.
I skim the chapter and then point. “Is this what you were talking about?”
Mom nods. “Zhengyi was before her time. ‘Scent is instinctive, and although the client may feel shy about stating her preferences, there will be some she reacts to more strongly than others without knowing herself. It is your job to draw these out.’ Do you remember if your client reacted?”
I close my eyes to put myself back in the moment. The client was a delicate, colorless woman, with mouse-brown hair, pale-gray eyes, and slightly freckled skin that looked like it might have had a tan several years ago. Her clothes were taupe and camel, her shoes unexpectedly stylish brown Victorian lace boots.
