The Scent Keeper(71)

“Let’s see what you can do,” Victoria said. The woman became a flurry of action, opening bottles and tins, pulling out brushes in multiple sizes. The world narrowed to powders and liquids and colors, greens and peach, black and smoke.

“Close your eyes,” she said, and I did, hoping I wouldn’t ever have to open them and see what she was doing. I thought of the girls at school, their bright blue eye shadow, the blush that looked like finger paint. I sat, frozen, as brushes and pencils marked my face, pushed against my eyelids, my lips.

“Blot,” the woman said, putting a Kleenex against my mouth; when I did nothing, confused, she said, more insistently, “Press down.” I did.

After what felt like forever, the movement stopped.

“There you are,” she said. “Perfect. You can open your eyes.”

I did, slowly, and almost jumped back. The face in the mirror was nothing like mine. If Victoria was an elegant, refined version of me, this was the opposite end of the spectrum. My eyes were huge, garish things, surrounded by what appeared to be a bed of wet moss. My mouth was so red it looked like I’d been eating raw meat.

“No,” I said.

Victoria came around from behind me and looked.

“Oh my.” She deftly moved the woman aside. “Just a moment, Emmeline,” she said. “Close your eyes again.”

I felt fingertips this time, hers, moving across my face. Along my cheekbones, across my lips, my eyes, but gently, like a benediction, a promise. I was held, shaped, loved by those fingers. I could feel it on my skin, in my blood. I wished it would never stop.

“That’s better,” Victoria said a few minutes later. “You can look now.”

I opened my eyes. After the last time, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But the face I saw this time was beautiful, luminous. My eyes were big, but soft, haunting. My cheekbones were defined and full of stories. My lips didn’t scream for attention; they were available, but still mine. A secret, barely whispered; the prologue to a book you could get lost in. I’d say it didn’t look like me, but it did—a me I’d never thought I’d reach.

“Wow,” I breathed.

Victoria smiled, pleased with her work. She turned to the makeup saleswoman. “It’s all about subtlety,” she explained. “The best seduction is the one you never see coming.”

I couldn’t stop looking at myself. If only Fisher could see me, I thought. He’d want me now.

No matter what I’d seen in the bar, no matter how much I tried not to, I still thought of him far too much, spent too many hours not writing letters to him in my head, not wondering who the new girlfriend was, not holding on to his shirt when I slept. I missed him in my bones and my lungs and my skin. He was like the scents in the bottles, murmuring, waiting, eager for me to crack the seal.

He doesn’t want you, I told myself.

You are beautiful, the face in the mirror said.

Victoria handed me a small turquoise bag. Inside, the small bottles seemed to sparkle.

“A little magic for you,” she said, and we walked out into the mall. I saw a young man’s head turn to follow me; another one smiled a hello as I approached.

“This is your power,” Victoria told me. “You get to choose what you do with it.”

We wandered down the row of stores, commenting on the window displays, the smells, but not entering. Toward the middle of the mall, we approached a shop that was emitting a bruising bass beat. The light inside was low and murky, the customers close to my age, with tight faces and meticulously ragged clothes.

“We’re trying to land this chain,” Victoria said. “What do you think of it?”

“It’s like a cave,” I said. I could just imagine men with rough hair and faces standing by a campfire, the night shadowy and dangerous around them.

She laughed softly. “Exactly. So what kind of fragrance would you design for it?”

Her eyes were bright; we were playing a game. I cocked my head in response. “I’m not sure,” I said. Looking at the casual nonchalance of these kids, I could feel my newly found confidence starting to ebb.

Victoria leaned close to my ear so I could hear her.

“What’s the first rule of our business?” she asked. It didn’t feel like the same question she’d asked Claudia. This time it felt like a secret handshake.

“Learn your customer,” I said.

“Exactly. Figure out their story, and once you do, they’re yours.”

We stood there together, and I watched the kids picking up T-shirts with ads promoting rock concerts that happened before they were born, in cities they would never visit. One girl elbowed her friend, pointing to a shirt that read Get Off My Back. She made a crude motion with her hand and they both giggled. Two strangers with equally flawless bodies tried to share a three-way mirror, careful not to look at one another as they turned this way and that in identical jeans.

They’re no more comfortable than I am, I realized, shocked.

The scent-story came into my mind easily then—notes of old leather and clove, a puff of cigarette smoke. An invitation from the cool kids, a nod of approval pulling customers in, and then, beneath, a bit of talcum powder.

You’re still a baby, it would whisper. Everyone knows.

I knew without thinking what that would pull out of these kids. Fear—sharp as sweat, an olfactory balance to the softness of the powder. With it would come a desire for armor, fashionable protection—a half-ripped shirt, jeans that said, Yes, I do fit in.