“What do you mean?” Cat was confused. Nearly half the bottle was gone.
“These drops, they are for special nights. For the nights when the moon is full, when there is magic in the air, when you want your lover to gaze into your eyes and stay up late with you. They not for every day, not for every week. We had a long talk about it when I gave her these. I said, You can make him fall in love with you if you use these at the right time.”
“Why is the bottle so big if the dosage is just a few drops?”
“Well, it’s a liquid, so it does eva-porr-ate; like with an American whiskey barrel, the angels take their share. And we dilute it because these plants, they are very strong. It is very expensive to make, a long process, too, so it is easier just to make one bottle for one woman, for her whole life to have.”
“How much are these?”
“This leetle bottle is nine thousand dollars to buy.” Vittoria sighed. “I know, it is a lot, but it is a-hard to make!”
“Wow,” said Cat, shock written all over her face. A glamorous South American woman selling unregulated love potions for six times my rent. So that’s who can afford to live on Bedford Avenue these days. I’m in the wrong business.
Vittoria still held the bottle in her hands. Cat definitely needed to get it back. She softened her expression.
“Can you really make someone fall in love?” Cat asked, pretending to telegraph lovesickness of her own. Vittoria responded by placing the bottle in Cat’s hands and folding her fingers around it.
“Yes. You keep them. You put two drops—just two—in each eye, when it is night, where there is candlelight, moonlight, music. You dance, you look into his eyes. You will shine; you will be at your best. Just a little polish is all you need. These are gonna help you.”
“What exactly do they do?”
“They gonna make your eyes big, you gonna see him better, you will laugh easier. They’re gonna make you more beautiful.”
Cat looked around the store. Every single product was labeled only with the intended effects—no cutesy product names and certainly no ingredients. Stacked behind Vittoria she could see bottles that read “Happiness,” “Clarity,” “Long hair growth,” “Nice hair texture,” “Strong nails,” “Fertility,” and, most sensationally, “Bigger breasts.”
“I actually have a sort-of date after this,” she said. “I feel like I need all the help I can get. What else should I do?”
Vittoria squealed. “Oh, that’s perfect. Kate already make samples for you, but now we try to find something better. Come here”—she pointed to an oversized peach velvet settee—“and sit down. You wanna tea? Let’s get you a tea. Kattteee!”
Vittoria spent the next forty-five minutes fussing over Cat, brushing out her hair and massaging her face while she applied lotions, powders, and serums, all with a specific goal, some of them from beautiful amber jars. For happiness. For the nerves. For the regeneration of the cells. For the glow. To soften the wrinkles. To fatten the hair follicle. To thin the fat on the neck. She talked the entire time, her voice a melodic stream of stories about each product, about her family, about her own degree in botany from the University of S?o Paulo, about the natural fragrances she was so careful to mix—lily of the valley, rosemary, balsam, jasmine, juniper, honeysuckle, eucalyptus, apple blossom, lavender, tangerine, and rose water, among others.
Cat felt soothed and pampered. She’d walked into Bedford Organics red-faced and anxious as a fussy baby, but when Vittoria held up a hand mirror at a quarter to six, a radiant, breathtakingly beautiful woman stared back at her instead. Cat’s skin glowed; her hair floated around her face, glossy and voluminous. Even her fingernails looked healthier—she could have sworn they were ragged and dry this morning, but now her nail beds were tidy and clean.
“You want to add the mulher bonita drops?” asked Vittoria. “It’s gonna be a beautiful night. It could be a good night for these.” Cat nodded. Vittoria gently tilted her head back, placing two drops in each of Cat’s eyes.
She wrapped up Cat’s dozen or so samples and a few full-size products in thick brown butcher paper, tying them together with a heavy grosgrain ribbon. Kate brought her a small Provencal-style woven basket with leather handles and placed the products gently inside, fastening the handles together with more ribbon.
“All of this, it’s a gift for you. You try these out. And share! Make sure you share, okay?”
Cat nodded and ducked into the powder room, which was lined in Dupioni silk curtains, to apply some deodorant and a flamingo-pink lipstick. She felt incredible. The floor-length bathroom mirror confirmed it: Cat could see that she now looked more beautiful than she ever had in her entire life, almost as bewitching and ethereal as Hillary Whitney. When she stepped out to pick up her packages and say good-bye, Vittoria pressed her little body into Cat’s to give her a warm, friendly hug.
“I’m so glad you come by today. Hillary was a lovely girl. You come by any time. You share these with all your friends, you give them my number; I make more, custom.” She winked.
Cat thanked her as she took her bag of product, then floated down the staircase out to Bedford. The sidewalk pavement sparkled in the summer sun. Instead of the usual polka-dot pattern of old gum stains, she noticed the glimmering flecks of mica and granite embedded in the slabs; instead of tasting garbage in the air, she smelled the lavender and lily traces wafting off her own skin. Her sneakers felt unexpectedly light as she wove her way through the after-work crowd of pedestrians, all of whom seemed to notice her, to happily bask—just for a moment—in her glow.
She caught her own reflection in a shop window, found it in the next, and one across the street and then another. Surrounded by a prismatic army of her own form, their dresses starched and white like hers, she moved her arms to the sky and reached for the sun; they did the same. She put on her headphones, and the other Cats did, too. Hello, Window Cats, she thought happily.
She selected the Beatles’ “Blackbird” from her playlist, skipping down the north side of Broadway and ducking down Driggs. Window Cats followed her wherever she went. The sunshine dripping on her arms began seeping into her body, filling her up from the outside in with a soft, airy gold. By the time she reached Leicester, tears of happiness were blooming on her cheeks, and she wiped them away with her fingertips. You were only waiting for this moment to arise, McCartney sang.
Hutton was waiting outside the restaurant wearing his work uniform of rumpled button-down, unstructured jacket, lightweight trousers, and battered brown oxfords. She barreled toward him, wrapping her arms under his jacket, feeling his muscles through his shirt, pushing her face into his chest, smelling his bell-pepper scent, listening for the big drum of his heartbeat.
“Wow, hi,” he said, surprised.