The Sawyers’ hacienda is the biggest house on the hill, a house whose extravagant parties always generate headlines like, “Sawyers’ Fourth of July Bash Has Neighbors Seeing Red, White and Blue.” The closest I’ve ever come to attending one was the night a westward wind blew the smell of roasted chicken and bourbon to our humble abode on Parrot Hill.
Clusters of palm trees draw the eye from one end of the house to the entryway and then across to the four carports. The sight of Court’s Jeep with the surfboard poking out the back doubles my pulse.
In the driveway, men haul scaffolding from the back of a truck with the words “Black Tie Event Planners” painted on the side. Two women hang paper lanterns from ornamental brackets along the walls. Melanie’s seventeenth birthday might beat out Christmas this year.
The lantern hangers greet Kali and me as we shuffle to the doorway, each of us holding a paper bag with a bouquet.
The door opens. It’s Melanie, hair in rollers, and wearing a glare reserved for geeks with postnasal drip. Her new perfume screams fake fruit at me. I stop breathing through my nose so I don’t pass out.
Synthetic perfume makes my skin crawl. Some lab rat concocted them in the late nineteenth century to cut the obscene costs of real perfume. It’s understandable. A vial of rose oil the size of a double-A battery requires ten thousand pounds of petals. The irony is, nowadays, lab scents—petroleum byproducts mixed with assorted chemicals—often cost more than the botanical they’re trying to imitate and smell nothing like the real thing.
Melanie gives us the once over. “Lemme guess, Lilo, from Lilo and Stitch, and Calamity Jane. Halloween’s not ’til Monday, girls.”
“I’ll give you a stitch,” mutters Kali.
Alice appears from behind her daughter, hair wrapped in a terry-cloth turban. I sniff. The smell of ammonia singes the air around her head, and trying to find her scentprint is like pushing through a mound of sand. The only note I make out is blueberries, which, of course, is a mood scent and not part of her inherent scentprint.
“Hi, girls,” she says in a warm voice. A thread of honeysuckle weaves through the blueberry—she’s delighted to see us. The woman must have just scrubbed her face, which looks as dewy and fresh as a teenager’s. “What a lovely surprise.”
We pull out our bouquets. I try to stop grimacing at Melanie. “We can’t make it tonight, so we brought you both something from the garden.” I hand Melanie my bouquet, glancing meaningfully into the blooms. When she sees the vial I tucked between two stems, she rolls her eyes and grabs my floral offering.
Alice frowns as her daughter scampers away. “I’m sorry.”
Kali hands her the second bouquet, and Alice draws in her breath. “These are simply gorgeous. Thank you, and thank your mother for me, Mim. I love your style. A cowboy hat with a sundress and arm warmers is so fresh. Where do you do your shopping?”
“Kali found this dress at Twice Loved.” I sniff but still can’t get past the ammonia barrier.
Alice beams at Kali. “I love Twice Loved. Some great bargains there.”
Kali glances at me, still trying to sniff on the sly, and nurses the conversation along, “So you finish your library books?”
“Sure did. I’m going back on Monday to get more, plus I’m bringing goodies for the homecoming fund-raiser.”
I stop my useless sniffing, which just makes me look like I’m hyperventilating. “You can’t go to school,” I blurt out. I have to keep her and Mr. Frederics apart until I have a chance to remedy the situation. She’s already primed to fall in love with him. If they bump into each other in the parking lot, and she looks into his soulful eyes . . .
“Why not?”
“Because they’re trying to cut down on bake sale items.”
Alice blinks, waiting for more of an explanation, but I am foiled by my ineptness at lying. Now what? I can’t leave until I at least figure out her base notes. I take a last whiff in vain.
Kali smoothly cuts in. “Too many carbs aren’t good for our developing bodies. They’d prefer you just send in a check.”
Alice scratches at a pencil-thin eyebrow, and the doubt scent of trout floats toward us. “Well, I’ll still need to pick up the books.”
“Kali has books,” I say. “What was the name of that series you couldn’t put down? Goddesses of Guilt?”
Kali frowns. “I don’t think Alice would be interested in Goddesses of Guilt.” She says the title through her teeth. “It’s not exactly her genre.” She fixes me with a hard look.
Oh. I feed Kali an apologetic smile, wishing I had listened to her more carefully when she described the plot.
“It sounds intriguing,” says Alice cheerfully. “Well, where are my manners? Won’t you come in? I was just doing a rinse.” Alice pats her head. “Just give me five minutes to wash out.”