“But, but—” I sputter. “What about the clients?”
Now she’s not listening. “I need to call Alfie,” she says, meaning our travel agent. “Finish up here, dear.” Her clogs clap across the floorboards. Then, with a heavy thunk of the door, she’s gone.
NINE
“THERE BE NO LADY QUITE SO FAIR,
AS SHE WITH ACACIA IN HER HAIR.
THERE BE NO LADY QUITE SO FINE,
WHO HAS A LOVER ON HER MIND.”
—Xanthe, Aromateur, 1789
I CHECK THE calendar hanging on the back of the blue workshop door. We have several senior citizens coming up. Despite the complexity of their scentprints, Mother insists we fast track the aged wherever possible because they have less time left to enjoy the fruits of our labors. The next two clients are both in their eighties. It wouldn’t be ethical for Mother and me to vacation right now. Plus, someone has to follow up on Ms. DiCarlo, and what if Layla’s Sacrifice blooms? It’ll go to waste.
If all these reasons still aren’t enough to convince Mother I cannot go to Oman, I might have to break a leg. Of course, if I were serious, that’d make it trickier to get to Meyer Botanical. I imagine myself hobbling into the garden on crutches, sneaking around the bushes and taking furtive sniffs. If only it weren’t closed tomorrow, I could take a train, and if all the plants were in alignment, “elix and fix” in the next twenty-four hours.
A hot shower does nothing to dissolve the knots in my stomach. I hop into bed without drying my hair, and pull Aunt Bryony’s old quilt up to my chin. Grandmother Narcissa made the quilt along with the identical one on Mother’s bed. Intertwining flowers run the length of the coverlet, representing each ancestor like a family tree. When I was born, Mother added mimosas, bristly balls like purple pom-poms.
I can smell the ginger and winter’s bark in my aunt’s scentprint, both of which contain a considerable amount of bite. She shares these notes with Mother and me, since heart notes run in families, but hers are a lot spicier. It’s in the top notes, those volatile sprinters that reach the nose first, where Mother and Aunt Bryony vary wildly. Mother’s top notes include cranberry and black currant—vigorous, eye-catching berries known for increasing memory—while my aunt favors linden, a lightweight but strong wood used by the Vikings to construct shields.
Life would be so much easier if I had an aunt. An aunt would understand how demanding Mother can be, and help with the workload so that her niece might attend algebra class. An aunt could convince Mother not to take me to Oman.
I pedal through the gray light of morning toward school, no closer to a solution for how to get out of the Oman crisis or how to teleport myself to Meyer. I just have to hang tight. Hope Mother sees reason and doesn’t make me go. At least Kali dropped off her mom’s stash of romance novels to Alice Sunday night. That should keep her away from school for a while.
I swerve around a dead opossum, trying not to breathe in its decaying stench as I pump through the last block to Santa Guadalupe High School. The banner above the entrance reads “Last Day! Halloween Candy Grams for the Boo of Your Dreams.”
Swinging into school, I glide to my parking spot at the library bike racks, and wedge my trusty garage-sale bike next to Kali’s Schwinn. Vicky leans against a post, cell phone to her ear. What is she doing here? Her eyes have lost focus and the angles of her jawline are softer. For the first time I notice a prettiness to her features. It’s as if by dropping her guard, a quieter side peeks through, and I can see why Court found her attractive.
Her eyes snap to mine and vulnerable Vicky disappears. She clacks over to me in her dangerous-looking stilettos, which she could use as spikes to climb a wall in case she feels like going ninja. At the sight of my bucket hat, her eyeballs roll with the white of surrender, like she’s giving me up as a lost cause.
She finishes her call and drops her phone into her Gucci purse, which is stuffed with so many beauty products, you’d think she was a klepto. The cloying scents of petroleum and polyurethane assault my nose. Vicky’s designer purse is a knockoff.
“I dropped it in his drink Saturday night,” she says in a low voice that boys might consider sexy. “Why is it taking so long? It’s only supposed to take a couple of days.”
How does she know that? “It can take up to a week. Plus, the chemistry has to be perfect.”
“The chemistry is perfect,” she hisses. A clot of mascara looks like a bug caught between her eyelashes.
“Well then, you have nothing to worry about.” I fake a smile.
A woman and her toddler stroll by. The little boy reaches up for Vicky’s skirt, and Vicky jerks away, with the urgency of someone who has just felt a spider graze her face. Her red lips compress disapprovingly, and the pickled cabbage of sour sap stings my nose.