Court studies me squirming beside him. I try to dislodge the grimace from my face.
“Vicky’s not a happy person, that’s why she acts that way. Drives her stepmom crazy. They’re always arguing. Her stepmom’s a vinyasa yoga instructor, too, very chill.”
An itchy feeling scuttles up my back. When I was eight, a Hollywood producer came to us seeking an elixir for a vinyasa yoga instructor. His wife had died the year before. He smelled of black elder. “Her father, is he a Hollywood producer?”
“Yep. That’s why Mel hangs out with her. She hopes he’ll make her a star.”
That explains Vicky’s disdain for me. She blames Mother, and therefore me, for giving her a stepmom. But Mother wouldn’t have made a bad match. We always consider families when dealing with second marriages. My feet and hands go clammy. “Why don’t Vicky and her stepmom get along?”
“Vicky says her stepmom spent all her dad’s money, but the truth is, her dad was washed up a long time ago. And Mrs. Valdez doesn’t let her get away with crap, but it’s only because she cares.”
Then maybe it wasn’t a mismatch. Why do I care? Vicky’s problems are not high on my list of wrongs to right.
Court twists and drags his fingers in the well water, which Mother filled with gardenia blossoms before she left this morning. The flowers’ delicate scent plays around our noses, teasing us with its creamy, almost incense-like fragrance. Against my better judgment, I fish out one of the blossoms and hand it to him. He twirls it against his nose, a nose that would be perfect for leaning my own against, and his eyelids dip closed. I’m caught by the simple beauty of his appreciating a flower.
“Well, thanks for everything today.” My voice sounds too loud and chipper. I could offer him a snack, but that would only prolong my torture. “I should be getting back to work.”
He puts his elbows on his knees. “You know, aside from a few weird stares, people never treated me differently after that thing with Dad and the call girls hit the news. But I still felt ashamed. I didn’t think I could ever hold my head up again.
“Then I saw you. First day of school, you sat at our lunch table. Tina screamed at you.”
He saw that? My face flushes with the memory. I felt five years old all over again. The girl and all her friends left the table, like I was the grim reaper. I ate by myself, the first of many days of solo dining.
“You didn’t leave, or even react. Even finished your lunch.”
“I was hungry.”
“Even with all the rumors, you still come to school, day after day. I never see you whine or cry. You act like nothing bothers you. I figured if you could handle . . .”
“Public ridicule,” I fill in for him.
He chuckles. “Right, then I should stop moping and get on with life.”
“At least one good thing came of it.”
His gaze softens. “I’d say a lot of good things came of it.”
My skin tingles. I focus on Tabitha, who just caught herself a juicy soil engineer. The other chickens crowd her for a bite, but then something spooks the clutch and they all flutter away.
Twilight is my favorite time of day. All shimmery in the ceiling, violet on the carpet. The night bloomers are rolling up their sleeves to do their magic. I want to remember this moment, for after the BBG kicks in, it’ll never come again: Court, staring at me as if I’m the only thing worth looking at in this garden of beauties. And me, sitting in a honeysuckle cloud of my own desire, wanting to kiss him, and cursing my nose for getting in the way.
“Why can’t you like anyone?” he asks suddenly.
The intensity of his gaze makes me stammer. “I—I—” I want to slap myself. I can’t tell him about Larkspur jinxing us from romantic relationships. If word got out aromateurs could jinx people, Mother and I would be driven out with the proverbial stakes. So I tell him the other reasons. “Ethics. The plants we use draw others to us like bees to pollen. People might think we were taking advantage. Our reputation would suffer.” I sound like Mother.
“What if someone likes you for you, and not because of the flowers?”
“It would be impossible to tell.”
“My mother always says, don’t throw away a bucket of ice if you think there might be a diamond inside.”
“We’re not supposed to want diamonds.”
“But do you?”
“No,” I lie.
His eyelashes flicker, a movement so quick it could’ve been a trick of the light. But when the smell of blueberries mingles with my own, I realize his placid expression is just a front. A lie, like mine, though a hundred times less cruel.
SEVENTEEN
“ELIXIRS WHISPER TO THE MIND WHAT
THE HEART ALREADY KNOWS.”
—Begonie, Aromateur, 1768