The Scent of Rain

by Kristin Billerbeck

  Jesse cocked an eyebrow, and she wondered how it was that she felt she could trust someone whose story she knew so little of—who left so many unanswered questions. But she did. She even liked him, and that’s what worried her the most, she supposed. He made the feeling of wanting to shoot arrows for hours on end go away. He reminded her that her ability to create went beyond her sense of smell.

  “I have to admit that when you didn’t say anything about my car on the ride over here, I was worried.”

  “Your car?”

  “The spoiled milk smell. I found a sippy cup full of milk curdled into a solid this morning. I was worried you might vomit upon getting in.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Nope. You don’t give me enough credit.”

  “Then when that skunk smell on the road didn’t dissipate—”

  As quickly as confidence had filled her, it puddled around her ankles, and she corked the vial of the scent she’d created at the table. The scent she had no ability to test herself. “Maybe we should get back to the office.”

  She didn’t meet Jesse’s gaze. God forbid that he discover what a fraud she was. Maybe Mark had known instinctively that her career would fizzle as quickly as it ignited. For some reason, she wished she could show Jesse otherwise . . . that she could retain some sense of what it meant to win.

  Chapter 7

  Daphne finished her tasteless soup and her first day at work and took a taxi to a hotel nearest to an all-night clinic. The hotel was close to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and she seemed to be the only overnight guest without fatigues.

  She dropped off her bags and her bow but took a few scents with her to test her olfactory systems with the doctor on call. Freshly expelled essential oils from ylang-ylang and sandalwood, which she’d steam-distilled herself before she left California. She also grabbed the bottle of Volatility! just in case. She’d called ahead and let the clinic know she was coming and had spoken with the doctor himself. He’d taken her Visa number and said he’d meet her at the clinic. She didn’t think that was a very good sign, but how many options did she have, on her own in a brand-new city? She rushed out of the hotel before she talked herself out of getting immediate help.

  The clinic was a squat brick building with few windows. The doctors hadn’t spent much on landscaping, but that was probably due to their laser focus on medicine.

  “You’re sure someone is here?” the taxi driver asked her.

  “I’m sure,” she said, but she took his card for a ride home. She tugged on the glass doors and was met by a young man in a lab coat.

  “Daphne?”

  She nodded. “Are you old enough to be a doctor?” As a child interested in science, she’d loved Doogie Howser, but she didn’t want to be his patient. She stammered, “Thank you so much for staying late. I just started a new job today.”

  “I assure you, I am fully licensed. Dr. Seghal Seema,” he said, reaching out his hand. “What new job did you start?”

  “I—I work for Gibraltar Industries.”

  “Ah. They’re a nice stronghold in this town. I guess laundry detergent doesn’t suffer too much in the down economy.”

  “No.”

  “Let’s go into my office. Katy,” he said to a mousy woman behind the receptionist’s desk, “you can lock the doors now.”

  Katy stared at them with an eerie calm, and Daphne shuddered as she followed the doctor into his office.

  “Have a seat.”

  She sat in a bright orange dental chair, and the doctor pulled a stethoscope from his pocket. “You say it’s your sense of smell?”

  “Yes, and it’s crucial I get it back.” She didn’t mention her position, nor did she plan to. Who knew how small of a town Dayton might be?

  “How long has your sense of smell been gone?”

  “Nearly five days now.”

  “Are your taste buds affected as well?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did it leave you suddenly, or did you lose it gradually over time?”

  “Suddenly.”

  He took his two hands and felt her neck. “Your glands don’t seem swollen. That’s a good sign. You haven’t had rhinoplasty— a nose job—recently, have you?”

  “If I had, it would look more like Angelina Jolie’s.”

  Not so much as a smile.

  “Were you hit by anything? Any blunt-force trauma?”

  “No.”

  He took out a scope and looked into each ear. “You don’t appear to have excess fluid. Any colds recently?”

  “None.”

  “Allergies?”

  “No.”

  “I’m going to check your nose for polyps now.”

  She winced automatically. “My nose is very important to me. Can you try as much as possible not to touch the edges of it?”

  “Of course,” he said as he stuffed in the speculum with what could only be described as blunt-force trauma. Her eyes watered.

  He set the scope down, placed his hands on his knees, and rolled backward. “It must be allergies. I don’t see anything.”

  “Is it—is it possible that an emotional trauma could cause this?”

  “Anything is possible, but I highly doubt it.”

  “Is there anything that can fix it? I really need to smell.” She forced the desperation from her voice. He didn’t seem the type to respond to hysterics.

  “This type of thing is usually caused by an underlying infection.”

  “So what can I take?”

  “Well, I can give you some antibiotics. Of course, we don’t like to prescribe them unnecessarily. Maybe some steroids would help with any inflammation that may be causing the problem. You can take zinc. Of course, that can cause a problem if you take too much. You haven’t been upping your intake of zinc, have you?”

  “Not unless zinc is in wedding cake.”

  The doctor blinked. “No, that wouldn’t cause an overload of zinc,” he said with all seriousness. “But if it doesn’t go away, I think we’ll want to do a CT scan. We’ll want to make sure there’re no lesions or tumors that could be causing this.”

  “What about stress? Can stress cause it?”

  “You said you just started work today. How much stress could you be under?”

  “Well . . .” She paused. “I moved across the country.” She preferred not to tell him that she’d been left at the altar. Something told her he wouldn’t get the emotional connection.

  “This is short-term. I’m certain of it.”

  “What about Botox?” she said desperately. “Could that make my sense of smell work again? I saw your poster in the entryway.”

  He shook his head. “No. If anything, it’s more likely to cause the problem. Maybe if you took your mind off of getting your sense of smell, it would come back. Do you have any hobbies?”

  “Yes, I have hobbies,” she said, annoyed. “I like to make perfumes.”

  “Well, that won’t be easy if your nose isn’t working.”

  “You think?”

  He started scribbling on his prescription pad. “This is for steroid spray. Come back and see me in a week if you don’t have your sense of smell by then. We’ll run further tests.” He stopped writing. “Are there any toxins you may have inhaled? I’m not a fan of at-home chemistry.”

  “I’m a chemist!” she protested. “Not a kid with a chemistry set.”

  “Were you working with any solvents? Something that might be considered toxic?”

  “Only if you count my ex-fiancé.” She took the prescription.

  “Pay Katy at the front.” He stood and then gazed at her hard. “Do you want me to fix that lip while you’re here?”

  She covered her mouth with her fingertips. “My lip?”

  “It’s larger on one side.” He shrugged. “If it doesn’t bother you, it’s no big deal.” He handed her a mirror.

  “Well, it bugs me now.” She’d never noticed that her upper lip was fuller on one side than it was on the other, but now it was all she saw whe
n she looked at her face. She wondered if that had something to do with Mark leaving. Maybe he didn’t want his kids born with disfigured lips. “You can fix it?”

  “A little filler and you’ll be as good as new.”

  It was scary how quickly Dr. Seema had a syringe in his hand. Almost as if he had itchy fingers to get started on her. She fretted for about a second, but then thought of her warped lip. Maybe fixing it would make her other problems disappear. Maybe she’d been subconsciously freaking out about her lip, and her anxiety transferred to her sense of smell to get her attention.

  “Will it hurt?”

  “This is numbing gel. I’m barely going to use any, so you’ll be back to normal soon.” He rubbed her lip with the gel.

  At the prick of the needle, she exclaimed something guttural and Gollum-like. “Are you kidding me? What’s that numbing gel? Toothpaste?”

  “Stop moving your lips or this will turn out badly.”

  As far as she was concerned, it was already turning out badly.

  “Now I have to add a little to the other side to even it out. Don’t move.”

  “No,” she protested. “You are not sticking that syringe anywhere near my lip again. I’m not in a position to make great decisions, and I think this proves it.”

  “You can’t go with your lip half done.”

  Daphne grabbed her sweater and her handbag and made her way to the door. Dr. Seema followed her with the syringe in his hand.

  Katy sat in her mousy state the same way they’d left her. The girl wasn’t reading. She wasn’t working on a computer. She was simply sitting behind the desk waiting for life to happen to her. Maybe she was onto something.

  “I need to pay for my visit.”

  Katy looked up, and Daphne noticed the girl’s eyebrows were in the middle of her forehead, inching toward her hairline. Though she wore no makeup whatsoever, she’d clearly come into contact with some of Dr. Frankenstein’s magic syringes. “Is he finished with you?” Katy asked as she stared at Daphne’s lip.

  “I’m done. What’s my total?”

  Katy exchanged a glance with the doctor and came up with an amount. An amount that said Daphne would not be staying in a hotel long. Whether she wanted to face her love nest or she didn’t, that was all she’d be able to afford after tonight.

  Rather than call the cab, she decided to walk back to the hotel. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Sophie.

  “Daphne? Where are you? I didn’t want to call you because I didn’t know how long you’d be at work. Did you get your smell back?”

  She shook her head.

  “Daphne?”

  “No,” she blubbered. “Now my wip is bollen.”

  “Your what?”

  “My wip is bollen. Filler. Filler in my bip.”

  “Filler in your bip?”

  “My bip! My bip! Under my bose!”

  “Your lip?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Why is your lip swollen?”

  Daphne grew frustrated at the translation troubles. “Mark? Did anybun hear from Mark?”

  “No, sweetie. Did you?”

  “No.”

  “How was work? Do they know you can’t smell anything?”

  “No.”

  “I prayed for you this morning. Prayed you’d have it back before you got there. Can you taste anything? It didn’t seem to stop you from downing that wedding cake.”

  “I had something to prove.”

  “That sounded better. Maybe your lip is going down.”

  “I want to come home.”

  “I know you do, but Arnaud hasn’t even had time to receive Volatility! It will be better if you continue to work on the packaging there. Arnaud will know he’s not your only option. When I sent the package, I told him you were pursuing other avenues.”

  “What would I do bitout you?”

  “You’d survive. Listen, Gary bought me a plane ticket to come see you. He says it’s pointless to sit here worrying about everything when I can just go to Ohio and see for myself that everything is lovely.”

  “You’d do that bor me?”

  “I’d do anything for you. Just like you’d do anything for me. That’s what friends are for, Daphne.”

  “What if I don’t have a job when you get here?”

  “Then we’ll play the whole time. God’s in control, right?”

  “Right now, it beels like PongeBob is in control.”

  “That’s just because you’re in the midst of a trial. We all have trials.”

  “But usually when one thing is going badly, something else is going well. I’m missing what’s going right.”

  “You have me. I’m here.”

  “You’re there. I’m here.”

  “I’ll be there soon enough, and Gary has friends looking into where Mark might be. Did Gibraltar hear from him?”

  “He fudged his résumé, so they never hired him.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me? Okay, just sit tight and do your best until your sense of smell comes back. It has to return soon.”

  Just hearing Sophie say that, Daphne felt her sense would return. Sophie embraced happy thoughts like a cartoon princess, and somehow they manifested before her eyes. If anyone could prayerfully will the good life into being, it was Sophie.

  “I hope so.”

  A truck roared past her on the road and honked a few times.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m walking back to my hotel.”

  “In a city you don’t know?”

  “I’m on the outskirts of the city. More like a country road.”

  “That’s even worse!”

  Daphne looked around her at the barren road and the grass growing alongside it and came to the same conclusion Sophie had. “I’m almost there. I have to call my parents anyway. That should do till I’m back at the hotel.”

  “Call a taxi! And why aren’t you at the house anyway?”

  “I’m not ready to see it.”

  “That’s just weird. You’re acting weird.”

  “I know. You’re not going to diagnose me with anything, are you?”

  “I should. Your parents aren’t home, by the way. Your dad’s in Europe on business and your mother left on a cruise.”

  “How—”

  “Just get off the phone with me and call a taxi. I don’t want to hear you were found in a ditch somewhere.”

  “I can see the hotel from here.” She wanted to keep Sophie on the line. “No one’s heard from Mark? Not even his parents?”

  “If you spend one more second worrying about him, I’m going to scream. He’s fine. He’s probably basking in the sun somewhere on someone else’s dime. Does that make you feel more for him?”

  “I just don’t understand, Sophie. What did I ever do to him to deserve this? He knew how my parents are about money, yet he let them spend all that money on the wedding he wasn’t going to show up for. He let my dad put a down payment on a house for us.”

  “You’re trying to make sense out of something that makes no sense. Would you call a taxi? I can’t stop worrying about you in the middle of nowhere.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Maybe you should come home. You can stay with me until you figure out what’s next.”

  “I promised my new boss I’d stay until Christmas.”

  “Daph! It’s okay to take care of yourself first. Why do you always do that? You’re in Dayton for one day, and you’re already putting someone else’s needs before your own!”

  “He’s a single father.”

  “That’s not your problem.”

  “He just needs me until Christmas for the shareholders’ meeting, then I can go. In return, he’s going to help me package Volatility! Maybe by then Arnaud will be ready to take me back.”

  “I called around for some churches in the area. I sent them to your Gmail address. You need to get a posse there if you plan to stay six months. I’m planning to see you soon, though.”

  “
I’m at the hotel.”

  “Thank goodness. How’s your lip?”

  She touched her mouth, and it still felt huge. And painful. “Swollen. Even if I had my sense of smell, I couldn’t sniff around this lip. What was I thinking?”

  “At least you can talk now. Just forget this, Daphne. When Mark couldn’t get a job in Paris, you made all these concessions, and now you have nothing to show for it. I’m worried you’re going to do the same thing for this single father. He’s not your problem. This company isn’t your problem. Come home and regroup. You can get a job anywhere in the world.”

  “I could have gotten a job anywhere in the world. Past tense. I don’t know why yet, but I feel like I’m supposed to be here. It’s only been a day, and I see my piece of the puzzle fitting. At least for now.”

  The problem was, could she trust that inner calling after all she’d been through? It wasn’t just that Mark left her at the altar; it was that he’d left her, completely and utterly. No phone call. No good-bye. No closure of any kind. Just left her to imagine the worst about herself. Everyone could tell her that his actions said more about him than they did about her, but being abandoned was not unfamiliar to her. There was some message in his action that she felt compelled to understand if she wanted to correct it.

  After she hung up, she entered her hotel room and dropped her handbag on the bed. She stared into the mirror over the dresser and clasped her eyes shut, only to open them and see shiny, reddish-pink lips the size of a child’s inflatable toy on her face. She couldn’t help but giggle.

  “Why do you have to be the sacrificial lamb?” she asked her reflection. “Jesus did that already. He doesn’t need your help!”

  How would she go to work the next day? She looked as if she were wearing fake wax lips from Halloween. Well, if she’d hoped to take the attention off her nose, she’d certainly succeeded. Oddly, her mind went to Jesse and what he’d think. He already thought her slightly off-balance for adding sugar to her soup.

  She opened her suitcase and pulled out her Bible. She had all the scent passages marked, including the ultimate image of humility that inspired her. “Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”