The Secret of a Heart Note

by Stacey Lee

  “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.”

  “We’d love to,” I say too quickly. After she washes out the chemicals, I’ll sniff and go. Hopefully, Court will be sleeping in like any normal teenager on a Saturday morning. Then again, he’s an athlete. Maybe the type of athlete who rises with the sun and goes on jogs and makes protein shakes. My anxiety floods the air currents with dank, boggy smells.

  Kali hooks one eyebrow at me as she follows Court’s mom into the great room. White walls and high ceilings give the place an airy feel. Beneath the chemical smells—floor wax and the plasticky drip of polyester-blend slipcovered furniture—hums the comforting aromas of buttery croissants, orchids, and solid-oak ceiling beams.

  Several vases line the rustic console in front of us. Most are crudely formed and unevenly painted, but one is a beauty with a pinkish-green patina and a well-proportioned body. Alice sticks her bouquet into this one, then sweeps her hand toward her prairie chic living room. “Please, make yourselves comfortable.” She hurries down a hallway, slippers slapping the blond tiles.

  Kali looks up at a chandelier dripping with crystals while I take a closer look at the odd-shaped vases. The initials “MNS” plus an age, 11, 12, etc., are carved at the base of each sculpture. Melanie Sawyer?

  “Sorry about the books,” I whisper to Kali when we can no longer hear Alice. “I’ll pick up some paperbacks at Twice Loved.”

  “Forget it. My mom has a bunch we can borrow. So what’s going on?”

  “Can’t get a read on her. It’s all the hair stuff.”

  Kali whistles. “Maybe she’s sprucing up for you-know-who.”

  Mr. Frederics? I don’t say the name aloud but Kali nods at my horrified expression. I sink lower into my sandals. It certainly could’ve happened by now, though early show-ers are rare.

  “Let’s chill. Maybe it’s nothing. Rich people like to keep up the package. Placenta facials, seaweed wraps.” Kali hikes to the living room and plops down on one of the overstuffed couches. Feeling heavier than when I first entered, I join her, keeping my eyes, ears, and nose open for Court. Fluffy Sherpa carpets swallow my feet. At the far wall, the plantation shutters on the French doors let in thin lines of white light between the slats.

  Kali slides her foot out of her sneaker and runs her toes through the Sherpa. “This must be what it feels like to walk on clouds.”

  The muffled sound of men arguing in the backyard jars the serenity. Kali frowns at the French doors. I sit up when I recognize one of the voices as Court’s. “You’re the expert on that, aren’t you?” he snaps.

  “I deserve a say. You’re still my son,” says a huskier version of Court’s voice.

  “Biologically. You never cared about what I wanted. It’s always about what you want, what will make you look good. But maybe I don’t want to play for the Europeans—”

  “—throw away millions—”

  “—maybe I just want to be a bum on the beach. At least I wouldn’t be a no-show, lying—”

  “Uncomfortable,” Kali whispers.

  I nod, while trying to extract myself from the deep cushions. Worse than Court discovering me in his house would be finding me eavesdropping on an obviously private conversation. “Maybe I can scent her over there.” There’s a chance Alice’s scent lingers on a favorite cushion, or the cashmere throw draped over the couch arm. The blanket tickles my nose. The rare plants in her scent are there, but I identify other scents that belong to Court and Melanie. Too contaminated.

  Court’s voice raises a notch. “—You never show up when you’re supposed to, and then when you do decide to drop in, you start bossing us around like—”

  “I told you, I had a work emergency.”

  “Who has a work emergency on a Friday night? She waited a whole hour for you to take her to her birthday dinner last night, and you didn’t even call to tell her you weren’t coming. She had to find out from Darcy. And why is your intern answering your cell phone anyway? Oh, wait, don’t tell me you promoted her.”

  Something crashes from outside followed by silence. Alice, hair wet and rinsed of most of the ammonia, hurries into the living room. “I’m so sorry.” She hurries by me to get to the French doors.

  Collecting my wits, I inhale.

  As she peeks through the shutters, I edge along behind her, sniffing like a basset hound. Her scentprint plays to my nose like a complicated chord. Protea, of course, jasmine sambac, Malaysian coconut, hucklewood, and yarrow. Later, I’ll analyze each note and sniff-match it to the most suitable plant fragrance.

  Abruptly, Alice swings open her French doors.

  The glare off the Caribbean-blue pool almost blinds me. Mr. Sawyer, in golfing gear, stands over a pile of pastel-colored shards and a tangle of daisies. A straight nose and Superman jawline are the only reminders of his once-handsome features, marred by too many martinis and not enough sunscreen.

  Court kneels by the pile, grasping his head. The word lifeguard forms an arc of red letters over the back of his sweatshirt. “You are such a jerk,” Court seethes.

  Alice gasps. “What happened?”

  Both Court and his father turn around. Spotting me, Court stops glowering and his jaw slackens.

  Mr. Sawyer combs his thick fingers into his hair. “Alice, I’m sorry.” He waves his hand at the mess. “I shouldn’t have smashed it. It was the first thing I grabbed. I just came to see if I could take Melanie out for pancakes. That’s all I wanted to do.”

  “Just go,” she says, her voice brittle. “Melanie’s tired anyway. I’ll give her your regrets.”

  Mr. Sawyer begins a loud protest, not caring that he has an audience. Kali casts me a meaningful look and clocks her head toward the front door.

  “We’ll visit another time,” I say to Alice’s back. For now, I have everything I need.

  “Bye, Alice.”

  Alice is arguing with her ex-husband and doesn’t hear us. Slowly, we back away from the melee, and fetch our bikes.

  “You better PUF that woman soon. She doesn’t deserve more grief,” says Kali once we pass the neighborhood gate.

  “I’m working on it.” Pushing Court’s astonished expression out of my mind, I mentally flip through the ingredients I will need for his mother. Alice’s scent contains about a hundred different notes. Just my luck she comes from well-traveled stock. The more genetic variation, the more complex the scent. I already matched the strongest notes, but I will need to sniff around our garden for the others. Any missing components will require a trip to Meyer Botanical Garden, forty miles away in San Francisco, where we can usually find what we need.

  One particular heart note I never smelled before. The note is soft and salty, reminiscent of miso soup. Of the eighty-one countries I’ve visited with Mother collecting botanicals, I don’t remember encountering anything like it. While you can sometimes fudge the top notes, the heart notes are essential to an elixir—the secret in the sauce.

  That miso note will be a problem.

  EIGHT

  “WE DO NOT PICK OUR NOSES. OUR NOSES PICK US.”

  —Calla, Aromateur, 1866

  KALI AND I spend the rest of the weekend raking, composting, and pruning. Whenever Mother’s not watching, I sniff-match, pairing plant smells to the notes I recognized in Alice’s scentprint. I roam our entire three acres for corresponding scents, from tropicals and subtropicals to conifer and deciduous. Since the warm air tends to accumulate in the cent
er of our property, that’s where we nurse the succulents, while evergreens with their sparkling notes crowd the cooler north side. I wouldn’t have to log so many steps if we just kept track of all the notes that went with each plant, instead of doing everything the long way, one sniff at a time.

  By the time the sun nestles into the folds of the mountains Sunday evening, I’ve sniffed every note in our garden, but am still short a third of Alice’s ninety-eight notes. I won’t cut anything here until I have the rest of what I need in hand. Plants must be cut close to the time they’ll be used.

  I untangle myself from the branches of a hemlock tree and brush cobweb moss off my hair. I’ll definitely need a trip to Meyer Botanical Garden. It’s closed on Mondays, which means I won’t be able to get there until Tuesday.

  Remembering one last plant, I take off toward the back of our lot where a natural spring runs down Parrot Hill and collects in a pond. Tabitha the chicken follows me, her salt-and-pepper feathers puffed out around her body. The sky is the color of irises, and a wet chill sits on my skin. I kneel at the edge of the pond and stretch as far as I can toward the water lilies growing in the middle, straining for even a whiff of Alice’s miso note. I should’ve smelled them before they closed up for the night. Under full sunlight, water lily emits a heady, almost rotten perfume, but now I can barely find a thread.

  My nose begins to bleed from the strain, both nostrils. It happens, usually, when I’m not getting enough sleep. I pinch its bump between my fingers and fall back onto my haunches. Tabitha scratches at the ground beside me. Mother works hard, but she’s careful never to overwork her sniffer. To do otherwise leads to a headache and nose fatigue. But I’d gladly take those over what will happen if I don’t undo my mistake.

  After the bleeding stops, I try again, closing my eyes, and inhaling more gently this time. I filter out the iron scent of dried blood and zero in on the scent of the water lilies. Past the syrupy sweetness to the core, I find a medley of salty-sweet innards, but no miso.

  With a deep sigh, I pick up Tabitha and head back to the workshop. I stroke the white plumage on top of her head, soft as a dandelion puff, and it washes away some of my anxiety. Tabitha clucks softly, head swiveling back and forth.

  When I return to the workshop, Mother is looking up into our strangely prolific papaya tree, which fruits even in October. “Oh, there you are. Ready to get started?” Her head bobs to one side as she considers my blank expression. “Flower market? Last Monday of the month is tomorrow, remember?”

  I stifle a groan. Tomorrow, a van will collect our excess flowers to sell at a flower market up in San Francisco, one of the ways we defray our living expenses. “No one buys in October. It’s a dead month. Couldn’t we just skip it this once?”

  “Of course not. Why would we do that?”

  “Because we’ve never taken a vacation. We’re overdue.”

  “We travel every season. You’ve seen more of the world in your fifteen years than most people see in their lives. Not everyone gets a Cloud Air jet, you know.” When Mother and Aunt Bryony were children, Grandmother Narcissa fixed the president of Cloud Airways with the love of his life, and in exchange, he gave Grandmother the use of a private jet. Technically, it’s a gift, but Grandmother accepted it because the Aromateur Trust Fund wasn’t written to include air travel.

  “I don’t mean traveling. I mean, not working. We could go surfing.”

  She snorts loudly, not bothering to remind me we don’t swim.

  “Or we could just chill somewhere.”

  She crosses her arms. “I’m chilling right now. Now put down the chicken and let’s go.”

  Piles of flowers fight for space on the farm table that occupies the center of our workshop. The table, as well as most of our furniture, was made by a man named William, who lived here as groundskeeper when Mother and Aunt Bryony were growing up. I never knew the man, but I always imagined him to be a quiet, patient person. There’s an exacting quality to his work, a marriage of artistry and craftsmanship.

  I trim the flowers while Mother separates bushy stalks of snapdragons. Her cheerful humming grates on my nerves.

  A rose thorn pricks me, and my irritation at Mother grows, though of course, it’s my own fault my fingers ache and my nose is encrusted with blood. But if she’d just cut me a little slack, I wouldn’t be in this mess.

  She narrows her eyes, and I gather any stress scents to me like a full skirt. “I swear, Mim, ever since you started going to that high school, you’re smelling more angsty every day. It’s like it’s rubbing off on you.”

  “Maybe it’s just me being a teenager.”

  Her mouth twists to the side. Then she leans over our oak worktable and rubs my cheeks between her hands. “Not to mention, why do you look so wan?”

  “Wan?” I draw out the word, hoping to divert her.

  “Worn out.” Sitting back in her chair, she lifts her chin and smiles.

  “Weary.” I throw back.

  “Weak.”

  “Waifish.”

  Mother points her index finger. “Wilted.”

  I lean forward on my elbows and whisper, “Wasted.”

  She gives me a fake scowl then taps each of my shoulders with a snapdragon. “I dub you Sir Synonym, but there will be a rematch next week.”

  “I accept.”

  She starts humming again, and my anxiety subsides a notch. I lose myself in the rhythm of tying bundles up with twine. Wind, snip, and knot.

  When I run out of twine, Mother gets up to fetch another spool from our cabinets. She yanks opens a drawer, and finding none, searches the shelves where we store the tinctures. “Mim.” She plucks up a jar and shakes it by the lid, causing a single pod to rattle. “You didn’t tell me we’re low on cardamom.”

  I gulp. “Sorry.” The itchy feeling that something bad is about to happen freezes me in place.

  She stretches up on her toes and peers at the other jars. “And olibanum, too? These are key items, Mim!” She grabs a pad and pen and begins taking inventory. “Guess I’ll be going to the Middle East.” Her voice is thick with annoyance. Mother selects each olibanum pod from vendors in Oman, where the most fragrant plants are grown. “If I had known I was going to travel, I wouldn’t have taken so many clients. I just hope I can get the jet. The holidays are coming up, you know.”

  “I’m really sorry.” I wilt further, imagining my small mother fighting the crowds in Oman without touching anyone.

  “I knew something like this would happen.” She runs a hand through her short hair. Here it comes. One little snag and the whole mitten unravels. She’ll start checking my work, and somehow she’ll find out about Alice.

  “And school just started. What happens when things get rolling and you have exams? Term papers?” She faces me, arms crossed and mouth tight.

  In desperation, I reach for something to say, something that’s not a lie and won’t invite further argument. Sweat beads form on the back of my neck. Maybe it’s too late, and she already smells the sauerkraut of sour sap. She’ll put the fearful scent together with the swampy stink of anxiety, and—

  Mother’s face relaxes, and her eyeballs shift to the side. She nods once, slowly, while I don’t breathe. Whatever she’s cooking up can’t be good.

  “Maybe you should come with me this time.”

  I gape. “To Oman?” The word comes out as “Oh, man.”

  “You just said we need a vacation. Oman’s lovely in October.” She lifts her eyes innocently to the skylight and says airily, “They have surfing there. We could chill.”

  “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,r />
  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.