But I’m not going to be visiting that familiar place anytime soon.
That afternoon, I sequester myself in the lab with blotters and vials and tubes. Griffin is gone, as he usually is at this time. Off running, or doing written translations, or meeting beautiful French women who run, or having sex with trim French women who whisper dirty French things in his ear.
Gritting my teeth, I reach for a tube of synthetic orange blossom molecules.
Nearby, Charles is working quietly, too.
I swing my gaze back to my own work, wishing I felt comfortable casually asking him what he’s working on, bantering about the day, gabbing as we test formulations. Hey there, Chuck. What’s shaking? How’s the body lotion formulation going? Does it smell amazeballs?
Oh yes, it’s fantastic. Want a sniff?
Why, thank you! Oh my, that is wonderful. You’re so talented.
I followed the process you outlined in the meeting last week. And yes, I think the process is amazeballs, too.
Yeah, that conversation doesn’t happen, even though I make a mental note to look up the correct translation of “amazeballs” later. Clearly, such a critical word in English must have a French equivalent.
But I can’t say any of that, so I offer a professional smile and return to my work. Today, I’m fine-tuning a formulation for a body lotion. It’s close, but not quite there. It needs that final top note. Something that makes customers want it. Something that makes them think of their happiest moments.
Orange blossom isn’t cutting it. It’s too close to a cleaner in this blend.
Closing my eyes, I try to picture all my favorite days, but my memory isn’t cooperating. Unpleasantness intrudes, images of Richard calling me the day he fell from the ladder, telling me he injured his back and was being taken to the hospital. My shoulders curl inward, tensing. I’d been ready to break up with him before that fateful call. I’d known I wasn’t in love with him anymore. But how do you break a man’s heart the same day he breaks his back?
You don’t.
You woman up.
You stay. You help. You do everything you can.
Until you can’t do any more.
When I open my eyes, I try to will away the unpleasant images. I can’t brew the scent of guilt. I can’t bottle our antiseptic relationship.
As I stare at the white-tiled walls of the lab, I cycle through some of the most pleasing scents. Vanilla and jasmine. Honey and rose. Peach and apple. You can’t go wrong with peach. It’s like bread; it’s like puppies. It’s impossible to dislike the scent of peach.
But I can’t find the vial I need when I search for it on the shelves. Sighing, I grab my phone, double-checking the words on Google Translate.
“Do you have the peach?” I ask Charles in French, adding the dilution amount.
His eyes light up. “Yes.”
He rises, reaches for the tube, and hands it to me.
“Thank you.”
But when I mix it up, the scent is too strong, too intense. And I know why. I asked for the wrong variation. Because my pronunciation is as good as a garbage can.
“Do you like it?” he asks me in his native language.
“A little,” I tell him.
It’s a lie.
I can’t stand it.
Mostly, I can’t stand myself.
When I leave work that night, I take out my phone and curse it. “You’re only good for bakery information.”
The phone beeps. “I can give you bakery information,” the robotic woman answers.
I curse at her.
“I’m sorry. Can you repeat the question?”
“Ugh.”
“I did not understand you. Can you try again?”
I bark into the phone. “Where is the nearest bakery that’s still open? I desperately need a peach tart.”
“I’m sorry. There is no bakery open.”
I imagine she adds, with a snicker, you pathetic idiot.
I go home, wishing for a tart but needing so much more. I head to my rooftop and text my sister.
Joy: What’s shaking, sugar?
Her reply is swift.
Allison: Can’t talk. At work. Skype later?
But later I’ll be asleep, and once again, I’m lost in time. Stuck between two worlds. I don’t exist in my old world any longer, and I don’t fit into the new one.
Once upon a time I thought it would be easy to escape into a new life. But there’s nothing simple about starting over. I write back to Allison saying we’ll talk another time. As I close her message, I find a text from Richard that came through earlier in the day.
You were wrong. I’m not addicted. My new doctor says my previous doc didn’t know how to manage the pain. Hope you’re having fun in France.
Seething, I narrow my eyes and stare daggers at my phone then shout at it, “I’m not having fun. Not today. Not at all. And you’re wrong, you ass. You’re fucking wrong.”
Gripping the phone harder, I consider chucking it. Tossing it far across the rooftops of Paris for the crime of delivering Richard’s message to me, as well as tricking me into thinking a search engine could solve my language woes. But that would be cruelty to my smartphone, and my phone has, bakery misunderstanding aside, been pretty good to me. I set it on the chair.
Then I tromp downstairs to my bedroom, marching to my silver tray with my favorite scents. I snatch up a little tester tube of Obsession, and spritz it on my wrist. Next, I grab Angel, with its chocolate and caramel notes, and spray some on my other hand. Like a dog sniffing for food, I hold my nose up high and let the mixture of scents feed my olfactory senses. If Richard were here, he’d cough majestically, dramatically even, and tell me my perfume gave him a headache. He’d fling his hand on his forehead as if to prove his point. That wasn’t why I wanted to end our relationship, but it was one more Jenga block in a teetering tower.
A tower that
