Mabelle’s Perfumery
She wasn’t too fond of perfume, but she loved to go into Mabelle’s Perfumery. She loved how each showcase was scented in themes and if you were looking for a flower scent, you could go up to a case, open up the sample and try it. If you didn’t like it or had been there a while, she had baby wipes and unscented lotion for you to return your skin to an empty palate. She preferred the food scents and would often go in and try warm vanilla and pumpkin pie before guiltily tipping them and leaving the shop.
On her birthday, there was a sale and she thought that she could convince her parents for some money to buy a bottle. The shop was not very full as usual and full of warming bees wax candles on the counter. A couple ladies were trying on new scents, but she walked up to the food cabinet and opened it up. She ran her slender fingers over labels: vanilla, apple spice, pumpkin pie, chocolate and more.
“Perhaps I can suggest something new,” a small saleswoman said behind her, making her jump.
“Um…”
“Maybe you would like the smell of fresh watermelon.”
She held out her hand for a little squirt on her wrist and inhaled deeply.
“Peppermint.”
She sampled it and shook her head.
“Sun warmed strawberries?”
She raised her eyebrows in slight surprise. The saleswoman smiled and squirted just a touch on her other wrist. At once she was transported to the middle of her childhood strawberry patch. She was sleeping in the sun with the barn cat after trying to stay awake looking at the clouds.
“Elodie, you’re going to have to go to the United States. Papa and I can’t support you, so we’ve sent money with you to Uncle Paul. He’ll take care of you. I’m so sorry, Elodie but I don’t want to lose you if we have to give up the farm. I want you to be happy.”
She snapped back to consciousness. “I don’t think so.”
The woman nodded understandingly. “Water lilies seem to have a good memory for you.”
Elodie was too depressed to comprehend what the woman said and allowed herself to be led across the shop to the flower scents. The sales woman wiped off one wrist with a baby wipe and placed it in the garbage under the display. She sprayed Elodie’s wrist lightly and waited for her to smell it.
She was in Normandy again getting her master’s degree in art history. Such a useless degree, she had thought at the time, but she had loved the learning process never the less. She was sitting on the edge of the pond that inspired Monet’s water lilies and resting her head against a tree nearby ingesting all of the scents and sounds around her. He sat next to her and they didn’t talk, but just sat next to each other and observed everything.
Happiness. “That’s a good one. I’ll get it.”
The saleswoman smiled and nodded ringing it up and trading her the moderately sized glass bottle for her money. She left the shop and went down to the golf pond’s edge to sit. She pulled out the bottle of perfume and sprayed just a little bit on the collar of her turtle neck so she could feel like she was in Normandy again.
