The Scent of Rain Read online

  “What if, what?”

  “Nothing.”

  Tony opened their door, and Daphne felt the rush of wind off the bay hit her with its murky, foul scent. She searched for motivation to get out of the car. When she failed to move, Sophie opened her own door and tugged at her arm. “Let’s go. Air, remember?”

  “I’d rather have chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate, and I wouldn’t even care if it left little dark spots all over my dress.”

  “Yes, you would. We’re selling that baby on PreOwned WeddingDresses.com, and it’s going to buy me a trip to Dayton.” Sophie hesitated. “If you go there, I mean. Come on, we’re getting air.” She breathed in deeply. “Ah, that is so refreshing!”

  Sophie was the epitome of sweetness and light, with a side of control issues. Something like this could never happen to her, because the singing birds that flew around her head like a happy halo would never allow it. Her warm and compassionate disposition drew people to her like fresh honey, but cross one of her friends and you would rue the day. That was the side dish of control that apparently came with her degree in psychology.

  Sophie was engaged. Her fiancé loved her unconditionally. At least it seemed that way from the outside, and even though Mark asked Daphne to marry him before Gary asked Sophie, it felt as though Gary and Sophie had been first. Daphne could just smell things. Her lost relationship was just one more way the friends were traveling in disparate directions.

  “What if you catch whatever bad-luck disease I have? Do you ever worry about that, hanging out with me?”

  “What?” Sophie yelled over the wind off the bay.

  “Nothing.” What did it matter? Everyone would avoid contamination soon enough when she was quarantined to Dayton, Ohio.

  They stood under the grand silver structure of the Bay Bridge. Daphne worried that a turbulent wind might catch her gown and cause her to take flight over the concrete barrier, tossing her into the choppy surf. The sight of the immense silver structure and the historic yellow streetcar on its rails, along with the embrace of the gusting wind, lifted her spirits. She was good at being alone in the world. Maybe she was meant to be alone.

  “It’s beautiful here.” Sophie came up beside her and leaned over the concrete wall to see the surf slapping into the barrier below. “You forget, when you live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. You take it for granted.”

  “I don’t,” Daphne said. “I was thankful for every day in France and Switzerland. I’m thankful for every day here. But what if I can’t feel that way in Dayton? Is that why God is sending me there?”

  “He’s not sending you there. You don’t have to go.”

  “I have nowhere else to go.”

  “Stay here. Open up your own perfumery.”

  “I love how you believe I can do anything I set my mind to.”

  “Because you can.”

  “I can’t stay here. I’ve brought shame on my parents. My mother will never let me hear the end of it, and my father will remind me daily what it cost him. Dayton will be fine until I can get back to Europe.”

  “But formulating—chemistry and analyzing data—there’s no art in that.” Sophie’s lip rose. “You hate formulating.”

  “I don’t hate it. It’s just not my calling. I was meant to make the world smell better.” She held down her hair from a rogue gust of wind.

  “No, Daph. You hate it.”

  “It’s temporary. I’ll be fine.” The sea lions barked in the distance. “Hear that? I wonder what new sights and sounds—and smells, of course—await me in Dayton.”

  “Maybe you could wait a few days to make a decision. You don’t have to leave town because your parents’ society friends will gossip. Come stay with me on the Peninsula.”

  “Nope. There will be fewer distractions in Dayton. I’ll be able to think. Plan.”

  “And if Mark shows up to work?”

  Maybe a tiny part of her wanted to go to Dayton for that very reason. Just a sliver of her. “I gave up the Holy Grail of perfumer jobs for love.”

  “We all do crazy things for love. Who was it who said it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?”

  “Someone who ended up alone.”

  “That’s precisely why I don’t want you in Dayton. You’ll be alone.”

  “I’m good at being alone. Maybe too good. I thought giving up my dream was sacrificial and beautiful. Now it seems ignorant and based on one too many chick flicks. I gave up my dream job for a tool.”

  “Well, you didn’t know then that he was a tool.”

  “How is it I didn’t sniff Mark out? How is it you didn’t figure him out? With all that Stanford schooling under your belt, you’d think you’d have some insight.”

  “I’m going to put him under the category of sociopath— he’s so adept at charm skills that he flew under our radar. And sociopaths don’t have empathy, so anything you feel for him now is wasted on the likes of him.”

  “This is a fresh diagnosis.”

  “It makes me feel better, all right?”

  “I thought I was the luckiest girl alive because Mark wanted to marry me.”

  “So did he. Think you were the luckiest woman in the world for getting to marry him, I mean.”

  Daphne stared across the choppy water and pondered what life would look like without Mark Goodsmith by her side. Tomorrow she would allow herself to feel the full depth of the day’s events and book her one-way ticket to the Midwest. Without a doubt she’d be the talk of her parents’ social circle for years to come; crushing failure was always a favorite topic among the city’s elite. But she could rejoice over one thing: she’d be in Dayton, Ohio, far out of ear’s reach. It wasn’t exactly Paris, but it wasn’t San Francisco either. That alone was cause for rejoicing.

  “I still need to get the cologne bottles back from the reception,” she said abruptly. “Volatility! is my best work, and I want Arnaud to smell it.”

  “It’s not your best work; it’s just your first work. You have so much more to create, Daph. But maybe you need to smell it again to know you’re capable of more great things.”

  Sophie reached into her pocket. “And you thought the pocket in the gown was tacky. I can powder your nose and produce Volatility!” She pulled out the cobalt blue bottle. “Not so tacky now that it’s practical, is it? I snatched a few for souvenirs when we were dropping them off at the hotel last night. Maybe you should give one to Tony the limo driver.”

  Sophie grasped the bottle so that Daphne couldn’t see the writing in gold: Mark & Daphne Goodsmith, June 4, 2011. “Smell it!” she ordered and lifted the stopper from the bottle.

  “I don’t want to smell it. I just want it shipped off to Arnaud so that he remembers what I’m capable of.”

  Sophie kept waving the bottle underneath Daphne’s nose while she wrestled to move away.

  “Stop!” Daphne said. “You’re going to spill it on me, and then we can’t sell the gown. I know what it smells like. I designed it. Besides, I can’t smell anything out here with all the competing odors on the wharf.”

  “You’ve forgotten how good you are. Mark didn’t inspire you. Love inspired you, and if you can love that guy, you have to believe there’s another one out there with a shred of decency. One who’s worthy of you.”

  “Wait a minute!” Daphne grasped the bottle from Sophie’s hand and lifted it to her nose. She inhaled deeply. “I can’t smell it!” She narrowed her eyes at her friend. “Did you put water in here?” If this was some kind of joke, Daphne didn’t find it funny. She searched the air for the pungent fish odor she’d just been smelling.

  Sophie looked indignant. “Why on earth would I do that?”

  Daphne inhaled deeply and smelled nothing. Not the Indonesian patchouli, the bergamot, not even the rosemary or the hint of citrus. “I can’t smell it. I can’t smell anything.”

  Sophie grabbed the bottle and took a deep whiff. “It’s still incredible. Is that what you need to h
ear?”

  Daphne shook her head and felt her throat tighten. She was trained to identify over five thousand scents, and suddenly her whole world, the aromatic world, had gone silent. “I must be getting a cold. Or maybe the tears are messing with my olfactory system.”

  “You haven’t cried yet. It’s just stress, Daph. You’ll be fine when you’re in your jeans and have a plan.”

  Daphne nodded. Emotion finally bubbled from within the pit of her stomach. “But what if it isn’t just stress?” She’d used everything she had to create Volatility! Like a desperate Victorian poet, maybe she was dried up at twenty-seven.

  “It is,” Sophie said, as though she could will it into being so. “Relax, and everything will be fine by the time you get to Dayton. But you have to promise me: if you feel too alone, you’ll come back. You can stay with me, and your parents won’t even need to know you’re here.”

  But what if Sophie was wrong? What if creating Mark’s scent had destroyed her most valuable asset: her sense of smell? Without it, she was utterly worthless. Even in Dayton, Ohio.

  Chapter 2

  On Wednesday morning Jesse Lightner eased into the chair in his home office and checked the numbers again. His predecessor had forecast a 10 percent increase in sales. It hadn’t mattered that the stats were optimistic at best; now Jesse was responsible for meeting those numbers for the stockholders. Ben played on the floor with his wooden trains, making choo-choo noises. Jesse smiled down at his son, and the feat of making impossible numbers work paled in importance.

  His cell phone rang, and he saw his boss’s name on the display.

  “Ben, Daddy has to take this call. Can you be quiet for a minute?”

  Ben nodded and continued his noises at a quieter pitch.

  “Jesse here.”

  “It’s Dave,” his boss answered. “You figure out a way to get that nose in the budget? How are those forecasts coming along? We’ve got shareholders to answer to.”

  Jesse waited for the barrage of questions to subside.

  “Well?” Dave asked.

  “I’ve been over the numbers a dozen times. I have to say that I can’t see an expensive nose helping our bottom line. Lemon floor wax will smell like lemons, and it doesn’t take an expert to tell us what lemons smell like. My four-year-old could tell us that.”

  “Did you read the statistics I sent you on how P&G raised its sales with professional noses?”

  “I read it. P&G has the money to hire professional noses.” And to make a mistake, he added silently. “We have to do what they do on a fraction of the budget.” He covered the speaker. “Ben.” He tried to keep his voice calm as he looked down at his son. “Ben, take that out of your nose! Right now.”

  Ben peered up with his wide, innocent eyes, two prominently displayed dots sticking out of his nostrils. “Raisins, Daddy!”

  “Raisins are for eating, Ben. They don’t belong in our noses.”

  “Jesse, you there?” Dave’s imposing voice boomed over the line.

  “I’m here. My sister went to get her hair done. It’s just Ben and me this morning.”

  Dave cruised over the fact that Jesse had a life outside Gibraltar. “Excuses, Jesse. What separates the good from the great? Excuses. I’m giving you the chance of a lifetime with this nose. She can put us on an international playing field.”

  If playing on an international field was just a matter of hiring one employee, he imagined he’d have done it long ago. “I have nothing against your professional nose, Dave. I just want her to come out of beauty’s budget. Why put her in household products?”

  “Daddy, it’s stuck.” Ben tilted his head back to show a raisin clear in the back of his nostril.

  “I have to go, Dave. We’ll talk about the professional nose when I’m in the office. I’ll be there in about an hour.”

  “Just wait until you meet her. You’ll see.”

  “Look, Daddy! I’m a profeshnal nose.” Ben had stuck more raisins up his nose, which he wiggled proudly.

  “Ben, you can get those stuck. Come here.”

  Ben scampered in the other direction.

  “Dave, I really have to go.”

  “Didn’t you want that new piece of equipment for the lab?”

  Jesse nearly stopped in his tracks. Catching up with Ben in the hallway, he swooped the boy up with one arm and answered his boss. “Are you saying if I hire the nose, I can have my formulation equipment?” His stomach actually fluttered. Automating Gibraltar’s processes would enable them to compete on any level, not to mention be a hundred times as productive and enter new product categories. “You know what this formulator costs?”

  “You sent me the procurement papers. I’m trying to show you how to work smart, not hard. You give this nose a chance until the shareholders’ meeting. If you can keep her on staff and utilize her to increase market share, you can have your equipment. But I’m saying I don’t think you’ll need it. She does things the old-fashioned way, and I think that will appeal to buyers with the uptick in quality.”

  “Daddy, hurts.”

  “Dave, I’m sorry. See you in an hour.” He pressed his phone off and focused on Ben. “Why did you put those up your nose? You can get things stuck there, and then you won’t be able to breathe.”

  Ben started to cry. “It hurts, Daddy.”

  Jesse took his son into the bathroom and set him on the toilet. “We’ve got tweezers here somewhere.” He opened the medicine cabinet and searched until he found a pair. At the sight of the silver tool, Ben burst into tears.

  “No, Daddy.”

  “Ben, that’s why we don’t stick things up our noses. It’s not pleasant to get them out.”

  He held Ben down while the boy wiggled to get free, and carefully inserted the tweezers to pull the last raisin out. Making his quarter was overrated. He felt all the satisfaction he needed for the day in plucking that raisin out of Ben’s nose.

  “What are you doing?” Abby appeared in the doorway. She reached for Ben and cuddled him in her arms. “What’s Daddy doing?”

  “Aunt Abby, Daddy hurt me,” Ben cried.

  “Why, you little— Abby, he stuffed raisins up his nose.”

  “Yeah, he’s going through a phase. He does that a lot.”

  “Well, make him stop!”

  “He probably will now that you’ve traumatized him.” She snuggled Ben and rocked him. “It’s all right.”

  “Quit babying him. He can’t stick things up his nose.”

  “Go to work, Jesse. Ben and I will work on not sticking things up the nose. Won’t we, sweetie?”

  Jesse rolled his eyes. “I have to get to the office. Everything rides on this new product launch if we plan to make Dave’s numbers. And now I have to account for this nose’s salary in my expenses.”

  “I can’t wait to meet her,” Abby said. “I wonder if her nose is huge.” She caressed Ben’s hair. “I know you’re not happy about her, Jesse, but she may be just what your funky environment at Gibraltar needs. She’s from Paris, for crying out loud. I’ve never met anyone from Paris.”

  “She’s not from Paris. She’s from San Francisco.”

  “I’ve never met anyone from there either.”

  Jesse changed the subject. “How long has this phase been going on, anyway? Where he’s sticking stuff up his nose?”

  “Just a short time. He’s trying to get your attention, Jesse.”

  “Ben, Daddy will take you to the zoo this weekend,” Jesse said firmly. “Stop sticking stuff up your nose.” He failed to see how the two things had anything to do with one another—the zoo and the sticking of things up one’s nose—but Abby seemed to approve. His sister was wonderful with Ben, and Jesse was grateful. What would he do if he had to work for Dave and raise his son alone?

  His phone rang again.

  “We seem to have been cut off,” Dave said. “You can fit this nose into your budget, Jesse, or I wouldn’t have trusted you with her. Push the sales team, or find a way to lower pr
oduction costs. No one ever made it easy on me, but I never got ahead by complaining.”

  Jesse walked back to his office, his jaw clenched. “I hesitate to mention that I could lower production costs by not having a nose on staff. Or is that stating the obvious?”

  “Procter & Gamble didn’t get ahead by thinking in the short term, and neither will we.”

  No, but some middle manager probably paid with his job for overzealous sales predictions by senior management.

  He’d seen it happen many times. Before his life went awry, Jesse had been the youngest vice president of product development for the largest employer in Cincinnati. He had a reputation to live up to, and Dave made sure he understood that daily, asking him every time he made a mistake how he’d ever made it work for Procter & Gamble.

  Jesse knew how things worked. If Dave didn’t make his numbers, he’d just pull a success from another department and even things out. If Jesse didn’t make his quotas, he’d be pounding the pavement looking for work in a terrible economy, and his résumé was a mess. Middle management meant all of the responsibility and none of the power.

  “So when does this miracle nose of ours start?”

  “She’ll be here today. That’s why I called.”

  “Today! What?” Jesse stared at his calendar. “I thought she wasn’t supposed to start for two weeks.” He sat down at his desk and groaned, staring at the numbers, the numbers that relied on an unproven product selling at a clipped pace. He quietly calculated how he’d have to rearrange them based on this new information.

  “Her wedding got canceled. She’s coming early. And be sure you account for her signing bonus in the budget. I left her contract information with Anne.”

  “Great,” Jesse said. An overpriced pair of nostrils, complete with excess baggage of a failed wedding. This ought to be fun.

  “Daddy!” Ben reappeared in the doorway. If it was possible, his son seemed to have garnered energy in the seconds they’d been apart. “Daddy, I went pee-pee!”

  He covered the speaker again. “That’s great, Ben!”

  “Want to see?”

  “Yes, I’ll be right there.” He tried to follow what Dave was saying.