WILLOW WAITED UNTIL Mya closed herself in the workshop before she sequestered herself in the office. Willow was doing everything she could to control herself for Mya’s sake, but that stormy cloud scared her to death. Grandmother Serena had promised bad things would come if the formula was changed. Willow’s mother had never strayed and insisted Willow agree to this one rule when the business changed hands. She’d promised her mother on her deathbed.
Neither her mother nor Serena could’ve foreseen a situation like this one. Only her daughter would be flighty enough to forget to add the most important clause in a contract. Why Mya hadn’t simply copied the language from any number of contracts Willow had offered her, she’d never know, and that way Willow wouldn’t have needed to check it over before she sent it out. Mya was strong-willed to a fault and had been that way since she was a toddler who refused to wear anything but tights and tutus, even to go swimming in the pond. How she missed those trivial conflicts. Willow was as angry with Mya now as she was scared for her, scared of what that cloud could mean. Love for her daughter wrapped around all this frustration. Willow had long since experienced these conflicting emotions. Once the girls had matured and learned to talk back to her, the stress of young, single motherhood and ceaseless work created a withering exhaustion and resentment. She had done her best to quell these feelings.
And of all times for Lucia to finally have a vision, one unlike those of anyone else in the family . . . Willow believed her. One thing Lucia had never been was a liar. Her two daughters couldn’t have been more different. With one exception: as babies they both loved to stroke Willow’s long hair as they breast-fed, and those quiet moments still buoyed Willow during the troubling times with her girls. But beyond that quality during infancy, Mya and Lucia had little in common. Lucia believed she didn’t have a place in the family because her skills with the flower and perfumery had failed to manifest; she might not admit it, but Willow knew this had been a compelling reason for her to follow a career in acting. Sometimes it had felt like she had one healthy daughter, born with all the Lenore family gifts, and one perfectly intelligent and lovely but mute daughter. Still, Willow didn’t love Lucia any less. Early on Willow had sensed her daughter had the power to make people worship her, because the dragonflies congregated around her and rode into the cabin on her shoulders, and Willow had to promptly turn Lucia around and get her back out to the porch so she could send the dragonflies outside. Willow desired for Lucia to be successful, and the older she became, the more her talent with people appeared to be her magic—a perfect skill for the business. But Lucia didn’t believe in it. Acting called her instead. At least today proved to Lucia that she wasn’t a defective Lenore after all. So many years spent worrying about Lucia, and now Willow could finally relax, only to switch her concern to Mya. Such was the way of motherhood.
She didn’t have the nerve to dial James Stein’s number. She couldn’t explain that she had to cancel because her younger daughter had a vision of a dark cloud hovering over her older daughter’s head. To anyone outside the family, that would sound ludicrous. Willow would tell James some business issue had come up. It wasn’t a total lie. Right now wasn’t a good time, not with the flowers and the cloud. Would she ever live a life without interruptions?
Her girlhood had been the only time that flowed as one long, straight river, a time when she craved a bend to enliven her world. Any interruption had been welcome. She had most looked forward to her trips abroad. She remembered when her mother took Iris and Willow to France for the first time and they studied flower cultivation in Grasse in June and July, just when the jasmine had bloomed. Then they spent six months in Paris in the Eighth Arrondissement learning Parisian French from a college student attending the Sorbonne. During the day Willow and Iris were tutored while their mother visited the Louvre or the Musée d’Orsay or shopped on the rue de Rivoli, and in the afternoons she came back for them and they stopped at a boulangerie for a buttery baguette sandwich before taking the metro to 38 avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie. They walked to the House of Dubois storefront to study the art of perfumery under Henri Dubois.
Willow’s mother respected the Dubois dynasty, which had been passed down from father to son for more than two hundred years, and avidly collected the variety of rare scents they produced. But it was Grandmother Serena whom Henri Dubois first contacted. Rumor had it that the finest, richest American actresses, who should’ve been the Dubois family’s clientele, had a scent they adored but kept fiercely secret. The Dubois family was passionate about scent and traveled to Bulgaria and Turkey and Italy in search of the most luxurious rose, jasmine, and iris essences. The idea that a flower as powerful as Gardenia potentiae existed in secret nearly drove Henri Dubois mad. He was a wise businessman and a charming fellow, and Grandmother Serena relented and told him he could experience the flower if he allowed her dynasty of daughters to apprentice at the House of Dubois during the summer and study the time-honored techniques of infusion, maceration, and filtration for which his house was so famous. Serena’s girls could study alongside the male heirs of that company, and perhaps a marriage or two would evolve from her deal. That hadn’t happened, though. Lenore women seemed to prefer American men. To this day, the Dubois family master perfumers were the only perfumers in Paris to know of the existence of the Gardenia potentiae flower. Forever Willow would connect Paris with the smells of freshly baked bread and urine in the metro, and the absolute intensity of the rose and jasmine and tuberose and violet in the Dubois family perfumes. These scent memories, so easy to recall today but perhaps not tomorrow. Her entire life reduced to nothing but the present.
The phone rang in its cradle, making Willow jump like the smoke alarm had been triggered. When she answered the phone and said, “Willow Lenore speaking,” the sound on the other line made her smile immediately.
James said, “I like when your voice sounds so professional.”
“I was just thinking about you.”
“All good things, I hope.”
She sat back down. Nothing mattered now in the space between his phone connection and her own. “Absolutely.” Willow couldn’t keep the sadness out of her voice.
“Something’s wrong.” But before Willow could respond he said, “I’ve set up a meeting with Jennifer Katz and her manager and agent to find out what’s going on. I hope that doesn’t bother you, but I figure it’s easier for me to do it from here than you flying out again. And it’s a personal matter for me too.”
She should know exactly what he was talking about. “About the perfume?” she asked.
He paused. “Jennifer’s manager didn’t call you?”
“I haven’t seen my assistant today.”
“Jennifer’s convinced the perfume stopped working for her because of Zoe. She’s refusing to present at the Oscars now and her people are panicking. She won’t leave her house for appointments. Her PR girl told the press she’s vacationing in the South Pacific. I’m set to meet with them tomorrow but I doubt she’ll show. You should call her,” James said.
“I will, as soon as we’re done here.” Jennifer should’ve called Willow immediately if she believed the perfume wasn’t working for her. Willow doubted that claim; she was probably just letting Zoe get to her, but with the way things were going, she couldn’t rule out any possibility.
“Any update about Zoe?” he said.
“She’ll have the new formula tonight. I’ll let Jennifer know that also. I should’ve already.”
“And we’ll see each other next week.”
“About that,” Willow said. “I have to reschedule, although I really wish I didn’t. Business matters.”
“Now I’m disappointed. I had many plans to spoil you.” Willow’s thighs and abdomen grew warmer.
“Next time,” Willow said, her voice breaking a little.
“You let me know when it’s a good time,” he said, “and I’ll be there.”
“I will.” And then they said good-bye and hung up. She put the phone down. She needed to dial Jennifer’s personal number; it was urgent and she had to do it, but she just couldn’t force herself to pick up the phone again.