Back in Paris, Provence was just a lavender scented memory. The quiet had done me the world of good, I felt recharged and relaxed and ready to tackle the competition in earnest. I’d had an Oprah light bulb moment, and I felt I could achieve anything just as long as I remained focused.
My lavender perfume had hit the brief, and I felt a surge of confidence. It was such a change from my previous submission that I felt like I should celebrate the moment. Maybe I was becoming a little French, enjoying the good of every day.
Out front of the Leclére apartment I waited for the other contestants to join me for our group excursion to the Musée du Parfum. Aurelie was to be our guide, and I was relieved I wouldn’t have to face Sebastien today. Time apart had made me realize I was muddying my perfumery dreams with my involvement with him, and it wasn’t appropriate.
What had happened to the clear-headed ambitious girl? She’d had a wobble, the first flush of what love could be, and been so easily distracted, but that was over now.
I shot off a text to Jen to pass the time.
Hey sleepyhead, while you’re catching Zs, I’m waiting for the group. We’re off on an excursion which are always fun. The week went well, and I’m looking forward to the judging this time around.
Why haven’t you called or texted? I miss hearing your voice, and listening to your terrible jokes. Is it James? He’s stolen you away from me, hasn’t he? Next I’ll get a call saying it’s time to knit baby booties, and can I be home to help your rush down the aisle. Imagine that! It’s hideous, isn’t it? Anyway, call me when you can. Love you xxx
Clementine was first to arrive, and wore a thunderous expression. ‘Del,’ she said, sashaying over in a satin teal dress, and white faux fur coat, quite the ensemble for a summer’s morning. She air kissed my cheeks.
‘It wasn’t so bad,’ I said. ‘How’d you do?’
She rolled her eyes, taking a deep breath, chest heaving, it was monologue time, and I couldn’t help grinning as I waited for a dramatic retelling of her week with Lex. ‘That man, that…old man, well he tried to tell me what to do, ’ow to think all the time, like I don’t ’ave a brain in my own head.’ She pointed to her temple. ‘Does it look like I don’t ’ave a brain?’ she demanded. ‘Because that’s ’ow he was treating me! Brainless!’
It was hard not to laugh, but I kept my mouth clamped closed and gave her a nod to continue.
‘And ’e talks and talks at me. Says we have to think on our feet, and then I get this picture of ’e’s feet and I’m disgusted and I lose track. And in the end I just give in, not because ’e knows what ’e’s talking about, just for my own wellbeing.’
‘So, it was a tough week but you made a perfume and you’re happy with it?’ I asked, trying to untangle the accented words.
‘Oui.’
‘So…?’
‘So, I’m just telling you ’ow it is, Del! Do you ’ave a brain in your head?’
I laughed and gave her a hug. ‘I’ve missed you,’ I said and was surprised to find I meant it. It was hard not to love Clementine, drama, backstabbing and all.
‘I missed you too, ma cherie. And there might ’ave been one boy, but better that stays in Bordeaux, oui? It was only a ’oliday fling!’
I shook my head, she was a man-eater, all right! It was a wonder she’d got any work done, and I bet she had Lex to thank for keeping her on track. He didn’t have to help her but by the sounds of he did.
Eventually Lila, Lex and Anastacia joined us and we were driven to Musée du Parfum.
When we arrived at the museum we were ushered inside by our own private tour guide. We had special access and excitingly we’d get to see many relics from another era up close, not from behind a chain link like everyone else. Sebastien must’ve pulled some strings to make it so.
Our tour guide led us through and explained perfumery through the ages, and the different methods used hundreds of years ago to make the elixirs.
The museum was ripe with perfumery antiques that still held the merest whisper of scent, from a kohl perfume vase, believed to be circa 3000 BC in the Mesopotamia early dynastic period, to a seventeenth-century Louis XIV perfume burner in gilded bronze and ebony. They hummed with memories of the past.
How such objects were still around astounded me, that these special relics from all over the world had survived. Fabergé bottles, and sixteenth-century pomanders worn on belts like a pendant or boxes held in the hand were used to ward of epidemics, tiny ring flasks from the Czech Republic that held precious perfume, and couture bottles that were so elegant and well crafted they made me catch my breath at their delicate beauty. There were perfumery workshops for tourists who were busily blending their own fragrances to take home.
On the way back to the lab we were buzzing with all we’d seen.
‘I want that ring flask,’ Clementine said. ‘I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.’
These excursions were shaping us as perfumers, opening our eyes to the world of perfumery in a way we’d never imagined. Scent was about so much more than oil collected from rose petals, or seeds gathered from a vanilla bean pod. It was about the history, the memory and what it evoked, and finding one that conjured a feeling unique to you. A spritz swept you up, made you believe and those around you translated it.
After the excursion I ran into Sebastien in the lab, he was chatting to Lex about Bordeaux. He was spending more time with the contestants… Were we inspiring him? By the way he focused on Lex you could see he was truly interested, such a difference from those first weeks where he answered questions curtly and was gone in five minutes.
Aurelie wandered in and called Lex over, leaving me with Sebastien. Instead of dithering, or acting the fool, I steeled myself and smiled.
‘Did you sort everything out?’
‘Oui,’ he said, scrubbing his face at the memory. ‘And let’s just say our lawyers will probably be vacationing for years with the money we’ve invested.’
I shook my head, imagining the amount of money they’d lose, and all because another company took what wasn’t theirs. ‘It seems so unfair.’
‘It really does,’ he said. ‘But I suppose it gets our name back in the papers, it’s good for business in that sense.’
The papers? Wasn’t that the last thing he wanted? ‘But you hate that don’t you? The limelight?’
‘I thought I did,’ he said with a rueful grin. ‘But I’m beginning to understand my papa better.’ He dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘We shunned the press for years, because they wanted stories about us, fabricated or not, and why would we go along with that when it should’ve been about our perfumes…’
‘Yeah, so what’s changed?’ I’d have bet the press would’ve still done anything to get inside information about Sebastien, the intensely private, broody hot French guy – I’d buy that!
He sat at the bench opposite me. ‘All this time, I thought my papa was on the other side of that door, lost in the magic of making perfumes when really he was crunching numbers, doing the never-ending paperwork, stopping his collections from being copied, keeping Leclére afloat…’
‘And he did it all behind closed doors so he was the only one who shouldered the worry?’
Sebastien double blinked, a sign he was moved by something deep. I gave him a minute to compose himself. ‘Oui, he did it for me and not once did I have any idea what running Leclére entailed. He did it so I could design perfume without hindrance, without any stress or pressure. I had no idea, none at all, what sacrifices he made so I could concentrate on what he loved, perfumery.’
My skin prickled again, like the old man was leaning over my shoulder. ‘And now you know, it wasn’t that he didn’t love you, it was because he loved you so much.’
Sebastien’s eyes grew glassy. ‘I had it all wrong. He gave me the space he thought I needed, but I only needed him. What an intricate web we humans weave when we don’t speak our truth.’
Our truth? But it wasn’t always so easy to speak the truth…
‘Sounds to me like someone has found a scrap of passion amid the paperwork?’ I said, waggling my brows, trying to lighten the mood.
‘Oui.’ He gave me a wide smile. ‘It was because of you, Del.’
‘Why me?’
‘I wasn’t going to go through with the competition. That’s why I wasn’t there for the welcoming party. I was all set to leave, I’d decided I wanted no part of it. That it had been a terrible idea, and I shouldn’t have promised. But then I kept running into you, literally,’ he laughed. ‘And you gave me pause. Not just because you are disaster girl but because you were so obviously out of your comfort zone, so alone and yet you were here, and I felt I owed it to you – to this girl who wore her heart on her sleeve and had come all this way, and truthfully made me laugh, really laugh for the first time in forever.’
He had planned on abandoning the competition? But fate, or ghosts, or whatever you want to call it had stepped in by throwing me quite literally in his path. Three times. I slapped my forehead at the memories of that day. If I didn’t know better I’d have guessed we had a couple of people pulling strings from above…
‘Well,’ I said, ‘Disaster Girl at your service.’ I saluted, and grinned at the man before me with dazzling eyes and a smile that lit up his face.
He’d come such a long way in the time I’d known him, and I felt so attuned to him. Grief and its myriad layers had the ability to knock a person’s world on its axis in such a way it wasn’t evident to them, they just felt unbalanced all the time, and now here he was righting himself once more.
‘It’s not only that, Del,’ he said, spots of pink appearing on his cheeks. ‘It’s the way you believe perfume can fix everything, like it truly is medicinal. I knew what you were trying to do when you handed me the oil in Provence. I’ve never met anyone that believes so wholly in scent, except for my papa. You think you’re ambitious, you have this drive to succeed, but I think you underestimate how you succeed every single day just by being you. By sharing your gift when you diagnose what a person needs.’
My mouth opened and closed and I grappled with what to say.
‘I’m sorry, I’ve dropped all this on you,’ he said, but soon the smile fell away and was replaced with something deeper, more real.
Standing there, staring into his eyes, had a hypnotic effect on me and I wanted to reach out and touch him, to feel his arms around me, to feel his lips pressed against mine and I knew then that I was lost to it. Lost to the intensity of want. Why him, it was hard to know, but when I was near him there was a charge in the air, a force that compelled me to throw caution to the wind and admit that I couldn’t function for thinking of him. Surely when there was an ocean or two between us I wouldn’t feel the same. He’d made it clear he didn’t feel the same way, and he was ready to leave and I’d just arrived…
When he spoke his voice was husky. ‘I’d very much—’
Anastacia chose that moment to wander over and I stiffened. Sebastien took my lavender perfume from me, as if we’d been discussing that and removed the stopper. The scent drifted between us, lavender and orange, a hint of smokiness. Together, we’d made lavender shine but we’d also brought it kicking and screaming smack bang into the twenty-first century. Instead of focusing on theme, or on bottling a feeling, or conjuring a mental picture, we’d concentrated on blending the right accents to modernize lavender, make it contemporary. At least that was the goal, until he’d left and I hoped I’d managed to succeed. I knew it was good, I felt it in my bones as the scent eddied unseen in the air.
Swirling the vial, he waved it under his nose, but his expression didn’t waver, he didn’t give anything away.
‘So, if you’re happy then I’ll submit it for judging?’
‘I’m happy,’ I said, giving Anastacia the side eyes as if she was interrupting an important mentoring session.
‘Enjoy the rest of the afternoon, Del, and tomorrow you have a class with perfumer Louisa Elliot.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, rearranging my face to appear casually indifferent while Anastacia stood so close.
‘Louisa Elliot!’ she cried out, her features radiating joy. It was the first time I’d seen Anastacia crack a smile. Louisa was an American perfumer who’d made a name for herself making perfumes for Dior before leaving and setting up her own business. She was well known for fits of temper, but it was her passion spilling out, her need for perfectionism.
‘Yes, it was quite a coup having her agree to visit,’ Sebastien said.
‘I better go study up on her.’ Anastacia dashed off, her hair blowing backwards in her haste.
‘Wonders never cease,’ I said, shaking my head at the sudden change in her.
‘I’m going to my papa’s studio,’ he said. ‘If you need me, that is.’
Need him for perfumery or need him in my life? But I realized he was fired up again, inspired and ready to work, to get back to his real passion: perfumery. I couldn’t tangle that with my needs or wants, could I?
‘Enjoy,’ I said, giving him a quick hug and feeling a zap in my heart.