Margaret never let a man call her Maggie, only her girlfriends, and only when she’d had a second French 75 champagne cocktail. She prided herself on being a keen observer of fashion—well versed on the latest 1947 designs in Vogue—and of reading people, rarely misjudging them.
It was the Christmas season at Marshall Fields. Margaret loved working as a sales clerk on the first floor in the open atrium that soared five stories and was capped by a domed Tiffany mosaic ceiling. Normally, aisles would bustle with Chicago shoppers reveling in the booming economy, but today, a snowstorm kept most people away. Now, only the most ardent customers wandered under swags of clustered gold balls cascading from the center chandelier.
Margaret watched earnest mothers, undeterred by weather or wailing children, descend the clanking wooden escalators clutching their shopping bags and their little ones’ hands. She was amused at how they scurried past a giant cardboard elf stacked with tempting boxes of Frango Mints. The hardy women traipsed around in clunky black rubber boots. Margaret was glad they avoided her section as their boots left puddles beneath their thick ridged soles. Men, attired in nondescript gray or black, seemed to be either dashing off to the third floor to purchase white shirts and Holeproof socks or rushing back out as if time were of the essence.
One man, however, stood out. As he entered through the swishing revolving door, his chestnut wool coat flowed past his pleated trousers in a dramatic flourish. The coat settled against his slim build as he stood and took stock of where he was in the store. Then he moved forward as if his feet had two different perspectives on how to proceed: to advance slowly as if he might stop at any moment as he checked out the case of gold and silver watches, the hanging display of bright scarves, even the leather belts on the mannequins, while also bypassing them like a man on a mission as he steadfastly approached Margaret standing behind the curved glass perfume counter.
A small divot in his chin was the only distraction from his otherwise serious face, which Margaret found appealing if for no other reason than she wondered how he shaved it. He sported a striking dark tan fedora with a bronze satin band that matched his brown eyes. She took note of them as he looked at the cut glass perfume bottles filled with clear and amber liquids on the mahogany shelf behind her.
When she cleared her throat to redirect his attention, he glanced at her briefly before struggling to remove his wet leather gloves. She assumed his difficulty might be because of her beauty. After all, people compared her to Hedy Lamarr because of her shoulder-length dark wavy hair, smooth complexion, big eyes, perfectly arched penciled eyebrows, and red lips that naturally curved into a provocative pout. Feeling confident in her favorite dress—aqua with a full sweeping skirt, shaped bodice, and three-quarter-length sleeves—she understood his nervousness. So she restrained herself from flirting by asking as neutrally as possible if he needed anything.
“Yes, I do.” He cast his eyes across the Coco Chanel, Nina Ricci, Jeanne Lanvin, and Felix Millot boxes beneath the glass case that separated them.
Since he had a determined air, her initial guess was that he was shopping for a lady friend. Why else would a man brave the weather on such a blizzardy day if not to appease a woman he had wronged somehow?
“I’d like to find something for my mother.”
His mother? she thought with incredulity. Not a girlfriend or a wife? To give herself a moment, she conducted a mental inventory of available fragrances and said, “Certainly. Does your mother have a favorite flower?”
“I, uh…I’m not sure.”
“Then do you?” she asked pointedly to toy with him.
“Do I what?” he replied.
“Have a favorite flower?”
“Hum. Well, if I were to encounter the Middlemist’s Red camellia—the rarest flower in the world, known to exist in New Zealand and England only after John Middlemist brought the plant from China to London, then I guess that would be my favorite flower.”
“What?”
“Oh, my mother sold encyclopedias, and I,” he said, adjusting his tie, “analyze data for corporations and insurance companies.”
“I see,” Margaret said, although she wasn’t sure she did. Did he believe he was smarter because of this? Or was he just a man who took pride in reciting facts because he knew no other way of communicating? Margaret picked up a sample perfume bottle and a strip of paper, spritzed the fragrance into the air, and waved the paper to catch its essence. She asked him to sniff. “Would your mother appreciate this? The common variety of camellia exhibits notes of jasmine. This fragrance is called A Lady Reborn.”
His nose wrinkled, not like a man taking in the delicate aroma of distant lands but of a man accosted by something alien and maybe even vile.
“Perhaps give me the most expensive bottle of whatever you have, and I’ll be off.”
She might have considered this based on commission alone, but this was a man who didn’t realize how one’s olfactory senses could leave you breathless. Obviously, he had never shopped for perfume or been overwhelmed by its power. For Margaret, this presented a welcoming challenge and an opportunity for a healthy debate. Most men she’d encountered had their opinions wound so tightly around who they were—and would always be—she wondered how they could even breathe. She hoped he was not one of them.
“I don’t think so,” she said and retrieved another bottle to perform the same ritual. He leaned in, sniffed, and lingered longer.
“How much is this?” he inquired.
“Why? Do you love it?” she asked.
“Love?”
He responded as if the word represented a bizarre notion, not just with its association with perfume—but with the concept of love altogether. “Yes, love. Love that leaves you woozy: simultaneously faint and intoxicated. Lighthearted, yet with a heaviness in your chest that is almost painful—but you gladly welcome it because you feel more alive than you imagined possible.”
“Are you suggesting,” he asked with a raised eyebrow and playful tone, “that one can buy love?” But then his face grew sullen, and his voice became agitated. “Love is one of the most unquantifiable elements—and for a good reason—love is fickle. A person can’t count on it.”
“True,” she said, acknowledging his sentiment but not his bitterness. She thought back to the nervous young soldier she befriended on the USO dance floor. She grew to love him through their letters and his imaginative way of “buying” her romantic gifts, insisting she buy them for herself and pretend that he’d sent them, along with his earnest promises of what he would buy her when he returned, including a ring. But he never made it home. It was true: finding love and keeping it were two different things.
“Finally, something we agree upon,” he remarked as though they had been at odds, and he was calling a truce.
“Not exactly,” she said, for she didn’t believe hardship was reason enough to forego love. “Love is unquantifiable because it is difficult to define. Your idea, for example, and mine, might be, as I assume it is, completely different. Besides, love, like a fragrance, appeals to senses beyond the mind—and only comes to those ready to receive it. Perhaps, instead of perfume’s complexity, you’d be happier with those lovely silk scarves a couple of aisles down.” Though she hoped he would do no such thing.
His hands fidgeted in his coat pockets, and he was silent. His apprehension intrigued her.
“I’m not sure how I came up with this idea to buy perfume, except today would have been my parents’ anniversary. My mother mentioned one day that my late father had bought her roses but never perfume. Not once. What are the odds of that?” Then his face softened as he asked, “Is it possible that a scent can pleasantly remind one of another time?”
The intensity in his eyes made her wonder if he was recalling not his mother but a past love affair. He was a difficult man to read. He had the manner of a person who navigated the world with precision. Yet his voice—deep, commanding, and challenging—now had a warmth and vulnerability that the men she dated after the war never showed.
“An anniversary,” she said, “give me a minute.” She bent down, opened the back of the glass case, and moved various boxes around until she removed a tiny red velvet box with worn edges. Inside the box was a small glass vial.
“I realize this doesn’t look like much,” she said, “but it’s both very concentrated and very faint. I caution you: I can only share one drop. Also, because this fragrance will blend with the wearer’s skin, your sense of it will not match your mother’s experience. Moreover, the aroma evolves, like a wine opening up. But what sets this perfume apart is that the person who acquired it never obtained another one like it.”
“Sounds extremely rare,” he said.
“It is. While I can’t let you have this vial, I can secure another vial with a similar fragrance, if that’s to your liking. Though it may take time and cost more than some of our other brands.”
“Supply and demand.” He chuckled. “This I understand!”
“Yes, yes,” she said, trying to return to what she was saying. “What I want you to appreciate is that I only possess this one vial. It isn’t appropriate as an everyday fragrance, and I’ve never shared it with another customer in the two years I’ve worked here. I, of course, tried it, so there is something else you must know about its earthiness. Some part of it never truly leaves you. You might assume the scent is no longer present, but it is.”
He raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“Now, here’s a stat that I bet wasn’t in your encyclopedias,” she continued. “Every twenty-eight days, you get a new ‘nose,’ so to speak. This means its essence will reassert itself slightly differently every four weeks. A man might not detect this, but a woman whose olfactory senses are keener can. Its deep base notes of amber and sandalwood bespeak a past that might reawaken something within the wearer while subtly changing as it brings forth its own life. If this sounds like mumbo jumbo, I won’t waste a drop.”
“You mentioned you tried it?” His considered tone implied she wasn’t meant to respond, and she didn’t, though she wished she knew what he was thinking.
“May I?” he asked. She opened the dropper and was about to apply it to a perfume strip when he said, “No. If I assume you dabbed it on your wrist and if it lasts the way you say, may I?”
She looked around to see if anyone would notice. The floor in her section was practically empty except for a woman trying on veiled pillbox hats and admiring herself in the mirror.
Margaret pushed up the sleeve of her dress, revealing the crux of her elbow where she had dabbed one drop of this distinctive perfume. She held out her arm. At experiencing his closeness, her lips parted as if she were about to utter “oh,” feeling his warm breath on her bare skin.
Hoping that she wasn’t blushing, she asked, “Well?”
She had wondered if anyone besides herself could ascertain the faint, sweet, and woodsy fragrance that, to her, was always there. He was quiet, and his face appeared puzzled, as if his brain and heart were in dialogue.
“I don’t think so,” he responded kindly as if letting a date down gently.
She faced away to hide her disappointment as she readjusted her sleeve.
“Please understand that’s not the right perfume for my mother. Perhaps something that reminds her of roses.” He pointed to a pink box with an illustrated rose. “I shall take that one.”
“Yes, of course.” She needed to remind herself his mother was his only interest while he stood at her counter. “I’ll wrap it for you,” she stated flatly.
When she finished tying the bow, he pulled out his wallet, and they exchanged the box for his bills.
“You know,” he said with a kind smile that widened his chin’s divot, “I’m not convinced of your statement regarding the olfactory nose being renewed every twenty-eight days. I think I shall return tomorrow, assuming you’ll be working.” His eyes brightened as they met hers. “That scent might very well change before those twenty-eight days are up. With your permission, I’d like to find out,” he said, tipping his hat. “By the way, my name is John. I hope you don’t perceive my request to see you again as calculated, but I am a statistician.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” she said, her eyes holding his gaze.
When he turned to leave, she noticed that the last speckles of snow on his shoulders had become melted droplets. She wondered if he would have as lingering an effect on her as the perfume droplets from the vial she purchased and placed in that red velvet box as if sent to her from Paris during the war—and then she smiled at the fact that she had forgotten to tell John her name.
Sylvia Schwartz’s stories have appeared in several anthologies and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has been published in LitBreak, Twelve Winters, Five on the Fifth, The Write Launch, Bright Flash Literary Review, Ariel Chart International Literary Journal, and others. She is an assistant editor at Narrative Magazine. She loves the generosity of literary advice she finds on Substack (@sylviaschwartz) and provides craft resources on her website because writers are never done learning.
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