Chapter 15 What I Wanted for Myself #2
"I know some of it." I stop where the path bends toward the house. "Your cousin Chiara might have suggestions from her botanical work, too. But first I want to see what we can make here, on a small scale. Something worth asking people to try."
"Without promising it will solve everything." Rafael looks back along the row we've walked. "I can do that. I'd like to stop looking for one answer that has to save the whole estate by itself."
"Then start with this possibility." I wait while he catches up with me. "We can find out what it offers without demanding it become everything on the first day."
Rafael is very still. I can see him processing, working through what I'm saying.
"This blend you've been making." He gestures back toward the house. "Could it use ingredients from here? From the estate?"
"Eventually, maybe." I start walking back toward the workshop. "The bottle I brought is an example of what I want from ingredients. It isn't proof that we can produce them here. I'd want to test that before we asked anyone to commit."
"And if the trials worked?" He matches my pace. "You'd be a customer."
"Or a partner." The word comes out before I can second-guess it. "Someone who helps develop the products, not just someone who buys them."
***
By the time we reach the house again, Rafael has stopped asking whether the idea is possible and started asking what I would try first. I lead him back through the hallway to the workshop, my mind racing with everything I want to show him.
"Here." I take a bottle of bitter orange essence from my workshop shelf and put a little on a fresh strip. "This is from the peel. Compare it with the blossom note in my trial."
"Sharper." He moves the new strip away, then tries the first one again. "This one reminds me of peeling fruit. The other is softer."
"Yes." I cap the essence and leave it beside my trial bottle. "They come from different parts of the tree. They aren't interchangeable."
He puts the peel-oil strip down and tries the blend again. "I can follow the floral note now. It's easier when I know what I'm looking for."
"That's what blending does." I feel myself relaxing, falling into the rhythm of teaching that I love. "My trial uses neroli with bergamot and cedar. That peel oil isn't in it. I wanted you to smell how much variety there could be before we even start making blends."
"You make it sound simple." He sets down the strip. "It's not, is it?"
"No." I smile despite myself. "It takes years to train your nose. To understand how notes interact, how they change over time, how something that smells one way in the bottle will smell completely different on skin."
"I want to understand." He moves closer to the workbench, studying the rows of bottles. "Not to become an expert. Just to know enough to follow when you explain."
"You're following now." I move the bottles so he can see the labels. "Yesterday I was wondering how much of this I'd have to explain before you became bored."
"Your note helped." He taps the page I showed him earlier. "Warmth without heaviness. It gave me something to listen for. Or smell for. You know what I mean."
He read it. A sentence in a notebook, and he read it carefully enough to use it. Something warm spreads through my chest, mixing with the nervousness and hope.
"There's more I want to show you." I return the capped peel-oil bottle to its place on the shelf. "But I'm hungry. Is there any chance of food?"
"I can find something." He moves toward the door. "Stay here. I'll bring it."
He returns a few minutes later with bread and cheese and olives on a plate, along with two glasses of water. We clear a space on the wide windowsill and sit with the food between us, the midday light falling across our hands.
"This is good." I tear a piece of bread and reach for the cheese. "Thank you."
"It's what was in the kitchen." He passes me an olive. "Nothing special."
"I used to keep working until I was too hungry to make anything decent." I eat the olive he passed me. "You'd have to persuade me to leave the room."
He leaves the plate where we can both reach it, and for a while we eat without talking, the workshop quiet around us. Through the window, I can see the groves stretching toward the horizon, row upon row of trees that could be so much more than they are.
"I keep thinking about what you said." Rafael sets down his water glass. "About the estate being more than just commodity fruit. About creating something that couldn't come from anywhere else."
"It's just an idea." I brush crumbs from my fingers. "I don't know if it would work."
"But you see something." He turns to face me fully. "A possibility I didn't see. I want to understand what you would want from it, beyond helping the estate."
"I want my work to mean something." I meet his eyes. "I've been making perfumes for years, developing my skills, building something I'm proud of. And I want you to see it. Not because it might save the estate, but because it's who I am."
"I do see it." His voice is rough. "I should have come to you months ago, Sera. Asked what you were working on, what you needed, what you dreamed about. Instead I assumed I knew, and I was wrong."
There it is. The admission I've been waiting for, offered without excuses or deflection.
"You're here now." I don't let him off the hook, but I don't twist the knife either. "That matters."
"I should have listened before you had something that might help me." His eyes drop to the notebook on the bench. "You shouldn't have needed that to get my attention."
"No, I shouldn't." I set my water beside the shared plate. "I wanted this when it was only my perfume and an afternoon you kept putting off. I need to know you want it then, too."
"I want to do more." He doesn't reach for me, but he doesn't look away either. "I want to be part of what you're building, not just someone who watches from the outside."
"Then tell me if you have to go." I gesture to the space beside me on the windowsill, close enough that he won't have to lean forward to hear me. "Don't stay because you're afraid to disappoint me, then resent every minute. I want you here because you want to be here."
"I want to be here." He moves into the space I've offered. Our shoulders touch, and neither of us moves away. It is such a small comfort that I almost miss how much I needed it.
"What do you see?" He looks out over the trees with me, waiting instead of offering his own answer.
"I see groves that could produce something extraordinary." I look out the window at the trees. "I see my work continuing here without disappearing into yours. And I'd like to find out what we can make together without giving up what I want to make on my own."
"Partners." He tests the word again, more carefully this time.
"Maybe." I turn to look at him. "Not today. Not all at once. But maybe, eventually, if we can figure out how to work together without falling into old patterns."
"I'd like that." He meets my eyes. "I'd like to try."
We sit there in the workshop, the afternoon light warming our shoulders, the smell of citrus surrounding us. I feel something shift between us, some barrier I'd been holding in place starting to crumble.
He doesn't try to kiss me. Doesn't try to push for more than I'm offering. Just sits beside me, warm and present, finally paying attention to the things that matter.
"Show me something else." He nods toward the workbench. "Teach me what you know."
I stand and move to the bench, lifting my trial bottle to check the level before I put it back in its cloth. "I brought this one to show you. The other versions are at my parents'. I'd like to compare them here tomorrow, if you're free."
"At ten?" He comes to stand on the other side of the bench. "I can pick you up again."
"Ten." I take out a clean strip and put it beside the one he used earlier. "And don't throw that one away yet. I want you to notice what stays after the first brightness fades."
He lifts it carefully, keeping his fingers away from the damp end.
I turn the notebook to the unfinished jasmine formula for him to look at, then go to the sink to rinse a glass vessel.
There is room for silence between us now.
I don't have to fill it with instructions or check whether he has lost interest.
When I turn back, he is reading the page about the jasmine and black pepper formula. He looks up before touching it.
"This one too?" He points to the unfinished sketch. "Is this something you'd like to make here?"
It has nothing to do with saving his harvest. He knows that. The question reaches me before I can prepare a careful answer.
"Yes." I dry my hands and come back to the bench. "I've wanted to make it for a long time."
He draws two stools up to the bench, leaving space for us to sit with the notebook between us. "Then start with that. Tell me what you wanted."
My jacket is still hanging by the door. He will take me back to my parents' house when I ask, and tomorrow we will have to choose how to do this all over again.
I sit beside him and turn the notebook so we can both read it. "Then listen. This is the one I wanted to make for myself."