Chapter 2
Murphy’s Laws of Romance #25
“Sex discriminates against the shy, ugly and smart.”
Five days later, at 1:30 in the morning, security guard Sam Banks entered the huge research laboratory on the 15th floor of Rayaneta Cosmetics. He was a man on a mission, and he didn’t have much time, just a ten-minute break.
A thick wave of sweet, musky scents assailed him as he surveyed the scene. Among the shadows a light burned in the far corner of the cavernous room. Nearly hidden by the row upon row of workbenches cluttered with electronic and chemical lab equipment, a single light glowed, a solitary campfire in a dark forest of glass bottles and rubber tubing.
Sam could hear music, the faint tinkling of test tubes, and the tap of computer keys as he strode down the long aisles between workstations. When he drew closer, he recognized Norah Jones softly singing “Nightingale” on an ancient CD player. He shook his head amused, though he neither saw nor heard anything out of the ordinary for this time of night. Dr. Starling had a thing for female torch singers, from Helen Morgan, Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, to K.D. Lang, and Adele. He’d given Sam a blues and jazz history lesson more than once.
Under the stark light of a solitary desk lamp, Dr. Baynard J. Starling sat hunched over his experiments—as always. In his mid-twenties, he still resembled a pale, gawky teenager. His unkempt, whiskey-brown hair and wrinkled lab coat only accentuated his long, thin body. To Sam the man often seemed more like a hermit or holy man meditating in a Pyrex wilderness than a scientist. As he drew near, he smiled, knowing he could practically sit in Doc’s lap before the man would notice him.
“Hey, Doc, how’s it going?” Sam said, his voice echoing through the vast room.
As usual, it prompted no startled twitch, no gasp of surprise, only a pause. Doc turned to peer at him over his thick glasses. A smile slowly appeared. “Oh, hello, Sam. It’s going well. I’m trying to combine reagents. I hope to form a perfume compound that will give off a unique scent for each individual who wears it. The challenge is that human body oils and odors contains 120 different chemicals.”
“Fantastic, Doc, but didn’t Max Factor try that years ago?”
Starling looked intently at Sam for a moment, and then nodded. “Why yes. Good memory. Unfortunately, it didn’t react as intended. Often the smell wasn’t that unique, and it had an unpleasant odor on some women.” He pointed to his worktable covered in notebooks and vials. “This will key on unique body chemistry in a different way, through natural enzymes.” He grinned when Sam nodded. He’d picked up a lot about chemistry in the three years he and Doc had been friends.
“The chemicals humans produce and the resultant scents they give off are fascinating.”
Sam half-smiled at this. “If you say so, Doc.”
Dr. Starling turned back to his table and wrote in a notebook, then flipped the switch to the chemical spectrograph next to him. He paused again and turned in his chair to face Sam as though he’d forgotten and then just as quickly remembered his friend’s presence.
“Is it time to leave? It won’t take me long to finish so we can go.”
Sam grinned. “No, it’s only one-thirty. I’m just checking in.” Dr. Starling had no concept of time. He often worked around the clock without noticing. Most mornings, before his work shift finished, Sam would see him crashed on a couch in one of the adjoining offices. Sam grimaced, wondering when or if he washed his clothes. Geesh, what a life. Sam shook his head. The guy needed looking after. He knew he could really help him now that he’d agreed to work with Sam.
Starling could be the poster boy for absent-minded professors everywhere, but everyone acknowledged his brilliance. Sam liked him because it didn’t matter that the Doc held the title of Rayaneta Corp’s Boy Wonder while Sam was only a security guard. The Doc always treated him as an equal, and he listened to him. Besides, the Doc was cool—there was nothing phony about him. He was always just himself.
Sam came to the point of his visit. “You surprised me, texting me for a ride at the end of my shift. Why are you here after hours? I thought you were now going home at five.” When Starling didn’t answer immediately, Sam frowned. “We are still going ahead with The Plan, right?”
“Yes, of course. I wanted to clean up this project so the rest of the teams can continue with it after I give HR my letter.”
Sam nodded, relieved, then studied his friend. “I’ll bet you haven’t eaten anything today, right?”
Doc adjusted the thick glasses on his nose. “I had a sandwich at . . .” He scratched his head vigorously, making his thick hair stick out like he’d received an electric shock. “Well, I suppose I should check the refrigerator.” He got up and headed toward the small kitchen area off the main floor. Sam followed.
“I also came by to give you the article I told you about.” Sam took a rolled-up Psychology Now out of his back pocket and handed it to him.
Dr. Starling stopped and looked at the cover for a moment. “Excellent.” He read the article listings aloud, “‘What Turns You On? Brain Chemistry and Sex.’” He looked up from the magazine with a quizzical frown.
“No, no. That’s not it,” Sam said.
The Doctor frowned harder. “‘Your Personality and the Car You Buy?’”
Sam shook his head, smiling. “No, the last one, on page thirty-nine.”
“Ah, yes. ‘The Scents of True Love.’”
Sam stood by him, pointing to the photos of women holding white T-shirts to their faces. “The psychologist did similar experiments to those we’ve done. He collected all these women engaged in long-term relationships or married for at least five years. He had their men wear a white T-shirt for eight hours and then he stuck each in a pile of identical T-shirts—clean or worn by other people. The psychologist found that the women could pick out their men’s shirt by their smell. Isn’t that something?”
Looking very serious, Doc frowned. “Yes, Claude Witkins did similar T-shirt tests in the 1980’s and 90’s. We know each person has his or her own unique scent, a unique combination of chemicals. It is based on the food they eat, a person’s body chemistry, and of course, pheromones, etcetera. Nothing new there.”
Sam waved away his comments and enthusiastically tapped the magazine. “But there’s a twist. In this study, the women weren’t asked to find their men’s shirts in the pile. They were asked to pick out the shirt that smelled ‘the most inviting.’ Go ahead, look at what they said. I marked the spot.”
The doctor flipped the magazine open to the dog-eared page. He flicked on a nearby table lamp and immediately began reading. After a moment, he looked up surprised, raised an eyebrow at Sam in a contemplative way, saying, “excellent find,” and then read further.
Finally, he read out loud, “‘All the women reported that their chosen shirt smelled of various combinations of vanilla, nutmeg, peanut butter, lemon, and baked bread. They didn’t identify any other scents, though a third of the group mentioned all five. When asked what they thought of when they smelled the shirts, eighty-seven percent mentioned home, pleasant social experiences, or warm, protected feelings, while only twelve of the hundred and fifty in the study said the smell reminded them of the man who had actually worn the shirt.”
Starling stared at Sam for a moment and then rubbed his chin. “It’s obvious from the article that we’ve been going about our experiments all wrong.” He stood up. “Asking the wrong questions.”
Sam’s tall friend strode into the kitchen area and grabbed the lone sandwich out of the refrigerator and then leaned against the edge of the white countertop next to the sink frowning. He stared hard and long at the floor in that position while Sam waited. He’d seen this Greek-statue routine before. Finally, Starling took a deep breath, a look of sadness briefly pulling at the corners of his mouth.
“You okay, Doc?”
He stood away from the counter and studied Sam for an uncomfortably long time before he spoke. “Sam, what do you know about women?”
Whoa, that was outta the blue. “Women? Not much even growing up with sisters. What man does?” Doc continued to watch him silently. Sam waved a hand, flustered by the examination. “Why do you ask?”
Starling frowned at this and said, “Why? Because I certainly don’t.
I wondered after reading the article.” As he started to take a bite, he froze, mouth open, staring off into space for a moment, and instead set the sandwich down, and walked past Sam with a purposeful gait.
Carrying the sandwich, Sam trotted to catch up. “More ideas?”
Starling nodded.
Sam handed him his sandwich. “So, we do The Plan . . .?”
Sitting down on his bench, the scientist stared into space as he chewed the sandwich. Swallowing, he nodded to Sam. “. . . with more experiments.”