Chapter 26
Hua Shihong
Ming dynasty. As a child, witnessed the inauspicious comet, which haunted her dreams for the rest of her life.
Heart note // End weepiness
Base note // Lotus
Mom doesn’t come with me to work the next day but waves me off at the door the way she used to when I left for school, saying she would keep herself busy.
Time passes slowly at the store, where Ana works on her jewelry in between not-so-casual spontaneous mentions of Jayne, and I try to focus on my commissions instead of wallowing in what happened last night.
When I come home, Rafe is outside my door.
“Hi, Lucy,” he says, taking a couple of steps in my direction.
“Were you waiting for me?” I ask, a little confused.
“Your mom asked me to drop by.” He takes another step. “Hey, I was thinking—”
The door opens behind me. “Luling?”
We turn to see my mother. What a party. “Rafe, you’re still here,” she says. “Will you join us for dinner?”
“Thanks, Ms. Hua, but I’m meeting someone.”
“Are you sure? Luling is here now.”
He glances at me. “I’d love a rain check.”
“Next time, then.” She goes back in, and I follow after giving Rafe a quick nod.
“What was that about?” I ask.
“Rafe looks skinny. He should get a good meal.”
“No, why was he here in the first place?” I ask.
“I wanted to talk to him.”
“About what?”
She gives me a look over her reading glasses. “Over things that are not your business at the moment. Go wash your hands.”
“Like what? The shop?”
She points me to the soap. “Hands.”
“Mom, is Yixiang okay?” I ask tentatively. This is finally my chance to ask.
“It is, Luling.” Her voice is assured. Can I believe her? Or do I believe Eric? Why would she lie to me? I decide to wait and see because that’s the coward’s way out of a conversation I don’t want to have.
Dinner is delicious. Mom made spaghetti and cheesy garlic bread.
The flavors are perfect in their simplicity, the tomatoes simmered down with basil.
Yet it also makes me sad. Maybe pensive is a better word.
Forlorn. Like everything she’s cooked, it’s one of my favorites from childhood.
Everything she thinks she knows about me is from the past.
“I can do dinner tomorrow,” I say. “I make a good tuna couscous salad, and the asparagus is good this time of year.”
“You don’t like canned fish,” she says.
“I didn’t,” I correct her. “I do now.”
She’s quiet for a second. “That would be nice. Perhaps you can make it for Rafe as well. He can join us.”
“Maybe.”
We tidy up after dinner—or I try to tidy while Mom sits down, but she insists on helping.
While we work, she asks if I’ve heard back from the client about the home-perfume options I sent (no) or have any new commissions.
I fight against taking the question as a commentary on my ability to generate business and do my best to answer her words, not any perceived tone, like an emotionally actualized adult. “I got one today.”
“Oh?” she asks, looking interested. Before the moli issue got in our way, talking to Mom about perfume had been one of my favorite things in the world. It still is.
“It’s a young woman. New job. New boyfriend, new apartment, and everything is exciting instead of causing her stress. She wants to bottle that feeling so she can remember this moment when she needs it.”
“Intriguing.” Mom takes the kettle off the stove. “I wonder why she doesn’t think her regular scent will do that, the one she wears every day.”
“I asked the same thing. She’s never worn perfume.”
Mom’s hand halts with the kettle midair. “Never?”
I share her disbelief. “Her father hates all fragrance. He didn’t allow anything—not a scented candle or detergent or shampoo—in the house. He wasn’t allergic, the woman said, just didn’t like it. She moved away from home recently and wants to explore.”
My mother vibrates with ideas, and I give her the opening instead of hoarding this challenge for myself. “What do you think?”
To my surprise, she only smiles at me. “What do you think?”
I settle down at the table. “Something light so I don’t overwhelm her?”
“Did you do a consultation?”
I grab my bag and pull out the sheets I’d brought home with me. Mom pages through, tapping her fingers on the table. “She doesn’t know what she wants,” she says. “Did you have her smell anything?”
“She liked all of it,” I say. “It’s truly wide open, but I don’t know where to start.”
Mom thinks. “Sometimes it’s better to watch instead of listen when a client is trying the blotters. Do you have the register?”
I fetch it, and Mom flips through the pages until she finds Zhengyi’s chapter. “Here,” she says. “Zhengyi’s rules when she opened the store cover this.”
“What didn’t they cover?”
Mom laughs. “She was a thorough woman. Your grandmother said Zhengyi went to the store each day until she was bedridden to run her fingers along the baseboards. After that, she made your grandmother do it and demanded she come home without washing her hands, to show her the place was dust-free. Waipo refused and they compromised on using a tissue as proof.”
I didn’t know that, but I can imagine the look on a young Waipo’s face as she tried to negotiate with a crotchety old woman born in the previous century.
I skim the chapter and then point. “Is this what you were talking about?”
Mom nods. “Zhengyi was before her time. ‘Scent is instinctive, and although the client may feel shy about stating her preferences, there will be some she reacts to more strongly than others without knowing herself. It is your job to draw these out.’ Do you remember if your client reacted?”
I close my eyes to put myself back in the moment.
The client was a delicate, colorless woman, with mouse-brown hair, pale-gray eyes, and slightly freckled skin that looked like it might have had a tan several years ago.
Her clothes were taupe and camel, her shoes unexpectedly stylish brown Victorian lace boots.
“Yes, I was surprised.” I describe what she looked like and then say, “I thought she would like spring flowers, like muguet or lilac.”
“She liked heavy woods? Oud?”
“No, oakmoss.”
Mom looks pensive. “Curious.”
“Aromatics too.”
“A gorgeous combination. You could do a lot with that. Rosemary and oakmoss. Perhaps pine.”
“Yeah.” I’m listening as I write down ideas. “Maybe with a touch of fruity sweetness, like raspberry.”
By the time we’re done, I’ve jotted out a few sketches as a starting point.
Mom is still reading Zhengyi’s chapter, and I look over her shoulder.
Besides rules for keeping the store clean and organizing stock—probably useful information, as Zhengyi was the first shopkeeper in the family—were tips on selling that were still applicable.
“‘Be present but not hovering,’” says Mom, tapping the page. “Good advice.”
“I like that she’s willing to recommend other shops, to make it look like you only want what’s best for the customer.”
“Zhengyi was a marvel.” Mom takes our empty cups and puts them into the dishwasher, then comes back to look at my notes.
“That second scent might be good for Yixiang,” she says. “You could do it when you come back home.”
Instantly, I’m on alert. “When I what?”
“Nothing,” she says quickly. “I misspoke.”
“I live in Toronto,” I say. “I don’t have plans to leave.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Mom says. “I just thought since Rafe is back in your life and you have your moli, you might be thinking about the future.”
I get a prickly feeling when she mentions Rafe’s name, but I brush it off. “We’re only friends, and I’m not going back to Vancouver.”
“Of course.” She gives in with more grace than I expected.
As I’m thinking how nice this is, to be able to just talk to her, Mom goes to her room and comes back with a box. She places it in front of me and I recognize it from Waipo’s room.
“What’s this?” I ask.
In front of my increasingly alarmed gaze, she pulls out the red fabric tucked inside to display the low collar like she’s a host on a home shopping channel.
A line of knotted-rope buttons run down the front of the garment, and the red cord of each fastening is woven around an imperial jade bead the size of a hazelnut.
According to Hua Xiaoting, the jade dates back to the Song dynasty.
The robe is a magnet drawing my iron-cold hands close. A faint whiff of smoky wood rises from the fabric, which she must have scented the old-fashioned way by airing it over burning incense.
I accept the robe when my mother hands it over, her expression blank as if she understands the slightest hint of triumph will result in the robe tossed at her feet and me out of the room.
The silk has the same feel as when she first draped it over my shoulders when I was twenty, a slippery lightness with disconcerting warmth.
Despite the substantial ornamentation, it was like wearing a cloud.
I did a twirl for the sheer pleasure of feeling it billow behind me and whisper around my legs as Waipo looked on with a proud smile.
I shove it back at her.
“Why did you bring this?”
“I thought it would inspire you,” she says.
I’m hit with a red-hot rage, made worse by how comfortable I felt fifteen minutes ago. I should have known not to let my guard down. “Can we have one night without you getting on my case about my moli?”
“You need to try.”
“I need you to leave me alone!” This is rude and I know it.
She rolls her eyes. “So dramatic, goodness. I gave you space, but now it’s time to work. You must get to the bottom of this, Luling! Don’t you want to be fixed? We need to know.”
It’s like she’s punched me. I was wrong to imagine we could simply be us one day. Or in a way, I was too right. I was thinking of it in the wrong way, because we already are us, today and right now.
The problem is that Mom and I, as an us, are not compatible.
“I’m not broken,” I say.
She waves her hand. “Don’t you understand what this could mean for you?”
I shut off completely. By you, she means us—or more accurately, her. It always goes back to the store. Back to what I owe her for the priceless gift of allowing myself to be born the fifth daughter. “Fine.”
“You need to practice until you’re sure,” she says with finality. “The way you used to be. Dedicated. Not like a butterfly, going here and there to scent jewelry or make pointless things that smell like a fall fair.”
“Sure, Mom,” is all I say, but it hurts to know that’s what she thinks of my work. The anger has drowned under the soreness that simmers inside me whenever she’s near.
I smooth my hand over the embroidered band on the wide sleeve, the material catching on my rough fingertips. The silk might be light, but the garment is heavy with the weight of hope. That’s why I’d left the robe and all it represented behind when I started a new life as a nomad.
“I don’t understand you,” Mom says, sounding exhausted. “I don’t.”
“What don’t you understand? That I don’t want you bugging me about my moli all the time? That I want you to leave me alone? That my life is better when you’re away from me?” I draw in a ragged breath as she flinches.
Then she does the worst thing possible. She runs her hand gently along my hair and touches my shoulder. Her face is filled with pity.
“Go to bed soon,” she says softly. “You need rest.”
Before I can reply, she gathers the robe tightly in her arms, then leaves. Her bedroom door closes.
She didn’t deserve what I said to her. Luckily, we’ll pretend it didn’t happen and I won’t have to think of it again, except to add it to the list of shameful acts that parade through my brain at three in the morning.
I don’t deserve to be a Hua at all.