The Scent of Mimosa

Guessing games

''You still haven't explained to me what we're doing here?'' he asked as he took another handful of cherries from the plate and leaned back on both elbows in the grass.

''Well,'' began Cassandra, picking through the remnants of her lunch, ''we are trying to capture the nature of Imogen in scent, so I wanted to come out here to get some inspiration. I like to dig around, in an olfactory sense that is: smell a couple of things, get some ideas, see what seems to me to capture the scent of a woman like Imogen.''

Vince snorted.

''I hate to be cynical,'' he scoffed, ''but I suspect you may have better luck sniffing at the walls in the restroom of a nightclub if you're looking for the smell of Imogen. Her image isn't exactly one of new-mown hay, you know. In fact, she goes out of her way to be provocative.''  

Cassandra looked at him darkly.

''That is the way that you see Imogen,'' she sniffed, ''and that is why you are not a perfumer.''

Vince found her defiance sweet. Her chin was raised in indignation, and she looked lovely. He resisted the urge to tease her more, to rile her up only for the enjoyment of watching her pout.

''Beneath all of that tacky, plastic exterior,'' Cassandra continued, ''Imogen is a woman. A woman with strength fierce enough to fight her way to the top, but also with the sensitivity of an artist. She is someone who can slip easily from one identity to the next. Imogen may claim to be one thing, but she will respond to the scent of what she really is: a product of nature. Something wild, something exquisite, something elemental. Like all women.''

Speak for yourself, Vince thought, watching the passion blaze in Cassandra's eyes as she talked. Imogen? Exquisite? Sensitive? A product of nature? He didn't think so and he had met her several times. 

But then did it really matter what the fragrance actually smelled like? As far as he could see, what was important here was that they had a perfume to send to market at all, one that Imogen would sign off on. If it smelled like the scum scraped from a high-heeled shoe on the New York subway people would still buy it if it had Imogen's name on it.

Still, what she had said sounded pretty good. Wild? Elemental? He'd better jot it down, he thought. Perhaps he could work it into the text on the packaging somehow.

''Alright then. I'll take your word for it, although where I'm from I've got something of a reputation for knowing just what perfume appeals to a certain woman.'' It was a skill he had honed through years in the perfume industry. He had found that the women he dated expected him to give them gifts of fragrance, and furthermore they expected him to know what would suit them.   

He knew that a demure blonde would probably prefer a light floral scent, while an ebony beauty would more likely go for a smoky floriental. It wasn't so much about culture as how the chemistry of the woman's skin interacted with the scent itself. He had also learned to pick up more subtle clues from how a woman chose to present herself to the world – the clothing she wore, the way she styled her hair, even the way she walked.

''You don't believe me?'' he queried, checking Cassandra's skeptical expression. ''Why don't you test me then?''  

Cassandra grinned.

''Alright. What about the queen of England?'' she joked, waving her hand in the air expansively. ''But she's royal – so she quite possibly wears Creed,'' she answered her own question. 

Vince tut-tutted and shook his head. ''You are so far off,'' he told her. ''I don't think she is such a snob, and besides that, she is a lady of the twentieth century. I would go with a hit fragrance from her generation.''

''What? Youth Dew?'' Cassandra asked snidely.

''Too housewife,'' Vince replied. ''She's an outdoorsy type, remember. I'll bet you its Blue Grass.''

Cassandra shrugged. ''You could be right, but I don't actually know the answer. Let's try one I think I may know. How about Isabella Rossellini?''

''Well, I take it Ms. Rossellini wears her own branded fragrance, but besides that... hmmm. It would have to be something classic. One part old-school Hollywood and another stylish Italian. Oh yes... something crisp, clean... Sicilian lemon... It's got to be Acqua di Parma.''

Cassandra laughed and clapped in delight. She had never thought he would be so accurate. But Vince was not sharing in her amusement. He was sitting back with a strangely brooding expression. His eyes locked on her.

''And you, Cassandra Ducasse?'' he asked, watching her closely. ''Exactly what is it that appeals to you? Don't think I hadn't noticed that you don't wear any fragrance at all.'' There was a hint of the suggestive in his tone and Cassandra looked down to hide her sudden blush.

She wondered when he had he come close enough to her to tell that she didn't wear perfume. Oh yes. In the garden that time. Or perhaps seated next to her in the car? Now she came to think of it, for someone that she barely knew, there had been surprisingly many times that her body had been in close proximity to his. She could feel a light sweat breaking as she recalled each one.

''Well, since you are asking,'' she answered, still looking away, ''I don't wear perfume because I don't want to confuse my nose. I want to be certain that when I smell something around me I have it in its purest form, not diluted by the sandalwood or hedione in a fragrance. If I wore perfume, my sense of smell wouldn't be nearly as acute as it is now.'' 

Being businesslike helped her regain her composure, and once again she felt bold enough to tease him. ''Anyway, since you are the hotshot,'' she asked ''why don't you tell me what I would wear if I did choose a fragrance?''

Vince's eyes hadn't left hers for a moment. They travelled thoughtfully across her face, assessing her with almost tactile deliberation.

''For you,'' he answered. ''It would have to be something completely out of the ordinary. Nothing synthetic of course,'' his eyes twinkled mischievously. ''Definitely nothing commercial. Let me see now....'' He looked about him quickly. ''Aaah. I think that something like... this...,'' he spoke as he snapped a sprig of late blooming, sweet, yellow broom from a bush beside him, ''would do nicely.''  

And leaning forward, he tucked the blossoms behind Cassandra's right ear.