The Scent of Mimosa

Serenade

Cassandra loved the view from up here. She was sitting in the window niche above the front door of the Maison Guipard. Wedged in amongst the pots of salmon-colored geraniums, she could look over the decorative wrought-iron balustrade and spy on all the goings-on of the Rue Bagatelle.

It was Autumn now, and the tourist rush was trailing off, but a few late-season visitors were still busying themselves with sightseeing, crunching through the drifts of dead leaves that scattered the cobbles.

Lying her head back against the wall, she closed her eyes for a moment. What about Star anise, cashmere, and almonds? she thought. Or maybe chestnut, baked apples, and Peru balsam? She opened the journal in her lap and jotted down some notes on these accords, her slanted handwriting a loose scrawl across the page.  

She wanted to create a fragrance that spoke of autumn; a scent that would perfectly capture the crispness of the air and the hastiness of preparing for winter. It would have to be a good one, one of her best, because it was going to be the first fragrance launched by Atelier Guipard in almost eight years.

She had Vince to thank for getting her working again. Without the cash injection that their effort on the Imogen fragrance had given the business, she would never be in a position to even consider launching a new fragrance.  

But his real influence had been quite apart from that. She had needed the confidence that his passion for her work had given her. Out of the game for so long, she had almost forgotten how it was played, had begun to believe that the world out there was filled only with people who could neither relate to, nor appreciate, what she had to offer.  

Vince had shown her otherwise. If there was one thing she was sure of, it was that he knew his own business.  He understood what people wanted and if he believed in her, she must be worth believing in.

His parting words to her had been the final straw. Every morning since he had left, she had woken with them echoing in her head: Don't let your father hold you hostage for the rest of your life... it's time to let it go.

She had never considered that that was what she had been doing - allowing Robert Ducasse to dictate the course of her destiny. Wasn't the reason she had avoided perfumery all this time, to prevent that from happening? Somehow, she had still managed to fall into the very same trap.  

She could see it now though. Vince had made it so very clear to her. The only way she would ever shake the smirch that her father had created on her self, her confidence, and her family name, was by taking the business into her own hands. Then, maybe, she could be free of her father and his destructive influence.

But would she ever be free of Vince? she wondered as she stared hard into the distance until the houses and cars at the bottom of the road became a hazy blur. She doubted it. Oh, how she missed him! 

He visited her every dream these days, and now the visions were starting to spill over into her waking hours. More than once, she had thought she spotted him: leaving the boulangerie near the Place Aux Aires or standing at the entrance to a glitzy hotel in smartest part of town.  

Even now it seemed that she could make out his figure coming towards her out of the mist up the Rue Bagatelle. It looked so like him, strong jawline, confident stance and well-tailored suit. She chuckled at what the poor stranger might think if he only knew what fantasies his presence was conjuring up for her. Then suddenly, she could smell him, and she knew that this time he was no figment of her imagination.

''Cassandra!'' Vince called out, looking up towards the open window where she had been sitting only moments before. ''I know you're there!'' He steeled himself against the rush of emotion he had felt on spotting that flash of teal silk disappear inside the window. "And I know that you're not going to answer the door to me either. But that's ok. All I want is for you to hear me out, alright?''