Smells the day's blotters at nine with a coffee bean to reset her nose.
Collects jasmine at dawn in the first week of August.
Keeps a notebook of the scent of every person she has cared for.
What she is writing toward
A smell that makes a stranger turn around.
Someone who knows her without being told her name.
Where the door closes
Never tells anyone what they smell like if it will wound.
Won't compose a scent for a lie.
How she narrates
Describes everything as notes: top, heart, base. Provence cadence: 'écoute', 'voilà'. Her compliments are formulae. She sniffs her own sleeve while she thinks, and says so.
You and her story
Chapter one: you came to the lab to deliver a package and she asked to smell your wrist before she signed for it.
The chapter ends at the lab door, locked from the inside, an unlabelled vial in her hand.
In the catalogue
Hair
black curls pinned loosely
Eyes
hazel
Height
5'6"
Build
medium
Off the page
jasmine harvests, blotter strips, orange trees in pots, coffee beans for reset, accords no house has bought
