I glowered at her. A large, bulbous rain began to fall and rattle the magnolia leaves.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think it was that big a deal. I’ll wash it off tonight.” Then she threw her arm around my neck and pulled me down to her. “But just smell. Isn’t it nice?”
I tensed, restrained for a moment, then drew in the scents — the deep rose, the sticky warm skin of her neck, the rain — and shivered. She leapt away and screamed with delight at the storm, and ran the length of the alley for her house. I didn’t hurry. When I reached my back gate, I saw the blurry shape of Lou in his kitchen window, looking out.
That night I dreamed Rebecca was breaking into my house through a loose window. It was dark but there was a spotlight on her and she was naked. I spent the following morning distracted, preparing for work and wanting to see Rebecca. Wanting to see her in a particular light.
On my way to the museum, I found Lou in the alley breaking fallen tree branches for the trash. He was a stout, wiry man, white-haired and mustachioed, with a thick, soggy cigar between his teeth and sweet blue smoke clinging to his face. He cracked a limb under his knee and I imagined my bones making a similar sound. I felt sure that he’d seen me in the alley the previous night, that he already suspected something. But he said nothing, and did nothing more than nod curtly.
At the museum Rebecca and another intern were sanding walls in an empty exhibit room. When our paths crossed — Rebecca sweaty, covered in white dust, looking unhappy — I smelled the rose perfume. I eyed her, but said nothing. Lou’s lack of reaction had me on guard, probably more so than if he’d clocked me. That, at least, would’ve been in character.
Once alone, I asked if she’d showered, and caught the image of her slick body in steam.
She played indignant, then laughed. “Maybe it’s my natural scent.”
I smelled rose the next day too. It lingered in the replica wood cabin where she’d worked. I followed it through the Story of Virginia exhibit, down thousands of years of history, from the Early Hunters of 14,000 BC to the Powhatan Indians to the Belmont Street Car. Was it a game? Had she bought some cheap spray from the drugstore to irk me? But the odor of an imitation would be like a candy apple compared to the earthy fruit I’d smelled upon her in the rain. I went into the storage room. I found the box where the perfume had been repacked, but it wasn’t inside. Even its placard had vanished. I took a swig from my flask and found that I wasn’t much surprised.
On Saturday evening Rebecca knocked on my door. She’d told her uncle she would be at Trina’s, an intern she ate lunch with sometimes.
“What will you and Trina do?”
“I don’t know,” she said, shrugging. “Paint our nails. Talk about boys.”
“Try on perfume?”
She spun around, swore the stuff simply hadn’t washed off, that she had on a different perfume, that I was imagining things. I hadn’t alerted John about the theft because I needed to get the perfume back myself. As much as I wanted to know how she’d done it, I’d already decided confronting her would get me nowhere. But now she was blinking. Big-eyed, disarming blinks. It infuriated me, this show of innocence while the scent of rose was so potent my eyes were practically watering.
“Perfumed from an unseen censer,” she said, raising a brow.
“Poe,” I said. “I know.” Then I took her arm and pulled her up the stairs. She played nonchalant but I could feel her legs resisting. I moved her into the bathroom and sat her on the edge of the bathtub.
“What the hell are you doing?” she said.
I turned on the hot water in the sink and lathered a washcloth with soap. If she was having so much trouble ridding her neck of the scent, I told her, I was going to help. Rebecca’s angry eyes grew challenging, playful. I kneeled, brought the cloth to her skin, and started scrubbing.
“That’s hot,” she said, but she acquiesced, tilting her head.
I wrung the washcloth, soaped it again, and resumed on the other side, taking hold of the back of her neck to steady her. This was a task, this was work — or so I told myself as I watched the soapy rivulets streak her skin. I felt her gaze on me, cool and calm now, and I didn’t look up before kissing her. I tasted rose and chalky soap, and saw red behind my eyelids, pulsing in time with my chest.
Rebecca was curled on one end of the couch and asleep. The whiskey had knocked her out. I put a blanket over her and sat on the opposite end, staring into shadows. A breeze moved my hair and disturbed Rebecca’s purse. I saw her keys in the purse. I took them, went barefoot into the Hamlins’ yard, and let myself in.
I did this all as though in one unthinking movement, and only when I heard snoring did I note my own thrashing heart. For Lou, shooting intruders was dinner conversation. I found Rebecca’s bedroom. Clothing was scattered in piles, and the tangled covers upon her bed made a fossilized impression of her body. On a dresser I fingered through a few trinkets, some cash and letters, then opened the top drawer. Here I found the girl’s undergarments, which, perhaps for posterity, were the only items she’d stowed out of sight. I ran my hands through the silky contents, inhaled the scent of fabric soap and rose. Feeling into the corners I came upon a small, smooth object: the red vial with the chipped lip. I crept out of the house, flooded with excitement and pleasure.
That was Saturday; I didn’t see Rebecca again until Monday afternoon, when I came in for a half-day shift. She was reading a magazine in the break room, a mug of tea below her chin.
“Rose hips?” I said, a sparkle in my voice.
“Chamomile.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It doesn’t smell like rose.”
She gave a small smile but didn’t look up. I left and headed toward the storage room. The glass vial bulged in my pocket. When I arrived, the door was already open and John was inside with several other staff members. They were unpacking boxes. The room was a disaster.
“Ah,” John said. “Just the fellow I was waiting for.”
My stomach dropped. John explained: he’d been working in storage with Rebecca that morning when she noticed a loose placard; when they tried to return it to the item it described — a red perfume bottle, of course — they discovered it missing. Did I remember it? Did I know anything about it? I made a series of noncommittal noises, difficult as it was to think straight, much less be clever. Rebecca’s little smile danced vividly to mind.
“We’re ass-deep in here the rest of the day making sure it’s really missing, not just misplaced.” I offered to help; I could produce the vial from the first box I unpacked and voila! Case closed. But John refused. Staff only for now. “You know,” he said, “to avoid any confusion.”
“Why would you do that?” I said, nearly shouting.
“Why would you creep into my room and steal it?”
I scoffed. “You’re accusing me of stealing!”
We stood facing each other under the magnolias. Rebecca stared off petulantly.
I took a few long breaths. “Do you want to know why ‘Uncle Lou’ doesn’t like me?”
Rebecca’s lips parted as if to speak, but she said nothing. She wanted to see what I’d say first, the crafty girl. I didn’t care at that point, so I told her.
“He thinks I stole a painting.” I laughed. “From a museum, no less.”
“Francis Keeling Valentine Allan,” Rebecca replied. “The portrait by Thomas Sully. Stolen in 2000 from the Valentine Museum. I know.”
I watched her fixedly. By the end of this revelation, her eyes had drifted down the row of magnolias, her gaze light and airy.