Part 5 (2/2)
But he didn't speak of it. ”Have you noticed what nosegays do to champagne?” He opened it and filled my gla.s.s halfway, finis.h.i.+ng with an absurd flourish.
I took the gla.s.s from him.
”What does it smell like to you?” he said.
I sniffed. ”Shoe polish?”
”Not unpleasant, but probably not worth sixty dollars a bell either.” He shrugged. ”Smell is not something many architects bother with, you know. It's hard to design for, though every building has its own peculiar odor. A castle smells different from a gra.s.s shack. Laputa smells nothing like Monticello. I have a colleague, Utrini, who installs olfactors in every room that he builds. He claims a scent palette in the thousands.” Nguyen paused. ”What do we smell like to them?” He gestured out the window. ”The s.h.i.+tdogs?”
”I don't know that they have a sense of smell,” I said. ”But if they do, the fact that they've created such an intense odor source and stay so close to it is suggestive.”
”Maybe they think we stink?”
I touched my gla.s.s to his. ”One man's champagne is another man's cod liver oil.”
His grin was fleeting. ”We're uncomfortable with scent,” he said, ”because it reminds us that we're animals. That's why we tend to repress all but a few more or less pleasant aromas. We don't like to admit how powerful smell is in our lives.” He fell silent for a moment, considering. I refilled his gla.s.s. ”I've spent more time thinking about smell in past few days than I have my entire life.”
I wondered if he were flirting with me. ”What's this all about, Nguyen?”
He gave me an odd, detached smile. ”Have you considered the potential of nosegays as an aphrodisiac?”
”Now you sound like Wetherall.” I felt my cheeks flush. All those bubbles in the champagne.
”You shouldn't believe everything you see on America, America. You've met the man. Did he strike you as any kind of ladykiller?”
”No,” I said, ”but then, we have no interest in each other.”
”Ah, but that's my point exactly. For instance, I have no romantic intentions toward you, Liz. Whatsoever.”
”You say the sweetest things, Nguyen.”
”I'm not trying to insult you,” he said. ”I think you're charming and intelligent. I hope that I've earned some small measure of your friends.h.i.+p. But without going into grisly details, let's just say that you're not my type.”
”I see. And why is it important I know this all of a sudden?”
Nguyen tugged at the cuff of his s.h.i.+rt. ”I'm finding that nosegays stimulate my libido in a very unwelcome way.”
I just stared.
”It's nothing I can't control. But every so often when I catch your scent I feel . . . eroticized. Very unprofessional, but there it is. I just wanted you to know why, the other night at dinner, I had to leave so abruptly, for example. I wouldn't want you to think I was being rude.”
I knew now my cheeks were burning. ”And you think this has something to do with nosegays?”
He nodded. ”I'm quite sure. I take it you haven't noticed any similar reactions?”
I shook my head.
”Then you are lucky.” Again he raised his eyebrow, as if I wasn't quite getting the message. ”Or perhaps it is only the male of the species.”
”What if I switched soaps?” I said. ”Or tried some kind of perfume? Would that help?”
”No,” he said wistfully. ”I believe that would make it worse.”
Nguyen left half a bell of champagne behind. I finished it for him without really intending to. I was dumbfounded by his confession. I turned it over and over, like a chipmunk with a long, lost acorn. Was it a come-on?
Finally I reached for the phone and punched in a call to Wisconsin. Aunt Lindsay answered. Her hair was done up in orange cornrows-a new style for her, but then she changed styles just about every other semester. ”Liz!” she said. ”I'm so glad you called! Send me some money.”
”You may think that's a joke, Aunt Lindsay, but he's paying me enough that I could buy your house.”
”You couldn't afford the waterproofing.” She peered into the camera. ”What's the matter, dear?”
I told her all about Wetherall, the walk on the salt flats, my fit of brutal honesty at the moment he'd expressed a liking for me. And then Nguyen's bizarre revelation. ”How could Nguyen be well within the bounds of what I consider my type when I'm not even remotely close to his? I drive one man away from me in terror while the other fights manfully to master his perverse attraction to me. What's wrong with me?”
”Absolutely nothing.”
”But what does Nguyen mean when he says he feels 'eroticized?' What grisly details? When he looks at me it's like my recurring nightmare where I walk into cla.s.s naked and have to teach Kardashev's system for cla.s.sifying extraterrestrials to hormone-soaked college boys.”
”There is no other sort of college boy. Listen, does this Mr. O'Hara cross his legs when he's sitting near you? Does he stand with his torso canted forward at an angle of four to seven degrees?”
”I have no idea,” I told her.
”How about the billionaire?”
”He seldom sits still long enough for me to a.n.a.lyze his kinesics.”
”Maybe you should try. You seem confused about him.”
”He's a confusing person.”
”He didn't try to use that smart la.s.so on you, did he? Sometimes those rope boys don't know when to stop.”
”Aunt Lindsay, please. I don't know why I got myself mixed up in this! My life was predictable. I was a respected professional in a stable environment. Now I'm on the net with madmen like Thorp, chasing lunatics like Wetherall across the salt flats, playing guessing games with egomaniacs like O'Hara. I've got a doctorate in exobiology!”
”You've always put too much store in the Ph.D., Elizabeth. That s.k.a.n.ky Dr. Matthewson from your department called here the other day, asking odd questions about the sofa in the faculty lounge. It that really the 'stable environment' you're interested in? You've been in universities long enough to recognize that ninety percent of everything is bulls.h.i.+t. 'Piled higher and deeper.'”
I guess I should have known better than to seek my aunt's opinion on normal behavior. ”But what should I do?”
”As long as you make sure you are getting enough anti-oxidants,” Aunt Lindsay said, ”you should do your best to enjoy every minute of it.”
It was still dark when Nguyen woke me by pounding on my door. My head was pounding, too. ”Murk wants to speak with you. He's very upset. Wetherall is missing.”
”Nguyen, it's five-thirty-three in the morning.”
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