The Perfume Read online

  “But hardly the right perfume for a Dove.” Timmy’s voice was soft, and just for her.

  Just for me! thought Dove Daniel.

  Don’t be a fool, Dove, said the person in her head. Nothing is just for you. It never was. There are two of us in here, and just because you hid me away this time doesn’t mean you can always hide me away. There’s plenty of Venom where Venom came from.

  “I left the bottle of perfume in school,” said Dove.

  I didn’t, said Wing.

  Chapter 12

  THE NEXT MORNING, DOVE TOOK a long soothing shower.

  She had always loved having her own bathroom. Such delicious privacy and peace. How sorry Dove was for her friends who shared bathrooms with brothers and sisters and parents.

  Can you imagine, Dove thought to herself, luxuriating under the hot pounding water, how awful it must be? Every morning, whining voices screaming through the bathroom door at you? Hurry! My turn! You used up the toothpaste!

  Dove arched into the hot shower, letting it massage the back of her neck. It was true that water washed away cares. Here in the little pink-tiled box of the shower there was nothing but skin and water. Nothing but peace pouring down.

  I’ve never had to share with anybody, thought Dove contentedly.

  It felt as if an iron wrench tightened inside her skull, turning her brain as if it were a bolt.

  “Aaaaaahhhh!” she screamed. “Stop!” she screamed. “What are you doing? You’re hurting me!”

  I have a tumor, she thought. Or somebody shot me. My skull just opened up. She clung to the shower curtain. She was blind with pain. The shower curtain was nothing. It slipped from her hands and she fell to the tile floor, cracking her elbows.

  “That’s the point, Dovey,” said Wing viciously. “You never shared. I was in here all the time and you never shared. Never asked. Never cared.”

  Dove tried to breathe. But the pain had tightened around her chest as well. The tiny panting puffs of air hardly helped at all. She was sobbing now, but the tears washed down the drain with the shower water. “You didn’t tell me you were there,” cried Dove. “How was I supposed to know I had a sister?”

  “You don’t have a sister,” said Wing. Her voice came out like sandpaper against Dove’s throat.

  “Then who are you?” whispered Dove. I am beaten, she thought. I am a naked, cowering, shivering piece of skin lying under water.

  “I am you,” said Wing.

  “You can’t be me! I’m me.”

  Wing said nothing. She had said all there was to say.

  The pain ceased. Her throat was no longer sore. Her lungs worked.

  Dove clung to the sides of the shower and hauled herself upright. It seemed the work of centuries to find the handle, turn off the water, step out of the shower. The mat on the floor felt soft and cottony and ordinary under her bare feet. She chose the largest towel, a beach towel, really, and wrapped herself in it.

  Like a mummy, thought Dove. This is the shroud they will bury me in. Wing is going to kill me.

  The mirror was fogged up. The blurry pale face and misty dark hair could have been anybody. Maybe it is anybody, thought Dove. Maybe anybody could come into my body and live there.

  What terrible power that perfume had, that it could open the body to invasions by other souls. How was it that Wing had lain quiet and unknown for fifteen years, only to be released by the perfume? Did this happen to other people? It had not happened to Mr. Phinney. Luce and Connie and Laurence and Timmy seemed to be single people in single bodies.

  Dove dressed. Buttons did not go into buttonholes and the blouse did not tuck in and the pocket would not lie flat and the sneaker would not lace. Dove’s fingers were stiff and uncoordinated. She could not blame that on Wing. They were still her fingers; Wing had not taken them over. Not yet, anyway. But her fingers felt the fear and shrank back.

  The double beat in her heart returned.

  Who is me? thought Dove. Is Wing me? Am I me?

  Her head had lost its balance. Her thoughts were tipping over. She had to hold onto the banister to get down the gray-carpeted stairs. Otherwise her body would have lost its balance, too.

  She did not pause for breakfast. It would be Wing’s appetite she catered to, Wing’s stomach she filled. She, Dove, would go right on being hungry and dizzy.

  Instead she hoisted her book bag, unable to recall if she had done her homework, and dragged herself outside. I’ll feel normal outside, she told herself. Outside there will be sunshine and neighbors, school buses and delivery trucks, red lights and coffee shops.

  But outside, the fog crouched thick, ready to pounce, like a world-sized Dry Ice. Pushing at its gray veils, Dove staggered through. “Hello?” she called out. “Hello?”

  Nobody answered.

  Did anybody else live in these condominiums?

  Did even Dove live here?

  Why was it so silent? So terribly silent?

  Fragments of buildings loomed up in front of her and fell away behind her. The sound of car engines rumbled in the distance, but no headlights and no vehicles appeared. It could have been thunder, a storm miles away. But no. The thunder was inside her head.

  “Wing, please,” mumbled Dove. “Stop it. Please, please, please stop it.” Wing was doing something different, something heavy and cruel, as if she had boulders in there, and could block openings of caves with them. My head, thought Dove, my poor head. I can’t keep carrying it around if all these things are going to go wrong up there.

  “Hi, Dove Bar!” shrieked Luce.

  Dove stared.

  “My car wouldn’t start,” yelled Luce. “We’re taking the bus this morning, too. Isn’t that the pits?” Luce, hurling her book bag onto the pavement, bounded up to Dove. “I mean, aren’t there just some days where you just absolutely positively cannot believe that this is your life?”

  Dove’s laugh was hysterical. “Frequently,” said Dove. She went on laughing, and the laugh became normal and stopped at the right time. Dove felt as if she might have another chance at being human. She laughed again, testing, and the laugh worked. Dove tried a joke line. “I hope there was nothing breakable in your book bag, Luce.”

  “No. I always throw it down instead of setting it down. I’m trying to destroy the bag so I have a reason to buy a new one, but it’s one of those incredibly strong poly-something fabrics that stand up to arctic winds and tiger teeth. My great-grandchildren will probably carry their books in it.”

  Dove had hoped too soon for normalcy. Wing had been making preparations. She was flying around in the mind with such strength that she was going to take off. Dove’s head felt as if it were detaching.

  Dove set down her book bag more carefully than Luce had and locked her fingers together, resting the weight of her hands and arms on the top of her hair. Otherwise, my head will come off, she thought.

  “You haven’t called me up in days,” said Luce. “What’s the matter with you, Dove Bar? There’s so much to talk about. What do you think about Timmy? I think Timmy likes you. I think he’s going to ask you out. He was sort of flirting with you.”

  Hands were not heavy enough. Dove set her book bag on top of her head, like an African woman carrying water from the well. There. That felt much better. Even Wing could not conquer such weight. “Dove,” said Luce, giggling, “has anybody ever told you that you are getting very weird these days?”

  “No,” said Dove. She tried balancing the book bag without holding onto it. But that was too much balancing for somebody whose brain has been shoveled into a corner to make room for another person. Teetering, she managed to get on the yellow school bus and drop into a seat next to Luce, who chattered endlessly.

  Mr. Phinney was absent.

  The substitute said she was very very very sorry, but Mr. Phinney had not left a lesson plan and so the children were to be very very very quiet and work very very very hard on whatever readings they had previously been assigned.

  Another very very very pe
rson, thought Dove. I vote we get rid of that trio.

  Wing was laughing. Dove could tell from the way her brain shook. I did it! cried Wing silently. I knew I could do it with my Venom. His vanished twin took over! He’s destroyed!

  What vanished twin? You are imagining things! He’s just absent, thought Dove.

  No, he’s ruined, said Wing.

  Not everybody has a vanished twin, you know.

  It’s probably coincidence, thought Dove. She could feel Wing’s shock. The sudden quiet, the abrupt end of Wing’s dancing with joy.

  Not everybody has a vanished twin? repeated Wing.

  Course not, said Dove. She said it in such a way that nobody could argue with her, because what if Dove were wrong? What if the whole world could possibly be invaded? What if every single living human body had a door through which, given the right set of circumstances, another soul could enter? Could take up residence as easily as buying another condominium?

  You’re wrong, said Wing with fury. You’re wrong! Everybody has a vanished twin! There are billions of waiting twins like me, trapped inside, trying to get free!

  Nope, thought Dove. There’s only you.

  She was an actress now, keeping her manner certain and upbeat. Allowing no fear to escape. Trying to con Wing.

  The biology teacher was right after all, she thought, and Laurence was wrong. The brain is in layers. Wing does not have them all; some of them are still mine. I can listen to two different people talking inside my own head. Yet at the same time I have separate thoughts, and Wing must also have separate thoughts, so she has a layer of my very own brain that I don’t have access to!

  “Playing with us?” said Timmy.

  Dove stared at him.

  “I hate when you have that expression on your face, Dove,” said Hesta. “You look as if you’re dead in there.”

  Dove stared at Hesta.

  Hesta giggled. “Now you look homicidal.” She flounced while sitting down, making a big deal of ignoring Dove from now on. “Here, you go first, Timmy. We don’t want to play with Dove.”

  “Yes, we do,” said Timmy. “Hangman’s more fun with three.”

  For one horrible moment, Dove again saw her head coming off. Saw both herself and Wing in the skull, as the noose tightened and their shared body swung from the gibbet. No! thought Dove, please no!

  She was trying not to scream. I’d rather live with Wing than have a hangman—

  Timmy put a pencil in her hand and said, “Hesta’s first.”

  It was only the word game. Hangman. On Timmy’s desk was a large blank piece of paper with a primitive gibbet drawn toward the top of the page. Hesta had chosen a word with five letters. Under the gibbet she had pencilled the blank lines for the right letter guesses: _ _ _ _ _.

  Dove already knew what it was. It could not be anything else. Dove did not even bother to call out a letter choice, but just filled in the blanks.

  V E N O M.

  “How did you know?” cried Hesta. She was angry and frustrated and also a little frightened.

  “Weird,” said Timmy, looking at Dove with strange eyes. His eyes had a new shape and a new thought, and Dove did not know what either one was. Except he kept looking at her and did not look back at Hesta.

  Dove managed to smile. Timmy seemed to have no trouble smiling back. The smiles trembled, like little children alone in the park.

  Dove’s eyes dropped. Timmy’s eyes turned to the window.

  Their eyes swung back, met, dropped again, and they both giggled breathlessly.

  “Hey,” said Luce suddenly, “what do you think you’re doing?”

  Dove could not wrench her eyes off Timmy to see what Luce was talking about. He was too handsome, too fascinating, too wonderful.

  Hesta said, “Oooh, lemme try some, Dove.”

  Dove heard her as if through valleys of fog. Nothing important, just Hesta noise-making. Who on this earth deserved Dove’s attention but Timmy O’Hay?

  Timmy’s smile became stronger, more certain … more inviting.

  Hesta said, “I thought you left it on Mr. Phinney’s desk yesterday, Dove Bar, but here it is in your purse.”

  “Dove didn’t say you could go into her purse,” accused Luce.

  Hesta laughed. “If I had asked, she would have said no, so I just went in anyway.” Hesta dug into the small slender bag and removed a small glistening object.

  Now Dove turned.

  Now Dove knew the danger.

  Now her eyes focused and her ears heard.

  Every muscle in Dove’s body contracted.

  I mustn’t breathe, she thought, I must get out of here.

  Cramped among the yanked-tight muscles, Wing began laughing. The laugh grew into a roar, like jet engines during takeoff, and filled every available molecule of Dove’s brain and thought.

  Hesta pulled the stopper out of the bottle of Venom.

  Dove struggled to her feet. Wing pushed her back down. Dove did not breathe. Wing fought her way up the throat.

  Hesta swung the bottle gently to waft the scent into the room.

  Timmy said, “Dove?” His smile was eager, boyish, special. Dove wanted that smile more than anything. It was hers, that smile, it was not directed at anybody else in the world.

  Dove shivered inside, outside, upside down. She breathed deeply, wanting love, wanting affection, wanting a boyfriend. And all those were only inches and moments away. “Timmy?” she whispered.

  “I’m—uh—well—going to a hot air balloon festival Saturday morning. It’s really early.”

  “Yes,” said Dove, breathing again. Nothing will happen, she told herself, people in love are safe from bad things, I’m sure of it.

  “I mean really early,” said Timmy. Their eyes were locked. “We have to be there at six A.M. Because they can only take off in the dawn atmosphere.”

  “Yes,” said Dove.

  “It’s really beautiful, Dove,” said Timmy, eyes on fire. “There’ll be seventy-five huge balloons. As brightly colored as Christmas tree decorations, sailing in the sky.”

  Dove would have gone to a gathering of garbage trucks if that was what Timmy wanted to do. At three in the morning.

  Joy requires a deep breath. A wonderful satisfying date with oxygen. Dove was laughing now, nodding, smiling, filling her lungs …

  … with Venom.

  “You don’t see everything when you’re not using the body,” explained Wing out loud, using Dove’s mouth, Dove’s lips, Dove’s tongue. “So you didn’t see me yesterday taking the perfume bottle back off Mr. Phinney’s desk and putting it in your purse.”

  Dove was falling backward, deep, deep, deep down. The dizzy plunge knocked away all thoughts, all speech … all hope.

  “So will you come?” said Timmy anxiously.

  Hesta stuck her face between them, but Dove could not see her very clearly. “What do you mean, ‘you don’t see everything,’ Dove?” said Hesta.

  “Of course I’ll come, Timmy,” said Wing.

  No, no, please! cried Dove, as gagged as if there were tape over her mouth. Timmy asked me Wing, I’m the one going with Timmy!

  But I’m the one who accepted the invitation, said Wing. Her cruel smile lit the inside of her head like green neon at the end of a gloomy tunnel.

  “Great,” said Timmy, taking the hand he thought was Dove’s. He beamed at the girl he thought was Dove. “Who knows what could happen at an event like this?” he said, flirting with the girl he thought was Dove.

  “Indeed,” said the girl who was Wing. “Who knows?”

  Chapter 13

  “LUCE?” SAID WING INTO THE telephone. “It’s Dove.”

  She knows the telephone numbers I know, thought Dove, and the people I know. Wing could just paint me out if she wants. Why don’t you just tell her you’re Wing? said Dove bitterly.

  Later, Wing said. I’m going to be using your friends until I make friends of my own. So for now, I’ll stick with your name.

  “Hi, Dove B
ar,” said Luce, pleased to be called up. Her friendly familiar voice came through wires into Dove’s house, and vibrated in Dove’s room—but entered Wing’s ear. It isn’t my conversation, thought Dove, it isn’t my friendship anymore. It’s like a cousin once removed: It’s too far out there to be sure of.

  “I cannot stand a single piece of clothes in this closet,” Wing told Luce, which was true. She had held up, thrown on the floor, and stomped on every outfit Dove owned. Dull namby-pamby pastel junk! Wing had raged. You expect me to wear this in public?

  Dove could have wept at the destruction of her soft and sweet clothing. At the very least, she wanted to look away—but she could look only where Wing looked, and Wing looked with satisfaction at the tornado she had caused.

  “May I come over and borrow some of your clothes, Luce?” said Wing.

  “Absolutely!” cried Luce. “I can’t wait to dress you. You’ve always needed a new look, Dovey.”

  Wing smirked. What did I tell you? she said to Dove. Even your best friend has always thought you’re pathetic.

  Dove ached. What if everybody liked Wing better than they had liked Dove? What if even Mother and Father liked Wing better than Dove? It was not impossible. Didn’t Mother still dream of the vanished twin, flying strong and free?

  The ache in Dove had no center, because she had no body. It was everywhere, overwhelming and yet invisible.

  Like strong perfume.

  They entered Luce’s house.

  I think of me in plural now, thought Dove. We do things, things happen to us, things are ours. I don’t want to be two! she thought. I don’t want a twin! I want to be me.

  Wing chose a black shirt with a pattern of silver threads like morning dew. Its sleeves clung at the wrist and bagged at the elbow. She tugged on black pants, ending tightly at the calf, and black lace knee-high stockings to go under them. A pair of black sneakers with scarlet jewels glued on. Half gypsy, half witch, totally different.

  “You never wear stuff like this, Dovey,” said Luce, delighted, of course, that Dove was finally acquiring fashion sense.