The Fragrance of Loss

Sometimes grief smells like jasmine on the vine crawling, creeping over the old wooden fence, hanging there, scenting the air with the fragrance of loss.

It wasn’t a date. It was a party. And she was wearing cream-colored linen overalls over a turquoise blouse. Shiny red clogs. Her glossy brown hair pulled back with a cobalt barrette. Cherry gloss on her lips. Champagne-hued shadow on her eyes.

He was in jeans and a button-up. Hair combed back. Tanned from his summer job mowing rich people’s lawns.

They knew each other only a little bit. But each wanted more. They’d seen each other on campus, had gotten into the routine of nodding, of smiling. He was tall and blond. Eyes that shifted color from blue to green to gray. She’d duck her head, and then look back, and he was always looking.

They’d been to the movies as part of a group, and she’d sat at his side, and their fingers had touched, and their thighs had touched, and at a crucial junction, he’d slipped an arm over her shoulders. And in the darkness, they’d kissed.

What a kiss.

They kissed, and then they parted, and she couldn’t remember anything else about the movie. All she could think of was his lips on hers, and maybe he might kiss her again. She’d been cold outside after, and he’d taken off his sweatshirt and put it on her.

And now she slept in it every night.

She was shy, and a little nervous, and she told him they had to take things slow. And he was kind, and he was gracious, and they kissed each other a little when they met to study in the library. And then a little more whenever he walked her home.

Sometimes, they kissed in a parking lot. Sometimes under a canopy when he’d come by her work at the flower store, on a made-up pretext, and she’d sneak out for just a second to say goodbye.

This wasn’t a date-date. They were just going to a party, at a mutual friend’s house. There was jasmine in the air. And there was a record player on a table on the patio. Stack of vinyl nearby. Whomever wanted could change the album when the needle met the final groove. There was sangria in a pretty pitcher and iced beer in a cooler.

They danced in the corner of the patio, and the jasmine hung down the fence, and the scent of summer surrounded them, the grass and the roses, and someone off in the corner smoking smuggled-in hash.

They danced by the wishing well, and she wished, oh she wished, and he stroked a wayward curl off her forehead, and he tilted her back, and he kissed her like he had in the theater. Soft lips, and she couldn’t believe how soft, and then firmer, and she was melting. And he kissed her like he sometimes did outside the flower shop. With intensity. With desire.

Grief sometimes looks like nostalgia.

What was it, 1982? Two lovers just figuring out the first steps. Taking off her red clogs and going barefoot. There was hammock between two trees in the side yard, and they climbed in carefully together and situated themselves against one another. In the velvety darkness, they looked up at the falling stars and made wishes.

He was lanky. She fit against him, slender and sloe-eyed, in those overalls with the ties at the top. It had taken her hours to get dressed. Something casual, yet stylish. Something that showed her personality. 

They kissed in the hammock, face to face on the striped canvas, and he untied the top of her overalls.

Grief smells like jasmine to her now. Each petal, waxy petal, mocking her for believing in love. For believing that every once upon a time has a happily ever after.

Someone called them back to the main yard, and they danced barefoot on the Spanish tiled patio long after everyone else was crashed on thrift-store blankets, smoking weed, telling stories and lies. Drinking wine. They danced to Crimson and Clover, over and over. Then Air Supply, Foreigner.… They danced to the Kinks and the Stones, and then he walked her home.

Stopping every few feet to kiss some more. 

It was crazy, wasn’t it? They hadn’t ever named what they were to one another. They’d just overlapped. Movies. Concerts. He had gotten her number from a friend, and had called her apartment one midnight, and they’d spent hours talking. 

They bought coffees and walked in the rain. They pretended they knew what they were doing, and nobody told them that they didn’t.

On the way home from the party, he stopped to whisper that he loved her. He loved her. And she loved him back.

1982. When it was still okay to have a hope for the future. And make plans to go to the lake the next weekend. Bring a blanket. Bring a sweater. Thermos of coffee. Transistor radio. Everyone’s going to be there. 

He gave her his ring. A friendship ring, but they were more than friends. He gave her his heart, and she still holds it tight inside herself. Because that’s how he would have wanted it. Locked up safe within her own.

Grief smells like jasmine. And hot summer nights. And dancing barefoot in the backyard of Stephanie’s house. Her older sister, wearing satin shorts with racing stripes and a tube top, chain smoking on the roof with the drummer of a well-known band. Someone making chocolate cookies at midnight because everyone had the munchies.

She brings jasmine to him now. But he can’t smell the flowers. She wishes on falling stars. But he can’t see the glitter through her tears.

She wanders along the sidewalks in the town where she used to live, and she knows each place they stopped to kiss, and the jasmine washes over her, lifts her up and holds her down, and she tries to find the way back home again.