The Scent of Rain Read Free

seemed that way from the outside, and even though Mark asked Daphne to marry him before Gary asked Sophie, it felt as though Gary and Sophie had been first. Daphne could just smell things. Her lost relationship was just one more way the friends were traveling in disparate directions.
    â€œWhat if you catch whatever bad-luck disease I have? Do you ever worry about that, hanging out with me?”
    â€œWhat?” Sophie yelled over the wind off the bay.
    â€œNothing.” What did it matter? Everyone would avoid contamination soon enough when she was quarantined to Dayton, Ohio.
    They stood under the grand silver structure of the Bay Bridge. Daphne worried that a turbulent wind might catch her gown and cause her to take flight over the concrete barrier, tossing her into the choppy surf. The sight of the immense silver structure and the historic yellow streetcar on its rails, along with the embrace of the gusting wind, lifted her spirits. She was good at being alone in the world. Maybe she was meant to be alone.
    â€œIt’s beautiful here.” Sophie came up beside her and leaned over the concrete wall to see the surf slapping into the barrier below. “You forget, when you live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. You take it for granted.”
    â€œI don’t,” Daphne said. “I was thankful for every day in France and Switzerland. I’m thankful for every day here. But what if I can’t feel that way in Dayton? Is that why God is sending me there?”
    â€œHe’s not sending you there. You don’t have to go.”
    â€œI have nowhere else to go.”
    â€œStay here. Open up your own perfumery.”
    â€œI love how you believe I can do anything I set my mind to.”
    â€œBecause you can.”
    â€œI can’t stay here. I’ve brought shame on my parents. My mother will never let me hear the end of it, and my father will remind me daily what it cost him. Dayton will be fine until I can get back to Europe.”
    â€œBut formulating—chemistry and analyzing data—there’s no art in that.” Sophie’s lip rose. “You hate formulating.”
    â€œI don’t hate it. It’s just not my calling. I was meant to make the world smell better.” She held down her hair from a rogue gust of wind.
    â€œNo, Daph. You hate it.”
    â€œIt’s temporary. I’ll be fine.” The sea lions barked in the distance. “Hear that? I wonder what new sights and sounds—and smells, of course—await me in Dayton.”
    â€œMaybe you could wait a few days to make a decision. You don’t have to leave town because your parents’ society friends will gossip. Come stay with me on the Peninsula.”
    â€œNope. There will be fewer distractions in Dayton. I’ll be able to think. Plan.”
    â€œAnd if Mark shows up to work?”
    Maybe a tiny part of her wanted to go to Dayton for that very reason. Just a sliver of her. “I gave up the Holy Grail of perfumer jobs for love.”
    â€œWe all do crazy things for love. Who was it who said it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?”
    â€œSomeone who ended up alone.”
    â€œThat’s precisely why I don’t want you in Dayton. You’ll be alone.”
    â€œI’m good at being alone. Maybe too good. I thought giving up my dream was sacrificial and beautiful. Now it seems ignorant and based on one too many chick flicks. I gave up my dream job for a tool.”
    â€œWell, you didn’t know then that he was a tool.”
    â€œHow is it I didn’t sniff Mark out? How is it you didn’t figure him out? With all that Stanford schooling under your belt, you’d think you’d have some insight.”
    â€œI’m going to put him under the category of sociopath— he’s so adept at charm skills that he flew under our radar. And sociopaths don’t have empathy, so anything you