THE ROSE PERFUME

Chapter 3

If I marry Raimond, I will be able to keep Le Magasin de Tissus, Mr. and Mrs. Clouet's legacy will live on, and he will let me create my designs and run the shop the same as I always have. He admires, pushes, and helps me achieve my goals and ambitions, and is impressed by the money increase in the drawer. But sometimes, I am not sure if I am making the right decision to be with him.

Everything about being with Raimond seems right, but when I go to sleep at night, it is like I am reborn and living another life in a vivid memory of the future. I dream of another man and there is something about us together that is so much more than what I ever felt for Raimond, anyone else before. These dreams are so real, sometimes I cannot tell if they are real life or if I am dreaming. And after I wake, I'm not sure if I have just woken into another dream. And when I realize this man does not exist, it feels like a limb has been torn from my body and the loss of it weakens my heart all the next day. In them, I can smell food cooking in a kitchen, hear knives and forks hitting plates and people in low-toned conversations, and music in the background that makes my heart soar.

These are things I go to see Father Philippe about at the church and he takes me to his library of books from all over the world to find the answers to my questions. Some are unusual and even written by pagans and soothsayers and are written in different languages. Father Philippe has no trouble reading them all.

This day, Father Philippe pulled out a dream-interpretation text written by a dream-priest, translated from a Sumerian stone tablet from the Middle-East, and re-written into a paper book which Father Philippe said he bought from a gypsy woman in Italy more than twenty years ago. He said she had an entire cartload of useful things, and he did not intend on buying anything, but when he saw it, he knew he had to have it. Father Philippe is very insightful and has an instinctive sense of things that are important.

I sat down across from him at the table while he read the passage to me, which explained my dreams were a passage into the future with hidden secrets. And this was the reason, Father Philippe gave me a blank book to write them down in. He told me to record these dreams, so I might learn what they are trying to tell me. And he said, because I have free will, he can only nudge me in the right direction but can't tell me what to do. And I have to figure it out for myself.

Often even a much younger Father Philippe is in my dreams, and Raimond is there, but I cannot tell if he likes me or hates me. There is also Emmanuel, Greg, and Anna. And even if we all don't get along, I am drawn to these people and like being with them anyway, because they feel familiar.

DREAM NOTEBOOK, PROPERTY OF LOTTE LA MAR

JOURNAL ENTRY # 1 – KEEPING SECRETS

In my dream my clothes are not tailored to fit my every curve, nor are they flattering to my figure, and there is no corset restricting my movements. I bend all the way down on the floor and am crawling underneath a dining table in a Cafe with a woman named Raina who has my husband's eyes. They are a creamy brown, the color of almonds. She is wearing my perfume. Her lips are the color of fresh cherries, mashed thick on her skin like the icing on a pastry from La Boulangerie.

Raina secures a metal box where the base of the table meets the flat surface. It is a rectangular apparatus with wires protruding from it. She lowers her lashes at me. She is easily the most seductive woman I have ever seen, "Now I can hear what they're saying." She explains. "And I'll bet three gold necklaces and a days-pay from my other job you don't even know what this is."

"What is it?" I ask, touching the grooves with my forefinger.

Raina scoots backward out of our secluded spot and wipes her hands on her skirt. The stones from her rings reflect from her fingers. She is taller in heels and I cannot help but notice her entire calves and ankles are showing. "If I tell you, it will destroy many carefully calculated plans, which have taken months of preparation." She tells me and turns and walks towards the kitchen through a candle-lit spacious dining room.

"Does Emmanuel know?" I ask.

She tenses and looks over her shoulder. Cool eyes contemplate the idea. "A girl has her secrets. I can't run around telling everyone everything. It will destroy my reputation."