The Chapter of Scents

Malak had a thing about scents. She associated different smells with
different times of her life. Different perfumes represented different
boyfriends. Every moment in her life had a scent to go with it. She
thought of it as one of her quirky eccentricities. But it wasn't
something she ever talked about.

The smell of a freshly-mowed lawn reminded her of high school discos,
sneaking out of the hall, onto the school field with her friends to
share a "rose," their codename for cigarettes. She didn't actually
learn to inhale until she was 16, a year after she started smoking. And
she was convinced that she looked cool. Even though she really looked
like a child who was just trying to grow up too fast. Malak couldn't
wait till she was all "grown-up." And at 23, she finally realized, that
being "grown-up" was completely and utterly over-rated. Besides the
fact that when she was 23, people still thought she was 18.

The smell of fresh bread was the smell of going home. Saturday shopping
trips to Bloemfontein, with her parents and Dana, were long, tiring and
all Malak could think about was getting home. The last stop of the day
was Star Bakery, a small Greek bakery, one of the few places nearby
where they could find pita bread. She'd stand at the back of the
bakery, while her parents talked to Katina Kordatos, the owner, and
Malak would just close her eyes and pretend that she was in bed,
nibbling at a piece of pita bread (even though her mother told her not
to eat in bed) reading Anne of Green Gables.

She would just have to catch a whiff of Hugo Boss for men, and
instantly, images of Eric would come to life in her mind. Eric was the
man that she wanted to marry. At least one of them. She met him at
university. He was loud. He was funny. He was charismatic. And
completely out of her league. And then, in a strange twist of events,
they became friends. Good friends.
Talk-on-the-phone-3-times-a-day-for-hours-good-friends. And she was
convinced that something would come of it. He would realise just how
amazing and brilliant Malak was. He would see what no one else had been
able to see. And she knows that for a split second he did. Cause
sometimes when they were talking, he would stop her in mid-sentence,
and tell her that her eyes were mesmerizing.

And then Hala came into the picture. And all Eric could talk about was
Hala this and Hala that. How perfect Hala is. How beautiful Hala is.
Hala Hala Hala! And Malak hoped it was just a phase, but it wasn't.
Besides, Eric seemed to change friends like he did his socks. And
eventually he stopped calling. They stopped seeing each other, and he
faded from her life. Last she heard, Hala and Eric were engaged. Then
her father started using Hugo Boss. And she stopped thinking about
Eric.