Dior by Elizabeth Sowden

The phone rang at 10:30, and when Noëlle picked up, she held the phone three inches away from her ear so that her boss’s screaming didn’t pierce her eardrum. Her boss was already mad at her for using the store’s computer to find the lowest price on a bottle of Dior perfume; if Noëlle thought she was closing on a day she was supposed to open, she was toast. Not that it mattered to her. She wouldn’t be there much longer. Her big break was around the corner. She just knew it.

“Hello?” Noëlle answered, the peach satin sleep mask still covering her eyes.

“Noëlle? It’s Noreen.” Noreen was Noëlle’s boss at the store on Fifth Avenue where Noëlle worked. Noreen wore fifties style cat’s eye glasses with thick black frames and had a light brown fuzz on her upper lip. The brown mole in the corner of her mouth made her look as though she had a perpetual chocolate stain on her face. Noëlle’s “affectionate” nickname for her Madame Affreuse, which meant “Mrs. Hideous,” but Noreen didn’t know any French, so Noëlle could say it right to her face and Noreen would just laugh like it was a compliment.

“Hi Noreen,” Noëlle mumbled. She pulled of her sleep mask just as her snow white cat Blanche Neige leapt into her lap.

“You don’t have to come in today,” Noreen said, “I scheduled both you and Janet by mistake.”

“Oh, okay,” Noëlle said, scratching Blanche Neige behind the ear.

“So, I’ll see you tomorrow. You’re opening—don’t forget!”

“Goodbye, Noreen,” Noëlle said, hanging up the phone. Blanche Neige purred. Noëlle felt the vibrations with her fingertips.

“Well what should we do today, ma petite?” Blanche Neige purred in response. A knock came at the door. Noëlle threw back her peach duvet and gathered the cat in her arms. She padded across the floor in her bare feet and opened the door.

Noëlle’s neighbor stood on the other side of the door, a hand on her hip and a box in her hand.

“Did you lose your Dior?” she said with raised eyebrows. She handed Noëlle a small cardboard box. The packing tape was torn away.

“Mrs. Dunkin, you opened my mail?”

“I’ve been expecting some bunion cream.”

“Well, if you’d read the shipping label before you opened, you’d have known that it wasn’t bunion cream.”

Mrs. Dunkin grunted and handed her the box. As she waddled back to her own apartment, Mrs. Dunkin grumbled, “Damn kids, spending money they don’t have.”

Noëlle set the cat down and took her brand new bottle of J’adore perfume out of the box. She sprayed a tiny bit onto her wrist and inhaled the scent. She smiled. “What does that grouchy old Mrs. Dunkin know anyway?” She asked the cat. “Hasn’t she ever heard of comparison shopping?”

Suddenly, Blanche Neige dashed out the open door. Noëlle took the perfume and gingerly set it down on the table before she ran after the cat. Noëlle ran down the stairs, screaming French curses all the way down. When she finally reached the foyer, she saw Blanche Neige in the arms of a tall, muscular, mocha-skinned man.

“This your cat?” he asked.

“Yes,” Noëlle answered, trying not to let him know that she was out of breath.

“You call her snow white.”

“Yeah,” Noëlle said, surprised, “you understand French?”

“I sure do. And yours is pretty filthy!”

Noëlle smiled. A guy who looks like that and understands French? She pinched herself on the arm just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

“So, are you French?” he asked.

“No, my grandmother is from Senegal. She taught me French when I was a little girl. I spent a lot of time in France, though. How do you know French?”

“Seven semesters of Sartre,” he winked. “I’m Devon,” he said, reaching for her hand.

“Noëlle,” she said, in a velvety voice that she saved just for a moment like this. He grasped her hand in his warm, smooth, large one. He bent down to kiss her hand. After he kissed her he looked up. He smiled and asked: “Dior?”

Writen by: Elizabeth Sowden

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