"It's preferable," he said, and I knew what he meant.

He didn't speak again until we were through town and out in the country. "And how was your night?" he asked. "Did Herman come home?"

"Eventually," I said as lightly as I could. "Smelling of Johnnie Walker. Black Label, I believe. He said he was at a sales meeting.

He went directly to sleep, and Tania and I played a game of Chinese checkers. Then, after she went upstairs to bed, I finished my needlepoint pillow. And that was my exciting evening."

"is this all there is?" Greg said wonderingly, and I looked at him.

And that was the extent of our conversation until he pulled into the underground garage and parked in his numbered space. I started to get out of the car, but suddenly he said, "Chester called me a wimp this morning."

"Oh, Greg," I said, "that's awful. Why on earth did he say that?"

"It was a silly thing," he said, "but significant, I suppose.

We finished breakfast, and I got up to leave for work. Mabel told me to take my umbrella. She said the radio had predicted possible showers. I explained as patiently as I could-not for the first time, I assure you-that I would enter the car in our garage, drive directly to the lab, park in an underground garage, eat lunch in the employees' cafeteria, and then drive home in the evening. I would not brave the elements a single moment during the day, so an umbrella seemed unnecessary. But she just said, Take it. You don't know what's best for you." So to avoid an argument, I carried my stupid umbrella. I was leaving the house when my son called me a wimp."

He was silent then, obviously troubled, and I didn't know what to say.

"Marleen," he said, almost desperately, "you don't think I'm a wimp, do you?"

I put a hand on his arm. "Of course, I don't, Greg," I said.

"I think you are a very sensitive, caring man with many, many fine qualities, and I hope you stay just the way you are."

I left him then because he looked so woebegone that I was afraid he might start weeping, and I didn't quite know how I'd handle it. I took the elevator up to my office, thinking of Greg's problems and thinking of mine. I wondered about the two of us, wondered if it was a case of misery loving company or if there was more to it than that.

I sat at my desk and reread my final report on the development of Roughneck. The client would be responsible for design of the bottle and label, so I was finished and could get to work on my next assignment.

It was a proposal from Darcy amp; Sons, one of our oldest clients, for a new perfume, cologne, and eau de toilette. As usual, the description of what they wanted was somewhat vague, but I was used to that. The saying in our trade is, "I'll know it when I smell it," and my job was to create a scent that would convince the client they had received exactly the product they had envisioned.

Darcy amp; Sons, believing that women's tastes and manner of living were returning to traditional ways, wanted a fragrance that gave the feeling of romance, intimacy, and warm understanding. They did not want anything too strong, spicy, or sexually aggressive. They were seeking a "quiet" fragrance that would recall a woman's first kiss, her wedding day, the birth of her first child. They wanted a soft, sentimental, and nostalgic" scent that might bring back memories of happy days and enchanted nights. The key to the new product, Darcy's proposal stated, should be "love" and not "passion." And it had to be as attractive to men as it was to women.

They even had a name for this new perfume. It was to be called Cuddle.

I read this prospectus, then sat back and pondered how it might be converted into reality. In the art of blending perfumes, a good "nose" must be able to identify as many as two thousand different scents, to distinguish frangipani from ylang-ylang with one sniff. Even more important, a "nose" must remember the evocative characteristics of scents and how they meld or clash with others. An expert perfumer is not unlike a composer of music, disparate notes are combined to produce a melody.

I left my office and went into our aromatic lab where two other "noses" were already at work on their own projects. They were seated at individual tables, dipping small strips of blotter into vials of essences and then passing the sample beneath their nostrils for a quick initial sniff. The scented strip was then clamped to a rack to dry, for a dry scent is often quite different from a wet. Neither of the noses" looked up as I entered the lab.

I went directly to our "library", rack after rack of corked bottles, jars, and flacons holding oils, resins, and liquids containing the condensed scents of plants, flowers, tree bark, herbs, nuts, fruits, and a few rare animal products. No one had actually counted but it was believed we had more than ten thousand different smells in the library.

I walked slowly along the rack holding flower fragrances, glancing at labels. After reading the Darcy proposal, it seemed to me that a meld of lavender, lilac, and violet might be desirable. Or would that be too old-fashioned for a modern woman who yearned for a return to traditional values? I returned to my office intending to scribble possible formulas that might fit the required specifications.

A small stack of trade magazines had been left on my desk.

All McWhortle employees were expected to keep up with the most recent advances in chemical research, but few of us had time to do more than flip the pages of these technical journals, reading only those articles that might affect one's own specialty.

My eye was caught by an article in a periodical devoted to behavioral neuroscience. The title was "The Cuddle Hormone," and I remember smiling because Cuddle was the name Darcy amp; Sons had selected for their new perfume. I began reading.

On the drive home that evening, I asked Greg, "Do hormones smell?"

He treated my question seriously. Greg very rarely laughed.

"I doubt if there is one hormonal scent, but I know my synthetic testosterone has an odor. It smells faintly of walnuts.

Why do you ask?"

"Just wondering," I said. "Are you still working on the baldness remedy?"

"No," he said. "I was taken off today. It's been turned over to Steve Cohen."

"Oh? And what are you doing now?"

"Something else," he said shortly, and I knew better than to ask for details. Greg sometimes works on classified projects for the government. Hush-hush stuff. But it's not poison gas or anything deadly. Greg would never do that, I know.

"Would you and Mabel like to come over tonight for bridge?"

I asked.

"Thanks, Marleen," he said, "but I'm afraid we'll have to pass. I'm bringing a lot of work home. Some other time."

"Of course," I said, knowing there would never be another time.

We came off Federal Highway, and he slowed before turning into Hibiscus Drive, the curving access road that led to our adjoining homes.

"You know what I'd like to do," he said in a low voice. "Just keep driving. Anywhere."

"With me?" I said, half-teasing.

"Yes," he said, and I could hardly hear him. "With you.

On April 27, Thursday morning, I had a session with Dr. Cherry Noble.

It was only my third, and I still wasn't sure she was going to do me any good. But she was a female therapist, and I didn't want to Confess All to a man. Greg made no objection when I told him I was going to a shrink. He just looked at me.

I had the wrong idea. I thought I could ask questions, and Dr. Noble would give me the answers. Not bloody likely. She'd ask questions, I'd answer, and she'd say, "Mmm." For instance, I told her I liked to watch travelogues on TV.

Other women watched sitcoms and soap operas, I enjoyed looking at Patagonia and Swaziland. Why was that?

"Why do you think it is?" Dr. Noble asked.