I quickly gathered she had arrived in Chicago this afternoon to tell her big sister that, on the ledge of midlife, she was finally ready to “have some babies and lay down some roots.” Though she had been there less than an hour, the apartment had already freshened itself off Jewel’s jubilant air. Like most femmes fatales, her intoxicating and bewitching scent was the result of her reliance upon and fascination with all things fancy. She carried the long, soft leather pocketbooks people smelled before their owners pulled them out. Hair products with African, Black, or Nubian in their names were not “effective” enough for Jewel; she preferred her products not only manufactured by White men, as most were, but also bearing their names: Calvin Klein, Christian Dior, Valentino. Her bright, powdery, metallic lipsticks and eye shadows were fragranced in excess, so much so that leaning in to kiss her face was like stepping into a flower garden. When she came back to Chicago she would only venture (in a called-for cab, of course) to State Street’s Carson Pirie Scott or Marshall Field’s for new underwear and bras to get her through the latest stay; once, I had opened a stately white shopping bag of flimsy, lacy things and immediately recognized the crisp, clear scent of the big stores downtown that I never got to visit. Jewel wore sturdy shoes too distinguished to harbor sweat and odors, and they held on to their same exact shape even after she removed them; I longed for such shoes—unlike the lazy, clearanced sandals and sneakers that lolled flat and crooked as soon as I took them off, as if they had been holding their breath the entire time they were on my feet.