The Scent of Capistrano

         The porcelain stoppered bottle sat on the shelf and said, "Open me."
         I thought of the stories I knew where a magical being came out of a lamp. Why not see what was inside? Nothing could go wrong.
          I crept over the swept wood floors of the small shop, where the second floor windows opened to the clouds of swallows rising from the mission walls across the street, and the landlady/proprietor was occupied with my mother and her parents at the counter. I glanced their way before my small hands reached for the bottle.

         The painted designs felt cool in my hands, although the colors were vibrant, like flames. I pulled the cork. Nothing happened. I stuck my eyeball through the narrow opening. Light spilled in through the white porcelain. But I saw nothing.
         I upended the bottle, hoping the invisible genies would come out. Instead, a scent penetrated my nostrils. My hand was damp, slightly. I drew it toward my face. Yes, it was a scent, alright.
         My home forbid most manufactured scents, unless they were lemon-scented disinfectant or those berry-scented balls put high on the counter.
          Mom was going to kill me, I just knew it.
         If I put the bottle back now, no one would know. I restuck the cork before ducking around the corner to an ill-lit corner of the knick-knack boutique. If I had known how to whistle at the time, I probably would have as I slipped the bottle quietly into the darkest crevice of the shop, behind a row of vaguely square boxes.
         Only I could notice the scent. Of course, because I was the only one who knew about the blunder, only I could possibly smell the sinking floral concoction where it had touched the warm part of my hand. Consequently I wiped this hand on several of the fabrics nearby - the scarfs, the billowy blouses, the designer hand towels with the Californian sun and Hawaiian palm trees.
          I could still smell it. The memory of the scent was almost as strong as the scent from the bottle, but I had covered my tracks.
          The adults were wrapping up their conversation at the counter. I stayed a few paces away, just enough so that the hanging perfume could have more time to evaporate.
          I was so busy pretending to be nonchalant and looking at the real and porcelain swallows that I did not see the proprietor. Suddenly she was standing over me with hard eyes and - inconceivable! - the porcelain bottle.
          "Why was this in the boxes?" she asked me directly. At least, I believe she said it out loud. Perhaps the way her mouth was pressed said it. I think I backed away as my mom spoke calmly, about something that seemed without relation to bottles or scents.
          It took some time for me to recover. The next thing I remember in the haze of floral scent is Mom scrubbing my hands furiously with a towel from the car kit before she growled and shoved me in the back seat next to one of her parents. She cracked open the windows in the aging Honda. It was an exceptionally warm day.
          I looked back at the mission and the shops stacked across a street entirely too narrow for that much traffic.
          Mom gained a headache within the first ten minutes. I carried that scent with me for two days.