Divine Heirs Perfumery, LLC

Inside Divine Heirs, each wall is its own shade of blue, but your mind automatically files them all under “ocean blue”. The office is set up as if Manny had hung a series of full-length mirrors on the supply closets to the right of our desks, unfolding his kingdom out of unlikely corners into a series of incongruous hallways and perspective points, extending on and on to create its own universe. A million little cubicles, every wall a different blue. Different angles of the sun on water, different depths, different climes. It is his universe. The ceilings are painted in ripples.


The other thing about Manny is the way his little sex-kitten heart purrs in orange. Manny wears an old man’s suit to the office, but his pumps, his wedges, his boots, his spikes, they are all some variant of orange. Damien and I name patterns of his moods based on the direction of the stripes of his stockings: carnival for vertical, little girl for horizontal, pizzaz for zigzag, or obscene for the furry-textured zebra prints, and the fine detail of his temper is hinted by the particular cast of orange of the shoes they escort. Huddled over my desk, we spin tales of the nighttime company that led to the creamy shades, the spectacular hangovers bringing miserably flat shades, the evening plans foreshadowed by swirls of flashy orange, but though we sit uncomfortably close to what seems like an awfully intimate secret, there are many things we don’t know about Manny. Like today, his spiked boots are Mars Popsicle, like a cold fire, his heels little snapping firecrackers that draw your body into a cringe. I tell Damien how he had company all morning and through lunch, a visitor who, against all form, went straight past me to Manny’s desk and tried to make some point or threat or just tried to dominate his attention, and how, for hours, Manny read to that visitor from the scrolls of our product names at the very peak of his vocal chords, high-pitched yet operatic, formal, even, until his company, face puffed and flaming, sweating and completely defeated, simply dropped off the planet. Diminished. Was sapped of importance, until you didn’t even notice he’d left, except that Manny had stopped singing.


We look over to him now, licking honey from his caller’s ear and wonder how he knew to pick those boots ahead of time. And who could be so angry with Manny?

For Diane, with Love

On your birthday I engraved a heart on the bench in the park.

I did it spontaneously, without any plan.

A bit out of ordinary for me, to do that, I may say.

There was something new in the air, a new shade of purple or red or blue in the sky.

I am not sure.

There was something warm in the cool breeze that was messing with my hair.

I remember the feeling,

I don't remember the facts.

It was that feeling that took my hand and drew the heart.

I wouldn't know who or how or why drew the other hearts;

every day I would see many new ones.

It makes me smile, it is so like you: to inspire and to create this happy place.

I love you Diane, happy (belated) birthday!