No, Fred and Lucy never went to Paris. I
don’t think my father ever went farther than Wildwood, N.J. in his 90+ years.
My mother on the other hand had visited her sister Anna on several occasions
when Anna lived in Oklahoma. Mom also spent time in Reno when applying for her
divorce from Fred before moving to Napa California with her boyfriend. Long
story and I don’t want to talk about this part of my childhood on the blog.
What I do want to talk about is the perfume that I had always associated with
my mother when I was growing up and...after she left.
My mother loved using Evening in Paris. It was for a long time her favorite perfume. I remember Jane, little Lucy and I sneaking into our parent’s bedroom when they were busy working in the family grocery store and investigating my mother’s stuff.
Mom had a vanity set that was to die for.
It looked like something right out of the movies and this is where Mom would
sit and put on her make-up and jewelry. She kept her bottle of perfume on the
top shelf of the vanity and we three girls would spritz the perfume on our neck
after we would put on Mom’s makeup.
Evening in Paris had a strong scent, at
least to me, and even though I wasn’t particularly fond of the scent, I still
spritzed. When we three sisters were done spritzing and putting on makeup, we
would pull out mom’s fancy slips and make believe we were famous actresses.
Sometimes we’d forget to wash off the
perfume and makeup before heading downstairs for dinner. Mom would ask, “Were
you touching my stuff again?”
“No??” we lied, but I think the smell and
the rouge gave us away.
“That’s expensive perfume. Don’t touch it,”
she’d counter every time.
Recently someone sent me some photos about
the old days. I shared them on a blog. One of the photos was a bottle of
Evening in Paris. I thought about my mom. She stopped using Evening in Paris
way before she took off to Reno. I think she was using Channel # something or
other; it really doesn’t matter.
On one of my sister Lucy’s and my visits to
Napa, we were in Jane’s kitchen having coffee with mom. I don’t know how we got
on the conversation of perfumes, but when Jane, Lucy and I began laughing about
our ritual of playing movie stars with mom’s belongings; my mother denied ever
using Evening in Paris. “You’re all crazy. I didn’t use that cheap shit.”
“Yes, you did!” we countered in unison. Mom
was in her mid to late stages of dementia by then, but we hadn’t picked up on
how bad it was at that time. We just thought she was being “Lucy”.
Even though hostile to each other while alive, my mom along with Fred decided to spend
their afterlife in my attic. I don’t know why except my dad’s commode is up
there, and in their old age before they died, they both considered bowel
evacuation as the highlight of the day. It probably has something to do with
old age. I hope I don’t get like that, but I told my daughter that if I ever started
talking about bowel movements, she is to put me on a block of ice and send me
out to sea. It would be time “To Flow.”
So my parents are haunting my house and I’m
perfectly fine with it. They help me with my Fred and Lucy stories; not too
crazy about my zombie stories. Anyway...when I looked at that photo of Evening
in Paris, I heard mommy say, “I did use it.”
And just for a moment, a blink of an eye second as time stood still, I smelled the perfume.
And just for a moment, a blink of an eye second as time stood still, I smelled the perfume.
