To this day, if I close my eyes, I can see (and hear) (and smell) my mother clearly as she methodically dressed in the mornings…all the while clarifying for her inquisitive daughter, the reasoning behind each undergarment.
“A proper lady always wears a girdle, garter belt, and stockings,” she would say.
Next, she would reach for the delicate white lace “full slip”…never a half slip…heavens to Betsy no. Then, this is where it gets good…she would choose a spotless linen handkerchief from the top drawer of her Birdseye maple dresser, put an undisclosed sum of folded green paper money in the middle and tie the handkerchief tightly around it. The next step was to pin it securely inside her brassiere…never a “bra.”
“This is a Southern lady’s best kept secret,” she whispered.
After slipping into a sheer flowered summer dress and smoothing her hair one last time, she would carefully reach for her transparent glass perfume bottle adorned with a crystal jeweled dabber cap. Ever so gently, she would dab the sweet-smelling perfume behind each ear and on the inside of each wrist. Always in exactly the same spots. Then she would turn to me and smile.
“You’ll be a grown-up lady soon so I think you should start smelling like one.” And she would dab the perfume in exactly the same spots on me.
Sadly, my mother’s dressing routine was quelled by Alzheimer’s, but we still continued the perfume ritual. And for a brief moment, her eyes reflected that same familiar tenderness as we dabbed the sweet-smelling perfume in all the right places.
