Perfume and Politics

A quartet of women, all the wrong side of sixty, stand around a beaten-up SUV in a glow of their own making as well as light spilling from the glittering interior behind them. Their shadows cavort. They are gleeful, like teenagers discussing the cute new boy in math class, or eight-year olds released from school. The air is perfumed by an array of scents emanating from their bare arms. From musky to sweet, floral to citric, their noses crinkle in delight or dislike. The same scent smells different on each of them. Chemistry, an active ingredient that comes both from the ornate bottles spritzed onto their wrists and their friendship. 

Laughter surrounds them as they display their purchases, boxes of perfume that could last them their lifetime, on the sea-and-sun-ragged vehicle. A mascara rolls down the slope of the hood, caught before it reaches the tarmac of the parking lot. 

Lyrics from the songstress perched on a barstool, playing her guitar, mingles with the trade winds that cool them, even in the quadrangle of a low-slung strip mall. A melange of orange blossom, jasmine and cedar waft a myriad of aromas. The bonnet is also a table for loot from swag bags. Mont Blanc and Coach, Boss and Cellcosmet jostle for space as exclamations swirl amidst the mirth. Swaps are negotiated, generosity fills the night.

The quartet’s conversation quietens and turns to the master class in marketing just witnessed. Their instructor, Raymond Kattoura, Director of Purchasing for Duty Free Retail whose base is in Miami, is also the host for the opening of Rouge – St Croix’s latest high-end perfumery and luxury goods emporium, situated at Orange Grove Shopping Center. A seemingly lack-lustre choice lacking in the charm and beauty that makes up so much of St Croix. 

“The store is located,” he told them, “not in Christiansted along the Boardwalk or on King or Company Streets, because the company’s target market is people who live on island rather than tourists passing through.” The staff at Rouge, their black clothing a foil to the shimmering array of bottles, added to the ambience with not only their quiet guidance but a willingness to join in the laughter as wrists and arms were held out for another scent.

“The senses must be stimulated and comfort is a major factor. The body and brain feeling in harmony. Freedom to choose in a relaxed environment. Pleasant staff. Good lighting. And ease of parking contributes to the equation.” His goal achieved, Mr Kattoura’s last statement has added significance as the friends loiter around the car.

“Even if I’m dressed like a tramp,” says one of the women putting her new perfume back in the bag, “I want to smell good!”

Fueled by Prosecco and fed by Teddy, an event planner with flair, their evening ends and fond farewells are made.

“A luxury brand is about more than just products, it is about lifestyle and experiences too.” Raymond Kattoura’s words reverberate as one of the women, me, prepares for bed. Fun and friendship, even behind masks, help the four of us, all vaccinated, enjoy an evening out – the first in a long year. 

As my eyes close, I am glad I made a pact with myself during the turbulent year just past, when the airwaves and ether were filled with reports unconducive to sleep. I no longer listen to, watch or read any news before bedtime, and so words from a song from my long-gone youth drift in and I smile, Oh what a night!

Daylight filters through the loose-weave curtains and I come to a consciousness of dawn and Bonnie, the cat, yowling. As I wait for the kettle to boil she curls around my ankles but rejects the offer of a cuddle. I take my mug of tea to the gallery and rejoice in the glorious place I call home. An island that embraces any newcomer willing to be polite and open to idiosyncrasies unique to every individual place.

I am relaxed, happy.

I press my phone for CNN. It was my first mistake of the day.

I read of the travesty of voter suppression just signed into law in Georgia – the state not the country. I see images of Governor Brian Kemp surrounded by white, predominantly middle-aged, balding men looking over their masks and in front of a painting by Olessia Maximenko of Callaway Plantation. Now an open-air museum that tells of its inglorious former existence as a slave plantation where runaways were hunted by dogs, and in a state wherein the tyrannical Jim Crow laws, demanding segregation of public buildings and blocking the right to vote for Blacks, were embraced with complete disregard for human dignity – or, in easy language, White Supremacy.

Gone, in the swoop of the Governor’s signature, are the results of the Civil Rights era.

Gone, also, in handcuffs was State Representative Park Cannon who happens to be a Black woman, a Democrat knocking on the door of the staged signing asking to witness the travesty. She was arrested by white, uniformed men in Georgia, the state not the country, Troopers.

Heather Cox Richardson in her Letter from an American this morning wrote of South Carolina Senator James Henry Hammond who, in March, 1858 rejected “as ridiculously absurd” the idea that “all men are born equal.” He continued by warning that the ballot box was stronger than ‘an army with banners’ and that appears to be the belief of those currently in the Georgia administration.

The Military Reconstruction Act in 1867 began, Cox Richardson reminds us, to establish impartial suffrage which Maine politician, James G Blaine, wrote in 1893, “changed the political history of the United States.”

Yesterday in Georgia, the state not the country, Governor Kemp and his minions, began an attempt to change the face of the United States in 2021 back to the bad old days. 

All Americans, whatever colour, whatever political persuasion, should be incensed. 

The glee, the frivolity and joy, in the company of Black and white gone in a puff of perfume, and the stroke of a pen.

Oh what a night!