If you don’t count my grandmother’s crushed velvet bedspread or the beaded doorway of the bedroom of the prostitute who lived across the street, my life at age fifteen was largely devoid of glamour. I was just learning about perfume, and I’d saved enough from babysitting to buy a bottle of Babe, but I scouted the mall for something more sophisticated, something people who had passports and ate caviar might wear. Then, one day at the mall, I discovered Chanel.
A saleswoman placed testers of Chanel Nos. 5, 19, and 22 on the glass-topped counter, but she pushed the bottle of No. 22 forward. “I think you’ll like this one,” she said. To me, Chanel fragrances were the epitome of chic. They didn’t need an elaborate bottle or television ads of a man pretending to be a prince in a puffy shirt to signal quality. I ended up buying the No. 22 bath oil. The oil was fragrant and much less expensive than the Eau de Toilette. (The prostitute had been terrible about paying her babysitting bill.) The inside of my wrists and behind my ears were well moisturized that year…
