Chicken Soup for the Soul: A Bottle of Cologne

Chicken Soup for the Soul: True Love

BY: Toni Somers

Grow old with me! The best is yet to be.
~Robert Browning


The bottle sits on my bathroom counter next to my comb and brush. It is three-quarters empty now. "Casaque by Jean d'Albret" proclaims the label, its blue color faded over forty years.

I use my special cologne sparingly now and only on very important occasions, because there will be none to replace it when these last few precious drops are gone.

It is the second bottle of this particular scent that I have owned. Jack gave me the first bottle... a very small one... on our first anniversary.

I'd heard the sound of the noisy muffler on our old maroon Ford and the crunch of its worn tires on the gravel of our driveway. He'd come home from his medical school classes early that Wednesday afternoon many years ago. After pausing for a moment to sniff his appreciation for the pie I had cooling on the kitchen windowsill, he handed me a small paper sack.

"Happy anniversary, honey! I brought you something special."

"Special and expensive, I think! The bag says Suzanne's. You know we can't afford anything from there."

"I can't afford NOT to give something special to the world's most beautiful bride. Especially for one who baked such a wonderful-smelling dessert for our anniversary dinner."

His arms circled my waist and he untied the strings on my apron.

"Now come in here and sit down and open my present."

He led me into the only other room in our tiny apartment and sat beside me on the worn old sofa.

My hands trembled as I took a small package from the bag. I hesitated to disturb the artistry of the elegant gold foil wrapping paper and black velvet ribbon.

"Open it, honey. Open it."

"But I thought we agreed to save the money for your tuition and not get each other anything," I protested somewhat half-heartedly.

"Open it, honey," Jack persisted.

The lovely wrappings fell away to reveal a bottle of French cologne. I knew it must be very expensive. I held it to my nose and smelled the most delicate odor I could ever imagine.

"Oh, Jack! It's heavenly! I'll never wear any other cologne as long as I live."

Looking down at my faded blue jeans and ugly, ragged tennis shoes, I wondered if I would ever be worthy of this marvelous scent. I would certainly try.

I used my precious Casaque carefully and sparingly over those early years of our marriage. Even after Jack's medical school and postgraduate training were completed and our life was easier financially, still, I was frugal. Even when we had a new sofa in a big, new house and five children to fill that house, I continued to jealously guard my fragrant treasure, a symbol of the foolishly extravagant love of a young husband.

And then one day three-year-old Jim drank my precious Casaque!

The day had been depressing because of the gloom and the rain. The new puppy had kept me awake half the night with his whining and barking. And I had just looked in the refrigerator to find we were out of milk. I went into my bedroom to get my purse and car keys only to discover that Jim had drunk my Casaque! The evidence was clear. He was sitting on the floor holding the empty bottle, his lips were wet, and he was making an awful face.

"Jack, come quick," I wailed. "Can cologne hurt the baby? Jim just drank the rest of the bottle of my Casaque!"

"It's mostly just alcohol, honey," Jack reassured me. "But we'll take him to the ER just to be sure."

Little Jim was fine, and my concern for my child assuaged, I now mourned my empty cologne bottle.

"Don't worry, hon. We can afford another bottle."

A few weeks later Jack came home, again with an elegantly wrapped package... this time a much larger bottle of my beloved scent.

"Sorry it took me a while to replace it. The lady at Suzanne's had to order it from Kansas City. They don't sell a whole lot of it anymore."

Though life was good and worries about tuition payments and cars with noisy mufflers were long past, I prized my new bottle of Casaque as much as I had the earlier one and used it with care bordering on parsimony. Still, one day it reached the half-empty mark, and I thought it best to get another bottle. It might have gotten even harder to obtain than it had been years ago.

The young lady at the counter at Suzanne's smiled what I'm sure she considered a charitable smile as she said, "Casaque? We haven't had any of that for years now. In fact, I don't think there is even a Jean d'Albret maker any more. We have some other lovely scents for a woman of your age, though."

"Is Miss Suzanne here? Maybe she knows how to order it. She got some for me a few years ago... from Kansas City, I think."

"It must have been quite a few years ago. Miss Suzanne has been dead for five years. The shop is now owned by her son George."

Time goes so quickly. One day I look at the cologne bottle and there isn't much left. I've been so careful of it over the years. Jim and his four siblings are all grown now. He is a successful lawyer and doesn't drink cologne anymore. He has moved on to more sophisticated drinks. Jack's hair has grown gray. He goes fishing and spends time surfing the Internet and would still buy large bottles of Casaque for me if Jean d'Albret still existed. I think he is perhaps even foolish enough to think I'm still a beautiful bride.

My bottle of Casaque is not three-quarters empty. It is still one-quarter full. Perhaps at over seventy years of age... if I'm very careful... I can count on using it for the rest of my life.

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