A Little Secret

Imaginary Authors A Little Secret opens like a slice of cherry pie still cooling on the windowsill, marzipan and dark sugar worked into the crust. A few minutes later the sweetness steps back and patchouli opens underneath it, earthy and bitter, and the perfume stops being dessert. The fragrance takes its story from a novel about Cleo Gordon, a woman who outgrew her mountain town a long time ago. Better looking and better read than anything that town has to offer, and more curious than is good for her. Instead of giving in, she starts writing down everything that still makes a day worth having. A slice of cherry pie and black coffee after it. A waterfall roaring somewhere in a night so dark you cannot see your own hand. She calls them Life’s Little Luxuries and argues that this is what wealth actually measures. The smell lands between an old roadside diner and the black forest behind it. Sweet at first, with something much darker beneath, exactly like Cleo, who nobody can decide is brilliant or out of her mind.

Notes: Rainier cherry, marzipan, patchouli, saffron, demerara sugar, rum-soaked tonka, pastry crust