Don't Shoot! I'm Just the Avon Lady! (10 page)

I ran my right hand through my hair in a self-conscious gesture and tried to suck in my stomach. “Well I don’t have time for the park. I have to get the Avon done. I still have fifty brochures to pass around and order day is Monday. It never ends, Ulak. But here! Take the boys and the dog, they’ll love it.”

Ulak shook his head No and pointed to the newsprint. His bushy eyebrows met in the center as he frowned. “It says it’s a nature preserve now. You should go too. You look like you haven’t had much fresh air lately. When was the last time you just did something relaxing?”

He’s right
, I thought.
I’m spending too much time trying to control the universe and make things happen
. I shoved on my sneakers, grabbed Suzie and the good blue leash and stuffed a few plastic grocery bags in my back pocket to clean up any dog doo, and jumped in Ulak’s car. I grabbed a handful of my Avon business cards, too, in the event any women were wandering around the park looking like they could use some blush or hand cream.

Ulak drove us past the Skull Hill development and into the stark volcanic valley. I didn’t realize my town saved 480 acres surrounding the tallest peak for recreational use. Ulak explained this as we rode, told us how the park surrounds a little mountain called San Francisco Peak and an old decaying reservoir dam from the 1940s. It’s not used anymore, he said, except by fishermen avoiding their wives on Sunday afternoons. We slid into another division of similar modular homes and Ulak came to a stop along the edge of the street.

We walked on a thin cement access path between two new homes, past the tall concrete walls circling the division, into a patch of wet grassland. The mountain loomed in the distance, and I could see the ancient volcanic cone exposed along the south rim, the rest rocky and sandy, not a speck of living vegetation gracing its sides.

Ulak told me he looked the park up on the internet and found a map with hiking trails.

“We can walk around the reservoir, then climb the mountain and come down the other side. It will only take an hour. You’ll feel better, Birdie.”

I could see the small lake stretched out in front of us. Much of the grasslands were muddy and wet from the rainstorm. The trail up the mountain looked steep but accessible. I glanced at the jungle foliage at the foot of the hill on the return side. I didn’t see any trails, only run-off water and reeds and a thicket at least a half-mile wide. The boys ran ahead, climbed rocks and sand hills and splashed in every single puddle they could find. The dog lurched on the leash, pulling me up the hill, sniffing the fragrant velvet leaves of black sage and the tiny orange blossoms of monkey flower, and much sooner than I expected we stood at the top of San Francisco Peak. The ocean spread her wings before us, such a salty revolving eagle, and I tried to find my house among the square specks organized in unnatural curves and rows at our feet.

An older woman waited at a curve in the trail. She stood against a graffiti-scarred oak, her right arm wound with a brown leather leash that pulled a Chihuahua. A grossly overweight Chihuahua. An enormously grossly overweight Chihuahua. The little dog stared defiantly at his owner, hind feet pressed into the dirt. That is, I thought his feet were pressed into the dirt, but the overhang of his golden belly made him look as though his owner were dragging a World Record-sized stuffed sausage along the ground.

“Just step around Bootsie! He needs to exercise but he hates it. You have a lovely trim dog.”

The woman spoke with a thick Swedish accent. She leaned over to pat Susie between the ears. The dogs touched noses, sniffed butts and conducted dog business.

“Bootsie? That’s a cute name.”

I squatted, scratched the fat pup near his tail. I gave Marty and Louie a warning glance. Louie turned his back to us, and I heard him clear his throat to cover laughter. Ulak hovered behind us with a neutral expression, a model of Turkish propriety.

“Are you hiking to the top? The view is incredible. Incredible! The trail continues around the back side of the mountain and back to the parking lot, you know.”

The woman pointed up as if we were hiking toward Heaven. She wore expensive high-tech hiking shorts above the most muscular calves I ever saw, and ankle-high leather boots with small steel cleats. Her short gray hair stuck out in gentle gelled spikes.

“But it
is
getting late. You might have a difficult time finding the trail if you keep hiking after dark.”

We waved goodbye and headed up the hill. Louie muttered something under his breath about applying Avon Pro-Extreme Ab Cream to the Chihuahua.

“Mom!” Marty yelled even though I walked next to him. “Can Avon make that fat dog skinny again?” I quickly stuck my hand over his mouth and coughed.

“Oh, that dog was just
muscular
. You know. Like his owner. They look like a sporty couple!” I didn’t dare glance behind me!

It would have been a perfect and invigorating ending to a crappy day, if only we did the smart thing and stop at the top, then retrace our steps to the car. But Ulak pressed on, pointed to a dirt rock trail cascading in switch-backs down the other side of the mountain.

“That Swede. Birdie. She said the trail continues to the car park.” Ulak kept hiking.

“But it’s getting dark! She said we might not be able to find our way back!”

I looked uneasily at the sky, at the way the sun was about to fall into the mouth of the sea below us, leaving me, a crazy coffee salesman Turk, two young boys and a fluffy white sissy dog in utter darkness. The trail faded to nothing, faded to a tableau of bitchy mother, whining children, clueless dog and studious Turk.

“Ulak! We’re lost! I can’t see anything! The trail must be around here somewhere but I don’t see it. Hell, there’s a river in the way. Look! Look at it!” I pointed to a swollen creek in our path, no footbridge in sight. “Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.” I stuck my hands on my hips.

“Birdie. The children. Watch your language.” Ulak stage-whispered. He examined the sky, but the light pollution of So Cal swallowed any navigational aids.

“We could build a raft and float across.” Louie stooped over, picked up an anemic branch. “Shouldn’t be too difficult.” He continued collecting bramble.

I looked at Ulak. Ulak looked at Louie as if considering the idea. Only Marty had the presence of mind to say the obvious.

“Geeze. What a stupid idea.”

We hiked and prayed and hiked some more, two hours more, through hidden streams and slick marsh, over canyon ledges and into jarring dangerous ravines. The whole time I cursed Ulak and his great ideas.

“Ulak, I swear, if we ever get out of this alive I am NEVER doing ANYTHING you suggest again!” I held both boys’ hands in mine, as tight as I could, as Ulak held onto Suzie’s leash. He didn’t lash back at me, didn’t raise his voice, only pointed and wondered if the next eroded ridge held our salvation.

“Let’s try this break in the brush, maybe the road is here.”

I decided I should leave a trail in the event someone needed to trace our steps. I tore my Avon business cards into bite sized pieces and let them flutter to the ground behind us. We finally came upon a drainage ditch winding down to our feet from some height. We climbed into the ditch and trudged, aching leg past aching leg, to the top, to a small residential street I didn’t recognize. I dug into my mud-splattered jeans and pulled out my cell phone and dialed “911.”

Half an hour later a kind police officer with a bald head and a donut paunch pulled to the curb and let us in the back of his squad car. The four of us sat on the hard molded prisoner seats, the dog spread out on our laps, and the officer laughed at our plight. We ended up seven miles from Ulak’s car, all the way to the town next door.

As we left the police car I shook hands with our kind savior. I fished in my pocket but only had half an Avon card left, the half with my telephone number.

“Officer, I know this may sound strange, and I know I sure don’t look the part, but I’m an Avon Lady. Here’s my number, if you have a wife or girlfriend who would like a brochure.” I handed him the torn, muddy card. He nodded his head and stuck it on the dashboard, and zoomed off into the dark night.

Soggy Bottoms

My favorite local beach goes by the name “Warm Waters.” If you’ve ever been to any Southern California beach, you know how funny that name is. Even on the doggiest dog days of August, the water doesn’t tip seventy degrees. But this beach sits between the two jetties of the seaside power plant, and the hot steam pumped into the ocean creates a tiny pocket of surf several degrees warmer than the surrounding area.

I plunked my Avon sample bag on a faded beach towel and watched Marty and Louie dive into the waves. I spread out on my towel, belly to the ground, and propped up on elbows, Avon brochure in hands. The beach is always crowded on a holiday weekend, and I thought maybe people would notice my reading material and ask if I sold Avon. I stuck a Sun Sport sunscreen spray in the sand at a provocative angle, an Avon lighthouse. I blew up the Sun Sport inflatable beach ball and tossed it to the kids. Half an hour later no one had said a peep, and I grew tired of staring at the nail polish and body spa products and stuck the book in my bag.

Marty and Louie dragged sticks in the sand, building a network of roads around their sand castle. They collected tiny iridescent clam shells and pieces of shiny tan kelp, and made a gas station, amusement park, and petting zoo. I only knew what these last bits were because they kept a running dialogue going as they shoveled and patted and watered. One piece of driftwood was a dinosaur, a Raptor, and he stomped toward the castle, ready to attack.

I closed my eyes and attempted to conjure up ideas for my weekend Avon yard sale.
Maybe I should offer face painting for kids? Maybe create some kind of free raffle for one of the new products
. My mind kept drifting like the smooth pieces of beach wood my boys plucked from the sea for their living diorama.
One foot is in the land of Avon and the other is about to leap over Niagara Falls
, I thought.

Early that morning I met with an adoption reunion issues specialist while the boys attended swim lessons. She sat on an overstuffed black leather couch and patted the cushion beside her. She smelled like vanilla and musk. I wanted to ask her if she ever tried the Avon fragrances, but I bit my tongue.

“Sit down, Birdie. I know we spoke on the phone, but I want to hear the story again in person.” I sat perfectly still, as if any movement might cause a windy gust that would push me back out the door.

“There are tissues on the table if you need them.” I sat, my back perfectly straight, my hands tightly grasping a wrinkled manila envelope containing the Catholic Charities release of information forms that came in the morning mail. I opened my mouth to speak but no words fell into the space between us. I handed her the package. It was damp from my palms. She set the papers on the table and gave me an encouraging smile. My pulse raced. I took a deep breath.

“That call put a spell on me. It threw me into the memories of the past and into some unknown path ahead of me. I don’t know what to do or what to say.”

I continued, told her the story once more, how I hadn’t figured out how to tell my birth daughter about her paternity if I decided to meet her, how I kept thinking of my own father. At the age of eighteen, he flunked out of college. Smoking and drinking and gambling took the place of studying and classes, and my father left school in disgrace. The first in his family to make it through high school, my father couldn’t tell my custodian grandfather and shoe factory worker grandmother that he failed. He ran away and joined the Army, and romanced and married my mother while he was stationed at Fort Knox.

He never touched a cigarette, never picked up a beer while we were growing up. When my father first told me this story my first thought was “so what.” He had made something of himself, had worked hard in the Army, worked his way through school, and had a Ph.D. in education by the time I found out. None of those months so long ago had any bearing on where he was at that moment. But as I watched my father tell the story, I saw the shame in his eyes, and behind the sparse words I knew there was much more I would never hear.

We have only this moment. I know this now; know this because of long nights lying awake in emotional pain. I know this because of long days walking railroads and dropping brochures. I know this. But like my dad, I keep thinking of the past and the ways I wish it were different. I have to tell
myself
“so what” now. So what. It was a long time ago. It happened. I grew past it, through it, because of it. My daughter will understand.

The counselor cleared her throat.

“Birdie, every minute you spend in the future or the past is a minute you subtract from your life here and now. Let’s take this one day at a time. You don’t need to notarize those papers today. Give it a week or two. You may decide to change your mind.”

She leaned back and placed her hands behind her head. Her expensive knit brown sweater rose, exposing a sliver of firm, tanned belly. I subconsciously yanked the hem of my purple t-shirt as far down as it would go.

“And Birdie, it really is true – you gave this young woman life. You didn’t have to, but you did. What happened to you wasn’t your fault or your decision. But you
can
control what happens next. Don’t allow Catholic Charities to pressure you. I’ll call the social worker if you like. I want you to be gentle with yourself. Take your time, Birdie. Give it at least a week or two.”