Don't Shoot! I'm Just the Avon Lady! (20 page)

“Excuse me, Ma’am?” It was more of a command than a question, a rough and ready voice with a hint of an Asian accent coming from behind a bushy pepper tree.

“Huh?” I cocked my head to see who was speaking and watched a mailman round the tree and shift his bag slightly on his shoulders. He was my height and beefy, and he wore tiny wire glasses with circular lenses.

“If you leave anything else in that box I will have to report you to my authorities.”

I yanked open the mailbox and grabbed the brochure. My boys stopped bickering for a millisecond. Louie stepped off the lawn and inched closer to me. I smiled at him so he wouldn’t worry, then addressed the mailman with a determined expression.

“See? It’s just an Avon brochure. The lady of the house asked me to leave it here for her. I leave it here every other week. We have an arrangement. I’m not spamming her mailbox. She asked me to leave this. It’s Ok with her.” I waved the book at him as I explained, speaking faster and faster and higher and higher until my voice took on the squeak of a mouse at the end.

“I don’t care if she’s the Queen of Spain. It’s against Federal Postal Law to tamper with the US Postal Service. Next time I report you. It’s a seventy-five dollar fine for each offense plus postage on the offending materials.”

He opened the white and black bag imprinted with his work god’s logo and angrily shoved a handful of bills and sanctioned fliers into the box. It closed with a hearty thunk, and he turned his heel and walked to the next grand metal mail fortress.

I wanted to ask him if his bag contained a letter for me, some news of my daughter. I counted the days backward on my fingers. Two weeks exactly since I overnighted my acceptance documents.
Why did she wait? I waited
, I realized.
I waited. I waited for clarity and the understanding that acceptance may not come. Maybe she has the same fears
. A lizard slipped past my flip-flops and slunk into the grass.

We wandered past the Laundarama. You’d think with a name like that they’d have bright lights, coffee, vending machines, video games and soft chairs, but it’s as utilitarian a coin-operated laundry as you can find in the free world. Aging avocado-colored washing machines form two parallel lines down the center of the facility, and dryers that barely heat line the walls, half of them permanently taped shut with silver duct tape. Patrons fight to rest in one of the three sagging metal folding chairs. A big tub of alphabet cookies sits on the folding table. The same tub has been gathering dust for four years. I wonder if anyone ever reaches in for a snack.

A man with a pencil-thin moustache and a blue denim shirt leaned over a broken washer with a wrench.

“Excuse me, sir, can I leave some Avon samples and brochures for your clients?” I turned to give the boys the evil eye. Marty and Louie climbed out of the laundry cart with a sheepish grin.

Moustache Man raised one eyebrow and pointed a middle finger at the folding table. His index finger was missing, only a stub at the first knuckle remained.

“Yeah, lady, you can leave them on that table.”

I left ten in a neat stack and made a note to return tomorrow to see if any brochures remained. The boys ran out the door and swung around a light pole. I stepped outside, then stooped to tie a sneaker lace and a pile of mini-lipsticks fell out of the kilt side pocket. As I scrambled to pick them up, I glanced in the laundry window. A short woman in a white sweat suit trimmed in pink and gray picked up my Avon brochures and dumped them in the trash.

She pulled a stack of glossy books from her canvas tote and plumped them in place of my brochures. The pants of her suit were capris, and she wore new Nikes with gold laces. She turned around and headed back to the washers, stopping to open a machine and add fabric softener. I watched her and her fancy sweat suit and expensive shoes close the lid to the machine and head back to the restroom. Who did she think she was?

While she did her business, I ran back in the Laundarama, and stood in front of the table to see what she left. A neat stack of Mary Kay books. I picked one up to study. They had the heady smell of perfume and were stamped with positive affirmations like “Be Your Own Boss” and “Easy Money!” and “You Can Retire Early!” I grabbed the Mary Kay books, shoved them down my kilt, and grabbed my Avon brochures out of the trash and ran out the door. My boys hooted Hooray!

Two men in jeans and blue work shirts leaned against the outer Launderama wall. They smoked generic cigarettes and closed their eyes with each breath, two uneven twins. They didn’t notice us waltz into the building, and when we left, they stood still as statues, the only life moving through them a line of wispy gray smoke.

These men are like this town
, I thought.
Old and worn. Alive enough to smoke, but covered in grime and no open eyes, just a trail of toxic vapor, my lazy Avon town.
A few years back the residents voted to build a theatre district, to restore the original downtown, to bring ice cream and hot wings and Starbucks to the people, create a buzz, get the bad weeds out of town. They managed to get the fancy coffee and a multiplex cinema, but the place still reeked, still looked tired and frayed, and the citizens rarely venture to the renovated district, leaving it for hillbilly Avon Ladies like me.

I wanted to treat the boys to a cup of juice or lemonade. Nothing was open. A new Yoga studio meditated alone. The dancing bar sat closed, an iron gate locked shut with a black metal band. We quit looking and started back for my car when I saw a white wooden door open in front of me.

“Hey, come on in, come on in!”

A short man with gray curly hair and an impish grin smiled and shooed us inside. Three computers in booths glowed silent in a row against one white wall, small tables and chairs against the other.

“I’m closed, but you looked like you wanted to take a look around. This is my place; I started it six months ago. I’m here late most days, I have a lot to do.”

He spoke quickly, with a New York accent, and he shuffled along the floor like a man on skates. His breath smelled of alcohol and I looked around the room for empty beer cans.

“Hey, you ever try gelato? You gotta try this, it’s amazing stuff.”

He pointed to a glass freezer display and ran behind it.

“What flavor you want to try? You guys like chocolate?”

We nodded yes in unison, and accepted a spoonful of creamy cocoa gelato each. It tasted like dark cocoa mixed with sweet cream, and I smiled and mmmmmmed and tossed the spoon in the small plastic bucket at my feet. The boys licked their spoons until no molecules remained.

“Wow, that was great! Hey, my name is Birdie. You have a great coffee shop, this is beautiful!”

It wasn’t really beautiful, but it was quirky and clean, and the gelato was terrific. He told me his name was Marty and he chose the tiny yellow Italian tiles for the floor himself. He pointed to two pieces of art made of hammered metal on the wall and told me they came from Iran. He wore a long sleeve t-shirt and baggy shorts, and his belly jiggled when he talked.

“And over here, this is where I am going to put in a microphone and stage for poetry readings.”

Marty built a grand New York coffee house before my eyes, by running his hand along the wall and acting out baristas and patrons and hot singles singing Karaoke. He showed me the back yard where a patio would be fashioned out of wood and folding tables, and gave me a menu to take home.

I wanted to leave and find something to drink, didn’t want to ask tipsy Marty, but he looked like he needed a friend, and so we stood for a long while, listening to him tell me about the dirt that wouldn’t leave his windows and how he used to have more computers but the internet cafe business went bust when the library opened up free web access.

Everyone has a story
, I thought, as Marty pointed to pictures and deserts. I wondered what stories my daughter had, whether she’d tell them to me, grace me with the winding road she walked between the past and our future. I realized with a start that Marty was alone in the same ways I was – alone with a dream, a small business, the crazy in and out of disconnected customers, disconnected stories.
My life doesn’t allow continuity
, I pondered.
It leaves me gathering tiny pieces of discarded glitter from every person I meet. I have to build my own tiara. Everyone has a dream, even if it doesn’t match their crazy toxic town. The best dreams
, I thought as he waved goodbye,
are those you tell other people.
We walked the dirt trail between the subdivision canyons home. Home to my house full of unspoken dreams.

XXX

I sat on the tile kitchen floor building card houses with Marty before bed. We added a second tier to our creation. Louie stood in the doorway, watching us. He pressed his hands together as if in prayer. My cell phone rang but I ignored it. Louie lunged for the counter and flipped my cell open.

“Hi. This is Birdie’s son. May I help you?” I added another card to the structure. Marty lay on his stomach to get a better view.

“Uh huh. Thursday. 50. I think my mom will remember you.” Louie wrote something on a memo pad and clicked the phone shut. He held the note in his hand for a long time.

Louie cleared his throat.

“Uh, mom? You gotta bring that lady 50 more hand creams to the train station Thursday. Same time as last time. You gonna wear a bullet proof vest this time? Between that Mary Kay lady and the mailman threatening you today and you almost getting arrested a few weeks ago, I think you should consider another line of work.” His brow furrowed. The ceiling fan twisted, cast a tornado shadow against his body. “I’m serious, mom. I never know what’s gonna happen next.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him where I was headed after the babysitter arrived. I gathered up a handful of the latest Avon brochures, fifty of the new Avon Men’s Catalogues, a bag of men’s Ab Cream samples, and my demo bottle of the brand new Today fragrance and drove down to San Diego, to the fanciest strip club in the county. At least I thought it must be the fanciest because it had the biggest ads in the alternative paper with headlines that read “Sexiest Girls!” and “Voted Best Gentlemen’s Club!”

I ripped the ad out of the paper before I left home and stood stark naked for a long time in front of my paltry closet. I heard the boys and babysitter playing Parchessi at the kitchen table. I wondered what one wears to a strip club. Jeans? A dress? Nah, something artsy. I settled on my utility kilt and baby blue knee socks and a form-fitting black t-shirt and the gray leather cowboy boots my parents gave me on my last birthday. I stuck two pink barrettes in my hair, the kind that have rhinestone sparkles, and added a silver marcasite Avon watch, earrings, ring, and necklace set. I thought I looked hot for a mom, but as I left the house Louie shook his head.

“Geeze, mom, Halloween isn’t for a few months.”

Maybe he’s right
, I thought as I drove down the freeway, past the auto mall road pock-marked with endless dealerships, past the exit to Sea World. I removed the barrettes and necklace and set them on the passenger seat next to the newspaper ad. Never a cover charge for ladies! Prime rib dinners! I imagined the club, imagined thick brass dancing poles and a black marble stage and small round tables full of men in elegant business suits smoking cigars, drinking, watching tall lithe women with tassels and long straight hair wiggle and dip to rhythm and blues. I would ask one of the dancing girls if I could follow her backstage and give her a spritz of Today. I would walk through the smoky haze of the club and leave a Men’s Catalogue on each table with a handful of Ab Cream samples. I would flirt and giggle and use my bedroom voice and whip my official order pad out of my front kilt pocket when a man looked willing. I would leave a stack of books with the club host along with a thank you bottle of Wild Country cologne. I turned east on the freeway that runs past Old Town and continued picturing my perfect strip club Avon evening, and by the time I pulled my old minivan into the parking lot, I was counting hundreds of dollars in imaginary Men’s Catalogue commissions.

I stuffed the samples in my back kilt pocket and grabbed my purse. I brought the Avon denim shoulder bag, the one with the applique flowers and patches, the one that could hold seventy-five brochures without complaining, and slung it across my left shoulder. I stuck the bottle of Today in my side pocket, adding three inches to my hips. I locked the van door and headed toward the door… only to see a line of women at least twenty-five bodies long waiting for admission.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” I tapped the woman at the end of the line on her right shoulder. “What’s going on tonight? Why are so many women in line? Where’s all the men?”

She turned around to look at me, but her eyes were drawn to my bag and then my hips. She wore a smart red t-shirt and tight low-rise jeans, high-heeled pointy boots on her feet. She carried a gift-wrapped box tied with a golden ribbon in one hand, a chic velvet clutch in the other.

“It’s ladies night. You know? The male strippers?” She turned back around to chat with four other women carrying presents, and I followed them toward the club.

I stared at all the women waiting in line. Most seemed part of small connected party groups, and I heard one woman in a tight denim jumpsuit unzipped to
there
squeal “Happy Birthday” to a friend. I listened to the group in front of me talk about an upcoming wedding, bridesmaids dresses, flowers, and men. Men, men, men. The women lining up behind me were no different. Men, men, men. Men doing wrong. Cute men. Bad men. Hairy men. Tight-ass men.