Don't Shoot! I'm Just the Avon Lady! Read online

  I wasn’t in the mood to knock on doors. I wasn’t in the mood for Avon, period. I should have been in the mood. Gas is expensive and children are expensive and I had but three days left in the campaign. But I couldn’t shake random memories from my mind. I thought about what happened twenty years ago – another lifetime. I was so young. I remember the doctor speaking to me.

  “Can you describe the rape to me?”

  I was silent.

  The hardest thing I ever went through was those nine months. I was alone in labor. I was alone for hours, and the nurse called me weak when I asked for pain medication.

  I wanted time with the baby after birth, but they wouldn’t let me have it. I only had a glimpse of her - dark eyes so green and alive like mine, dark wavy hair - before they snatched her away and sent her to live with a foster family until the adoptive parents signed the papers. They put me in the worst room of the maternity ward, a room cold and metallic, purely functional, without comfort, and I felt like I had done something terribly wrong. I was just a kid. I didn’t know I could ask for something better.

  The next day I lay still in my steel bed and they wheeled me into a cozy and cheerful room with another new mother. Friends and family came to admire her baby, bearing flowers and baby clothes, and candy. My stay was a secret from my family. They lived many miles away and my tongue refused to say the words when I talked to them on the phone. I lay alone. My body ached for my baby.

  A hospital worker in pink and blue came into the room and announced it was time for us to have our babies’ photographs taken, and I was too grief-stricken to explain. She kept telling me it was ok, it was free. She thought I didn’t have the money for the photographs, I looked so young and poor.

  I yearned to explain it, over and over again, to everyone I saw for weeks afterward. I had two stories: the real one, and my cover story that the baby died during birth. Retelling the rape each time I explained why my belly now appeared flat and why I had no baby in my arms tore at my heart and I was silent.

  I watched those brochures fly through the air and land on pebbles, stopped to pet a skinny yellow cat and walked the boys to the playground behind the school, did all of these things without thinking, a zombie momma trapped in another dimension. And all I could think and remember, when my brain finally reopened, while my boys swung higher than the trees, was that I had to keep moving forward. One brochure here. One sample there. Keep peddling my Avon. I could manage my business, and the summer, one lipstick at a time. I called my boys down from the equipment and gave them more samples and brochures to sprinkle like grass seed.

  Marty wore his green crocheted beanie. He stuffed samples inside and plunked it on his head. He refused to give out those samples.

  “I want them under my beanie, Mom.” He looked like an acorn, a fast loud running nut. He took three books at a time, and ran from house to house along his side of the street. Louie took the other side. I couldn’t keep up with them. I saw Marty drop behind a gnarly pepper tree and thought, “what the heck is he doing?” I held the straps of my backpack tight and ran to find him. The demonstration bottles slapped my back in time to my steps. I peered over an Aloe hedge, saw him stooped down, rubbing a sample packette on his shorts.

  “Hey, why are you doing that?” The ground was damp and gritty. Maybe the sample fell into the dirt. He turned his head up to me and looked with big brown innocent eyes. One of his hat samples poked out over one ear, and I pushed it back under his cap.

  “Oh this sample fell in the bird poop. I’m wiping it off. Don’t worry mom, this happened last week and it was alright.”

  Argh!

  I watched him fly down the street again, tossing paper against cobble-stoned drive, and shrugged my shoulders. I guess a little bird poop never hurt anyone.

  I called Shanna on my cell phone and chatted while I finished my rounds. I told her about my call from Catholic Charities and I asked her to come over for margaritas and comfort.

  “C’mon over tonight, please? I need to cry it out, Shanna. I don’t know how I’m going to get through this. I don’t know what to do. What would you do?”

  Shanna held her breath. I could hear her intake a lungful of air, keep it pressed into her chest as she thought. Marty and Louie wrestled each other to the ground on some strange pristine lawn, leapfrogged across it, then skirted a chained Pitbull at the next house.

  “I don’t know what I’d do. Probably nothing. I would leave it be. She has an adoptive mom and dad somewhere. That’s her family now. Maybe you could send her an anonymous letter telling her a little about your life and her half-siblings. Or not. It’s up to you. But yeah, I’ll come over. I have something that’ll take your mind off it.”

  As long as I’ve known Shanna she wanted no man, wanted no person to share her bed. Her dog and bike were her base comforts. Me too, some days. But something changed a few weeks past. I didn’t know what, exactly, only knew my friend grew restless, distant. She joined one of those online match-making websites and pestered me for help in writing her a catchy profile.

  “Make it sound smart, Birdie.” Shanna dragged a kitchen chair to my computer and looked over my shoulder as I typed. “Make sure you say I’m cute.”

  “Geeze, man, since when do you care about being cute? I thought we were the anti-cute twins? Remember that? You keep this up, I’ll have to get another sidekick.” I sighed as loud as I could, pretended to be upset, looked critically at Shanna’s grout-stained t-shirt and dog-hair-crusted leggings. “Um. I’m going to have to give you an Avon makeover if you want to be classified as cute. Besides, we’re both pushing 40. Really, we should be aiming for Luscious or Bewitching. Not Cute.”

  My hands hesitated over the keyboard. What the hell is cute, anyway? I caught a glimpse of myself in the glare of the monitor. Short fly-away brown hair, green oval eyes, a nose just shy of enormous. Regular. We’re both regular, I thought, regular and salty, forgotten, like the kelp tides, like the sage in the canyon hills, regular like any woman alone, unmatched. I felt the tug of the snap at the waist of my pants. Regular and chubby. I started to type.

  I did the best I could, stuck in adjectives like “independent” and “self-motivated” and “decisive.” I described her love for animals and environment, added lots of noise about her puritanical work ethic and a sprinkle of physical buzzwords like “red-headed” and “athletic” and “strong.” What the hell, I thought. Plus, I’m cute!

  “Oh, that’s a great ending! I love it!” Shanna gave me the thumbs up and peeled out my driveway, Hog smoke billowing a fog of hope.

  So when Shanna appeared that night, holding a bottle of Jose Cuervo and a couple of containers of Mexican take-out, I should have been prepared.

  “I got a date! I got a date! The ad worked!” She squealed with the reawakened spirit of a fifteen-year-old and the howl of a neighbor’s dog echoed in return.

  “Alright, girlfriend!” I took the booze in one hand, high-fived her with the other, and did a mini victory butt dance for my lonely friend.

  We ate on my couch, our feet propped on my Spanish pine coffee table, and she mooned over her potential boyfriend. I washed my enchiladas down with homemade margaritas and watched her speak. She spilled red chili down the front of her shirt. It made a pattern like a heart against the grout stains, and I pointed it out.

  “Looks like a love match to me. Even the burrito says so!”

  “Birdie, he loves horses. He drives a Harley! A Softail Fatboy! He plays drum in a Metallica tribute band! Oh my god, I think I’m in love! His name is Joel! Did I tell you he rides a Hog?”

  Wow, I thought. He sounds just like Shanna, only a guy. Perfect.

  “Well, kiddo. Burritos never lie.” I laughed, gave Shanna an extra napkin and sent a secret prayer to the universe that Joel might need some tile work done.

  “But Birdie! I need a makeover! You have to help me get ready for this date! It’s Thursday night!”

  So I agreed to meet Shanna at her house, to bring as
much Avon as my backpack would hold, to bring half my wardrobe, too, so she could choose something sexy, something not covered in powdered shards of tile. I made a mental note to bring facial foundation and mascara and duct tape, if necessary, to restrain Shanna if she resisted.

  “But, uh, Birdie. There’s one thing I have to tell you. Please promise me you won’t be mad, ok? Promise? We’re best friends, right?” Shanna’s voice cracked a bit, sounded more fragile than I ever remembered, and I wondered what could be wrong. Was her drummer-boy Joel married?

  “Sure, Shanna, don’t worry. We’ll always be best friends. You know that, man. What? Just spill it! I promise I won’t be upset.”

  But even with that cheerleading routine, even with Shanna as my best-friend-forever, I wasn’t prepared for what came next.

  “Thank God! I knew you’d understand! Here’s the deal. Joel has a friend and I told him the four of us could double date. His friend plays bass in the Metallica tribute band.”

  Never Forget This

  The next morning I left my boys at a neighbor’s home and walked among the daisies and radishes and fresh fish of the farmers’ market. I thought about Shanna’s upcoming date. Hell, our double date. Why did I agree to a blind romantic evening with mullet-headed men who play in a Metallica tribute band? I swore off Mexican food and margaritas forever as I contemplated making small talk with some motorcycle dude wearing leather and a bass-guitar strap. I stopped in front of a woman selling espresso out of a canvas-lined booth and inhaled the potent fumes. Better borrow Shanna’s heavy metal CDs and get a couple of bad-ass press-on tattoos.

  My head ached from the endless salt-rimmed drinks, from the dream-filled night where I tackled faceless demons, imploring them to return my life. My friend’s parting words irritated the space between my eyes like a festering boil.

  “Birdie, you don’t owe her anything. You gave her life – what more do you need to give her? Nothing. If you let her into your life, it will disrupt everything – everything! What are you going to tell the boys? What if she’s looking for money? You don’t have it, Birdie. You don’t have enough of anything to give her. Let it go. Be happy that she’s still alive.”

  Alive, alive, alive, alive. I’ve had a lifetime of alive, almost four decades of unthinking breath. My eyes wandered through the market. A couple with more tattoos than skin sat under a Eucalyptus tree with paper bowls of ice cream, watching their daughter chase boys. I stared at the blue patterns on their entwined arms: a Chinese fish, rings of Plumeria flowers, a woman’s face framed with flowing dark hair. What Avon cream is best for tattoos? I wondered.

  I remember being young like that. I’m like the old moms at my boys’ school now. We chat among ourselves, woman to woman. We don’t snuggle with men in public any more. We talk about Halloween parties and laundry stains. I mentioned my Avon business at the last PTA meeting of the academic year and passed out white business cards printed with a photo of lipsticks in a bouquet. I felt out of sync with these women, even though they were kind and took my cards and told me they would call to order something.

  I longed to wrestle in the shaded grass with a young man in tattooed skin, his arms around my waist as I laugh, whisper in his ear.

  “Never forget this!” I want to yell this to the young parents, to tell them to breathe the grass and sky and ice cream and remember.

  Years ago I was young like that, and oh-so-restless. I ran away to Puget Sound with my boyfriend. I found myself managing a Knights of Columbus trailer park on a dreary algae lake, far from the place I called home, with my parents’ frowns on my permanent record and no money to my name.

  I fell in lust with my lover’s red hair and sense of humor. He was four years older, and the son of an Air Force survivalist trainer. He could fix anything that was broken. He loved me because I was so different from any of his previous girlfriends. And I liked sex. We didn’t start as friends, became immediate lovers, and nothing else seemed to matter. His friends hated me, my gypsy style of dress, my loud hyena laugh, my way of discussing every subject to death. My friends hated him, the way he would emotionally withdraw, his silly puns, his love for dumb movies. Everyone pointed out we had nothing in common, but we rolled our eyes as countless other young couples have done.

  I cooked, I cleaned. I made flies for the fishermen who frequented our campground store. We rode the trailer park paddleboat around the lake every night. I even worked as a talking, dancing pig at the state fair. I loved being poor and struggling. We ate potatoes and green beans for an entire summer, and picked illicit strawberries at night when the farmer down the road was asleep. We walked the railroad tracks of western Washington in bare feet through the summer and fall. My parents’ disapproval didn’t matter to me. Life moved forward, and for a time the rumble beneath the surface of my heart seemed to fade like the roll of the cargo trains headed for Seattle in the distance.

  If those mystics are right, and you choose your own obstacles through many lifetimes, I picked my road this time around to be hidden and lumpy and snaking through dark sticky brambles, full of brochures left in doctor’s waiting rooms and stacked in neat piles next to DEET-enhanced bug sprays at wind-torn campground stores. I danced around town with two boys on an invisible leash. And all the while my heart sang songs about the way I was, the way I am, the way I might someday be, maybe a rich Avon Lady touring Thailand, or a broke Avon Lady eating peanut butter, maybe somebody between, maybe someone quite different.

  I thought about my old life, the times I wanted to quit and run. I remembered the winter the ground froze solid, insulating the earth from everything on the surface. Covered in long cotton underwear, multiple sweaters, hats, gloves, scarves tied around our faces, we were insulated from each other, relying on words to get our emotions across. The winter broke me, too cold to work, too cold to think, my dreams frozen, becoming icicles, eventually breaking free and shattering on the ground. My husband suggested a move to a warmer climate, someplace where work was plentiful and living was cheap, some place where we could awaken our dreams with the heat of the sun and the healing power of gentle rains.

  We pulled up our roots and transplanted to a southern city. I didn’t know why we chose this city. I’d never lived in a city before, with its constant car noise and exhaust fumes. I spent my days studying computer code in an urban apartment. I imagined a career in technology, tried to touch and taste it. We lived on the top level of a five-floor building, and mixed in with the angles and concrete and asphalt outside were sky-high magnolia trees and a shiny green creeping veneer of kudzu.

  The apartments were once luxury accommodations, open and spacious, with an in-ground pool and exercise room, built in a garden setting close to the river. Now, thirty years later, the road slithered around more aging strip malls, car washes, mattress stores, and auto dealerships than the eye could see, a veritable tacky temple to capitalism. The apartments were home to lower middle class African American families and illegal aliens from Latin America. We were one of only two Caucasian tenants, and they stuck us in adjacent apartments in the back of the compound. The pool sat perpetually “closed for repairs.” The exercise room, graffiti initials sprayed on the door, stayed locked for fear of gang activity. Some families crammed up to twenty people in a one-bedroom unit, so poor that they kept the windows open instead of running the air conditioner, and tomatillos, onion and corn cooking smells and Tejano music invaded my senses, making it hard for me to sleep at night.

  My life seems so removed from that apartment, those days, yet it seems the same, full of unknowing and mystery and making ends meet, like it’s the same lesson, different teacher, and I wonder, think, grasp, try to figure out what in the world I am learning through Avon. I can’t find it yet. My Avon is like my dead marriage is like my patchwork careers is like my general unknowing, all going somewhere, who knows where, all vapor and dream specked with loud scary noises.

  Now I’m old and divorced and meeting mullet men for dates, I pondered. And selling stupid m
akeup for a living. I don’t even wear much of the stuff.

  The farmers’ market frames the city hall property of the next town north, metal stalls with cloth umbrellas and tables piled high with tomatoes, corn, tamales, crepes, and olives. The vendors move their wares from town to town in the county, set up in east location as the sun breaks behind the mountains, move to the western sands as the afternoon skies grow red and yellow beside the beach.

  I carried a rainbow tote bag to fill with produce and wore the heavy backpack with stamped Avon brochures and samples of Planet Spa mud mask and Goddess fragrance. The sky sat dark and moody all day, only smiled late in the afternoon when the day was too far gone to care. I walked through the mist and haze and fondled cantaloupe and dandelion greens, filling my bag with cherries and corn and the last of the season’s strawberries.

  I handed my brochures to anyone whose hand extended for fruit and vegetables, catching many by surprise. Most people were too polite to say “No Thanks,” and they shoved the brochure inside plastic bags filled with oranges or shrimp. I even snuck books into brown bags waiting on the ground while their owners opened purses and bagged their prey. A Tunisian man adding bananas and rum to a crusty French crepe caught my eye and he laughed and shook his head and cooked while I slipped a book into the open tote of his customer.

  I handed out ten brochures, then twenty, thirty, forty, forty-one. I was Stealth Avon Lady! Just nine remained, and I bought a Banana Rum crepe and sat on the grass near the fountain, watching a little boy with eyes like chocolate throw pennies into the water. It felt good to rest. What would I purchase when I made a lot of money from these sales? I ate big bites of crepe with whipped cream and imagined taking a vacation to Baja Mexico and sailing in the warm water and sunning and drinking margaritas outside my own little blue villa on the water, a soft and squishy nanny to watch my brood and teach them Spanish. The sunlight split my head into tiny shards of hangover glass. On second thought, nix the margaritas. Make that mango juice.