Don't Shoot! I'm Just the Avon Lady! (11 page)

A week or two. A week or two
. I repeated the counselor’s mantra while the sun and the whisper of waves and murmur of a hundred families lulled me to sleep, the sort of sixth sense rest a mom at the beach allows, one ear and telepathic eye on patrol, ready to sound the trumpet should a child be in danger. I think I rested an hour, maybe a little longer, until I finally opened my eyes to survey the continued castle creation.

What a sight! The castle and moat had doubled in size, and an airport addition was underway, both boys busy sculpting jet fighters from pebbles and wet sand. And all around the village were small white square flags, fifty of them, stiff and unyielding in the ocean breeze, a small piece of driftwood inserted into each one. Fifty Avon sample flags, declaring this village a bastion of beauty and cleanliness. My sample bag lay on its side, empty and wet and grainy.

I propped my body on my elbows and yelled to the boys. They ran from the water’s edge, crusty with salt and mud. Marty carried the decaying body of a dead crab. He dropped it into my sample bag.

“Boys! Let’s clean up and hustle on outta here. I’ve got some sales calls to make.”

I snuck the carcass out of my bag when Marty turned his head and left it behind a lump of kelp for a hungry gull to find. We climbed into the van. Clumps of wet sand fell from our flip-flops onto the worn carpet. The boys donned matching turquoise t-shirts.

I drove one mile, to an establishment that calls itself the “Beach Resort.” It advertises a frosty elegant conference room overlooking a pool, but the salt air and thirty years of its existence pitted away at the wood rails and blue awnings, and no new coats of paint could give the illusion of anything other than a lower middle class week-off-of-work crash and swim spot. These vacationers eat at the outdoor fried fish cafe and buy postcards and ice cream in tacky stores dotting the street. The money people stay two towns down the coast in the high rise hotels with famous chef sushi bars and lithe straight-haired dark beauty check-in girls. They don’t visit my town.

I stopped at the Beach Resort first, kilt fully stuffed, kids and brochures in tow, and walked into the lobby where a rack of bright sightseeing brochures captivated Marty and Louie while I spoke to the young woman tending the desk. My sandy damp bathing suit gave me a wedgie under my kilt and I tried not to reach behind and give myself a good hike.

“Excuse me miss? Can I leave an Avon brochure in the lobby sitting area? Would it be OK if I slipped some brochures under the room doors? I’m trying to raise money to send my kids to college.”

I pointed at my two boys, who were playing tug of war with the last Dinosaur Wild Animal Park leaflet. Louie held his arm out, hand flat against Marty’s pulsating stomach, keeping Marty from gaining ground.

“Well, they have a long way to go, though, ha ha.” I glared at Louie who withdrew his hand and let go of the paper and Marty tumbled to the ground in a heap, just missing a head-smashing glance on a whitewashed wicker chair.

“Ya, sure. I don’t care.”

The woman ran her words together and didn’t lift her eyes from the celebrity magazine spread out on the lobby bar. Her elbows rested on each side of the tabloid, fingers twirling through her greasy blonde hair, and I noticed her pocked and ruddy skin. She continued reading and twirling as I left a brochure and a couple of Avon Clearskin samples next to her magazine. I left her there, silent and wistful, reading about people she would never meet, never be. She didn’t thank me.

The next stop sat in the middle of a sandy, cigarette butt-studded campground, only a mile from the resort. It rests between the two lane coast highway and the cliffs overlooking the ocean, a narrow slit, covered by sage scrub and eucalyptus. The state owns the land and charges a small fee for parking your RV or pitching a tent, and summer months find the grounds filled to no vacancy, filled with young burnt and peeling children carting boogie boards and old grandmas and grandpas in Bermuda shorts and t-shirts with funny sayings like “Old Men Rock” and “Beach Bummin’.”

On the way to the campground I gave Marty and Louie a lecture.

“I do NOT want to see any more behavior like I saw in that hotel! Do you understand me?”

I used my Mothership voice, the low-down-no-good-rumble voice I inherited from my own mother, the voice I heard when I was Marty and Louie and grabbed papers from my sisters and made farting jokes. They nodded in silence and I saw Marty stifle a giggle and poke Louie in the ribs from the rear view mirror.

The campground store was closed when we arrived. I left a brochure labeled “Ask me about Skin-So-Soft Bug Guard!” in bright orange print hanging on the door and began to walk back to the van.

“Hey Mom! Look!”

Louie pointed behind me, to the “Wood Fires Not Permitted” sign hanging off the store’s peeling siding. A fat raccoon scuttled around the corner, to the door of the store, and grabbed my brochure. She yanked hard and the plastic of the bag gave way, sending the brochure and Skin-So-Soft samples sliding across the dirt drive.

“Hey! Hey! Raccoon! Leave it alone! Drop it!”

I ran toward the mangy beast, raising my arms high over my head like those zombies in old horror flicks and stomped my feet. She looked at me as if I were a nuisance of a human, like a kid acting up in a hotel lobby, and she continued sauntering away from the store, brochure in mouth, bloated belly with fully extended nipples swaying from side to side. I dropped my arms, picked up the samples, and walked back to the car, slammed the door shut, sighed a weary-to-the-bone Avon Lady sigh and started the engine.

Marty and Louie giggled the entire ride home.

A Leap into the Unknown

Marty woke me at four a.m. with a scream and the crash of a plastic star ship careening off the dresser.

“Mom! Mom! Mommmmmmmmmmm!” He yelled across the house as I struggled to wake.

“Mom! Mom! Mommmmmmmmmmm!”

“Hey shut up! I’m sleeping!” Louie pounded on the wall separating their rooms.

“What’s going on out there!” I headed for the hall, tripped over the dog and smacked my elbow against a corner. “Ouch! Hey! What’s all the ruckus about?”

Marty sat on the lower bunk, shaking, pointing to the window.

“Someone’s outside! I think it’s a ghost!”

“Oh Lord, there’s nobody outside. You must have heard the wind. I’ll go outside and check, come on, come with me, we’ll check together.” I grabbed his hand and dragged him to the front door, Louie and dog on our tail.

Suzie heard it first. She growled, white hair up in Labrador Mohawk shackles, and she leaped to reach the door, growls erupting into barks. I let go of Marty’s hand, pointed to the couch and turned to stare at the boys.

“Sit down and wait!”

I snuck up to Suzie, peered out the opaque etched glass, saw no reflection of person or ghost, but something small, low to the ground, moving in circles, tangled. A lost dog? I pushed Suzie aside and opened the door a crack.

A baby pot-bellied pig lifted his snout and gave a grunt. A long black leash snarled through his legs and neck, one end tied to the handle of my door. He wore a red leather harness with silver studs and a three-sentence note was duct-taped to the collar:

My name is Frankie Bacon. Please give me a good home. We know you love animals.

I scooped him into my arms and headed to the laundry room. I folded two Mexican blankets and lay them on the floor near the furnace. I filled a tin pie plate with water and set it on the floor. The pig watched my motions with interest but offered no opinion.

The boys did their best to wear me down. They pleaded, begged, swore up and down they would clean all the mess, cried, moaned, and sulked. I almost caved watching Frankie chase the dog through the house. They tumbled and played and the boys cheered and rolled with them across the floor. I looked at the clock. Five.

“Ok, fellows, we’ve all got to get a little more sleep. Get back into bed and I’ll mind Frankie.” The little pig’s ears perked up when I said his name. He turned his head to look at me, and I swear I saw him smile.

I tucked the boys in bed and led Frankie back to the laundry room and plugged in the Sponge Bob night-light. I turned on all night AM Talk Radio so he could hear the soothing sounds of political clap trap and shut the door. All was wonderful. For twelve minutes.

Frankie howled in terror or loneliness, or maybe it was just plain fun, but he banshee bawled until I led him out of the laundry room and back to my bedroom. I carried his blankets and arranged them in a safe corner and plopped him on top, pressing on his rump to get him to sit. I climbed back into bed with a good mystery book and gave Frankie the evil eye every couple of minutes. He turned around several times then fell flat over on his side. I didn’t hear him clip across the floor. I didn’t hear him snort around in my bathroom. I didn’t hear him grab my Avon Foot Solutions Foot Creme and take a good chomp. I read about a policeman in Sweden methodically chasing a homicidal maniac and only heard the harsh rustle of Nordic wind until a creme-covered snout rose to drool on my arm.

“Aaaaaaiiiiieeeeeeee!!!!”

The resulting scene was NOT pretty, and I’m too embarrassed to recount exactly what I said as I washed Frankie’s snout and scooped foot gunk from his blankets, my floor, and my leopard print slippers. I closed the bathroom door and pushed against his rump.
Sit, Frankie, sit, please sit
. He sat and looked at me with wild drooping eyes, his tongue almost hanging from one side of his mouth.

The remaining one hour of night seemed to progress well from that point. Frankie turned and flopped on his side, I hit the light switch and dreamed about a homicidal Avon customer, I was a policeman, and I followed samples around town. I woke at seven-thirty to find Frankie passed out on the bed, on MY bed, hogging the covers. One hoof lay over his snout and his stomach heaved and twitched with his breath. I left him to sleep as I roused the boys and began our day.

I checked the calendar as my boys gobbled cold cereal at the kitchen table. Thursday. Gotta meet my mystery customer at four-ten. Check. Deliver lipsticks and bath oil to Maria the crazy old swimmer. Check. Marty and Louie dumped their bowls in the sink and hugged me goodbye. I gave them each a dollar for ice cream and watched them disappear down the cul-de-sac to a friend’s home for the day. I locked the pig in the laundry room with a generous bowl of dog kibble and vowed to call pig shelters – if they even existed – that afternoon.

I left home with fifty Avon brochures stuffed in my backpack and two boxes each of Cellu-Sculpt, Imari fragrance, SlimWell peanut butter crunch diet bars, and Planet Spa mud mask samples - stuffed in my trusty kilt. The bars littered my left butt cheek with small rises like huge hives, and I realized that my body imitated a horrific “Before” photo for both the SlimWell and Cellu-Sculpt products.

Fifty brochures. Such a long walk for what would probably be dinky sales. I turned the corner of my street and walked toward the condos framing the lagoon. I passed the faux-French-Country-style Bel Age elder care facility, and listened to two dogs barking behind the stockade fence. I opened a SlimWell bar, took a bite, and chucked the rest over the fence. Snarls and scurries and one yelp later the dogs were silent. I left a brochure swinging on the fence gate, one fingerprint of peanut butter staining the cover.

I fished my cell phone out of a pocket and dialed Shanna’s number.

“Hello?” A man answered with a muffled pillow voice. He sighed as I asked for Shanna. I heard him groan and roll, call my friend.

“Hello?” Shanna sounded sleepy, content.

“Hey, girl! What the hell is going on? You’ve been off the radar all week! Are you back from Cabo San Lucas yet? Was that Joel? Sounds like you’ve been having the right kind of fun.”

“Hey, Birdie. Yeah, we’re back. It’s going great. I can’t talk now. Geeze, dude, it’s only ten a.m.” Shanna stifled a giggle. I heard Joel moan “Hey, baby,” behind her.

I convinced Shanna to join me at the train station in six hours for my second mysterious hand cream delivery. I stuffed the phone back in my kilt pocket and thought about the man who asked me what I hid underneath. Kilt Man. I pictured his well-manicured hands as I handed him the lipstick samples, the roguish smile with just a hint of stubble along his chin. I wondered if he had a girlfriend. Or hell, a boyfriend.

I hiked through the neighborhoods I know better than any other resident. I know the small yellow cat who peers out from the Datura bush, the way one ear turns when he hears me coming. I know the broken tiles in every wall, the one plump Pakistani woman who cooks garlic and cumin at midday, how many Fishtail Palm trees frame the lagoon, which neighbors get electric company disconnect notices two weeks after the bills are due. I know all this stuff, and no one knows I know it. I’m the secret neighborhood historian.

I rang Maria’s doorbell to deliver her bag of cinnamon lipsticks and Skin-So-Soft. I expected to see her naked in her jungle Koi garden, maybe holding a pitchfork and piercing the ground for earthworms, but the yard sizzled static in the heat of the sun. Two pieces of paper trash littered the Aloe plants by the heavy gate. A thin patina of sand and dust covered the bricks lining the walkway. It didn’t feel right, didn’t feel Hungarian and Olympic like Maria.

“Can I help you?”