Don't Shoot! I'm Just the Avon Lady! (23 page)

I startled and turned around to see Melva grinning from ear to ear, bun wiggling down the left side of her head.

“I tried the cream. I’m not new anymore!”

I grinned back at her, waved at Hubert and turned onto a street covered in ocean sand. A seagull flew overhead. He dropped heavy white pitch a few feet ahead of me. I hooked a right at the middle school and wandered toward the pink mansion. It towered above the rest of the ranch home subdivision, like a Victorian hiccup, with two spires and an expanse of deck as a wooden moat. I placed a brochure and two samples in the wicker shoe basket next to the cut glass French doors. The basket was painted shocking pink like its house.

“Hey Avon Lady!”

I whirled around to see an old lady with a walker hustling along the sidewalk toward me. She wore those odd white orthopedic shoes with the tiny holes they sell at the drug store, and her peach acrylic sweater was buttoned up to her chin. She spoke out of the right side of her mouth and a small drop of drool ran down her neck.

“Hey Avon Lady! I want to order something. You stopped bringing me those books.”

“Oh, sorry.” I smiled and waved and reached into my backpack. “You never called me to order anything and I left several books over the last couple of months. I figured you weren’t interested.”

“Let me tell you something, Missy. The Avon Lady should always leave a book and should always leave a sample. It doesn’t matter if you get an order. This is part of your job.”

My jaw fell open and I stared as she grabbed the book and hobbled back to her house. She rested a moment in front of the garden gnome guarding her front door and turned to wave at me. I gave a feeble wave in return and shifted my backpack.

There was an e-mail waiting for me when I arrived home. The subject was “You live so far away.” I didn’t recognize the sender. I opened it. It was the letter for which I’d been waiting. It was short. It wasn’t what I expected. It wasn’t what I would have written. I would have written a thank you letter of sorts. But this wasn’t like that. It was a penetrating letter, a searching letter, a letter looking for a place in the world, someplace to lay one’s head, smart, intuitive, artistic.

I answered it right away. I didn’t stop to think. I couldn’t think. I wrote a long letter filled with inconsequential information- my favorite colors, my animal farm, her siblings, some photographs. I wished I’d written something different once I sent it, something better, something metaphysical, man, just anything less mundane. I wished I didn’t live so far away.

The Saddest Song in the World

I left my boys at the neighbors for the zillionth time and tried not to feel guilty. The boys didn’t care; they raced down the street with starships and chapter books under each arm. I tried not to think about the letter I sent flying across the electronic cosmos. A good sales jaunt around town should keep me from obsessively clicking “check mail,” I figured.

Frankie stood in the front window with a wistful expression crossing his snout. I hiked up my kilt and headed for Kilt Man Kevin’s house. Doesn’t hurt to remind ‘em, I thought, as I left two brochures and a handwritten note asking him to “call for personal service” hanging on his iron gate. Heh. I blew a kiss toward what I imagine was his bedroom window, a half-moon artistic creation of stained glass surrounded by an exotic dark wood.

A man stood on the corner of Kilt Man’s street and the other most expensive ocean-view lane in town, a tasseled leather woman’s bag slung over his right shoulder. He wore slim pinstriped denim slacks and over-pursed lips as if he were kissing an old lady on the cheek. I stared at him a moment. We looked like strangers from kaleidoscope planets on opposite sides of this fine galaxy - me in my sample-stuffed kilt and a Datura trumpet stuck behind one ear, him all slick-backed hipster with the shiniest lizard green shoes I ever saw.

What the heck
, I thought, and pulled an Avon Men’s Catalogue from my backpack.

“Hey there! You look like quite a snazzy young man. Would you care for an Avon brochure geared toward fashion-forward men and a few free samples?”

A black angle crow squawked from the swaying telephone wire above us, his beak pitched and angry, and I smiled and waved the Men’s book toward the sky. The man broke kissing concentration, broke into a toothy smile, and extended his hand to grab the brochure.

“Well sure, now. Why not?” His palm shone like a sailor’s warning sunrise, all fire orange angry with patches of missing skin as if someone grated his hands with the tiniest grit of a cheese grater.

He swung his purse out front, snapped open the tarnished silver buckle and stuck the book in a zippered compartment lined with a delicate floral print as if he’d done this a million times. His motions were easy, well-rehearsed, a man with deep purse knowledge. “But if you’re looking to sell some Avon, you should see my friend, Gail. She’s in that brown stucco behind the Spanish Manor.”

Purse Man pointed to a hulking spread surrounded by an electronic gate. A small dirt drive ran beside the mansion, and I craned my neck to see the small home he referenced. I turned to thank him, but his back headed north, already many yards down the rich street, one lizard toe in front of the other, his purse slapping his butt in concrete rhythm.

I followed the dirt drive past six Century Plants, their spiked fronds open, inviting, thin stalks rising from their centers like the unrolled tongue of a butterfly. The mansion people littered their pristine sod lawn with generic marble statues of cupids and maidens and one lone fat hen. Gail’s house hid in an alcove of Eucalyptus. Her yard consisted of decaying Ice Plant and a natural wood rail fence missing half of its support. Beach towns are like this, I thought. Filthy rich next to middle class next to the fallen forgotten.

I heard the music first, and in my next breath I heard the cats. A woman’s plaintive voice cut through the drawn drapes and shut glass, fell through the roof, slashed the walls, an ache of despair accompanied by plodding piano.

Cats howled along with the recording, and I stopped at the open gate. I leaned against a lichen-covered rail, backpack cutting into my sleeveless shoulders, and decided this house was just one hair too much, too loud, too decrepit, too sad for me to enter. But Gail saw me first, opened her white wood door, waved me across the yard, invited me closer with a solid wink and a hearty voice.

“Don’t you think Chan Marshall just has the most gorgeously sad voice? I’ve heard plenty of sad songs over the years, but I think this takes the crown. It could make Satan weep like a schoolgirl. Do Not listen to this song in the vicinity of razor blades!”

A black cat jumped from under a sage bush, ran for the door, crossed my path as sure as Gail’s weeping Satan.

I hadn’t known about Gail long enough to form any kind of opinion as to what kind of residence she would keep. I might have pictured a comfy home with an overstuffed couch and loveseat combo, an old avocado stove and fridge, tasteful ocean watercolor prints on the wall. The simple brown stucco home’s exterior looked retro, charming, a throwback to the days of scarred wooden surfboards and brown coconut tanning oil. She threw open her arms and grinned, and I gasped in surprise as much as confusion as I hauled my Avon crap over the threshold.

“I don’t know who the hell you are, but you look like a merry soul. Come on in!”

Gail towered over me, and as I passed I realized the top of my head barely grazed her chin. She wore slim black slacks and a crisp white men’s shirt with the arms rolled high and the hem loosely tied at her waist. A black bandana hugged her head, and it was obvious she had no hair. She didn’t have eyebrows either, at least I didn’t think she did because one was smudged as if she drew them on in the morning and then wiped her brow a couple of hours later in a fit of forgetfulness.

I stood in her foyer, breathing in that sweet sad music, trying to make sense of the space, the objects, the countless.... cats.

“Whatsa matter? Cat got your tongue?” Gail snorted and whooped, scooped two tabbies from a futuristic vertical zigzag sculpture, powder-coated red, the backside painted black. She pointed to the artwork, her grin breaking into a full-tooth laugh as I stared at it without moving a muscle, my mouth trying to move, trying to make some kind of intelligent noise.

“It’s a chair, love. Ever see the TV show MacGyver? This is straight from the set. Sit down and tell me who you are.”

I perched on the edge of the zigzag, afraid it would fold into a flat square on the floor beneath me, but it felt sturdy and true. The song ended. Another one began, the same lonely voice from some sepia-toned alternate reality.

“Hi, I’m Avon. I mean I sell Avon. I’m an Avon Lady.” My voice cracked and waddled. I stared at a thousand Birdies staring back at me. The walls held a million mirrored squares set in concentric circular patterns. A velvet couch red and rolling like an angry ocean wave stood sentry in the middle of the room. Seven cats slept in the spaces between the curves, stray paws and curling tails flung over the sides.

“Ok, nameless Avon Lady who is not Avon but sells Avon. Give me one of your books. I do like a good lip color.” Gail took a seat upon a delicate white cushion. Everything in the room was black or red or white, and I noticed for the first time Gail’s carefully applied scarlet lips.

I handed her a brochure and rummaged through my bag for some samples. Damn. No lipstick. I pulled out a few squares of facial creams and my demo bottle of the new Naturals Pink Grapefruit & Rose Shampoo. A million shampoo bottles cascaded across the room like some kind of perverse beauty kaleidoscope.

“Oh sorry! My name is Birdie! Here - take these samples! And would you care to smell the new Avon Naturals haircare stuff? It smells just like roses and grapefruits, and I love the way it makes my hair shine.” I held out the bottle and Gail grabbed it. Her hands were long and thin like her body, and she inhaled one, two, three deep lung times, snapping the lid shut at the same moment the CD stopped playing its last tune. A mottled black and white cat rubbed against my bare legs.

“Was this animal tested?” Gail turned the bottle over in her hands, squinted her eyes as if reading the fine print, and she opened it once more, smelling the shampoo with a satisfied nod.

“Oh no! None of the Avon products are tested on animals! No way, Jose! Avon does NOT do animal testing!” I stopped short, realized I was yelling when a Siamese yowled and jumped from his cozy black perch on the windowsill.

“No, love, that’s not what I meant. Is this shampoo safe for cats?” Gail wiped her left hand across her forehead, smudging her other eyebrow. Tiny beads of sweat gathered at the edge of her bandana, and as she dropped her arm, I noticed it shook.

“Well, gosh, I don’t know. It is supposed to be a fairly “natural” sort of product, so I don’t see why you couldn’t bathe a cat with it.” As the words popped out of my mouth, I started giggling. I couldn’t imagine anyone bathing a cat with anything of any kind - let alone fruity Avon shampoo.

“The only way to find out is to give it the old college try, then. Come on, pick a cat.” Gail stood, handed me the bottle, turned her head right to left to show me just what an incredible cat selection she had, and I chose the fattest cat on the premises, a hefty white ball of fluff with a crook in his tail.

“Oh Lord. You picked a cat, you did. That’s my Hell Cat. His name is Fat Bastard.”

I turned toward the tub and evaluated the situation. Fat Bastard stood at the front of the fixture, his nose pressed into the water spout. He looked harmless, even goofy, with irregular drops of water running down his whiskers. His fur was whiter than the fiberglass - whiter than anything I’d ever seen, almost translucent, like the hide of a Polar Bear. Gail rustled behind me, and I heard a cabinet open and close.

“Just scoop him up, Madame Avon. We need the element of surprise.”

“Ok.” I set the shampoo bottle on the marble floor and slid toward the tub.

“Hey, kitty, kitty, kitty. What a good kitty, kitty, kitty. Come to Birdie, kitty.” I bent at the waist and grabbed Fat Bastard. I expected him to growl and swat, but he twisted his body in supine submission.

“Awwww, he’s a sweetie! He’s no bastard!” I stepped away from the tub and raised my eyebrows in surprise at the strange contraption in Gail’s hands.

“Five minutes does not a relationship make, my dear Avon Lady.”

Gail stuck out her tongue and licked the end of a huge suction cup attached to a stick. She tilted toward the wall and pressed the apparatus into the decorative black tile with a grunt. It hung low over the bath. A metal hook stuck out from the bottom of the dowel. A few sections of simple chain swung from it. It looked some kind of railroad crane - the kind that raises and lowers boxcars onto the track.

“Now hand me
le chat
.” Gail still held the black mesh, and as I hoisted Fat Bastard away from my body, she took care to hide it behind her back. Fat Bastard didn’t notice. He stretched one paw and shifted his weight, seemingly happy to be perched in the crook of his owner’s arm.

It happened so fast! Gail whipped the mesh from behind her back and encapsulated Fat Bastard as stealthy and quick as a momma spider. Her arms rotated and pushed and patted the cat into a hairy cocoon with four windmill legs angry and wild. I heard the sound of a metallic zipper and one petulant meow. She attached the netting to the hanging structure and stepped back to admire her work. Fat Bastard’s legs swung beneath the netting. He looked like a fuzzy white jellybean with a jaunty black zigzag design. Well, a jellybean with legs, anyway. His feet barely reached the tub floor, and they made running motions, as if he was on some kind of S and M treadmill.