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

by Birdie Jaworski

  “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.”

  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.