“Neat little invention, isn’t it? I designed it myself. I’d make a million dollars if I sold them on eBay.” Gail turned the cold water knob first, then the hot. She plugged the tub, and I watched Fat Bastard squirm and kick as the water rose to meet his belly.
“Wow. I never saw anything like it! What a cool idea. I can’t believe he didn’t scratch you. He doesn’t look very happy.” That was an understatement. Fat Bastard hissed and moaned and looked straight at me with evil slitted eyes.
I handed Gail the Avon Naturals Pink Grapefruit & Rose Shampoo. She squeezed a generous dollop in one palm and rubbed her hands together. Her bandana started inching up her forehead, exposing her bald head. I leaned over, pushed it back down as she rubbed Fat Bastard’s back and head with the suds.
“Thank you, Avon Birdie. I shaved it off. I didn’t want to watch it falling out in hunks.” Gail answered the question I was too afraid to ask. “It’s breast cancer. My aunt died at thirty. My sister died at thirty-two. I’m forty-six so I guess I am already on borrowed time.”
Gail continued washing her cat, ignoring his sputter and swat. She took a plastic tumbler and rinsed Fat Bastard with care. “Look, Avon Lady. I’m going to tell you something. I’m dying. I won’t be here long enough to see the finals from the cat food advertising campaign I just finished. But you are young still, and apparently healthy. Listen to me, Birdie.”
I stopped staring at Fat Bastard. Gail stood, let the cat pitch and yaw as she stuck both hands on slim hips and looked me straight in the eyes.
“Avon Lady who is not Avon, name of Birdie, cat wash assistant and funny girl in strange Celtic clothes, I have some important advice for you.”
Fat Bastard chose that moment to yeowl holy hell. His face pressed against the mesh, one tooth snagged in the black material. I had no idea what Gail was about to say. Love is the answer? Always be kind? Watch your back? Get regular mammograms?
Gail laughed at her cat, remained arms akimbo, and let fly her gift to the world at large and kilt-covered Avon Ladies in general:
“You’ll always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats.”
Lucky Palms
Another e-mail from my birth daughter waited for me at home. I found out her name is the same name of my best girlfriend from childhood. I found out she’s an artist, a bit of a bohemian, a bit of a wild child. I found out her parents are divorced. I found out she loves pizza. I found out she looks just like me, just like me minus all those years, the most like me of my children, the most look alike, the most think alike. It’s like looking into a mirror that takes you back into time, into the road you didn’t take, the better and smoother super interstate highway, not the crappy back roads washed out tumbleweed road I know. I’m not her mom. But I am her mom. I’m such a nobody and such an everything in the same breath and this is the biggest eggshell floor in the universe.
I clicked off my computer. The house was so quiet except for Frankie’s hearty snore and the sound of Suzie breathing dreams. A stack of six Avon brochures on the floor taunted me. Order input day was just twenty-fours away and my sales sat static, slow, small. I called Ulak.
“Hey, Boy! Come on over, please. I need to give you the hand cream for the train delivery. That’s tomorrow morning – don’t forget! Come over. I want to run out and drop off a few brochures. You can watch the boys while I’m out.”
Ulak grunted consent. I met him at the door in my pink Super Girl pajamas.
“Birdie. You are not going outside in those. Are you?” Ulak raised one bushy eyebrow.
“Come on, man, quit worrying! I’m just gonna be a whisper of an Avon Lady. I’ll drop them off at some diner or late night hair salon. No one’s gonna see me.” I hugged my Turkish friend and lifted my keys off the counter.
I drove past the center of town, past the dark windows of the donut shop and corner deli where they sell tofu pastrami sandwiches with avocado and crushed grain mustard on rye. All of the main streets of my town are named after presidents, and I cruised Roosevelt, Madison, Jefferson, Monroe, looking, searching for a place I haven’t left lipstick footprints a hundred times before, found nothing, not one open or inviting establishment. I thought of leaving them at the saloon but I’m terrified of that place, terrified of the painted windows screaming Girls Girls Girls and the sputtering neon martini glass spilling blue light onto the alley behind the train station.
So I kept driving. It was nice. No kids, quiet, unusual, just me and six Avon brochures and small town California streets with sun-washed stucco homes right up next to the sidewalks and impossibly white seagulls bedding down for the night in pepper trees. I drove around the lagoon where three middle-aged men in windbreakers and jeans stood under the high desert palms, fishing, each holding a long pole and a tiny flashlight directed into the murky waters. I drove past the tattoo shops and used car lots that mark the boundary from my town into the next, saw a fat man in dark board shorts and a red t-shirt skateboard, leap over a crumbled curb, land onto a board longer and wider than any I’ve ever seen, with monster rubber wheels. He looked so elegant and fast, even delicate, his stomach rose and fell like a parachute, and I turned on the radio to find a song I knew, any song, just something to sing.
I drove as far as the coast road allows, right up to the gates of Camp Pendleton, then turned around, hit the highway south toward home, cranked the music loud as I accelerated, merged into traffic. At least I had a good ride, I thought, so great to take time away from the kids, see my town at night. I thought about sticking the brochures under unsuspecting windshield wipers in the parking lot of the all night drug store. Then I saw it. Yeah! I saw it - the one place besides the dance hall I would never consider leaving Avon advertising and samples. It stood next to the post office mail truck annex and across from the municipal swimming center, a squat, flat off-white building with a garish orange, blue, green, and purple blinking highway sign in the shape of a sunset. I pulled off at the next exit and let the lights draw me closer, draw me to the parking lot nearly full even at this late hour, and I marched into the Lucky Palms Casino, purse slung over my shoulder, brochures stuffed under my arm, Avon NASCAR slippers gracing my feet.
I don’t know exactly what I expected to see when I stepped inside the casino, maybe a low-rent version of some Las Vegas monstrosity, all one-armed bandits and jaded blue-haired ladies carrying cups of quarters and plastic glasses half-full of watered down daiquiris. Maybe a gold carpet with a pattern of lush maroon diamonds. And lights, a thousand blinking lights, a thousand blinking beeps and clinks and the occasional rush of coins flooding a till. I had a flash vision of leaving my six Avon brochures next to six vacant slot machines, stuffed between the lever and the rows of lemons and cherries. A quick deposit of papers in the smoky haze, then a quick silent getaway in my slippers. No one would be the wiser, and ladies with hands dry from handling fifty dollars in quarters would leaf through the brochure, excited about ordering Skin-So-Soft Age-Defying Hand Cream. It was a short-lived dream.
I opened the door and stepped into a harshly lit, white-walled box of a room with hallways leading into yet more boxy white rooms, a kind of dingy insane asylum filled with strange oval furry green tables and countless people sitting, counting, holding hands of cards, looking serious, concentrating, only a low murmur and the slap of cards against the table echoed off the walls. Nothing decorated the walls - no flashing menus or photographs of laughing winners standing in piles of green bills. Only a small sign hung at the center of each doorway identified each room: Poker, Pai-Gow, Blackjack. I stood under the white light in my pajamas. I pulled the brochures out from under my arm and held them in front of my chest since I was braless. I wondered where the ladies restroom might be. I had no idea what the hell all these people were doing, but I wanted no part of it. I could drop the books on the sink counter and get the heck outta town.
“Hey! Pink Superman Lady! We have a seat! C’mon!” A balding man in a black suit and bowtie motioned from inside the Pa
i-Gow room. He sat on a tall shiny metal barstool in front of an odd high triangular table covered in green velvet. Five men sat in barstools in a V-formation, with the black suit man at the apex.
“Oh sorry! I don’t know what Pai-Gow is!” I pronounced it “Pay Go” and the men around the table laughed. “I’m the Avon Lady and I want to leave these brochures in the ladies restroom. Is that alright?”
“C’mon! We need a sixth. These gentlemen would love to teach you, won’t you guys?” The dealer sounded like a used car lot salesman, with a voice rich and buttery and fast. Three of the men leered outright but one leaned back in his stool and folded his arms.
“I’ll buy something from you if you let me teach you. I’ll buy as much Avon as money you lose, how’s that?” He looked at me as if I was a lab rat, a pink lab rat with NASCAR slippers, and I noticed his long elegant fingers and expensive loafers.
“Well I make a commission on Avon stuff so you have to buy twice what I lose, how’s that?”
“You’ve got a deal.” He turned back to the table and the men shuffled their seats so I could sit next to my new Pai-Gow teacher.
I crawled into the metal stool and felt one of my slippers slide off, hit the ground with a soft thud. I kicked off the other one and perched both bare feet on a slim silver rung. I put my purse in my lap and placed the brochures on top. Thank the good lord I’m using that big Avon purse, I thought. The gun-metal gray purse brochure tower covered my breasts, but I caught the man at my left sneaking a peak. He wore dark navy jeans and a polo shirt with a tan sport coat. His belly poked out from the jacket and rested on his legs like my purse. He smelled like drug store cigars and beer.
“This is a five dollar table. If you have twenty bucks we can play for a long time, the game moves slow.” My teacher sat to my right. He pulled a red and white cigarette package out of an inner pocket in his black jacket and tapped out a smoke. There’s no smoking in public places in California, even in poker halls, but he placed the cigarette in his mouth and his lips and teeth maneuvered it into place in the right corner nook. He started to chew. I slid the Avon brochures between my purse and my chest and reached inside for my wallet. I had exactly thirty dollars, one ten and four fives, and I handed a five to the dealer.
“Honest, I don’t know how to play. I’ll play ten bucks total, that way if I bomb it bad then you only have to buy twenty bucks’ worth of Avon, ok? This is fun! Now! What do I do?” I sounded like a third grader on cocaine, my voice jumped and giggled and my fellow gamblers stared at me with middle-aged eyes, not a one of them under forty. I looked around the room and noticed a handful of other Pai-Gow tables, each staffed by a dapper figure in black tie, all full of gamblers, male gamblers, the only other woman a short blonde I could only see from behind, her short spiked hair head slightly bobbing up and down.
My teacher didn’t introduce himself. He launched in to an explanation and I braced myself to follow.
“Now, Pai-Gow is a banking poker game. You know poker?” His cigarette wiggled as he talked, adding a slurping quality to his voice.
“Um. Well. I saw a lot of poker on Star Trek, so I think I know the basic rules.” I thought about the episodes where the crew played weekly games, an opportunity to talk, discuss alien strategy, get little digs in to one another. I could do this! I glanced around the table with a huge grin and saw six mouths hung open in disbelief.
“You learned poker from Star Wars?” The letch to my left raised his eyebrows and gestured around the table as if introducing me, probably the world’s easiest mark, to the other players. “Goddamn, woman, those better be lucky pajamas.”
“Star Trek. Not Star Wars,” I mumbled.
“Star Trek. Not Star Wars. Christ!” He mimicked my chipper voice and laughed, his ample belly shaking, slapping against the table. “Set us up!” He nodded to the dealer, who began laying down cards.
My teacher grabbed my right hand as I reached to pick up my cards.
“Hold on a minute. Let me explain what’s happening.” He began talking in a simple voice, giving short descriptions of the game. He paused after each sentence and looked at me to make sure I understood. His eyes were deep brown, the same color as his skin, and he spoke with a slight accent I couldn’t place. He sounded vaguely British, or Caribbean, I couldn’t tell. He wore a gold-colored watch with tiny diamonds circling the face, and unlike the other men sitting at the table, he smelled expensive, like citrus and musk and mint. He kept chewing on the cigarette as he spoke.
“Split your seven cards, here, into two poker hands.” Pause. “You need to separate them into a five-card hand and a two-card hand.” Pause. “You can see on the table where these hands go, ok now?” Pause. “If you get a joker, he counts like an Ace, or you can use him to complete a flush or a straight.” Pause. “Your highest scoring hand must be your five card hand. Otherwise you lose.”
“Ok, can I look at my cards now?”
“Yes.” Pause. “Most of the time Pai-Gow ends in a tie.” Pause. “The house takes a five percent commission on winning bets.” Pause. He slowly picked up his own cards and leaned back. He took his time, and even I - poker nitwit - separated my cards before he did. He placed his cards on the table, languid, mysterious, glancing at the table, shrugging his shoulders. I heard a couple of men groan, one laugh, one curse lady luck with a word that made my eyebrows rise.
My cards spread out in front of me - Ace of Hearts, Joker, Queen of Hearts, Nine of Clubs, Ten of Clubs, Queen of Diamonds and King of Hearts. I ordered them into these two hands:
Five card hand: Ace of Hearts, Joker, Queen of Hearts, Queen of Diamonds, 9 of Clubs (Two Pairs I figured.)
Two card hand: King of Hearts, 10 of Clubs (Two High Cards)
The dealer looked around the table and nodded at each of us. He began to look at his cards, looked at ours, started mixing and matching, and I saw my teacher shake his head.
“Miss, you know only enough poker to be a danger to yourself. Those are good hands, but you must beat the banker with both hands. You have a straight - that should be your five card hand. Then Queen and Ace in your second hand. Still, you have better than me. But it depends on the banker, let’s see what he gets.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. I looked at his cards, a two, a three, seven, other mismatched cards, just one low pair of fours in his favor.
I stared at my cards. I didn’t know what a straight was, must be a run of cards, and oh! I saw it! A run starting with the nine, and I wished I’d taken more time. Dammit.
The banker laid down his cards, it seemed in slow motion, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. He smiled. “Bank loses. We have a winner!”
My teacher chuckled, leaning back in his stool, looking at me through eyes nearly closed, cigarette in mouth, one hand resting against his head. He looked at me the way men look at women and I felt a rush of heat rise through my body.
“Star TREK Lady in Pink takes all, believe it or not.” The dealer accented the Trek with a nod in my direction. He made his declaration with a straight face and steady voice but his eyes gave away a laugh. I couldn’t believe it! I won my first poker game ever! I set my purse and Avon brochures down on the velvet of the table and pushed my stool away, stood up and did a Woo Woo Woo butt dance with my hands in the air.
“Uh huh Uh huh Uh huh I won, I won, I won, Uh huh Uh huh Uh huh,” I chanted, and sat back down to notice every person in the entire room staring at me. Whoops. Maybe one doesn’t do butt dances in poker rooms. They should though, I thought, they should!
The dealer counted the cash, made change, placed a small amount in the house box and pushed the rest toward me. I grabbed it all at once and shoved it in my purse. I looked at my pile of brochures and decided to quit while I was ahead.
“Thank you, gentlemen, for your patience and your money! I am giving you each a crisp Avon brochure to take home to the woman in your life. There is a sample inside each book, make sure you let her know that.” I passed around the brochures, and held my hand ou
t to shake the hand of my teacher. The men shrugged shoulders and laughed. The letch to my left shook his head and rolled up the brochure, shoving it in his back jeans pocket.
“This is for you.” I gave my teacher a faded one dollar bill. “It’s only fair. We didn’t make an agreement about what I give you if I win.” He grinned, teeth clamped on cigarette, and accepted the bill and stuck it inside his jacket, next to his chest, at the same time pulling out a business card.
Roger. Gemstone Broker.
“Call me,” he said with a voice as low as a whisper.
I waved goodbye and sped home. Ulak snored on my couch, the bags of Avon sitting on his lap. I removed the shwag and covered him with a blanket strewn with embroidered bunnies.
Late that night I stuck a dollar bill under each of my boys’ pillows while they slept. And I held Roger’s card, stared at it, traced the letters with my index finger for a long, long time. That night I dreamed about a black card shark lover wearing diamonds, me in my pink super girl pajamas, in a spaceship shaped like a poker table.
Wherein I Test a Product on an Animal
Suzie woke me up at two in the morning. She jumped on my bed, whining and scratching, and I sat and stared, let my eyes adjust to dim light, as she continued pawing at the covers. And then I heard it. A strange loud gnawing sound coming from the wall behind my open door. A rat. A BIG rat, too, the way that sucker was scratching against my internal two-by-fours.
Tree rats are the scourge of my coastal town. They live in the tall palms, fat, content, nesting, and sneak down tree at night to forage the gardens and garbage of the rich and poor alike. Everyone’s got ‘em. I don’t care if you live in a rock-lined castle on Skyline Drive or a small apartment in the barrio, you’ve got rats. Several companies work the rat problem in my area, setting traps in attics and returning once a week to retrieve rotting carcasses. And I thought Avon was difficult work.
Don't Shoot! I'm Just the Avon Lady! Page 18