Don't Shoot! I'm Just the Avon Lady! by Birdie Jaworski Read Free Book Online Page B

carried him home. A swatch of black hair stood straight out behind his ears as he nuzzled his pet. He opened his front door and tossed the dog inside. He swiped a toy helicopter from an old card table decaying on the porch. The table shivered as the boy slammed the door. Hmmm , I thought. That gives me an idea . I faced my computer again, and opened a new document.
    Avon Wing-Ding-O-Rama!
Free Makeovers!
Free Cookies and Drinks!
See the NEW Avon Products!
Meet a REAL Avon Lady!!!!!
    I liked the last line the best. At the bottom I listed my address and the nearest cross street and the date and hours of the event – two weeks in advance. I printed out thirty copies on large paper and a set of rainbow fliers, and spritzed them all with the most ghastly overpowering perfume Avon sold. I drew a scarlet-red lipstick kiss around the prose, as if the invitation floated out of the puckered mouth of a wanton woman. I pressed colored felt-tip markers against sheets of blank labels and printed “13 Hours of Madness” along with my telephone number and the date of the event.
    I stood in my front yard as the sun rolled overhead and imagined my Avon Open House Wing-Ding-O-Rama, at the top of the patchwork cul-de-sac with assorted children gun-running lemonade and peanut butter cookies and one lone short grumpy middle-aged bastard of a neighbor three houses down, peering out behind tasteful beige drapes, hoping I’d use too much Avon fade cream and disappear with the orange sun before any fireworks start. I crossed my fingers and hoped at the end of the sale I wouldn’t see him laughing at the sight of me jilted at the Avon altar.
    I dropped Marty and Louie at an afternoon community art class and headed for my favorite neighborhood, a swirl of busy cul-de-sacs of identical cream stucco spaces where I would never want to live, but boy, do they buy a lot of Avon. I left a flier with every housekeeper and soccer mom and landscape artist and granny and cook and stray child. I passed out my handmade stickers. One boy pulling a skateboard by a fraying dirty piece of rope took two stickers and stuck them under his board next to a skull and a foul-mouthed television cartoon character.
    I rang the doorbell for a house like all the others, pretty behind a stately jacaranda and a brick tiled drive, and a woman opened the door a foot and stuck her head outside.
    “Yes?” Her hair cascaded past her shoulders at least two feet, all black and wavy with a few stray grey strands.
    “Hi! I never got anyone to answer this door before! My name is Birdie and I’m your local Avon Lady! Would you care for a brochure and some free samples? I’m giving out rose lipsticks and Treselle fragrance and Planet Spa mud masks. Which do you prefer? I can also demonstrate the new Anew Deep Crease Concentrate. It makes you look stunning, not stunned. And that’s not all! I’m holding a huge yard sale – 13 Hours of Madness!” I held the three samples in my left hand and the book and flier in my right and shifted my hip and nodded to show her that my ratty backpack contained amazing beauty goodies, and she opened the door a bit wider and motioned for me to come in and sit down.
    The room smelled of sandalwood incense and pot and was so dark and quiet it was like stepping into a permissive church during midnight mass. When my eyes adjusted to the light, I noticed my raven-haired potential customer wore a long silk men’s shirt covered in a pattern of gold and silver cubes, and nothing else. The shirt should have been a good six inches longer , I thought, it’s quite evident she doesn’t dye her hair .
    “Well, um, here’s all three samples! You can have them all, plus the brochure. Um. In fact, I can give you another sample, how about an eye cream?” I dropped the samples on a short wicker table with a glass top and rummaged through my bag, peering into it as if I were looking for a bar of gold, anything to keep me from looking at Lady Godiva.
    “No, no.