My Beauty Ministry
Driving from one end of California to the other and back in two days flat isn't conducive to conducting Avon business. I only gave a half-hearted attempt. I dropped the rest of my Avon books between four rest stops rising out of parched landscape, my brain in a caffeine-induced daze. Now that I'm home and my daughter is unpacked and ordering her brothers around the house, I see that no customers orders or timid inquiries made their way to my phone or computer.
Campaign 12 ends this Monday. Those 400 brochures didn't translate into wild party Avon sales unless some consumer miracle happens between now and then. Just dropping them off here and there, in store, office, and illegal mailbox, doesn't work like a handshake works.
I figured something out. People like the personal touch. They like the Avon Lady to show up at the door. Kilt or dress or tie-dye or suit - that part doesn't matter much. They want someone to notice them, to listen, hear the things they say and don't say, put a stethoscope to their heart, nod, say Yes, You are Alive! I see you! I hear you! I hear you. I hear you. I think of how I take care of my old own wounds when I look into the eyes of my customers, when I hear their words and read their lips.
One humid afternoon six years ago I sat on the cedar rails of our back deck and told my husband I wasn't in love with him anymore. My voice was cold and direct. A caterpiller inched up my arm. It startled me, the tiny legs felt like velvet, felt like the touch of a lover. My husband stared into the yard, at the treehouse we built together. He wanted to try counseling, to try working on the problems we ignored for so long. We didn't make love any more. He called me by my formal name, not Birdie. I liked to be called Birdie.
"No, no. I need to be able to express my ideas. You know what? Every time we discuss things you take over the discussion. You always know what's right. You're always right. It drives me crazy. I want to be called Birdie. You never hear what I say."
Such an old story, the story of too many broken hearted people, the same story I saw in a cafe on the drive home with my daughter. We stopped in town known for long fields of orange groves and ate goat cheese and walnut salads and cheese-filled crepes at an outdoor bistro. Two last brochures rested in my open purse at my feet. We drank glasses of passion fruit iced tea and laughed at two girls rolling in the lawn. They were teasing each other with a crazy song that went like this:
Once upon a time
A dog went hmmmm hmmmm hmmmmm
Angie picked it up
And thought it was a dime
We laughed at the messed up meter and ryhme, at the way the girls sang it at each other, trading Angie for Carly and back again. Their parents drank black coffee at the table next to us. I thought of handing the mom a brochure. She held her cup in two hands, long fingernails painted bright red, elbows on the table. Her face was freckled and kind, but her eyes were the gateway to a soul stuck on a far away plane. The dad kept talking, talking, talking, waving a pickle spear for emphasis, talking, talking more, about a job, about another man with a bad attitude, about a set of numbers that didn't make sense, talking, his wife looking at him through the space of 12 light years. He slammed the pickle on the edge of his plate as he finished his story and it bounced into the air, a green missile, arcing over my head, down past my shoulder, end over end, into my open purse.
I handed him the pickle and its vinegar spattered resting place.
"Hi! Care for a pickle and Avon brochure?"
9:16:55 AM 
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