Trio
I met three customers yesterday. They each live in my ocean town, each smell the salt air and hear the crackle of Interstate 5 which slices my town into the haves and have nots. We all keep our cats indoor at night because of coyotes, we all complain about marine gloom and traffic and the incessant pounding of war games at Camp Pendelton. And all three customers bought the same product, a new lipstick called Metro from the Avon Color Trend line.
This was the lipstick I wore during my customer calls. It is the same shade as the poufy dress I wore to my middle sister's wedding, just shy of mauve, almost brown, an inbetween color, the color of autumn leaves when they fade from purple to black. I showed my customers the tube, pulled off the transparent plastic top and twisted the color tall, ran it along the arms of three women, had them blend into clean skin, let them see Metro in a sleepy suburban town.
My first customer was Barbie, the eighty-year-old women who chases much younger men. We met at a Starbucks and she bought me a huge cup of cappuccino sweetened with three packages of sugar. We sat under an umbrella on wire chairs in the sun, watched mothers with children stroll through the shopping center, saw dogs and old men and a young girl crying, her long brown hair covered the cell phone she held to her ear.
Barbie wore a suit of candy-cane red strips and a low cut red shirt beneath the tight jacket. Her skirt had a slip up to there and she crossed her legs in a suggestive manner and sat so that anyone - everyone - could see her tanned, surgically enhanced legs. Her toenails were professionally painted with tiny American Flags, and she wore red, white, and blue jewelry enhanced with gold accents. I've never seen anything like it.
"Wow, Barbie, you look amazing! Look at those toes! That skirt! My god, woman, you are hot!"
Barbie raised one eyebrow and leaned closer to me, pretended to whisper but her voice was a stage sotto voce, meant to be heard by the gang of firefighters at the table next to me.
"Oh honey, I come here to pick up men. Aren't those firemen cute? I like the one with the curly hair. Think he notices me?"
I wanted to dive under the table and fade into nothingness. Of course he noticed Barbie. Anyone in a three mile radius would have to be aware of her voice, her height, her stilleto heels, the way she commanded a room, those sharp fingernails. I looked into my lap, at the plain black sundress that tied in the back like a maternity outfit, and at my Avon Winnie the Pooh flip flops.
"Well you look just so sexy and beautiful, of course he'll notice you."
I stole a glance at the table of men and saw them all slack jawed, staring at Barbie and me, the Mutt and Jeff of Starbucks beauty, and shrugged my shoulders and rolled my eyes at the curly haired fellow. Dang, he was cute.
Barbie ordered over two hundred dollars worth of cosmetics, jewelry, and clothes. She ordered three sets of the new leopard print lingerie in an extra loud voice, adding that she hoped they would be off her body more than on her body.
Customer number two was a short drive from the Starbucks. Her name was Chris, and she lived in a Spanish mansion surrounded by palms and cyads. I needed a code to drive into the community and waited until a black Mercedes pulled up to the gate and entered the key. I snuck in behind the luxury car and found Chris's home at the bottom of a lush hill. She answered the door in pressed linen slacks and a white mens shirt, knotted at the waist. I couldn't guess her age, maybe fifty, maybe sixty. With the rich it's difficult to tell.
Chris led me through three dining rooms with Italian tile floors and heavy wooden tables, to a small sitting room with a roll top desk and a statue like Venus de Milo with intact arms standing watch in the doorway. Chris opened her Avon brochure and read me a list of products by number, barely stopping to breathe, not asking one question about quality or texture or taste, just blew them out of the book onto my order pad. She tapped an unpolished perfect finger against the book each time she read out a new item.
"Would you care for some samples, ma'am?"
I didn't dare tell Chris she looked hot or sexy, didn't dare to use her first name.
"No thank you. I know what I want."
Customer number three lived clear across town, in a ratty apartment complex filled with military families and the working poor. Lilly answered the door dressed in an oversized black t-shirt and baggy shorts. Her toddler almost ran me down, bumped into my legs and fell on his butt, laughing and laughing. Lilly picked him up in her thin arms.
"Sorry," she said, "he's a handful."
She invited me in and led me to the kitchen, where we stood at a counter top littered with bills and dirty dishes. She looked me over with sad Korean eyes, and tried to move enough dishes out of the way for my supplies.
"I'm sorry, my carpet is so bad."
I thought it was an odd thing to say and looked at the floor. Tiny holes and black spots covered the carpet, and echoed the patterns of wear and tear in the old couch and loveseat facing a television blaring cartoons. It reminded me of my poor days, the sort of places I lived when my oldest children were toddlers, and I told Lilly the carpet looked fine, told her that I loved her dark eyes and the way she held her hair back with a black clip.
She ordered one lipstick, one nail polish, and an eye liner and made sure the total was under five dollars before I left. I gave her all the samples I had in my bag, and when she tried to refuse, I told her I give all of my customers this many samples.
"Thank you, ma'am."
I sighed and replied, in a voice weary with the day, with old sexy ladies and old rich ladies, "No, thank you, Lilly, and please call me Birdie. I'm just a mom who sells Avon stuff."
9:48:17 AM 
|
