Party People
I live one mile from the beach, as the gull flies, at the top of a steep road carved into the broad side of a mesa during the 1970's. My house overlooks all the others on my street, the apex of a short cul-de-sac comprised of small Spanish-style ranch homes and pepper trees. If you sit on the roof you can see an accordion lagoon stretching into the ocean, watch the sun sink and burp behind the power plant, and in the east on cool summer nights at 9:20 sharp, you can see the bloated fireworks display rising from LegoLand. It's a nice place to live.
I painted my house a gentle purple, a statement of unity for my children, a color that made me think of tropical gardens and the smell of lavender and the silly frilly dress I wore to my first prom. I fly a pirate's flag from my poor woman's panoramic rooftop view point, a ripped and faded Jolly Roger, and count construction workers and art teachers and line cooks as my neighbors.
This is the place I held my Avon Open House Wing-Ding-O-Rama, at the top of this 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. Eighteen signs pointed the way, stuck into dry sand along two fancy hillside streets, taped to a telephone pole in front of the Vons grocery, written in chalk on the ground by the tennis courts, every place that looked good, that looked like maybe someone nearby might need a good makeover. And here is what the signs said:
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. I spritzed the signs with that ghastly overpowering Smile perfume and drew a scarlet-red lipstick kiss around the prose, as if the invitation floated out of the puckered mouth of a wanton woman. And I crossed my fingers, oh yes, I crossed my fingers, and hoped at the end of the day I wouldn't see my grumpy neighbor laughing at the sight of me jilted at the Avon altar.
My sale began at eight, but I started getting ready at six. I set out two card tables with demonstration products and hand held mirrors. I stacked two sets of two Avon delivery boxes side by side and laid an eight-foot section of particle board over them, covering it with a red and green plastic Christmas tablecloth and plates of homemade cookies, a bowl of cheese doodles, a pitcher of lemonade and fifty Sponge Bob Dixie cups. 7 and 9 placed metal folding chairs here and there, and I banished the dog to the house where she sat, snout pressed against the front window, wishing she were human and carefree. I set out brochures, order forms, all the samples I possessed, and created a kids' play section in one corner of the driveway with the Avon Wellness Yoga Mat and the Avon Cardio Slide. I tied a dozen rainbow balloons to my mailbox and sat down to wait.
And wait. And wait. And wait.
At ten-thirty I was still waiting. 7, 9 and six neighborhood kids sat in a circle next to the fitness equipment, playing Duck, Duck, Goose, and eating what remained of the cookies and lemonade. I watched middle-aged neighbors mow lawns, prune trees, travel to and fro with groceries and surfboards. They waved at me, their crazy cohabitant Avon Lady, happy I was home to watch all their children, not grateful enough to sit on my lawn and flip through a brochure.
A tiny girl with raven hair and her mother's unusual stretchy mouth left the circle and pointed to the makeup samples.
"Can you put some on me?"
Why not? No one else was running up my hilly street for some blush and a bit of eye liner. I ran my hand along the pile of miniature lipsticks looking for something simple and innocent, but goth girl grabbed the most virulent of the reds.
"This one!"
So I shaded her lips as lightly as I could with Reckless Red. I added a touch of Shimmering Gleam Creme to her cheeks and eyelids and patted her arms with fragrant Timeless bath powder. She stared in a hand-held mirror, studying the shape of her lips. As I reached for a black Glimmerstick - I wanted to draw in a fake beauty mark on her left cheek - the short grumpy man three doors down opened his garage and his killer dachtsund yipped and flew straight for my herd of duck duck geese.
"AaaaaaaEEeeeeeeEEEEeeeeAAaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!" The screams of eight children rang through the court as the hotdog jumped for either the plate of cookie crumbs or the bowl of cheese doodles. The plates went one way, the kids went another, the particle board fell off the boxes, into the grass, into the dog, lemon halves and orange doodles flying through the air like a flotilla of miniature UFOs. And Little Miss Goth screaming, screaming for life, for fun, for the terror of it, because of the spastic hyper pooch, because she was outside and red and shiny and five years old. And then she dropped the mirror, crash, clang, shatter, into a thousand shards of bad luck on the drive.
But that wasn't the worst of it, oh no. 9 decided we needed paper towels and brooms and a trash can to clean up this mess of an Avon sale, and he snuck away from the commotion and ran into the house, the house containing the big white sissy dog who stood watching a shrimp of a grumpy man's dog tear through HER YARD, and she tore past 9, through the door, and sailed into the front yard with a tousle of fur and fleas and anger and justice and growled straight for the dachtsund. I dove for Suzie and grabbed her by the collar but she didn't let up, and I fell to the ground like a pancake, flat on my belly, Suzie dragging me three feet or more until she gave up and plopped on the ground, head between two sad paws.
I stood, blood oozing from my right arm, the side of my right thigh like raw hamburger, and carried my heavy dumb dog back into the house, cleaned my wounds, took a hundred deep breaths, and wished for those days back in the neighborhood of my youth, where we lived for sneaking out at night and drinking Schlitz Malt Liquor Bull down at the dock.
When I came back outside, I saw eight little kids sweeping the driveway, picking up broken plates and bottles of Skin-So-Soft and those thousand beauty samples, trying to arrange them just so on the particle board now cracked down the middle and tilted like a canoe, covered in dirty Christmas wrapping. My grumpy neighbor walked toward me, the man who once, eight months ago, stood in the street and pointed at me and my house and called it a clown house, an embarrassment, called me a white trash woman with loose morals, called me things ten times worse, things I'm too shy to say. He walked with hands in pockets, his perpetual motion hotdog back in his yard, and I braced for another barrage of weary insult.
"Sorry 'bout that. Whatcha selling?" He looked at me through brown eyes trying to be kind through his hard edge, and I noticed for the first time in five years that he had beautiful wavy black hair. He bought two bottles of Bug Guard and ordered an Avon Sun Protection, SPF 30. He wrote me a check then and there, and I was afraid to tell him no, you don't pay until it arrives.
Slowly, other customers arrived, one by lone one, a couple here, a couple there. Most were women I met in their homes, stopping by to gossip and get a free sample or two. Several women placed orders for makeup and skin care items. Two Latina ladies stopped at the table, looked at the brochures, chose a lipstick each, and waved thank you. I raised my arm to wave in return.
"Jesucristo!" Both women invoked Jesus' name and made the sign of the cross. I turned around to see what the heck was happening now, but nothing but my messy driveway and garage door stared back at me. The women spoke excitedly in Spanish and left my yard in a hurry. I saw them gesturing with arms and hands, squishing into a two door Toyota Celica with a dented engine hood. I stood with hands on hips, wondering what made them run, when I heard a voice I remembered, a voice I heard twice in my Avon past.
"So where's your kilt, lassie?" The man who questioned what was under said kilt stood at the end of the drive with a woman on his arm. She towered over him by at least three inches, placing her well above six-feet tall. Her hair cascaded down her shoulders in golden waves, movie star hair, and she laughed in a low knowing tone at her companion's question.
"I saw your posters and had to see what you'd do next. Here, show Eliza what you're selling." He took a chair next to the exercise station and rested his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. I showed Eliza around the three tables, gave her colors and powders and creams in little sample packettes, gave her brochures and printed fliers. I peppered her with questions, tried to find out if she was his wife or girlfriend or sister.
"Ha Ha, did your friend tell you how I threw some lipsticks at him a few weeks ago?" I hoped the word 'friend' would be enough bait but Eliza just snickered. She placed an order for a blush, a powder, a powder puff, and two Glimmersticks, and left her address, a home across town from Kilt Man's home. They left together, arm in arm, laughing, walking slowly like good pals or lovers, perhaps both.
When all was said and done and cleaned and put away and laid to rest, Alleluia and Amen, I stripped in the bathroom, ready to take a long, hot Avon-scented bubble bath. My ripped up thigh caught my eye, and then I turned my arm to look at the damage. The sure face of Jesus, complete with bleeding thorns, peered out from my skin. That is, if you squint a little and I flex the tricep.
1:39:29 PM 
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