Baby's got a bad, bad zit
Sometime last month, in the middle of the pink purse sales contest, in the middle of a whole lotta family stuff, I found myself twenty miles south in the hoity toity town of La Jolla looking for geriatric vitamins. La Jolla swells with tourists every day of the year, swells from sunlit seal cliffs to dancing swirls of smoky yuppy people who point cameras at the seals and snap. Snap! They take the lifeforce of the place far, far from here, dump it into the kodacolor ocean, think it's there on glossy paper, don't see it is somewhere else, somewhere lost. La Jolla. I stay away from it most of the time, ignore the steely spires of the Mormon temple, the call of six thousand chi chi clothing boutiques and enough small new age churches to save the world, but of course they never do.
I ran into the Whole Foods Market with hair sticking out to there, a big fat ketchup stain across the bellybutton of my "Donuts are Best for Dinner" t-shirt and an Avon brochure stuffed in my purse. I strode to the vitamins, had to find just the right vitamins, the kind they advertised on that informercial with the fake Native American who talks about lowering your blood acid level. The old lady requesting, nay - demanding, these vitamins told me to return with nothing less, and I searched all my local vitajoints, moving down the coast, closer and closer to the land of sunset money, until I landed here, in this Whole Foods Market by the highway, by the sea, by the seat of the local Mormons.
I stood staring at the calcium, trying to call the famous alkaline type, asking it to jump from the overstocked shelves, and out the corner of my eye I noticed a short woman in satin silver cargo pants and a black halter top tied behind her neck. She picked up one zit remedy, then another, then another, piling them into her green wire hand basket. Her hair rested on her shoulders, all copper and sunglitter, the colors of La Jolla, one side held back with a diamond studded barrette. The small stones glimmered like real diamonds. She turned her head to see me watching her and she opened her mouth and gestured with a bottle of vitamin E creme promising the universe of clear skin.
"Excuse me, miss? I can't help noticing. You have gorgeous skin. What are you using? My friend has a whopper zit and he's giving a concert tonight. I have to find something to clear it up."
She smiled and waited for me to answer. I stood, my own wire basket in hand, open mouthed for a long, long time, considering her words. Gorgeous skin? Me?? I've always had a bit of an acne issue myself, but twelve daily products later, Avon granted me the clearest of complexions with a rosy 2-Step Peel glow. Yeah, I do have nice skin.
"Well, I have to tell you a little secret," I answered with a giggle, "I'm an Avon Lady. I use twelve products every night. I'm not kidding. I used to be zit central, and I'm 38! 38! I thought I'd outgrown them after 21 but they kept on coming until I started using the Avon Anew Clinical 2-Step Peel three times a week and also the PoreFection products plus the Anew Line and Wrinkle Corrector. Honestly, the combination is probably burning the entire top layer off my skin, but ya, it's looking decent these days." I smiled and winked and waved at the line of clear skin remedies. "I think Avon is much better than all this stuff."
As I spoke, her friend rounded the corner and stood behind her, a tall tall man with wavy dark hair, and I only noticed the zipper on his leather coat next to the woman's moonbeam hair. I glanced up to give him a friendly Avon inclusive smile, and froze, just froze. It wasn't the zit smack in the center of his chin - and boy was it a puss filled wonder - it wasn't the sheer sexy lovliness of his thick wavy hair - it was The Voice. The Voice that whispered "Hey Baby" and ran his hand along the back of the woman so like a La Jolla munchkin next to him. The Voice of a drop dead amazing singer actor man, a man whose songs rang out of my van tape player those Saturday drives with my Turkish friend, the music we loved so much, music with sparse guitar and lullaby border hymns, music where you sing and think and dream, just wonder.
"Oh my gosh! I can't believe it's YOU! She said she had a friend with a zit problem" and here I lifted my hands to my mouth in horror with what I uttered, the rush of crappy fan groupie words with a touch of puss, "Oh sorry! Sorry! It's just I never met anyone like you before!" He winced and rubbed his chin with a wry smile.
"Yes, it's a bad zit, isn't it?" His voice sounded clearer, sexier in person, and I forgot about the ketchup on my shirt and my hair out to there and I pulled out an Avon brochure.
"Well I was just telling your friend that I recommend Avon products for acne, they sure cleared up a boatload of zits on my face." I handed over the brochure, but my hands shook so badly that he laughed when he grabbed it.
And when he lifted the brochure, touched it with those music god long fingers, lifted it, opened it in a gesture of kindness, one of those small OB tampons came rolling out and fell to the floor.
11:40:41 AM 
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