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

had the forty-eight. The wail of the train pierced my thoughts, and I glanced at my watch. Four-ten.
    The aqua blue Coaster rolled to a screeching stop at the station, a two-level tour train of San Diego business commuters and hot, soiled tourists returning from beaches and ballparks and panda bears and the wet rustle bustle of Sea World. I kept my eyes locked on the entrance to the parking lot, waiting for a Cadillac, or a Lexus, maybe a limousine, at least a Lincoln, but only family cars pulled up to the curb, and a steady stream of train-weary passengers departed once again.
    “Excuse me? Are you Birdie?” A finger tapped me on the back, and I whipped around to see a tall, lithe, barely legal woman in a short orange mini-skirt and a cropped lime halter not quite containing two perfect cantaloupe breasts. Her hair stuck out from the sides of her head in two pixie pigtails fastened with yellow elastic yarn. She wore a purple crystal belly-button ring with a hanging cross, and it swung back and forth, back and forth, as she continued to speak.
    “Here’s your money. I calculated it myself. I’ve done before, so I know the amount, including tax and the customer charge. I’m paying in cash, and I don’t need change.” She held out two hundred dollar bills and a fifty dollar bill with one hand and picked up the three Avon totes with the other.
    “Uh, that’s too much, that’s like thirty dollars extra, but I don’t have any cash on me. We can ask the ticket man over there for change, how’s that? I don’t take tips, we don’t do that in Avon.” I stumbled over my words, the woman wasn’t what I expected, the breasts and lime and orange and purple crystal disoriented me, a kaleidoscope of a grown girl, a mystery of a mismatched voice and body, and I took the money and jumped up to walk to the ticket counter.
    “No, I don’t have time. It doesn’t matter. Thank you!” She turned and ran, ran for the train, jumped on as the last call for departure came, and I watched the train rumble north for Los Angeles, San Francisco, so many places in between. I didn’t remember to tell her I shorted her two tubes.
    I figured this was the end. I put the incident in a file in the back of my Avon mind, wondered why a voluptuous pierced goddess in lime and orange would buy so many hand creams, why she would pay cash, why she would disappear with the seagull sea wind. I thought of sexy illicit reasons why she would need vats of lotion, thought of horny male customers, perhaps, or maybe something innocent, smart, like horse care, or llama research, or art, sweet moisture-rich art. Ah, I’ll never hear from her again, I figured. I was wrong.

Mullet Madness
    My father played Johnny Cash and Peter, Paul, and Mary records when I was a kid. He sang along with the Irish Rovers, Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, and when I turned old enough to choose my own tunes I picked the punk music I knew my father would hate. I grooved to The Clash, the Vapours, the Sex Pistols, played my saxophone loud and mean, growled my angst into the mouthpiece, let the reed vibrate emotion through the house, just a safety-pin rocker chick in torn clothes and a bad Mohawk.
    Now I listen to the music of my father. And so it goes. My best girlfriend, Shanna, calls it Hee Haw music, and when we drive down to San Diego for Girls Night Out we take turns playing songs on my CD player. I try to pick stuff I think she might like - a little Roger Cline, a little Springsteen. She tries to pick stuff I’ll like - a little Aerosmith, a little Van Halen, and we boogy together down the 5 like spastic teenagers two plus decades removed.
    Shanna loves her metal music. She howled at the moon when she got a date with another Metallica fan, called me eight times the morning of our date. I was out delivering all those hand creams when she left me a breathy voice message.
    “Birdie! Don’t forget mascara! I want to wear dark eyes, ok?”
    I called her back once I fed the boys