Don't Shoot! I'm Just the Avon Lady! Read Online Free Page A

kept wishing for the train with my customer to arrive, and thought how much Avon was like England to me. A place of pretty things, a world of exploration, but nothing like home. A seagull flew to the ground and searched for tidbits of food near my feet.
    The train station loomed over my head, all oak beams and new green plastic panels, a tiny window for purchasing tickets behind which a woman with buck-teeth and a greasy pony tail stood. A splotch of mustard decorated the collar of her forest green uniform shirt, and she spoke under her breath to herself but I couldn’t make out any words. A stack of Watchtower magazines, the recruiting arm of the Jehovah’s Witness church, rested in a wire rack next to my bench, a thin coat of white sand covering the top book. “Oh, right!” I thought, and opened my purse to retrieve five Avon brochures. I placed them in the rack next to the Watchtowers and snapped my purse shut. Ms. Railway Clerk leaned her head from under the “Buy Tickets Here” sign. Her breasts smooshed against the wood counter and I worried a button would pop.
    “Ma’am! You can NOT leave soliciting materials at the train station. This is government property. Please remove those at once!” One palm pounded on the counter, keeping time with her tirade.
    “Well, hey, that’s not fair! The Jehovah’s Witnesses have their religious tracts here. Did you see these Watchtowers?” I stuck my hands on my hips and raised my eyebrows in my best liberal beach town hippy common sense way, and kept my butt firmly planted on the bench.
    “Ma’am, do you want me to call station security? We are under a terror watch and I can NOT allow any materials to be left at this station. Those Watchtowers have undergone a security check. They belong to me.” She closed her mouth, leaving two twisted teeth peeking out over her bottom lip and picked up a cordless telephone in a threatening manner.
    I picked up my brochures and stood next to the bench, ignoring Ms. Big Crooked Teeth Railway Clerk, and stared into the distance, down the crushed-rock-surrounded rails, past the quiet center of town, hoping the train would blare a welcoming siren. The clerk continued muttering to herself and I heard the ring of the telephone. I sat down on the bench once again, brochures in my lap, and watched her talk on the phone, laugh once, twice, turn around and rifle through an ivory file tower.
    The sea breeze ruffled the cover of the top Watchtower magazine, the train wailed from half a mile away, and I had a sneaky Avon Lady idea. Casually I inched back to the wire rack and shoved an Avon brochure inside each Watchtower, plumping them higher, brushing the top cover of each one, leaving a stack twice and high and a million times more interesting in its place, as if God himself blew pregnant beauty possibility into each evangelical leaflet. Ms. Railway Clerk laughed again, and I saw her slam the file shut as I gathered my boys and finally boarded the railcar. It must have been these brochures that my telephone caller with the strange request had found.
    I asked her once more for her name as my van turned onto my home street. The boy next door ran outside as if he’d been waiting for us to return, and my sons leaped from the side slide door the second I parked. I strained to hear my new customer over the laughter of boys dragging scooters across the driveway. I heard the bark of my dog behind the fence.
    “Sorry. I can’t give out my name. Don’t worry. You’ll get your money.”
    My mystery hand lotion lady refused to give her identity, even when I explained that I would never divulge it to anyone, ever. I wondered if she was a celebrity, or perhaps she was Ms. Railway Clerk playing a practical joke, upset that I’d left heathen Avon in her heavenly literature. But it didn’t sound like the buck-toothed gal, didn’t sound fake or unsure. I figured at the least it was a quick sale, so I ordered fifty hand creams and set a train station