| ||||||||
|
|
Avon
Calling PAGE
TWO: It was no different that late August afternoon with blood-soaked Kleenex on my lap, listening as the axe was once again about to fall. "But I don't understand," Mom's new lady-friend-client-person said. "You're so beautiful and you had so much success and knew people, what happened?!" My eyes flicked back to my mother awaiting her response, hoping in vain that maybe this time she would share something that I hadn't heard, something that she'd maybe forgotten about why she hadn't become successful, famous and rich…but most importantly, happy. Mom took her usual deep breath, clutched her hands tightly in front of her, her Frosted Ruby lip trembled, the traditional tear fell. She looked deeply into her listener's eyes and said, "I had a child. Everything changes when you have a child." Silence. Or maybe a long, long pause. I don't remember this part as clearly. But what I do recall was how, on this particular visit, the lady-friend-client person sat back after tenderly passing my mother a napkin, and looked over at me on the nearby chair and said, "Well young lady, I hope you appreciate what your mother gave up for you." I didn't reply. I picked up the Broadway Opera I'd been working on the whole time. I'd drawn out a picture that showed the lead diva in a beautiful gown in the middle of a grand stage with roses thrown down all around her. There was a plump stick figure of sorts in the background that was supposed to be Liberace playing the piano, with all his rings brightly reflecting the actresses' image in them. Next to the piano stood my version of Frank Sinatra, and in his hands I placed what I thought was an Oscar at the time, and the actress he was presenting it to was my mother. I was really excited to show it to her, and I thought that it might make everything better somehow. I imagined my dad, who was a closet poet and writer himself, could help me write the opera part a little better, and then maybe I could publish it and my mother would be happy, feeling like everything she had given up was for a reason. Getting up from the living room floor amidst markers and paper and still scattered Avon products, I walked up to my mother and tried to show her the picture and story I'd written with it. But, preoccupied with her lady-friend-client-person, she took my Broadway Opera and placed it on top of a box of Cape Cod Glassware she was trying to sell. "I'll look at it later," she said as she directed me back to clean up my art supplies. I was crushed. It had to be right there and then; it had to be in that moment when she still remembered everything she'd said and done before I was born. My mother had brought with her an Avon box full of various perfume swabs and mini Lilac Luster lipstick samples. She handed me the box and asked me to take it out to the car, which I did. I then sat waiting in the passenger seat, hoping she was sharing my Opera with the stranger inside. As my mother came out, she looked as she usually did, her odd Avon-esque delivery personae glowing in the sunlight. It was a hot day and she put the Cape Cod Glassware box she was carrying in the back seat through the open window. My Opera was still on top and, clearly, she had not looked at it yet. I sat quietly as my mother started the car in silence and we began to drive off down the street and out of the neighborhood. As the car drove up onto the freeway and gained speed, there was suddenly a fluster of wind that came sweeping through the windows, spraying papers and Lilac Luster samples everywhere. My mother shrieked, "Oh my god, my lipstick samples! Damnit!" Just as she said this, I turned around and looked in the back seat to see my Broadway Opera fly out of the window in a dramatic exit. I stared out the back window as the papers danced around on the freeway behind us. Up and over other cars and onto the side of the road, I saw my answer disappear. My mother, still frantic about her samples, put up all the windows and asked me what blew out. How many samples did it look like she lost? "None of the samples blew out the window Mom, only some blank sheets of paper, nothing to worry about." My mother breathed a sigh of relief putting up the windows and blasting the air conditioning."OK, good, thanks, I have to give those to my customers." I stared out my window and thought about the Opera that was probably still dancing around the freeway behind us several miles back. My mother turned on the radio. Classical music blared -- a woman was actually singing an operetta. I remember even as a nine-year-old believing there was no such thing as a coincidence, and as my mother and I drove home into the suburban sunset, it was like an ode to my lost answer that had forever blown away.
PAGE 1 2
|
I
was always fascinated watching Mom's listener's jaw drop open and
then hang on every word she shared about her time in the industry.
Up to the point where it would always happen. They would
ask it -- that question that made me hold my breath and wish so
much I could be anywhere in the world other than in that room.
