Chapter Two

Sometimes I think my story is about slutty Avon ladies. And not just one—one I could chalk up to chance. Two slutty Avon ladies feel more like a curse than a coincidence.

Today, the Avon lady is an anachronism, like the vacuum cleaner salesman or the Fuller Brush man. The only thing people sell door-to-door these days is eternal salvation, but when I was a kid, “Avon calling” was a regular event. A woman stopped by at least once a month, and whatever my mother happened to be doing, she put it aside for half an hour to sit down and sample the hand lotion, lipstick, and perfume. Like most of the women in our blue-collar Michigan neighborhood, my mother didn’t wear a lot of makeup. She was a low-maintenance woman. At our house, the Avon lady’s profit margins were small. The only thing we bought on a regular basis was Skin So Soft body splash. We used it to take fleas off the cat.

Avon lady was a high turnover job. We seemed to have a new one every six months. I could never tell them apart—not, that is, until Karen Rostenkowski.

It was the first day of summer vacation, and I had big plans for the three months before I started eighth grade—softball, swimming, and building myself a mini-bike. I’d bought an old frame for five dollars at a yard sale, and my mother said I could have the engine from the broken lawnmower in the back of our garage. My father had forbidden me to use any of his tools, but I didn’t care. My friend Jack Leinweber’s father had died back in January, leaving him unrestricted access to a two-tiered mechanic’s chest.

I was on my way to Jack’s house when the phone rang.

We lived in a three-bedroom ranch just outside of Detroit. The houses in our subdivision were small brick bungalows, built so close together that when our next-door neighbor stood in his bedroom and blew his nose, we could hear it in our kitchen. Everyone on our street knew everyone else’s business, and there was a well-established telephone tree for up-to-the-minute reportage.

The caller was Jane, Jack’s mother. Grief had done little to dull Jane’s interest in neighborhood events. Grief had done little to Jane, period. Like my mother, she was a transplanted Southerner. Jane was from rural Georgia, my mother from Raleigh, North Carolina. They’d both married Yankee men, moved north with them, and lived to regret it. My parents’ marriage was far from happy. Lately, I’d gotten the distinct impression that my mother envied Jane. God knows I envied Jack.

“Listen, honey,” Jane said. “Jack’s waiting for you out in the garage. I don’t know what all mess ya’ll are fixing to make, but I don’t want any more oil on that concrete floor. After Bob died, I spent a month of Sundays cleaning up the drips from his motorcycle, and I have just finished painting in there. I’d rather you did whatever it is outdoors, but Jack says you have to be inside. Bring some cardboard or newspapers to put down, would you? I told Jack, but he won’t remember. Takes after his daddy.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Good girl. Now, is your mother handy? I want to speak at her.”

My mother sat at the kitchen table reading a book. I held the phone out to her. “Are you handy? Jane wants to speak at you.”

“And she means that literally,” my mother replied. “What does she want?”

“She didn’t say.”

“Hell’s bells.”

My mother put the book down and pulled off her left earring. I handed her the receiver. Jane and my mother had a love-hate relationship. Jane loved to talk; my mother hated listening to her. Their friendship was based on close proximity, cultural affiliation, and my mother’s thinly stretched politeness.

“Hello, Jane,” she said, settling in for a long haul. “What’s happening?”