“This completes our test of the emergency broadcast system,” the smooth male voice said. One of those kinds of voices: Dan Rather or Peter Jennings. The guys with the thick, perfect hair, the kind everybody trusts. The type who never get their feathers ruffled. No one would ever show them the door, that was for sure, Rudy thought.
What if the alarm had been for real? he wondered as he looked out into the airport parking lot, where glass and chrome shimmered like the surface of a pond. He imagined everyone across the city stopping what they were doing: the woman changing her baby’s diapers, the guy pumping gas, the office worker trying to decide whether to have sushi or soup for lunch. Everything that mattered the minute before would no longer make a difference. It was hot in the Buick, but Rudy didn’t roll down the window. In the thick, fertile air of his car, something stirred in his brain. The radio emitted a long tone that could have been a submarine diving. It could have been an electronic whistle or a humming siren, or that word those yoga types said. Om. The sound of the universe. The sound of the truth, awakening in Rudy’s mind.
The radio gave three short bongs. The test was over.
At that moment, in the warm car, Rudy’s idea was born.
Right then, right there.
7
A test. It was only a test. Not a bomb, or a missile, or an earthquake. Not a tidal wave, as Inez imagined it could have been: a wall of water piling up out in the ocean, a mountainous wave gathering force before it swept into the basin of Los Angeles, where it would wash everything—parking meters, telephone poles, houses, the planes where Rudy worked, trees, and people—just like toys, like bits of broken wood and plastic, all out to sea. Like the flood and Noah’s ark. For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven; everything that is on earth shall die.
Just as Inez was thinking that if Clara Rice didn’t get there with the Avon soon, she might have to deliver it a different day, the doorbell rang. Inez switched off the TV and ran to the door. Clara was there with the box. The perfume wafted up, full of promise.
“Big order today,” Clara said, trying to see around Inez into her house.
The sooner she left, the better, in case anyone should see. Not that Rudy ever talked to anyone in the neighborhood, but better safe than sorry. Inez smiled, nodded, took the box. “Okay, see you next time,” she said, quickly closing the door.
She got right to work. Laid out her supplies, checked the shipment over, organized the invoices. Glanced at the clock. She divided everything up, carefully placed each order in a paper bag. Nail polish, foundation, lip gloss, facial mask, powder blush, eye shadow. Home decorations and jewelry. Candles. She added the free gifts to each bag: this month it was a sample-size lipstick of Very Cherry and a small vial of Spring Fling perfume. She stapled the receipts to the outsides of the bags, which she placed back in the box that Clara had brought. She went into the bathroom and touched up her own makeup, tied a scarf over her head, slipped on her loafers, and headed for the garage.
Rudy didn’t think she should have a car, just like he didn’t think she should have a job. A woman’s place is in the home. She wasn’t sure that was in the Bible, either, but there were plenty of other things that were: Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. And, if that wasn’t enough: For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. But the ultimate authority, higher than Rudy, was God, and if God gave her the plan about Avon, her only choice was to obey.
The garage was tiny, crowded with Rudy’s things. Tools, model airplanes from when he was a kid, newspapers, boxes whose contents were a mystery. He didn’t like her out there, he’d told her so. His space, he said, where he could have a little privacy. When she started to wonder about him she stopped her mind, moved on to something else. Vanessa’s burgundy mountain bike leaned against the wall near the light switch. Inez used bungee cords to attach the box to the rack over the back tire. She hung her purse on the handlebars, then wheeled the bike around to the side yard and out the gate.
The wind was whipping up. Eucalyptus leaves and smashed paper cups tumbled along the road. There was plenty of time. Inez took off. She smelled rain.
She pumped up the hill at the end of the street, where a vacant lot sparkled with broken glass, and headed for the neighborhood on the other side of the four-lane road. It was too risky to sell around her own house, in case Rudy got wind of it. Wild fennel gave off its licorice smell. The hill was steep, but Inez didn’t mess with the gears. Vanessa might notice and, even though she’d never say anything to Rudy, it was better if she didn’t know. That way she wouldn’t have to lie, wouldn’t have to have it on her conscience. For whosoever condones a sin also commits it. Or something like that.
At the top of the hill, at the corner with the dry cleaner and the eight-dollar haircuts, Inez stopped and caught her breath while she waited for a break in the traffic. It was all downhill from here. She liked to go fast, but the bottles on the rack behind her rattled, so she applied the brakes. It was silly how much she loved riding the bike. It brought back the one memory she had of her father: how, as a girl of four, right after he brought her over from the Philippines, she had ridden on the handlebars as her father steered them through streets so different from anything she had known. As she pushed through the intersection and started downhill, she remembered his brown hands on the handlebars and his voice close to her ear, talking in tight words because of the cigarette clenched between his teeth. The asphalt passing beneath them, the wind in her face, the handlebars bumping under her hips, his voice blending with the whistling of the wind. Her mother and brothers were supposed to join them in America later, but for a reason she never learned, they didn’t. It was all foggy to her, even now. Then her father himself disappeared, and she went to stay in a series of foster homes until the Melberts adopted her and raised her along with their own three children.
The one picture she had of her father, which she kept in the cedar chest under the Avon products, showed him posed next to a bicycle, his hands on the handlebars and a cigarette between his lips, just like her memory of him. The photograph showed the deep creases in his cheeks, the dark hair that sprouted from his head like a bush and fell down over his forehead, hiding his eyes. Her dream, and part of her plan, was to find him, to find her whole family. Ask, and you shall receive. She knew it would happen, sooner or later. The one thing she had, that she knew, was her name. Santos. So beautiful, like a prayer. More than that, it was a clue, a step in the right direction. She repeated it now as she flew downhill, the bike jumping and skidding over the uneven pavement. She dreamed of this at night: riding tirelessly up and down hills, the miles falling away effortlessly as she passed through abandoned towns, seasides, jungles.
The fat family was the first stop. Brenda, the mother’s name was, Brenda McNair. It was a corner house with a straggly loquat tree and a cyclone fence. Inez pushed her bike through the gate and knocked. The stink in there. Mercy. Inez couldn’t understand it. Like they did their business right there in the living room. That and the smell of grease, everything they ate must have been fried. Dust and dirt stuck to the coat of grease, so everything was fuzzy. Walls, lamps, tables. All those big white people wallowing around in the tiny living room like a family of elephant seals, sisters and brothers and their girlfriends and boyfriends and kids and a couple of cousins thrown in, who knew who they all were?
They had a thing for angels, couldn’t get enough of them. Angel candles, angel bells, angel music boxes. Angels sitting on the edges of tables and hanging off walls. You’d think with all those angels maybe they’d want to clean up a little, dust the furniture and clean the carpet, get rid of that smell. But no. Anyway, it was a good thing—for business at least. This time they’d ordered a pewter angel Christmas ornament and a wind chime dancing with little silver angels. They were impulse buyers, too. You could usually tempt them right on the spot with things they hadn’t even seen be
fore. Inez knocked again, louder this time.
One of the twin daughters answered. Both girls were no-goods, something wrong with them. Big girls, old enough to be married, who had dropped out of high school and were working at the Taco Loco up on Cesar Chavez. On their way to being as fat as their mother. Most of the time when she came by, they were side by side on the couch, staring at the TV.
“Avon,” Inez announced. “A delivery for your mama.”
“Mom!” the girl shouted toward the back of the house, not even saying hello, but looking down greedily at the bag Inez held. Inez couldn’t help thinking of her own daughter, so polite, so clean, so quiet. This one had dark circles under her eyes, like she did some kind of drug. Pimples she’d picked into scabs. Dirty house shoes.
Brenda McNair came waddling down the hall. “Come in, come in!” she yelled, motioning with her big arms. At least she had more manners than her daughter. Inez stepped inside. The other twin came in from the kitchen, the son’s girlfriend from behind Brenda. Streaming in from everywhere, like animals at feeding time. Coming for their angels.
Inez gave them the order and waited for the oohs and ahs, the gasps and giggles and sighs as they passed around the wind chimes and Christmas ornament. “Buy forty dollars and get the free gift on this next order,” she said, opening the catalog and pointing to the display of a carrying case, mascara, and fade cream. “If you buy sixty dollars’ worth, you get the exclusive premium gift, worth thirty-five dollars itself.”
They crowded around. The smell was getting to her. Pee and sweat and grease. Funny how every one of the houses she visited had its own smell, just like each person had her own personality. She could walk into any of her customers’ houses with her eyes closed and know where she was.
“I want this!” one of the twins cried, just like a little girl.
“Mama, buy it for me,” the other one pleaded, pushing her way into the circle to get closer to the catalog.
“Buy it yourself,” Brenda said. “My God, you think I’m made of money?”
But she did end up buying them what they wanted. That and plenty else: the peaceful dove ceramic ornament, astringent cleanser, and Classic Coral powder blush. She bought after-shave splash for her son and Pearly Pink nail polish and matching lip gloss for his girlfriend. Cellulite control gel, moisturizing hand cream, and, finally, the spice-scented wax diffuser. Inez wondered where the money was coming from, but that wasn’t her concern. She wrote the order down in her neat handwriting while the dollar amounts rolled in her head like miles on an odometer.
“Do we have enough for the free gift?” Brenda asked when the feeding frenzy was over.
“The premium gift,” Inez pronounced.
Everyone clapped.
The next customer, Mrs. Betski, lived at the end of the same street. It was uphill; Inez stood on the pedals and pumped hard, squinting into the sun that was trying to pierce the high ceiling of overcast sky. A plane broke through the clouds, and for a moment, until it passed back into a thick bank of gray, she thought of Rudy, picturing his small, delicate hands and the fastidious way he cut his meat into uniform pieces before he ate. He might have cleaned that very plane up there now. Even with the noise from the freeway and the wind lashing the rasping fronds of the palms along the parking strip, she heard the roar of the jet’s engines. She envied the people up there going somewhere far away.
Mrs. Betski opened the door the minute Inez knocked, like she’d been waiting. She wore shorts that showed her skinny noodle legs, big ugly sandals with thick men’s socks. What a sight. Body lotion was all she ever bought. She took the bag and eyed Inez suspiciously. Her house smelled like the menthol rub Inez’s foster mother used to massage into her chest when she had a cold.
“Same ting next month,” Mrs. Betski said. She had an accent like Dracula. “Vhat are you?” she added before she handed over the money.
“Excuse me?”
“Vhat are you? Vhat are you?” she repeated impatiently, peering into Inez’s face and gesturing with her big-knuckled hands.
Inez smiled like she always did when something unpleasant was coming.
“Chinese? Japanese? Vair you from?” Mrs. Betski scowled, as if Inez were playing stupid on purpose.
Love your neighbor as yourself, Inez reminded herself as she took a big breath. For as you do unto them, so do you unto me. “From L.A.,” she answered, pointing down at the porch as if she’d been
born on that very spot.
After that was Carmen Miramonte, whose house smelled like cigarettes. Then Edith Lee, whose son was in a hospital bed in the living room. Mrs. Dilly, who decorated her windowsills and tabletops with the Avon bottles she’d been collecting since goodness knew when. And Joan Regosian, with all the cats. No surprise what her house smelled like. Big clumps of fur, too, stuck all over the furniture.
The orders rolled in. As she got back on her bike and pedaled past the little park where the neighborhood teenagers slumped around in their hoods and baggy pants, Inez imagined the envelope in the cedar chest growing fatter and fatter. There was nothing like feeling the money pile up. It was getting late, though, and a tingle of fear went through her as she imagined Rudy coming home a little early and finding the house empty. But why would he? All the same, she pumped faster, panting a little as she rounded the corner onto the street of one-story stucco duplexes where she’d make her last delivery. She’d have to hurry now to get home before Vanessa. The house where the two girls lived, women really, was in the middle of the block. She dismounted at the sidewalk and pushed her bike across the unkempt lawn.
The other one answered, not Celeste, her customer. This girl was big, tall, without a drop of makeup and a thick braid hanging down the middle of her back. Bare feet and bitten-down fingernails. Faded jeans torn across the knees and a T-shirt that belonged in the rag bag.
“Yes?” she said, blinking like she’d just woke up. There was something shifty about her, restless. She fidgeted like a horse, shifting from one leg to the other while she looked Inez up and down.
“Is your friend home?” Inez guessed that was the word for it. Their place was small, a one-bedroom. She’d visited the bathroom on the last visit, had peeked in at the unmade bad. Double bed. Clothes tossed on the floor and over the chair.
“No, no. She’s not here,” the girl said.
“I have an order for her. Avon.”
Inez held up the bag. The other one, Celeste, was one of her best customers, always ordering for her big family—sisters, mother, and nieces. A nice girl, and very pretty. Every hair in place with that one: makeup, nails, and clothes. South American, she had told Inez, but a Jew, too. Inez knew from her name, Levy.
“I can take it,” the other one said, reaching for the bag.
She could be pretty, too, if she tried. Very pretty, in fact. Nice eyes, good bone structure. How had she turned out the way she had? An abomination. But it wasn’t for Inez to judge. Still, when she thought of Vanessa around people like that, her blood ran cold.
“It’s a big order,” Inez said, keeping the bag out of her reach. “I need to collect the money.”
“Come in, then. I’ll write you a check.”
Inez followed her into the house. The shades were down. It was a hippie-looking place, the lumpy furniture covered with Indian-print bedspreads and something woven hanging on the wall. It smelled of dried flowers and incense. Candles and carved wooden animals covered the coffee table; a brick-and-board bookshelf stood against one wall. The girl led her to a dining table at the side of the room near the kitchen. It was piled with books, newspapers, opened mail, and what looked like a half-built doll house made of balsa wood. A mess. Hanging on the wall over the table was a sketch of a naked woman leaning back in a chair. Right out in the open for everyone to see.
“How much is it?” the girl said, rummaging in her backpack.
“Seventy-seven eighty-four.”
Inez felt exposed standing in the middle of the living room, alone in the
house with a girl like that. She didn’t want to get too close, although just looking at the girl you would never have guessed.
“I’ll leave the first line blank and you can fill it out however you want,” Celeste’s friend said as she made out the check. Her braid fell over her shoulder while she wrote.
Inez couldn’t help looking around. There were lots of photographs on the bookshelf of babies and kids and relatives. All Celeste’s family, from the looks of them, clearly not this white girl’s. There was Celeste herself, standing in front of a tree with her arms around what must be two of her sisters.
“Here you go.”
When the girl smiled, her whole face changed. She looked like a child, innocent and happy. Inez’s heart softened, she couldn’t help it. Jewell Wylie, she read on the check. What kind of name was that? Would the check bounce? The girl watched her closely with a half-smile on her face, and for a moment Inez wondered if she should show her the catalog, encourage her to wear a little makeup. There was always hope. People could change. But it was getting late.
“I’ll leave a catalog for Celeste. I’ll call her in a week or so to see if there’s something she wants to order.”
“I can tell her to call you.”
“No, don’t call!” Inez blurted out before she could catch herself. “No bother,” she added, forcing a smile. “I’ll call her.”
It was early twilight, the saddest time, when Inez got on her bike and headed home. The dying moments of the day when she felt most alone. When she was a girl she’d thought that as the sun sunk into the horizon, it rose simultaneously in the place where she’d been born, waking her lost family who would get out of bed, have breakfast, and begin their day without her. Meanwhile she went home to eat the unfamiliar food of a foster family while she listened, bewildered, to their insider table talk, then went to sleep in a bed that smelled of strangers. Was it possible to be homesick for a place she no longer remembered? But at this time of day she longed for that place: for the humid island air, for the street sounds and smells of a city of millions who looked like her.
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