AVON CALLING || AN ADA & LORI STORY
"Did the Avon lady come while I was gone?" Everett asked. He was shaving, the bathroom door open so they could talk, and Ada was unpacking his suitcase. He'd been up in Boston on business, only just returned home by an early train and they were preparing to go out for lunch.
Ada paused over the suitcase, in the middle of smoothing out the wrinkles in one of his work shirts. She didn't answer.
The Avon lady who sold Ada her makeup and perfume and other small toiletries came like clockwork every second Friday of the month at 4:30. She was always
precisely
on time, every time. Ada generally got those sorts of things from the drugstore on the corner or from the huge and glittering Macy's off Harold Square when she was feeling very extravagant. But the woman had been so very charming that Ada had invited her in and hadn't been to Macy's since.
The Avon lady was called Lori and she had hair bleached to the color of vanilla ice-cream in a way that Ada was always reminded of a movie star. She always wore little tailored suits and her nails were perfect little ovals of rosy champagne lacquer, and she never looked like anything was ever out of place. She exuded a boundless, worldly confidence that the shy Ada found endlessly enchanting. They would sit at the kitchen and Ada would listen, flustered and slightly overwhelmed as Lori would get out all of her little samples and the pretty, glossy catalog and tell Ada all about this and that that had come in new, as well as supplying her with her stand-by shades.
At first, Ada insisted that she didn't look very good in lipstick, never mind the bright seductive shades in the catalog.
"Nonsense." Lori insisted, taking hold of Ada's chin in her little manicured fingers, holding her fast as she applied three gentle swipes of color to her startled, parted lips.
"I don't think they usually put the lipstick
on
you." Everett remarked, amused when Ada had related the story while they were watching television that evening. She had touched her lips, still painted with
Crimson Beauty,
and lapsed into wondering silence.
As usual, it was exactly 4:30 on Friday afternoon when the buzzer rang. Everett had been out of town for three days and after only being alone even that little while, Ada was a bit embarrassed by how quickly she got up to hit the little intercom button.
"Avon calling!" Lori said cheerily, as if Ada could even begin to imagine that it was anyone else. Moments later, she was stepping through the door in her little heels and a suit the color of strawberry mousse, carrying her sample case.
By now it was like a little ritual: Lori would open her sample case and take out her glossy catalogs and Ada would make them each a cup of fresh coffee and then they would sit down together.
"Here are your usuals that you ordered last time," Lori said, offering tubes of sensible lipsticks and facial cream and perfume that Ada had ordered. "And let's take a look at some of the things new-in for summer!" She opened her lipstick color card and a new case of tiny sample tubes.
Ada knew what came next, and she surprised herself by how pliantly she leaned into Lori's touch as the other woman took her chin in her hand. Ada opened her lips slightly, closing her eyes as Lori gently swiped a bright new lipstick over her lips. The perfect sweep of fingers to draw the cupid's bow of the mouth, unbelievably effortless. She opened her eyes when it was done and was met with Lori's dazzling smile.
"This is
Ripe Cherry
. It's our signature shade for the season." She says, brightly, picking up her little Lucite mirror, holding it up for Ada to see.
Ada peered at herself, the lipstick stamped bright on her suddenly flushed face.
"It certainly looks just like a sweet ripe cherry." She agrees, fingers skimming over her lips, careful not to smudge. "Oh, but Lori, don't you think it's too much? You know how I am. I don't like to be
too
bold."
"Yeah, I know how you are." Lori laughed softly and reached for the little pads of cotton and the cold cream she used to remove makeup samples. She gently took Ada's chin in her hand again and brushed away the shade which Ada had found "too much".
"It's too bad, you know," Lori remarked. "I think, deep down, you'd
like
to be a little more bold. Why, right this minute you're thinking there's something you'd rather like to do if you only had the nerve." She smiled knowingly and Ada felt herself blush all the way down to her collarbones. Lori leaned in close, so dreadfully close that Ada could have counted the perfectly sketched hairs of her dramatically arched eyebrows. Had she been studying the woman's eyes and not her full, soft, peach-colored lips, as she was actually doing.
"I'm sorry. It's so...so terribly forward of me but I'd...I'd sure like to kiss you. Isn't that silly?" Ada said with a tiny, hysterical laugh.
"Not silly at all, darling," Lori said, though she didn't move to close the space between them. "Come on, Ada. Be
bold
."
Ada chewed her lip furiously for a moment (forgetting how unladylike a gesture that was) before she lurched across the minuscule space between them and kissed Lori on the mouth.
As quickly as she had done it, she sat back sharply, fingers pressed to her lips, still slightly tinged with
Sweet Cherry
. There was a tiny flourish of bright red marring Lori's peach lipstick. The Avon lady was looking incredibly pleased with herself and Ada felt herself go almost painfully hot all over and she covered her face with her hands.
"I'm so sorry! That was very silly of me, wasn't it? I hope it wasn't...I mean, I hope you didn't mind very much--"
She felt a soft but very insistent hand on her wrist and her hands fell away from her eyes.
"No, Ada, I don't
mind very much
at all." Lori said, keeping a firm grip on Ada's wrist as she leaned forward and kissed her, the gesture more forward, more demanding than Ada's had been. Ada made a noise somewhere between pain and relief and as soon as Lori let go of her wrist (satisfied, apparently, that she wasn't going to run away), her own two hands framed Lori's cheeks and she was kissing her back as dearly as she had ever wished to. And she had wished to almost from the start.
"Lori's terribly pretty don't you think?"
She asked one night while she and Everett were reading in bed.
"Well...yes. But you think all sorts of girls are 'terribly pretty'. You can barely ride the train without telling me how terribly pretty all the girls are, sweetheart. Why do you ask?"