Something for Everything

The woman at the next table in this strip mall sushi restaurant is trying to lure two young men into her sales scheme. She starts with the supplements she’s taking. “I’ve lost thirteen inches overall,” she says. “Inches.”
“That’s a lot of inches,” they agree.
“It’s all in the collagen,” she tells them.
“Collagen,” they repeat, trying out the word in their own mouths.
She has the high-pitched voice of one of their peers though she’s old enough to be their mother. She knows them somehow. Maybe they live in her neighborhood or went to school with her daughter. She asks about their music, and one shows her the demo CD he’s brought along.
“We’re hoping to sit in with a band that tours all over,” he says. “Well, they don’t tour exactly, but they play a lot of local gigs.”
We are sitting in a gated outdoor area, the only customers willing to brave the vague  weather. The clouds are gray brushstrokes against the sky — they could go either way. The waiter is about their age. His name is Nathan. I take note because that’s our own son’s name. This Nathan sounds British, and when the woman says, “Oh Nathan, I love your accent — are you from Scotland?” he admits he’s from right here in Middletown, Delaware.
Would our Nathan fake a foreign accent to pass the time on a job? Would he accept an invitation to dinner from someone who wants to tell him about “an exciting opportunity”? I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I just don’t know. When the waiter leaves, the guys want to talk about him.
“That was random,” one of them says, and the other adds, “Yeah, what the …”
But the woman reels them back to her script. She’s just started using the shampoo. “Feel my hair,” she insists, raving about its thickness and sheen. And there’s laundry detergent — "My clothes have never been so clean!” — and a heart supplement. Again, it’s all about the collagen. “They make something for everything,” she purrs.
Here comes the pitch: the investment is just $39.95, and the earning potential is “limitless.”
“Limitless,” she repeats, aiming her key fob at the parking lot where the lights on a silver Lexus sedan blink on and off. “And when you pick up your orders at the warehouse, they fill your car with all kinds of products for you to try.”

I’ve known acquaintances who hosted jewelry and kitchen parties. My cousin sold loungewear that looked like motel modern art paintings had melted onto fabric. A semi-complete list of the items I’ve bought during evenings of Chardonnay and Boursin cheese: a necklace with an off-center burnt-orange stone; herb scissors with their own teethed cleaner that resembles a tiny green Barbie comb; print yoga pants with a red splotch in the crotch that makes it look like I just started my period, though this has not been an issue for years.
When I was in junior high, the mom of a kid on my brother’s soccer team was constantly pushing her cosmetic line. She’d charge up to me in the bleachers, grab a fistful of my cheek, and blurt, “Yup, I see a blemish! Is it almost your time of the month?”

  The sky is growing darker. Every so often, the manager sticks his head out the door and looks up. Perhaps he wants us to offer to move inside. But my husband and I are comfortable in the slight September breeze as SUVs squeeze into spaces and mothers steer kids into Great Clips for back-to-school haircuts.
When the young men arrived, they came straight to the courtyard but didn’t see the gate. One swung up his leg to climb over until the woman said, “Oh honey, just lift that latch right there.” A part of me wanted to see him scale the wrought-iron fence, maybe take a running start and clear it like a hurdle at a track meet. There was something refreshingly innocent and reckless and sweet about the way he thought he needed to get from A to B.

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Erin Murphy’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Georgia Review, North American Review, Waxwing, The Best of Brevity anthology, and elsewhere. She is the author or editor of ten books, including Bodies of Truth: Personal Narratives on Illness, Disability, and Medicine (University of Nebraska Press) and Creating Nonfiction (SUNY Press), winner of the Gold Medal Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award. She is Professor of English at Penn State Altoona. Website: www.erin-murphy.com.