Slight of Hand 1

Slight of Hand
by Gwen L. Williams

It was a typical Minnesota summer day—June, the season of mosquitoes and

lake temperatures exceeding 60 degrees—when the chinaware salesman
approached the thirty-seventh ranch home on Kumquat Street. The salesman
yawned as he rang the doorbell. Had he known that the interior buzzer had been
clogged with grease and grime and no longer worked, he probably would have
lugged his case of wares and payment plan schedules to the ranch next-door.
As luck would have it, as the salesman pushed the silent doorbell for the
third time, a young girl, skateboard in hand, flung open the screen door and nearly
leapt into the salesman. Staring at his sportcoat’s elbow patches, the girl called into
the house for her mother and then bounded off the front step, leapfrog fashion. She
placed a rock in her pants pocket, stomped a line of anthills, and then
skateboarded down the driveway.
A cheerful woman in a calico apron, a damp cotton dishtowel in one hand
and a dime in the other, answered the door. When the woman realized it was a
salesman and not a religious soul campaigning for salvation, delivering pamphlets
door-to-door, she slipped the dime into her apron pocket. The salesman, his spirits
buoyed by the calico cowboys and indians print apron (the woman had sewn the
apron and two standard pillowcases from a crib sheet that once belonged to her
eldest son), launched into his sales pitch. Politely—no, radiantly—the woman
listened to the young man with mismatched ears. For having such unusual ears, he
has a lovely voice, she thought. A radio voice. He ought to be on radio.
The salesman interpreted the look on the woman’s face and immediately
calculated three different deposits to his checking account, based on the
commission for three different china patterns. Perhaps the day wouldn’t be a bust
after all, he thought. This cheered him on. And just as he unbuckled the case he’d
been lugging around the seven county area for nearly a year, the woman said
regretfully, “I’m sorry, I’m just not interested. I don’t need any china. I’ve been
feeding seven mouths for twenty-some years now and my goodness, I think I’ve got
all the dishes I need.”
The salesman thought he detected a note of hesitation in the woman’s voice
and was confident he could win her over with his china for the holidays and
special occasions angle. Of course he cannot be faulted for that. He had
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undergone extensive sales training that included a dozen sure fire ways to close a
sale and how to read checkbook balances upside down. Besides, the woman in
the calico apron seemed genuinely nice, good-hearted, and thus, a pushover for
wallet-sized photos of small children. To be sure, the woman was good-hearted
and there was nothing in her demeanor at the door to suggest her consistent hard
line stance on foul language and curfews. Many a filthy mouth had been frothed
up with dish soap by her hands—those same hands that mercilessly and undaunted
by all manner of squirming and protest had taught her five children how to properly
take medicine by jamming pills down the backs of their throats. She had even bit
the arm of the three year old that seemed he would grow up to be that type of rug
rat every kid on the block fears: the habitual biter. (Her tactic worked—he never bit
his older brother again.) As the skateboarder working her way up and down the
asphalt driveway could have told him: when her mother said no, she meant no.
While the salesman discoursed about ceremonial slices of turkey and
steaming heaps of potatoes and gravy served on eloquent porcelain china plates
rimmed in hand-painted wreaths of holly, a girl appeared in the doorway who
seemed an easy sell. The girl had pulled herself away from a bag of chips and a
syndicated rerun of Star Trek when she heard the radio-lovely voice say,
“Immaculate service for eight.” The salesman immediately noted the girl twisting a
ring around her finger.
The girl, having just graduated from high school and working full-time as a
stablehand, felt it was high time she seriously searched for a set of china. She had
collected all manner of Tupperware and various odd-shaped kitchen utensils and
had spent the better part of her free time flipping through mail order catalogs. The
salesman, distracted by the legs that the neighborhood boys had informally voted
the best legs in the neighborhood, inquired if he might step into the house.
“Let’s go around back,” the girl said as she stepped out the door. The mother
threw her arms up in the air with a sigh and turned her attention back to the ground
beef browning on the stove.
The china salesman followed just to the side and one step behind the girl as
she walked around the side of the house. This afforded him ample, though not too
obvious, looks at the best legs on Kumquat Street. As she passed a wildly
overgrown bush sprouting from the rock garden, the girl pulled a yellow blossom
from it and twirled it in her fingers. The two settled down on the redwood picnic
table on a concrete slab around back that served as the back porch.
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The skateboarder, curious about the man with the outrageous elbow patches
and funny-looking ears, rolled over to the negotiating duo. She bounded from her
rolling skateboard and plopped herself on a bench directly across from the
salesman. The skateboard clattered to a stop near the gas grill. From her vantage
point directly across the picnic table from him—a perfect face-making vantage
point—the skateboarder moved her tongue around the inside of her cheek while
she stared at the man. It appeared as if she rolled a jawbreaker or large marble in
her mouth: it was that kind of face she made at the man. The older sister suspected
the younger of making faces at the charming and snappy dressed man, but never
caught her in the act (the skateboarder, the youngest of five, was most skilled at
pulling faces and never getting caught). The salesman did his best to ignore her and
concentrated on the girl who alternated between twirling her ring and twirling the
small yellow blossom.
The angle he worked on the girl was a combination of polite, bland cocktail
party comedy and promising flirtation. And twice he seemed on the verge of a
close only to be interrupted by the clever, snot-nosed skateboarder. The first
interruption came when the skateboarder succeeded in capturing a fly in her hands
and demanded a leash for it. The older sister pulled a long hair from her own head
and handed it to the younger. The second interruption came when the younger
sister demonstrated her ability to burp at will. She burped several times until the
older sister started laughing and then told her to knock it off. The prodigious burper
apologized and giggled quite sweetly. She liked the man with the funny-looking
ears.
The salesman whose many mottoes included, Sometimes you hafta make do,
decided the vaudevillian pitch might sell her and he sprang up from the table.
With a flourish of arm gestures worthy of a magician, the salesman plucked two
teacups from his trunk and waved them in the air. He presented each teacup to the
girls and allowed them to examine them. Then he retrieved a Boy Scout knife from
behind the ear of the skateboarder and scraped one of its blades along the gold-
plated rims of the teacups. It made a noise that hurt the teeth—like chewing on tin
foil. He then had the girls examine the teacups again. The gold-plated rims
remained unblemished, flawless.
After a series of questions and answers that proved the legitimate authenticity
of the teacups as being made of 100% pure porcelain china, he placed the teacups
upside down on the concrete slab. “Now watch closely,” he said rather a bit too
dramatically as he placed one foot atop one of the cups.
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Born every second are captivated audience members wanting to be delighted

and fooled and the sisters were no exception. Card tricks and yo-yos had prepared
the girls to be delighted with all manner of circus acts and slight of hand tricks. Of
course the girls were fooled by how closely they watched him and really couldn’t
say afterwards how he managed it, but the salesman ended up standing atop the
two tiny porcelain teacups as if they were platform shoes and he, Sonny Bono. He
momentarily got carried away by his marvelous performance and actually thought
he and the rest of the Northdale Boulevard Cloggers were on television. He’d been
a member of the troop throughout grade school (when he was in the fifth grade, the
Cloggers had danced their way through VFW halls and high school gymnasiums to
reach the Minnesota State Fair). Had his feet been smaller or the teacups larger, he
probably would’ve slipped his feet inside the cups and clogged for the sisters right
then and there.
He almost ruined the deal when he pulled four extendable twelve foot
bamboo poles from his trunk and asked if they’d like to see him twirl plates for a
spell.
The younger one called his bluff and he started to panic—beads of sweat
appeared where a mustache should have been—but the older one said, “No, no,
that’s enough,” and pointed to her chosen pattern: a band of colonial blue with tiny
burgundy flowers. It would look terrific with the pistol handled silverware set (the
Lexington pattern) due to arrive postage paid any day.
The salesman was delighted with her selection of a pattern from the top price
range category where dinner plates went for $80 and soup bowls, $45. He
complemented her on her excellent choice—“Dishwasher-safe,” he pronounced—
and produced the necessary paperwork to seal the transaction: warranties, delivery
schedules, shipping costs, payment plans, method of payment options, interest
rates, service charges, item selections, discounts, special offers, credit histories, and
an application.
Even though the girl was excited and had already began planning menus for
future dinner parties served on the exquisite china settings, she hadn’t just fallen off
the turnip truck: she asked for the total purchase price. Taking into account various
piece groupings and a one-time special discount offer to first-time buyers (provided
she had a co-signer: her mother, perhaps), the salesman calculated the total
purchase price for a service for eight (dinner plates, soup bowls, teacups one could
stand on, and saucers) at $1300 (not including tax, shipping, and the small nominal
service fee for china bought on the payment plan). “If the pieces were bought
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individually rather than together as a full package, the price would be $1600. So,
you’re actually saving money,” the salesman said.
“Great,” the skateboarder said loudly. In the midst of all the paperwork and
numerical calculations, the buyer and seller had forgotten they weren’t alone at the
negotiating table. They both looked at the girl who immediately showed them her
ability to cross her eyes.
The older girl shot her a look and said, “Go get Mom.”

When the skateboarder returned to the backyard with the co-signer in tow,
the total purchase price had settled at $1600. (The salesman had taken advantage
of the younger girl’s absence and had—in a demonstration of salesmanship that
would later earn him a Regional Salesman of the Quarter award—talked the older
girl into ordering the matching gravy boat, serving platter, and large serving bowl
for $300, which meant she also got eight bread and butter plates free.) The woman
in the calico cowboys and indians apron, a greasy spatula in one hand and her
youngest child’s shoulder in the other, asked for an explanation on the purchase
price, which she had been told was $1300.
The girl summed up the entire purchase package for her mother as follows,
“Service for eight. Dinner plates, soup bowls, teacups and saucers, bread and
butter plates, a gravy boat, an enormous serving platter—big enough for a twenty
pound turkey. And a large serving bowl. All for $1600. If I bought them
individually, as individual pieces instead of a set all at once I mean, it would come
to $2000. So I’m actually saving money. This pattern. Here,” she said. “And look.
I get to keep these now. As part of their summer china sales blitz,” she continued
as she held up two stainless steel cookie sheets and a nine-inch pie pan. “And
this,” in reference to a cheese grater.
Then mother and daughter conversed back and forth at a low volume. The
salesman got the hint he ought to try and ignore them. He wasn’t risking much. He
was confident the daughter would persuade her mother to co-sign, such was the
determined look on her face. He pulled a small spiral notebook and his prized ink
fountain pen from an inner coat pocket and engaged the younger girl in a game of
hangman. He had finally solved the third puzzle the girl had given him—
accordion—when the woman with the spatula said the magic words, “Where do I
sign?”
“Right here, ma’am,” he said as he demonstrated his keen sense for pointing
out a solitary dotted line among the stacks of paper littering the picnic table.
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“You won’t regret this. You’re going to be so happy with your china. I just
can’t tell you how happy you’re going to be,” he beamed at the girl, who beamed
right back at him with enthusiasm that nearly matched his own. So absorbed were
they in the smiling contest that they didn’t notice the contract had yet to be signed.
A spatula swatting a fly that landed on the pie pan broke their enchantment.
They snapped immediately to attention (although neither noticed the splotch of
grease that had flown from the spatula and landed on the salesman’s sleeve).
“A pen,” the spatula bearer said with a curt smile (unlike the two dreamers,
the spatula bearer saw the splotch of grease land on his coat and was secretly
pleased).
“But, of course,” the salesman said as he padded himself down in search of a
ballpoint.
The skateboarder reached into her mother’s apron pocket that was shaped
like saddle and retrieved a zinc-plated phillips screw, balled up tissue, a dime, and
a ballpoint pen. “Here,” she said. The woman clucked her youngest under the
chin and signed away.

From that point on, things went rather quickly and in no time at all, the
salesman had packed his trunk, spent his commission on the sale, and imagined
himself several doors down on Kumquat Street. As he rounded the corner of the
house, he plucked a small yellow blossom from the overgrown bush in the rock
garden and tucked it into his breast pocket.
Half way down the driveway, the skateboarder caught up to him. She said,
“Did you forget something?”
The salesman stopped and glared at the child. “You’re very smart, aren’t
you.”
She arched an eyebrow and looked sideways for a moment. Then she stared
at him and said, “Not as smart as you.” She tapped one toe like a dancer and
presented a sheaf of papers to him as if offering a bouquet of tissue roses.
He dropped the trunk on the driveway and stooped over it. From a squatting
position appropriate for lifting barbells, he thrust his hand out and grabbed the
papers. “Give me those, you brat.” Then he stuck his tongue out and wiggled his
head back and forth.
The girl stared at the man’s funny-looking ears, which looked even funnier
red.
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He resisted the impulse to cuss her out and rummaged in his trunk for a
teacup to throw. Then the salesman lost his nerve and regained his senses when he
realized it would be ridiculous to break a teacup: If he broke one, he’d just have to
replace it.
He stood up and straightened his necktie as if primping for a picture or a
fistfight. Four steps behind him he heard a noise something like a fart. He halted.
No way was he turning around to look at that brat.
That’s when the girl said, “She’d have bought those dishes from anybody.
Even a baboon could’ve sold ‘em to her.”
It was one week later and two blocks over, while trudging down Magnolia
Street, that the salesman noticed that he’d somehow lost his prized ink fountain
pen. But by that time, the ink fountain pen that had set the salesman back $75 was
irretrievable. It had been stored under a bunk bed next to various board games,
hand-me-down shoes, assorted Tupperware in factory sealed packaging, hula-
hoops, Roman candle launchers, and a skateboard. It was bound with a rubber
band along with the dozen or so other pens lifted from various door-to-door
insurance and aluminum siding salesmen and placed in a shoebox labeled Top
Secret Confidential, Hands Off & This Means You. 