The Brush Girl

When my brother and I were little we loved watching a [tag]Lucille Ball[/tag] movie called “The Fuller Brush Girl”. I don’t remember much about the movie, but the premise was Lucy is a door-to-door brush saleswoman who gets mixed up in a murder which results in her and fiancé Eddie Albert having a series of silly misadventures.

Anyway, I’d always assumed that [tag]brush girls[/tag] were as much of relics as, well, Lucille Ball (or, to be cruel, as forgotten as Eddie Albert). Not so–brush girls are still thriving here in [tag]China[/tag]. In fact, one has been coming around and thriving on my front stoop every afternoon.

I usually don’t answer the door when I see someone I don’t know through the peephole. Most of the residents of the building are retirees, and their aged friends with aged memories are forever knocking on my door to ask if I know where so-and-so lives and getting irritated when I tell them I don’t. (I’d started saying, “Maybe you’d like to ask a Chinese person,” but quite a few of them replied with something to the effect of “I’ve already asked you, jerk.” At that point I knew they won’t let me play the “I don’t speak Chinese” card.)

A few days ago there was a knock on the door and thought I recognized the head of curly hair I saw through the peep hole, so I opened the door and would up face to face with a stranger.

“Hello. Do you speak Chinese?”
“I do, some.”
“Great. Well,” she put down her shopping bag full of brushes and pulled one out. “Would you like to buy a brush? They’re fantastic…”
“No, I don’t want one.” At this point I felt like a schmuck but was glad I hadn’t opened the door for a Chinese Jehovah’s Witness.
“Really? But, <something in Chinese I didn’t understand>.”
“Sorry, I don’t understand.”
“Do you really not understand, or are you just saying that so you won’t have to buy a brush?”
“No, really, I speak horrible Chinese and don’t understand.”
“Oh, OK. So do you want to buy a brush?”
“No, thanks though.”

I thought that was the last of her. But she showed up again the next day. We had another conversation about brushes:

“Hi, are you still selling brushes?”
“Yep.”
“Yeah, I still don’t want one.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m really sure.”
“OK.”

The next day she came back again. This time I decided not to answer, but she kept coming back and knocking. Finally I gave in.

“Why didn’t you answer the door?”
“I was sleeping,” I lied, taken aback that in this situation somehow I’d wound up on the defensive.
“Brush?”
“No.”
(long, uncomfortable pause)
“So,” she asked in English, “where are you a teacher?”

Turns out she’d been trying to work up the courage to practice her English. Since our English conversation she’s not come back again, much to my relief. I hope she’s found someone who wants to buy her brushes.