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next to a basket of herbal tea. She wandered back to the kitchen, hummed Heartbreak Hotel along with the chrome retro jukebox. A surfer waved her down and pointed to the breakfast specials. His hair stuck up in sun-blonde spikes with crystals of salt and sand resting at his hairline.
    My friend stuttered and squinted at a folded newspaper sitting on the edge of our table. He once studied philosophy and argued with the best-known minds in the Far East. They called him “Aristotle” and predicted he’d go far in the world of ideas and internal mirrors. But the universe gave him a swift poke in the side, and he dropped out of graduate school after a realization that the world was greater than even philosophical truth. He started a Turkish coffee distribution business and dragged a rolling suitcase from café to diner to sit-down eatery, a study of metaphysical concentration under chaotic wiry eyebrows and warm brown eyes.
    “So, c’mon, tell me! What does your mom think of the Avon cologne and deodorant I gave you?”
    I peppered him with questions, bouncing up and down while the vinyl squeaked and sighed beneath me. I wondered whether my old fashioned friend liked the stuff I dropped at his door wrapped in pink tissue paper. Ulak placed his cup gently on the table and wiped his hands with a paper napkin.
    “Birdie. My mother said to my brother, ‘Çem, do we have a female guest?’ He answered, ‘No Ana, we live in America.’ Well, now my brother wears it too, so there are no more comments. As the saying goes: ‘Dogs bark, but the caravan continues on its way.’ “
    Ulak continued eating, poured cream in his coffee, while the waitress leaned on the counter, reading the Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times, her strawberry print seersucker sleeves rolled to her elbows. I thought I smelled the faint odor of underarm protection as he lifted his cup.
    A few weeks before I begged him, “Please Please Please let me wax your back. It’ll be fun! I’ll bring snacks! I’ll tell you funny stories!”
    “Birdie. Turkish men do not wax backs. This is American silliness. Women do not mind back hair.” He breathed heavy into the telephone, sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as me.
    “Now, Ulak. Do it for me. For science! For Avon! Come on! I need a good subject to test the Avon Skin-So-Soft Hair Removal Wax Kit and you’re the hairiest person I know. It won’t hurt a bit. Plus all those cute Middle Eastern girls you like will think you’re super HOT. Come on! It’s almost beach season.” I used my whiny voice, the one that makes Ulak promise anything - anything! - to shut me up. It worked. But, there was one small hitch.
    “Birdie. Ok. I will let you remove the hairs. But we cannot do this at my home. My mother will not understand. We can do it at your home.”
    I paused for a moment, wondered how to manage a delicate hot wax treatment with pets and kids underfoot. All problems, but none as caustic as Ulak’s mother. Oh, what the heck. “Ok. Deal!”
    The next day I took a good look around my house, decided the master bedroom was the best location for such a procedure, and spread a clean sheet on top of my bed. I corralled Marty and Louie and pointed to the bed.
    “Guys, Ulak is coming over. I’m going to spread some sticky Avon stuff on his back and rip out his hair. You can watch, but you have to stay out of my way. Ok?” The boys looked at each other, looked at me, looked at the bed. Marty ran out the door, chased after Suzie our pet Labrador, didn’t seem to care one way or another what strange things I might be doing with my Turkish friend in the bedroom, but Louie squished up his eyes in the way that meant he was processing information.
    “So, Mom? Why are you doing this?”
    Why, indeed.
    I baked a chocolate cake, let it cool on the counter as I called Ulak once more, begged him to let me wax him at his house. “Come on, Ulak. Do you really want Marty and Louie watching this?”