Sellevision - Augusten Burroughs [31]
seven
Aboard an evening Omega Airlines flight bound for Newark International Airport from Milan, Peggy Jean sat in her luxurious Connoisseur Class recliner. Her slingbacks were off because her feet tended to swell. She read the in-flight magazine, displaying her usual willpower over the cheese-plate appetizer on the tray table before her. One water cracker, one wedge of brie—and that’s all, she told herself.
“Excuse me, but is something the matter with your cheese plate? Shall I get you something else instead?” the slim male flight attendant asked.
Peggy Jean looked up from the article on public payphone bacteria. “Oh, it’s lovely, I had a bit of the cheese.” She coyly glanced at her lap. “But television adds ten pounds, so I have to be very careful.”
“Oh my God,” the flight attendant exclaimed, clearly impressed, “are you a news anchor? Do you know Stone Phillips? He was on my flight just last week! He’s so nice in person, just like you’d think he’d be. I mean you really feel like—”
Peggy Jean cut him off. “No, actually I’m not in news, and you can take the cheese plate away.”
“Are you on a sitcom?” he persisted, the diamond stud in his ear sparkling from her overhead reading light.
Peggy Jean smiled pleasantly. “I don’t believe in sitcoms. I feel that they trivialize relationships and life in general.”
The flight attendant nodded, shifting his weight onto one leg. “I know what you mean. I don’t watch them myself, except I do like some of the old re-runs, like Mary Tyler Moore and Phyllis. I’ve always loved Mary’s apartment—that big ‘M’ she had on the wall.” He made quote marks with his fingers in the air.
Peggy Jean remembered the M.
“Anyway, whatever you do, I love your hair.”
She smiled demurely and touched her hair. “Oh, I haven’t done a thing with it. I just got off the air hours ago, and, well, it must be a wreck by now.”
“God no, it’s wonderful. I love the fact that it’s fashionably short, yet you still manage to get some height to it.”
Peggy Jean knew exactly what he meant. She leaned forward and whispered as if confiding to a dear friend. “The secret is a vent brush, and to go from hot to cold and hot to cold with the blowdrier, always ending on cold.”
The flight attendant’s eyes widened. “I’ll have to remember that.” Then curious, much too curious not to know, he asked, “So you said you were in Milan doing, what? A live broadcast?”
“Yes, I’m a Sellevision host. You know, America’s leading retail broadcasting network? We were doing an Earrings by Italian Artisans show.”
The flight attendant’s mouth opened, eyes flashing recognition. “I’ve heard of Sellevision. Oh my God, I think I just saw something about this recently . . . isn’t that the one where they had a host and he, you know, flashed his you-know-what on live TV?”
Peggy Jean cringed and pressed her lips firmly together. She looked at the cheese plate and suddenly felt very crowded by it. “It wasn’t quite like that,” she said coldly.
“Well, anyway, yeah, I just read about it. Gosh. I can’t imagine.” Then, assuming the demeanor of a professionally trained flight-crew member, he added, “But I hope you enjoy the rest of your flight, and if you need anything, just give me a little wave.” He waved his hand in the air and turned to leave, but remembered the cheese plate. “Oh, and did you say you were finished with this?” He rested his fingers on the rim of the plate.
She noticed he wore clear varnish on his nails. “Yes,” Peggy Jean said, her eyes back on the magazine article. “Quite finished,” she told him, without looking up.
As Peggy Jean read the in-flight magazine article, she was alarmed by the real dangers that payphone bacteria posed. As if ear, nose, and throat infections weren’t bad enough, the germs could easily transfer from finger to eye and from person to person. So