Sellevision - Augusten Burroughs [55]
After presenting the revolving tie-rack, moving on to a sixteen-piece socket wrench set, and ending her on-air appearance with a presentation of a pocket fishing rod called, questionably, the Pocket Rod, Peggy Jean Smythe exited the set and walked directly into her office.
She had one new E-mail.
To: PG_Smythe@Sellevision.com
Fr: Zoe@ProviderNet.com
Subject: Big Guy
I couldn’t help but think how appropriate it is that you are hosting the grand finale of Gifts for Guys. You Big Guy, you.
Don’t think your arm hair went unnoticed while you were demonstrating those socket wrenches.
Oh, did you like my gift?
Zoe
Peggy Jean took four Valium to stop the shaking. She had been off air not even ten minutes, and already an E-mail commenting on the show. Zoe was clearly obsessed.
She considered having a little bottle of something because her mouth was dry. She decided, no. She’d already had some before the show to even her out.
Then she glanced at her arms and saw the dusting of pale, almost pure white hairs. A dizzying amount of them, no matter how fair. My own body is turning against me. She took three small bottles of peach schnapps from her desk drawer.
It just didn’t make any sense, none of it.
Peggy Jean: a leading figure of her church, a loving wife, the mother of three beautiful children and a top host with America’s premier retail broadcasting network. She had once been Junior Miss San Antonio! She received fan mail on a constant basis asking her to reveal her hair coloring, makeup, and manicure secrets.
“I’m a good person. I sponsor two AIDS babies at St. Mercy. I even held one of them!” she cried to the computer screen. “Just like Princess Diana!”
This monstrous Zoe person was making Peggy Jean out to be some chromosomally damaged, testosterone-pumping beast. She was attacking the one thing Peggy Jean prided herself on: polished femininity.
As if dealing with a terrible medical condition wasn’t bad enough, she had a stalker. But who? A dangerous stranger? An obsessed cohost? Trish? Leigh? Don? Adele? It could be any of them. More and more Peggy Jean was actually being affected by this mystery monster. She was edgy, anxious.
Just the other night when she was hosting a Crafter’s Quilts show, she’d become dizzy gazing at the geometric pattern on one of the quilts, taken a step backward, and tripped on the edge of the rug, falling onto the floor, the quilt landing on top of her. And to make it worse, the camera had zoomed in on her. It was the single most mortifying experience of her on-air life. It had been her own fault, because she had neglected to have a sip of something before the show to smooth out the Valium. But she wouldn’t even have to take the little pills if it weren’t for Zoe.
It was even affecting her marriage. The other night she had exploded at her husband when he suggested they try a new position during an increasingly rare moment of intimacy, that position being one with Peggy Jean on top, where the man belonged.
She had recoiled from him instantly, climbing out of bed and cursing, then locking herself in their bathroom where she turned the faucet on and sobbed, looking at her breasts in the mirror. And she couldn’t help but think they looked just fine. Especially when she turned profile and lifted her arms above her head.
And yet what was she to do? If she dared write back, asking to be left alone, the Zoe person would only be fueled in her personal attack. Yet it seemed that the form letter was only serving to make the stalker angrier and angrier.
What she needed was advice from a Stalking Survivor. A celebrity, like herself, who could help her manage the situation before this Zoe person finally and completely deteriorated, sending Peggy Jean a letter bomb disguised as a pretty bouquet of flowers.
Surely Debby Boone had experienced a stalker. And the two had hit it off during