Sellevision - Augusten Burroughs [57]
When the intro to her show was over, and Camera Two opened with a medium shot of Leigh sitting at the elegant black table, she smiled boldly into the camera and asked, “Ladies, how many of you would enjoy having a handsome man tell you how beautiful you look? Take you to dinner, gaze into your eyes, maybe even tell you how much he loves you?”
Amanda, Leigh’s producer for that evening’s show, urged her along. “Really nice opening, Leigh, but get to the item number ASAP so we can put the graphics up on the screen.”
Leigh smiled and continued. “If you would like to have a man promise you the world, you’re going to want to write this number down.”
Inside the control room, Amanda shouted to one of the engineers, “Okay, she’s giving the number, throw on the graphics.”
A graphic box containing the item number for the pendants appeared on the lefthand side of the screen.
“His home phone number is 917-555-5555, and his name is Howard Toast. He’s the head of broadcasting production here at Sellevision and I don’t want him anymore, because I don’t believe he really is going to divorce his wife. I think he’s just fucking with both his wife and me and I’m tired of being both fucked and fucked over by Howard. Because I am through with selfish bastards!”
At first, nothing happened. Amanda simply stared at the monitor and remained motionless. Which gave Leigh the chance to continue.
“If you’d buy a simulated ruby, why not a simulated man? His phone number again is 917-555-5555.”
Just then, Sellevision cut to a prerecorded promotion for Adele Oswald Crawley’s upcoming American Indian Pride Home Furnishings show.
And even though Amanda was screaming into Leigh’s earpiece, Leigh didn’t hear it, because she had already taken the earpiece off and thrown it out onto the set behind her, where it slid across the highly polished floor and bumped to a stop against the model’s glossy left pump.
I
t had been Howard himself who insisted that he and his wife watch that evening’s Simulated Ruby Sensations show. Suzette had wanted them to go to the movies, but Howard had explained to her that it was important for him to see Leigh’s performance as he had just given her many additional on-air hours, and he would very much like his wife’s opinion on her presentation style.
So, moments before Leigh’s show began, the two had sat side-by-side on their white sectional sofa. Because the sofa was upholstered in an exquisite raw silk, the couple had never even entertained the notion of Scotch-guarding it.
And that is why his blood would never be fully removed from the fabric.
Suzette had simply taken the closest available object and blindly swung it in her husband’s direction. The closest available object had been a solid-brass coffee-table sculpture in the shape of a dolphin.
Swinging in Howard’s general direction, the dolphin had made solid contact with the left side of his face, including his eye, cheek, nose, and lips.
Yet despite his needing thirty-two stitches at the emergency room, the biggest blow to Howard was actually delivered the following morning.
Leigh’s improvised, forty-three-second appearance on Simulated Ruby Sensations had made not only The Philadelphia Tribune, but also USA Today, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
It was also a top news story on all the major networks, pushing the Barbra Streisand vice-presidential nomination scandal into third place.
He was phoned in his hotel room just after breakfast and terminated from Sellevision.
“U
m, okay, um, hold on a sec,” the twenty-three-year-old advertising copywriter told Max. “We’re gonna listen to a playback.”
Max was standing inside a small recording booth wearing earphones, a microphone inches from his mouth. On a music stand before him was a voice-over script for a Tender Tasties cat food radio commercial.
Sitting behind a long engineering console, the copywriter pushed a talk button that allowed