Sellevision - Augusten Burroughs [7]
Inside the trash can, a microchip alerted a small pump that the lid had just been opened, and the pump sent a small burst of liquid deodorant through a jet spray on the underside of the lid. Bebe had fallen in love with the trash can last year when it debuted, and purchased the clever item for herself.
Returning to the sofa, Bebe noticed the close-up shot of Peggy Jean’s ear. A bevel-set peridot stud earring glinted beneath the studio lights. At first, she thought it was the lighting, but then she saw that no, in fact, Peggy Jean’s earlobe was bright red—irritated. Almost as if, Bebe thought, she had just waxed it.
Having been distracted long enough, Bebe aimed the remote control at the television and turned it off. Then she refocused her attention on her mail-order catalogs.
She double-checked her orders. From Pottery Barn: the Nautical Rope Clock, the East Hampton Votive Candle Collection, and the Country Comfort Bathroom-Tissue Cozy. There wasn’t much in the current Banana Republic catalog she was interested in, so she just picked out a few oversized sweaters and a man’s belt she thought she could send to someone, sometime, for something. Highly unusual was the fact that she saw absolutely nothing in the Franklin Mint catalog, which always had some unusual little something. So she just ordered a small brass travel clock that looked like an ancient Greek coin.
“N
o, you still don’t understand,” Max told the Toys R Us store detective as they sat in a small room upstairs, off the sales floor. Unlike the colorful, toy-filled Toys R Us showroom, this room was decidedly more adult, featuring a large gray metal table, numerous folding chairs, an expansive one-way mirror, and a video camera mounted in the far corner. “Like I told you, I’m a Sellevision host—er, I mean, I was, until this morning. But anyway, we had this show last night called Slumber Sunday Sundown and I was wearing a robe and my penis slipped out momentarily.” Just recounting the details was exasperating to Max; it was still so unreal. “So I guess what happened was, like I said, that little girl must have been watching and she saw the peek-out thing and, well, remembered me. And that’s all there is to it. You can’t detain me like this. I’ll press charges.”
The detective was taking notes.
“Ask her mother,” Max said, angrily. “Ask her. I didn’t flash her daughter, that little girl, I didn’t—this is insane.”
Once the event had been cleared up and Max was allowed to leave custody, he marched out of the store, Beanie Baby–less, certain he would never step foot in the Woodlands Mall again, for the rest of his life, for any reason. “Christ, John Wayne Bobbit doesn’t know how lucky he was to have it chopped off,” he said under his breath as he unlocked the door of his SUV.
two
“Is it hormonal? Do I have an estrogen imbalance?” Peggy Jean asked her general practitioner, Dr. Margaret Stewart. She had made the appointment with Dr. Stewart immediately after she had seen the hairs on her earlobes for herself.
“I really don’t think it’s anything, Peggy Jean,” the doctor told her. “It’s just natural. We all have hair on our earlobes—not just men but women, too.”
Peggy Jean shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
“You could say it’s left over from our caveman days. We all have faint, light hairs all over our bodies.”
Peggy Jean did not believe in evolution, so her doctor’s explanation sounded like rubbish to her. Peggy Jean believed the world was created in six days, and that God rested on the seventh. “Yes, but the blood work, that will tell you for sure if there’s . . .” Peggy Jean paused, choosing the right words. “. . .a female problem going on?”
Dr. Stewart was amused by Peggy Jean. “Yes, the tests will show if, in fact, there is a problem—which I am certain there is not.”
Peggy Jean was not so certain. Just that afternoon she’d received a second E-mail from Zoe, part of which read: You haven’t taken up smoking, have you? The only reason I ask is because your voice sounded a little husky the other night on Gem Fest. I hope you’re not