Sellevision - Augusten Burroughs [8]
“And no, Peggy Jean, your voice does not sound husky to me. It sounds exactly like it always has,” Dr. Stewart said.
That evening at home, Peggy Jean approached her husband, John. He was in bed, reading. “Honey?” she said as she slipped under the covers, her body sinking into the Cozy Nights Feather Bed (item number H-3424), “Do you think we should have another baby . . . while I still can?”
Her husband simply replied, “Um-hmm,” absently turning the pages of an Amy Fisher biography, which he was rereading for the fourth time.
She rolled over on her side and reached for the glass of Chardonnay she had brought to bed with her, something she seldom did. But that night, that one time, she felt it was okay; medicinal, even.
She thought about her visit to Dr. Stewart’s office, wondering what she would do if the tests came back positive. And then it hit her: the M word. Wasn’t she too young to go through menopause? But what if? What if she were suffering not merely from a hormonal imbalance, but from the ultimate and final hormonal imbalance? What if it was already too late to even have another baby?
She set the glass down on the table and rolled back over, placing her arms around her husband. “Oh, John, hold me,” she said.
“Jesus Christ, Peggy Jean,” her husband cried, fanning her breath away from his nose with the book. “Have you been drinking?”
“U
ncle Max? Why didn’t you get me my Peanut like you said you would?” his niece was saying into the answering machine.
Max rolled over on his mattress, bumping against the sleeping man next to him whom he had known for a total of nine hours, the past seven of which were spent unconscious. “Shit,” he said as he climbed out of bed, going into the bathroom to pee. As he looked at his penis, he said to it, “This is all your fault.”
Judging from her message, his niece had not yet received the $350 McDonald’s gift certificate he had FedExed to her. Enough money to purchase at least ten thousand grams of saturated fat and guarantee that she would be an overweight, unhappy teenager. Yet another life, aside from his own, that he had ruined.
“Hey, Mr. Handsome,” called the body from the bed.
Max turned and saw a man probably ten years older than his own age of thirty-three. While six-foot-two Max sported thick, light brown hair, striking green eyes, and classic, all-American features that would not be out of place in a Banana Republic catalog, the man in the bed resembled a plump lawn gnome. Which was astonishing to Max, because only last night the man had resembled Mel Gibson.
“Up and about so early?” the lawn gnome asked.
Max needed the gnome to leave. As in, immediately. He made a mental note to never drink again.
According to his most recent automated telephone inquiry at Merchant’s Bank, Max had $14,750 in his account, minus what he spent the previous night for drinks, which could easily have totaled over $100, maybe more. Max had calculated that he had approximately five months in which to secure a position as a host on one of the other shopping networks, five months until he would be forced to take whatever job was offered him, including, possibly, one on radio.
Max closed the bathrobe that he had slipped on immediately after exiting the bed occupied by the stranger. “Yeah, that’s me, up and at it!” he chirped, his on-air personality taking over. “And I need to get going, hop in the shower.” Hint, hint, he thought, and scratched the cleft on his chin.
The gnome didn’t take the hint, but instead patted the empty space beside him on the bed. “C’mere, baby. I know what you need.”
O
n Fridays, the hosts gathered in a conference room for their weekly meeting with executive and associate producers to discuss any programming notes for the following week, as well as any other issues. Howard Toast was addressing the group. “As you folks know, Max Andrews has been released from his contract with us, due to an unfortunate incident during Slumber Sunday, the details of which I’m sure you’re all familiar with.”
A couple of the hosts exchanged