Sellevision - Augusten Burroughs [88]
Peggy Jean looked at the faces of the other alcoholics in the room. “For a long time, I’ve been focusing on the wrong things. On the things outside. And you know what? To heck with the outside crap. I’m going to focus on my inner garden.”
When the meeting ended, the alcoholics joined hands and said the Serenity Prayer together, one of Peggy Jean’s favorite things about being in the program. Afterward, the lanky girl approached her.
“Hi, Peggy Jean, I’m glad you were able to make it today,” she said.
Peggy Jean gave her a hug. “Hi, Nadine. No, I had to come today. I was really feeling anxious, but I’m better now.”
“Do you want to get some coffee?”
Peggy Jean smiled and rested her hand on the girl’s shoulder, the two-karat Queen of Hearts simulated sapphire ring sparkling on her finger. “I’d like that.” She checked her watch. “But we better make it a quick cup. I’ve got a long drive upstate ahead of me.”
Nadine linked her arm through Peggy Jean’s and the two walked outside. “I’m proud of what you’re doing,” she said. “I wish I could be there in person to support you.”
Peggy Jean saw a glint of copper on the ground. She bent over and picked it up. “A lucky penny!” she cried.
“It’s a sign,” Nadine said.
Peggy Jean slipped the coin into her pocket. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
A
s Peggy Jean cruised along the highway, she thought to herself, had it really been just a year ago that life changed forever? Sometimes it felt like ten years; sometimes it felt as fresh and raw as yesterday. If only she had not come home from the Anne Sexton Center one day early. If only she hadn’t been so eager to be reunited with her loving family. Then she wouldn’t have unlocked the front door and seen her husband giving a tongue bath to Nikki, who was handcuffed to the coffee table.
She had screamed, taken the Lord’s name in vain, and hurled her pocketbook at his head, missing. He just had laughed and told her to take the kids and move out. Nikki simply giggled and arched her back. The floor was littered with Diet Pepsi cans and tissues.
And in the end, Peggy Jean had done exactly what her husband had told her to do. She had not reached for a Valium or an apertif. Instead, she collected her boys and her wardrobe and rented an apartment for the four of them. But she didn’t do it for him. She did it for herself and her babies.
She had almost relapsed when Sellevision fired her.
“You can’t expect us to allow you back on air after you’ve been in a mental institution. You admit yourself that you’re an alcoholic and a drug abuser,” the heartless new head of production had said.
Those first few weeks had been the most difficult of her life. At times, she had even questioned God’s commitment to her. “Remember Peggy Jean, in early sobriety, you will face many challenges, but God will never give you more than you can deal with,” they had told her at the center. Peggy Jean had expected such things as spoiled food in the back of the refrigerator, dried leaves on the hanging spider plant in her sewing room, or perhaps an ingrown toenail on one of her boys. Things she could deal with. She had not expected her marriage to fall apart and her career to collapse.
And never in her wildest dreams had she expected that phone call from the state’s prosecuting attorney.
“There’s been an explosion at your son’s school,” he had told her. “Nobody was injured, but the damage is significant.”
Her relief was brief.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Smythe, but your son, Ricky, is responsible. He’s confessed to the crime and plastic explosive was discovered on his person.”
And then Ricky was sent to a juvenile facility for boys in the western part of the state.