Sellevision

by Augusten Burroughs

  “Who’s calling, please?” the voice on the other end of the phone asked.

  “This is Peggy Jean Smythe. I’m a host with Sellevision and recently shared a show with Ms. Boone.”

  “One moment please.” Peggy Jean found herself placed on hold, listening to a recording of Debby singing her legendary hit, “You Light Up My Life.” It calmed her slightly.

  “Peggy Jean?” the familiar voice said.

  “Hi, Debby. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  “No, of course not. What an unexpected surprise!”

  Oh, thank God, Peggy Jean thought. Then, as calmly as possible, she explained the situation to Debby, beginning with the first, seemingly innocent earlobe letter, all the way to the shocking on-air event, including the crucified rat and the recent, sinister Cut Cut note.

  “Debby, I’m afraid it’s getting out of hand and quite frankly, I have no one else to turn to.”

  thirteen

  “There’s nothing like a microorganism to bring two people together,” Eliot said, carefully lowering the tray of chicken noodle soup and chamomile tea onto the plush comforter on Bebe’s bed.

  “Eliot, you’re an idiot to be staying with me when I’m sick. A sweet idiot, but an idiot. You’re going to catch my cold, and you know I can’t cook.”

  “I’m not going to catch your cold. Besides, you can cook, I’ve seen the can opener.”

  “Very funny.”

  Bebe sipped the chicken soup that Eliot made from scratch the night before, occasionally removing a small piece of cartilage and discretely folding it into her napkin. As she stirred the soup to cool it, Eliot set a fresh box of tissues on the bedside table and glanced at the television. Yet another Amtrak had derailed, this time colliding with a bus of circus clowns.

  “Poor clowns,” Eliot sighed, shaking his head.

  Bebe nodded. She sipped another spoonful. “The soup is lovely, thank you Eliot.”

  “You’re most welcome.” Then, “You know, we usually end up at my place. It seems I’m hardly ever over here.”

  “It’s cramped here, that’s why.”

  “It’s because you’ve got so much stuff. I mean, what on earth do you need that wet-vac for?” He pointed to the corner, next to several Nieman-Marcus bags.

  “In case I have a spill,” she said.

  “What about the drafting table in the living room?”

  “Someday I might want to take up drawing, that’s all.”

  He looked at the chair across from the bed and saw five boxes of shoes, but decided not to say anything.

  “Did the mail arrive yet?” she asked.

  “No, why, are you expecting something?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Let’s see what all your friends are doing this fine day.” He reached across her chest for the remote control and aimed it at the TV.

  “H

  i, everybody, I’m Leigh Bushmoore. Welcome to Sellevision. I’ve got a great show for you tonight that I guarantee you are not going to want to miss. Stay tuned for Simulated Ruby Sensations, because I promise you, this is going to be one sensational show.”

  The prerecorded intro to the show played and Leigh took a sip of water from the bottle of Evian discreetly tucked under her chair.

  She was wearing a deep-blue velvet dress, with a lower neckline than she would normally wear on the air. The dress, Howard’s favorite, took on a rich, luscious sheen beneath the studio lights. Backstage, she blew some of the curl out of her hair so that it fell voluptuously across her shoulders. When she first entered the stage, one of the grips had whistled at her.

  Because this was going to be her last night on Sellevision, she wanted it to be special. She already knew it would be memorable.

  The first item Leigh was to present that evening was a choice of Simulated Ruby Pendants, each three carats. Emerald cut, pear shape, or trillion cut. All on an eighteen-inch fourteen-karat gold chain, included in the $39.79 price. The pendants had sold out on their last three appearances.

  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 him to communicate with Max throug
h the thick glass. “Okay, here’s what we need you to do. Just pick up the pace of everything, and try to give a smile to the word ‘Tasties.’ ”

  Max nodded.

  “Also, when you say ‘safe for all cats, even long-haired breeds,’ don’t make that sound so serious, just lighten it up a little bit.”

  Max nodded again, scribbling a note on his script.

  “One last thing, ‘not available in Florida’ should be really fast. Just kind of throw it away.”

  “Okay,” Max said, and cleared his throat.

  The copywriter leaned back in his chair, took a sip of Diet Pepsi and said to the agency producer, “I think this guy’s gonna work. He really seems to get the script. This is gonna be pretty cool.”

  The engineer pushed a button on his console and said, “Tender Tasties, take twenty-four.” He pointed at Max and mouthed the words, “You’re on.” Max again recited the advertising copy.

  This was Max’s fourteenth voice-over audition. So far, he hadn’t landed a real spot. But so far, nobody had made him do more than three takes. Maybe this would be the break he needed.

  “You just have to be patient, it’s nothing personal. It’s all about finding the right voice for the right product. Eventually you’ll land something,” Laurie had told him on the phone the other day.

  “Yeah, but Laurie, what if it doesn’t happen? I mean, if I can’t even land an advertising job, what chance will I have of ever getting back on the air?”

  “Just go to the audition and do your best.”

  After Max read the spot, he saw the copywriter beckoning him to come back into the main room. Max removed the earphones and walked through the two soundproof doors into the main room.

  “Dude, that was great,” the copywriter said. “Really great— you rock.”

  Relieved, Max smiled. “Yeah, I was okay?”

  “Totally.”

  The producer slid a contract in front of Max and handed him a pen. Max would get paid $250 for his demo, and thousands of dollars if he was chosen. He filled out the contract, providing his name, address, and social security number, along with his agent’s name and address.

  “So, do you think it’s gonna happen?” Max asked. “I mean, do you think it’s really gonna air?”

  “Gotta split, I’m already late for an edit, take care, man,” the copywriter said as he got up from his chair and left the room.

  The engineer tapped at his computer keyboard, removing breaths and pauses from Max’s reading. The producer shrugged his shoulders. “I think it’ll probably air, yeah. Of course you never know with these things until it’s actually on the air, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t.”

  Max handed the contract and the pen back to the producer, extending his hand. “Great, well, thanks a lot, it was really nice working with you.”

  “Same here. Take care, Max.”

  “Okay then. Well, I’ll see you around.”

  “Uh huh,” the producer said, looking over the contract.

  Once he was outside the ad agency, Max smiled broadly. “Yes!” he shouted, raising his fist in the air. His luck was finally turning, he could feel it. Standing on the corner of Third Avenue and Forty-sixth Street, Max closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the sun on his face. He exhaled deeply, a huge sense of relief filling him. As he walked toward Grand Central Station, Max could not help but imagine what his life might be like if he continued to get work as a voice-over talent. Regular trips into New York City, royalty checks, perhaps even a big, national television campaign—maybe for someone like Burger King or Kmart.

  For the first time in weeks, Max felt excited, not depressed. As he walked, he repeated the ad copy he had just read: “New Tender Tasties, the first cat food that protects cats from fleas by working internally with the natural digestive process.”

  “I was pretty good,” he admitted with a smile. “I really did okay.”

  A

  s she sank down into the steaming hot bath, inhaling the soothing aroma of Mandarin Orange and Cedar, Peggy Jean smoothed the rich lather of Joyce’s Choice Mid-Life Oasis Foaming Bath Purée over her arms, enjoying the luxury of the moment. For the first time in weeks, thanks to Debby Boone, Peggy Jean felt calm, centered, and feminine.

  As it turned out, Debby had in fact been stalked. It was 1977, and “You Light Up My Life” was the number-one song in America for the ninth straight week. Debby’s life was a dream. Until, as she told Peggy Jean, the nightmare began. Through a series of terrifying letters, her stalker made threats of unspeakable rudeness. Somehow, the stalker even obtained Debby’s home telephone number and repeatedly called, swearing into the phone and singing a perverted version of Debby’s hit single that confused and frightened Debby’s broken-English-speaking maid. Poor Nellie quit, fearing the phone calls were from immigration officials who were going to tell her they had scored her test wrong and she was now going to be deported. “Alone and forced to answer the telephone myself, I suddenly smartened up,” she told Peggy Jean. By involving the local authorities, and by virtue of her celebrity, the stalker’s identity was revealed to be a harmless fourteen-year-old boy in Pasadena with a cleft palate and little parental supervision. And although she had never actually been in any real danger, Debby had learned a very important lesson. She would never again play the role of victim.

  Facts were facts: The Smythes’ home telephone number was unpublished. All articles of mail sent to Sellevision hosts were now X rayed. And Peggy Jean’s address was known only to friends, coworkers and relatives. In truth, E-mail was the only way this Zoe person had of contacting Peggy Jean. And the odds were that in real life, this Zoe person was a confused, lonely, and sad individual who had, for whatever reason, focused on Peggy Jean. Debby even suggested that it could quite possibly be an adolescent girl who was suffering from a distorted self-image and was projecting her own fears and insecurities onto the celebrity host. Debby had been quite clear with her instructions: “Ignore her E-mails, and eventually they’ll go away.” She had told Peggy Jean that “a stalker is like a fire; if you stop feeding it wood, the fire eventually dies out.”

  As for taking Zoe’s personal comments to heart, Debby had laughed, saying, “Peggy Jean, if I listened to every terrible thing people have told me over the years, I would have just buried my head in the sand long ago.”

  Even the crucified rat didn’t worry Debby. “It’s time for a little tough love, Peggy. You’re a celebrity; that’s what happens. People have sent me used underwear, bags of fingernail clippings—you name it. What you do is you throw it away and move on.”

  How foolish Peggy Jean had been to let this confused person interfere not just with her own self-image, but even her marriage. Tonight, she had decided, she would show her husband not only how much she loved him, but how much she desired to please him, and how confident she was in her own femininity. Tonight, Peggy Jean would get on top.

  Beginning to feel a bit like a prune from the long bath, Peggy Jean climbed from the tub and gently towel-dried, using a plush England’s Rose Palace Collection bath sheet.

  Wearing her pink robe and kitty-kitty slippers, she walked into the kitchen and mixed herself a gin and tonic, because she’d read that the quinine in tonic water was actually healthful. Just as she was about to take the health drink and the latest copy of Soap Opera Digest into the living room to catch up on her reading, the telephone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Peggy, it’s Tina from next door.”

  “Well hello, Tina. How are you?”

  “Listen, Peggy. I don’t want to alarm you or anything, but I’m looking out my window and it seems like one of the neighborhood kids has played a dirty little trick on you.”

  “A dirty little trick?” Peggy Jean asked, confused.

  “Well, maybe you should just go and look for yourself.”

  “Tina, what is it, has somebody knocked over the mailbox or something?”

  “Not exactly—look, Peggy Jean, I really think you should j
ust open your front door and take a look.”

  “Well, all right, but I can’t imagine any of the boys’ friends playing a prank. But I’ll go see for myself. Thanks for letting me know.”

  Peggy Jean hung up the phone and padded across the mint-green wall-to-wall carpeting in the living room, sipping her beverage. She paused to straighten one of the white rococo arm chairs. What on earth had Tina been talking about? The kids in this neighborhood were good kids. That Mexican family moved away months ago.

  Peggy Jean opened the front door and looked outside.

  Then she screamed, slammed the door shut, and called 911.

  “T

  hat’s fantastic, Max. I mean it, congratulations.”

  “Well, it’s not official yet. But I have a really good feeling about it, you know?”

  Leigh took a sip from her iced tea, then lowered her head. “Shit, I think it’s a reporter. Don’t turn around.”

  They had gone to the darkest, most unhip place they could find for lunch, but even here, she wasn’t safe from the tabloids. Leigh seemed a little strung out by the whole thing, but Max found it kind of exciting.

  She peeked up, surveyed, then raised her head. “False alarm.”

  “I can’t even imagine what it’s been like for you.”

  “I’ll tell you how it’s been. It’s been worth it.” She gave Max a kick under the table. “I feel so much better now, it’s amazing. I mean, I never thought I was a vengeful person, but you really made me feel I could be.”

  Max laughed. “So this is all my fault now?”

  “It was your idea,” Leigh teased.

  “Yeah, but you actually did it.”

  “God, what kind of monster have I created?” she asked, taking another sip from her iced tea. “I mean, you would not believe the amount of people calling me, the talk shows, the magazines, it’s fucking insane. I had no idea it would have had such an effect. I was on the Internet last night, and there are all these sites about it, talking about how many selfish bastards there are out there.” She raised her chin in the air. “I’ve become something of a modern feminist icon.”