“So,” Di says. “How did Todd-”
“Fuckface.”
“Is this going to involve violence?” Beddy asks.
“Violence? Yeah, probably. That’ll be one aspect. Sure. Look, me and Di will have a brainstorm sesh here, and we’ll be over to your house in a little bit.”
“We will?” Di says.
“Yes. Then we’ll combine brainstorms. We’ll have a fucking brain perfect storm. Will you be okay until then?”
That’s a good question. And will she be okay after?
“Yes,” she says.
“Great. We’re going to get through this, Beddy. We love you.”
“We really do.”
“See you in a bit.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
First one line clicks. The next brings the dialtone. She hangs up.
Beddy doesn’t think she is capable of violence, at least anymore. To herself, sure, but to another? She thinks of herself as a pacifist. She likes the intuitiveness of the word itself. Pacifist. Pass the fist. I don’t want it.
Besides, she is too exhausted for vendettas. She puts on her bathrobe and cinches it loosely. Before leaving her room, she unplugs the phone from the wall and drops the cord on the ground.
She treads gingerly down the stairs. Her head feels made of gauze, but every limb cries out with ache. She is death personified, except for one nagging attachment to this mortal coil, her hunger. Good Christ, is she hungry. She feels like she could eat not only a horse, but its family, and the whole barn with it.
She ferrets out the fixings for breakfast from the fridge, her stomach uttering feral, black forest sounds. She scrambles five eggs with cream cheese and bacon, deftly cracking and evacuating the eggs with one hand, like a pro. Her glut of hours watching cooking shows has paid off. She would flip the ingredients in the pan as they sauté, but she only likes to in front of company.
She brings her steaming plate to the couch, with a tall glass of orange juice from concentrate. Secures the OJ in the gap between seat cushions and sits cross-legged and eats.
Beddy normally eats so slowly, she might seem disinterested. This is one part fallacy, two parts front. Because of her figure, she knows people expect her to tear through her food. With frenzied addict’s eyes, maybe. But she doesn’t want to rush, she wants to savor. So she eats slowly because she wants to, and then even slower to be safe.
Now she whips through her breakfast like a dervish. She can’t remember the last time she was this hungry.
She sets her plate and fork on the floor with a clatter and turns on the television.
“Oh, Great Distractor,” she says. “Give me your electrons.” Surfs.
Past strobing, nightmarishly-colored cartoons.
Past jeering, righteous talk show crowds.
Past soaps with confoundingly beautiful men and women uglying themselves with constipated expressions.
Finally to a familiar sight: Molly Ringwald’s gummy smile. Beddy exhales. It is one of her favorite movies, one of the more obscure Brat Pack ventures, Fresh Horses. It doesn’t matter that she owns it. This is one of those movies that demand her patronage whenever they’re on.
But as soon as she is settled, commercials butt in.