Chapter 13 Killing Peggy Meh
Killing Peggy Meh
“I know you hate lists,” George said to Bianca as he faced his legal pad, pen at the ready, the greatest list maker to ever grace the land, “but it pays to be organized.” He’d been there a week and had finally caught up with the jet lag.
Bianca was lost in her own world, tapping away at her computer in the other comfy chair in the living room. “One second. I’m finishing up a newsletter.”
“That’s your first since moving, huh? I bet you have a lot to say.”
A nod.
Though he hadn’t read her book, he’d never missed a newsletter and had always made it a point to respond to them.
“By the way,” she said without looking up, “I can’t believe you brought more than one legal pad to Italy.”
“And I can’t believe you brought more than one pair of shoes.” Her mother had always given him a hard time about his legal pads and to-do lists too. In turn, he’d attacked her shoes or aprons or whatever else.
Bianca granted him a smile but kept tapping.
Faith had ignored him a lot too. Especially when he was trying to get things done.
They could never understand that his days began when he completed his list. All the other moments leading up to it were a mad scramble of anxiety, feeling like the world was on fire.
That’s what happened when you spent your first eighteen years living in a world that was literally on fire.
He sipped his coffee, the fourth Nespresso capsule of the morning, then revisited his list, which was exceptionally organized, by the way.
Whether he supported her move, he wanted to help, and that meant doing the chores that no one else wanted to do.
If only the recent daytime activities—the museums and cooking classes and all the walking—hadn’t delayed him.
Today was the day, though, when he could finally reclaim his sanity.
Labels for Tupperware
Clean up courtyard
Paint closet
Contact landlord: additional lock on door, fix drip in sink
Vacuum under and behind furniture
Windex windows and art
Reach out re. consulting work
Update LinkedIn profile and photo
Shopping list: Ziplocs, celery, ranch dressing, Cokes, Windex
He added a couple of more items, including reading her latest newsletter. His leg shook, as he was itching to get started but wanted to review and make sure he’d thought of everything.
After she announced that she’d completed her task, he set his blue pen against the first item on the list. “I thought we’d prioritize, see if we could add anything. If you can help, great. If you’re busy, I got it. You know I need something to do.”
She stood and approached the refrigerator.
“What about going to Verona or Venice for the day, Dad? Or having coffee at an outdoor café and people-watching. Try again with Sandy. Go find a good book and at least say hi. The Maserati and Lamborghini factories are only a bus ride away. Surely, you have better things to do than work on my place.”
Just like her mother. The constant war against his getting things done. She knew damn well how badly he needed to tackle his list, how awful he felt when the list grew too long, how purely satisfied he felt when he scratched off the last item. It was silly to some, sure, but it wasn’t silly to him.
Eyeing the Nespresso maker, wondering if a fifth pod might be too much, he said, “I can’t stand buses, and . . . I’m not much of a car guy.”
“But you’re an engineer. You might like the factory tours.”
They’d gone down this road yesterday and the day before. “I want to knock these things off the list.”
She drew in a breath that sounded like a vacuum cleaner that had sucked up something big from under the couch.
He hated being the cause of her frustration. And yet that’s all he’d ever been. Same with her mother.
He wanted to say: Don’t you realize I didn’t come for day trips and factory tours and pasta?
I’m here to make sure you’re happy and safe and set up to thrive, even if it’s in a country that’s so far away my heart shatters when I think about it.
It’s the only way I know how to love, and I wish it was enough. And I know it’s not.
When George raced out the door to attack his shopping list, Bianca breathed a sigh of relief.
Sitting back in the chair, she attempted to read through the newsletter she was about to send out to her fifty thousand followers, her official announcement that she’d paused her practice to recharge and was on a journey of rediscovery in the land of her ancestors, a leap into la dolce vita to recapture her youth.
It was not lost on her that she hadn’t said what she’d wanted to say in the newsletter.
If she’d had the courage, she would have drilled down into the specifics, written about the awful reviews of her book, her breakdown with Lacy, the photograph of a younger Bianca with Corrado and Carol that had been the death shot.
That would have been an enthralling newsletter, but it would have been too much, too embarrassing.
And her father would likely tell her, as he had plenty over the years, that you can’t let people see you sweat.
Of course, he’d grown up in that kind of world, where you keep your problems to yourself.
And that’s what he’d done all his life. She wanted to shake him and scream, Let’s talk about you! Why can’t you sit still? Why can’t you trust me to live my life? Why can’t we have a conversation without you trying to cram your beliefs into me?
Bianca wanted to take all the legal pads and burn them on the balcony, for so many reasons, but perhaps most of all because she was just as bad as him. Did he know that? Maybe. He never asked.
She had several different lists, each broken down into priorities.
One for her socials, one for her practice, one for the next book she swore she’d never write, another for her spiritual journey, another for cooking.
And on and on. If she ever showed him how organized she truly was, he’d illuminate with joy.
After reading what she’d written again, a sense of pride washed over her.
She wasn’t that bad of a writer, even if only a few found her actually funny.
More importantly, she had to admit, she enjoyed wrangling words.
If writing another book and then releasing it into the world wouldn’t be so painful, maybe she would consider it again.
Still, she had no idea what Donna Bologna had meant by the rising-bread comment or saying she hadn’t written the book she was supposed to write. What exactly was she supposed to write? No matter what it was, what publisher out there would be crazy enough to give her another chance?
Bianca swung an arm through the air. “Peggy Meh Strikes Again! Urged on by a fortune teller, Bianca Briggs has written yet another non-bestseller, destined for the bottom of the charts. A tour de force of a disaster that will certainly leave burn marks.”
How about The Death of Peggy Meh as the next title?
Bianca imagined a cover with Peggy’s head poking out of a guillotine, her stupid golf-ball eyes popping out of her unfunny face.
Or maybe the cover would show her halfway through a skydiving jump and attempting to yank a poorly packed parachute.
That’s what the bitch deserved for having poisoned Bianca’s creativity, a proper splat onto the ground while descending at a hundred miles an hour.
Bianca opened a blank Word document and typed the new title, then let her fingers dance for a while, exploring various scenarios of torturing and killing Peggy Meh. A car crash. A murderous husband. A leap off a cruise ship. Every gory detail.
She could hardly control her fingers, barely realizing that she was doing anything at all, especially the thing that she least wanted to do.
She and her muse were simply satisfying her deepest urges, releasing the angst of having failed so miserably at this writing thing that she had once so adored.
Bull sharks were tearing off Peggy’s limbs when George appeared out of nowhere, scaring the shit out of Bianca. “What the . . . ! Dad!”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”
She slammed shut her laptop. It felt like she’d been snatched out of a dream.
Her fingers shook. Finding her bearings, she briefly considered that she’d not fallen into a writing spell like that in a long time.
She felt like she’d been mauling a cannolo in the closet when someone had pulled back the door to expose her.
Bianca took a walk to clear her head, working her way through streets surrounded by the red-hued architecture that defined this city.
The writing thing had shaken her. For someone intent on never writing again, she sure had spent her entire morning writing, knocking out more than four thousand words. In a way, she felt violated.
Finally shaking the experience from her mind, she dipped into a shoe store, tested a few different sandals but didn’t buy anything. Then while peeking through the window of a purse shop, a familiar smell grabbed her like a hand reaching through time. Something sweet and salty all at once.
And then it hit her.
She was twenty-two again, walking this same street. Corrado had led her here, only a few days after they’d first kissed. There was so much magic in the air then. She’d figured out the entire world. Twenty-two years old and the queen of it, ready at any moment to take flight.
Bianca twisted her head to see the pasticceria where she’d first tasted Ravioli di San Giuseppe, a to-die-for, buttery cookie coated in powdered sugar and filled with a fruity jam.
It was as if she’d lost control of her legs.
In no time, she was walking in that direction, a hound following a scent.
Time continued to pull at her, and there she was, her younger self, facing the impossibly handsome Corrado in the center of the store, barely noticing the other people around them.
He held a square of Ravioli di San Giuseppe in front of her mouth, saying, “Don’t touch; close your eyes and try it. ”