Excerpt: The Bathtub Saints of La Fontaine

Bunny shifted on the couch so she could aim the remote at the television a little better. She flipped the channels looking for something to watch. Sunday afternoons were always bad for television. But what else was she going to do? She flipped past all the sports channels quickly. She liked shows about food, game shows, and talk shows. Weekdays she loved Regis and Kelly, Oprah, Ellen, and her soaps. She’d watched “The Young And The Restless” off and on over the years and “The Bold And The Beautiful” ever since that one had started up. Her job at the grocery store cut into her soap time, but now that she was off on disability, she had lots of television time. She flipped more channels, disgusted at finding three different weight-loss infomercials. If those worked, she’d be skinny, and not stuck on the couch like this.
She decided there was nothing on TV worth watching right now. She punched in “22” and the television flipped to QVC. Home shopping channels were her default when there was nothing else she felt like watching. “In The Kitchen With Bob” was good. They sold kitchenware and gadgets while cooking stuff. She liked Bob well enough. He was making, and selling, crabcakes. It made her feel hungry.
Her cookie bowl was empty. She twirled a strand of her dirty blond hair in her fingers. She considered calling for her mother to come and fill it again, but she thought instead she might be in the mood for something salty. She wondered if her mother had any potato chips. She needed to make a list and send her to the store.
Oh, yes, Philip was coming today. She didn’t have to stock up for the week because he’d be around to get things for her. Her mother worked every day and so she tried to stock up on provisions for those long days alone, stuck on the couch.
She felt a twinge in her back and decided to take another pain pill. She had several choices, a benefit of shopping for doctors. She liked the Vicodin because it made her feel a little high. The Percosets made her feel high as well, but sometimes dizzy. She only took the Halcyon at night when she couldn’t sleep, which lately was every night. Her favorites were the Tylenol 3’s. They took the edge off of everything. And she just got a refill on those. But she wanted to go easy on those and only use them every so often. Vicodin was the choice.
She shifted around so she could sit up on the couch, no easy effort, and reached over for the bottle. She’d had her mother change all the child-proof caps with regular ones. She always felt retarded, struggling with those caps. It’s not like there were any little kids around. Ursula’s kids weren’t of the age to be taking pills thinking they were candy. No, those kids were old enough to take pills to get high. She always made sure her stash was out of sight when they were around. But right now, the side table looked like a little diorama of tiny orange buildings with white roofs.
She still had water in the pitcher, so she poured some in the glass and swallowed the pill. She already felt better, just doing that, even though she knew there was no way the pill could work instantly. But knowing it was on its way helped.