The Silver Linings Playbook Chapter 11

Filled with resolve LavaThe prove I sire of Nikki is a lead shot, and I wish I had told her how much I liked it.She paid a professional lensman to take the photo, and she actually had her hair and driveup do at the local salon before dismissal to the shoot plus she also went to the tanning booths the calendar week before the picture was taken, since my birthday is in ripe December and the picture was my twenty-eighth-birthday presend.Nikkis head is flip everyplaceed so you see more of her left cheek than you do her right, which is outlined by her strawberry blond curling hair. You lavatory see her left ear, and she is wearing the hang diamond earrings I gave her for our first wed anniversary. She had at rest(p) to the tanning booths just to bring out the freckles on her nozzle, which I love and miss every winter. You can see the little freckles clearly in the shot, and Nikki say this was the main idea and she even told the photographer to make the freckles the focal point because I love her seasonal drop deader freckles best. Her face is variety show of like an upside- spate triangle, as her chin is sort of pointy. Her nose is like the nose of a li wizss, long and regal-looking, and her eyes are the twist of grass. In the picture she is making that pouting face I love non quite a smile, non quite a smirk and her lips are so glossy that I cant resist kissing the picture every measure I look at it.So I kiss the picture again, smack the cold flatness of the glass, leaving a kiss-shaped smudge, which I wipe forth with my shirt.God, I miss you so much, Nikki, I say, but the picture is silent, like always. Im glooming that I did not originally like this picture, because you would not believe how much I like it now. I know that I told you this was not such a great present, back before I started practicing beingness kind rather than right. Yes, I had specifically asked for a new barbecue, but Im glad that I have the picture now, because it helped me get through all that time in the bad place and made me wishing to be a better person, and Im changed now, so I not only realize but instruct that you put a lot of thought and motility into this present. Its the only likeness I have of you since or so bad person stole all the pictures of us that were in my m early(a)s house because the pictures were in expensive frames, and Suddenly, for some(prenominal) reason, I reckon that theres a video of our unify, and in this video Nikki is walking and dancing and speaking, and theres even this one part where Nikki talks directly into the camera as if she were talking to me, and she says, I love you, Pat Peoples, you luscious stud muffin, which made me laugh so rocky the first time we watched the video with her parents.I solicit on my parents bedroom door, and then I intercept again.Pat? my mom says.I have to work in the morning, you know? my dumbfound says, but I ignore him.Mom? I say to the door.What is it?Wheres my wedding video?There is a silence.You remember my wedding video, right?Still, she does not say anything.Is it in the cardboard box in the family-room closet with all the other videos?Through the door I hear her and my father whispering, and then my mother says, I think we gave you our copy of the video, honey. It must be in your old house. Sorry.What? No, its to a lower place in the family-room closet. Never mind, Ill take it myself. Good night, I say, but when I get to the family-room closet and go through the box of videos, its not there. I turn around and see that my mother has followed me down into the family room. She is in her nightgown. She is biting her nails. Where is it?We gave it to Dont lie to meWe must have lay it, but its sure to turn up instead or later.Misplaced it? Its irreplaceable Its just a videocassette, but I cant help produce uping angry, which I realize is one of my problems. How could you lose it when you know how heavy it is to me? How?Calm down, Pa t. My mother raises her palms so they are two in front of her chest and then takes a careful step toward me, as if she is trying to canary bird up on a rabid dog. Relax, Pat. righteous relax.But I can feel myself acquire more and more angry, so before I say or do anything dumb, I remember that I am close to being sent back to the bad place, where Nikki will never find me. I storm past my mother, go down into the basement, and do five hundred sit-ups on the concentrate Master 6000. When I finish, I am gloss over angry, so I ride the stationary pedal for forty-five minutes and then do shots of pissing until I feel hydrated enough to cause five hundred push-ups. Only when my pecs feel like they are filled with molten lava do I deem myself calm enough to sleep.When I go upstairs, all is quiet and no cleverness is leaking out from under my parents bedroom door, so I grab my framed picture of Nikki, take her upstairs to the attic, turn off the ventilation fan, slip into my qui escency bag, set up Nikki next to my head, kiss her close night and then begin to sweat away some more pounds.I havent been up in the attic since the last time Kenny G visited me. I am afraid he will come back, but I also feel sort of fat. I close my eyes, hum a single note, silently count to ten over and over again, and the next morning I wake up unscathed.