TV

Megan watched CNN. She hated TV. She disliked “Desperate Housewives,” “Martha Stewart,” "Jericho," and the other shows Rose watched.

But if you stayed with Rose, you watched endless TV.

Megan embroidered, like Penelope weaving, and waited for Jim to call from the road. She kept making mistakes and redoing the rose. (Yes, it was a rose. Megan was exasperated. Couldn’t you have gotten me a cat or a dog or a lion or an angel?)

Of course Megan had stayed behind with Rose, though Jim, Jason, and April drove back to Philly on Sunday. Megan sent Jim out to buy her an embroidery kit before they left. She said she had to have something to do because she knew she would spend long hours sitting with Rose while Rose cried.

The Underwood women never cried. Carrie, their mother, had believed in teaching them other outlets: art, crafts, the piano (which they had all abandoned). Rose was crying. She was a wreck. She told everything to Megan and allowed Jim to listen, since he had not felt up to hiking with Jason and April. Anyway, Jim was fascinated by Megan’s sister. She was just like Megan, only more polite.

But polite wasn’t as good as bitchy. That was Megan’s opinion. The truth about Rose was that she allowed Ben to turn her life into “Desperate Housewives.” She had allowed him to come over to see her a couple of times after Dorrie was committed by the court to the psych ward. (If Dorrie’s brother had let her stay with him while the doctor adjusted her medication, she wouldn’t have had to go the hospital.)

You let Ben come over? Megan was incredulous. She imagined this was how Dorrie must have felt about Rose and Ben.

Of course. We talked about the divorce. And I was so sick. I had the flu.

Divorce?

Well, it’s not definite.

Nothing is definite with that guy. He wants you--he wants you in the psych ward with Dorrie. Wouldn’t that be the greatest? Two crazy wives?

Rose tried to explain. He's not all bad. He's just messed-up. Not much worse than we are. Spoiled by rich parents.

Then where is the money? He doesn't give you much money.

It seemed Ben wanted to move into the “big house,” as he called it, and give the river house to Dorrie and Gabrielle rent-free.

You’re not considering that? Did you sleep with him?

Oh, shut up. This is very stressful for me. I don’t know whether I should take him back or not.

You should NOT.

I’m not really asking you.

Then why am I here?

Crying, Rose said, Because I have to talk to someone.

Jim said, You’re doing very well without him.

Megan looked at him. She batted her lashes over and over like Rachel Griffiths on “Brothers and Sisters” (another of Rose’s shows). She didn’t know what it meant, but suspected that it meant, “Don’t do that.”

Jim said, What?

She’s not doing well. She’s crying.

I’m not doing well, Rose admitted.

Jim left. Megan embroidered. Megan had never, ever seen anything worse than the TV Rose watched with Gabrielle . Apparently this was their secret life: they sat in the entertainment center den at night with their eyes glued to the machine. Did they even see it? Gabrielle probably didn’t: she was on the nod. Rose seemed to want nothing more than to gobble it up along with the pastry she ate (she made croissants every other day and had gained weight). Rose used to be a reader. Where were her books? If Rose and Gabrielle saw what Megan saw, they would never watch it. They didn’t have cable: a good thing or God knows what they’d find. Megan was exasperated. She ate the rigatoni takeout from an Italian restaurant and stared at her sister and Gabrielle.

“Desperate Housewives.” Women with lip jobs. A dead woman’s voice. Was this what America wanted to watch? Megan couldn’t imagine it.

Rose and Gabrielle also watched “Brothers and Sisters,” a show about a family with problems. Big problems. Rose and Gabrielle explained it to Megan. The father, who owned Ohigh, a produce company, died of a heart attack. Then the "brothers and sisters" found out about his debts and his mistress. At first they tried to hide it from their mother. Sally Field found everything out in time. Now the mistress (a real slut) was acting very seductive with one of the young sons (whom she persuaded to go into the vineyard business with her). She also had an affair with the dead man’s brother-in-law. She also worked at Ohigh now. How likely was that?

Megan had major problems with this show. First, Rachel Griffiths kept laughing when she was supposed to be crying, her mouth twitching because her lines were so dotty, as far as Megan could see. No one edited out her mirth. The other actors weren’t caught laughing like this. Somebody had it in for Rachel Griffiths.

And what were Sally Fields and Callista Flockhart thinking? Shouldn’t they be in a better show? Even “Desperate Housewives”?

They were just too good for the show.

There were no men worth looking at except for Tom Skerritt, who had apparently been written out of the show. He was the dead father, occasionally back for a flashback.

This show sucks. Three therapy sessions in one show?

Megan, you are the most negative woman on the earth, said Gabrielle, laughing.

Megan was not going to be told what she was by a 30-year-old addict. And Rose stuck up for her.

You don’t understand Megan. You don’t know her at all. She says what she thinks all the time.

Everybody used to be critical, Megan said.

Back in the sixties? Gabrielle sneered.

The sixties, the seventies, the eighties, the nineties. You name it, darling. It’s your generation and the Greatest Generations who have shut us up.

Gabrielle laughed. Megan sighed. No one could ever shut her up. Not even you, Gabrielle Whoever-You-Are.

Megan hoped Rose would throw Gabrielle out of the house. And soon.