“You’re allergic to cats?”
“Very,” he says and my heart sinks a little.
“Have you tried acupuncture?” I ask him. “It’s supposed to work.”
“Never tried it. I have no idea where an acupuncturist is.”
“I’ll find one for you. I’ll find you the best one.”
“All right, I’ll give it a try.”
We drive out to his house, which his parents gave him. It’s all the way out in Excelsior, and it’s nothing like I expected. I pictured him living downtown in a big modern loft or something, but his place is actually an adorable little white cottage with yellow shutters right on Lake Minnetonka. It immediately reminds me of my dollhouse and of a house much nicer than my dollhouse.
“There’s about a hundred feet of shoreline,” he says when we first pull into his driveway. “Kennebunkport cobblestone walkways. Gorgeous in the summer, you could golf on the lawn. Rosebushes all along the south side. I don’t do the gardening, of course. My parents’ lawn service comes three times a week to do both houses.”
My eyes trace the path of his thumb across his driveway, over a pristine row of hedges, over another wide lawn of uninterrupted white snow, and up to the massive white pillars of the house next door. It looks like the white house, except bigger, like a square four-story wedding cake. “Your parents live there?”
“Figures they’d want me next door, right?” he says, opening the door. “Actually, this is just the guest cottage for the main house. Mom redid the landscaping with the hedges or whatever to make it look like its own property.”
I step inside and find myself standing on the glossy hardwood floor of a gourmet kitchen. It has green marble counters and brand-new chrome appliances. The refrigerator even has a miniature television in it, right above the ice cube dispenser. I recognize it because it’s the exact refrigerator Lenny wouldn’t buy for Hailey because it was too freaking expensive.
“This is a guest cottage?”
“Cozy, huh? Come look at the fireplace in the living room. It’s made from stones they hauled out of the lake and all the floors are heated.”
Heated floors?
Heated floors are out of my league entirely.
We sit down and Brad pours some wine. He’s so good at listening, he asks me all about myself. Where I grew up, what I majored in, how long I’ve worked at Keller’s. I’ve never known any man to ask so many questions. We stay up for hours talking and then we go upstairs where we have sex three times and his sheets end up damp and tangled on the floor.
I sleep over. Of course when I say “sleep” I mean after we have sex he sleeps and I stare at him. He snores in the most adorable way. I watch the light changing on the curtains and imagine what the room would look like painted a different color. Then around dawn I sneak out of bed and reapply my makeup to look fresh and light, like I have no makeup on at all. This look takes quite awhile to achieve.
When Brad finally wakes up, he stretches and asks me how I slept. I of course am fake-sleeping next to him, poised in an angelic position, one wrist thrown over my head as though I were a heroine in a silent movie who had briefly, charmingly, fainted. I make my eyes flutter slightly at the sound of his voice and then I smile at him with no spittle or eye crust to worry about. I look fresh as a daisy, just like people do in the movies.
I half expect him to be cranky or dismissive, and maybe that sounds weird, but staying over the whole night, that was something that took David a long time to do. He always got jumpy around three in the morning and said he had to sleep in his bed or he’d be exhausted the next day. But Brad just acts like it’s the most normal thing he’s ever done.
“Morning, gorgeous!” he says and asks if I want to grab breakfast. Thank God. It’s only after I hear the word “ breakfast” that I realize how hungry I am. Last night we got so engrossed in talking, we didn’t even eat dinner. We get up, get dressed, and go to the Eggery for breakfast. He orders eggs Benedict and a skim latte, extra foam. I order the same. I try to hang on to this information and store it away in my memory banks. Brad likes skim latte, extra foam! Brad likes skim latte, extra foam!
Brad says he has to go to his nephew’s birthday party later. “He’s the only kid in our family. Man, is he spoiled. My sister spoils him rotten. My dad, though, he’s the worst. He bought Trevor a pony, an actual live pony they board at a stable down the road, and the kid’s only six.”
It’s weird to hear someone call Ed Keller Dad, and I try not to make a face. He tells me all about his parents and his sister. About the Keller cabin up north and how living up to the Keller family name is about as fun as it sounds. “My mom had a fit when I moved to L.A,” he says. “They all assumed I would come home to Minnesota and work at the store after I graduated.”
“What made you come back?”
He shrugs. “Family, I guess. Hey, you sure look beautiful in the morning.” I smile as I wolf down my eggs Benedict. I never really liked eggs Benedict, but this morning they taste amazing.
After breakfast, Brad drives me home. I’m illuminated and floaty, the world full of possibility. It’s almost hard to be this happy. Right here, right now, this suddenly. It’s almost painful, like after years of darkness, the light hurts your eyes.
When I walk into my apartment, it seems like a cheap card trick. All the junk on my walls and shelves looks tacky and garish compared to Brad’s piece of chic lakeside paradise. I notice little things I hadn’t before, like how dusty everything is and how there isn’t a clean, unbroken line anywhere, just chaotic colors shouting. I want to take bed sheets and cover everything but I settle for climbing in the tub and staring at the vanilla pudding tiles. I definitely don’t think I belong here, I think I belong somewhere…else.
Monday, I’m sitting at my desk looking up images of Jackie Onassis. I need new wardrobe ideas along with new lifestyle ideas, because, let’s face it, I’m not exactly executive wife material. Not yet, anyway. I use my last functioning credit card and order a very expensive peach suit, a Chanel knockoff, but a good one. If I can copy Jackie O, and I mean not just her clothing but her classic style, inimitable grace, and endless poise, then maybe I have a shot.
Now how do I order those online?
Big Trish stomps into my cubicle and tosses a sympathy card at me. “Ryan Seacrest is dead,” she says.
“Who?”
“Ryan Seacrest, the goldfish.”
“The one that lives on top of the microwave?”
She nods. The card has a sunset on it and says, “Sorry to see you go.” I have a bad feeling about this. “He’s really dead?” I ask. “He seemed fine.”
She arches an eyebrow. “When did he seem fine?”
“I don’t know, before.”
“Well, he was bloated up to the size of an orange testicle this morning.”
We stare at each other.
I’m really hoping I didn’t kill Ryan Seacrest with baked ziti. That would be some very bad karma.
“Are you going to sign the card or not?” she asks.
I sign the card. There are already more signatures for Ryan Seacrest than there were for Helen in accounting, whose husband died of a brain tumor last spring. “I’m sorry,” I say and hand the card back. She arches the other eyebrow. “Why should you be sorry?”
God, she’s a pain. I’m trying not to blame her, what with her having evil stepkid issues and everything. I think a woman being forced to watch over another woman’s children is unnatural. On a primal level, shouldn’t a female want to kill off a rival mate’s offspring? I mean, I know I’m not supposed to say that, I’m supposed to quote some Mother Teresa crap about one world, one love, but frankly, I think getting saddled with bratty twin stepdaughters is biologically grotesque. If I had them they’d end up in the trunk of my car.
I’m being too harsh, I know. Dr. Gupta believes in reincarnation and karma and paying for past actions, which means in my next life I will be something very small and insignificant that perishes at t
he hands of a very large and careless overlord. Like I might be a butterfly that gets stepped on by a cow. I study Jackie Onassis’s face and consider this. I definitely still think it’s a step up from the life I have now.
After work I have to pick up the table presents for Hailey. Three-hundred stainless steel chopsticks in green satin boxes. She actually wanted silver chopsticks or at least silver-plated, but they were too expensive. The stainless steel chopsticks were the only ones that fit in the budget and my mother convinced her they looked modern.
The stationery store lady has packed all three hundred boxes in two big Tupperware crates with snap-shut lids, and they’re like a million pounds each. I nearly kill myself loading them into the Scout when I slip and almost shoot into the street and under the delivery truck roaring past. The lady inside didn’t even offer to help me. Not that I blame her: I think your God-given right when you get old is to be difficult. I myself can’t wait to be eighty and never have to help anyone again.
I have to drop them off at my mother’s house and when I pull up out front, I see Lenny’s gold pickup truck parked in the driveway, so I have to park on the opposite side of the street. Stupid Ham Man.
“We’re in the kitchen!” my mom shouts as I struggle through the front door, trying not to drop the precious railroad spikes. I stagger to the kitchen with the heavy boxes. I’ve been in the house for twenty seconds and I already have a headache.
“Hello,” my mother says. “We thought you were coming for dinner.”
I huff the stack of boxes up on the counter.
“Oh my God, are those the chopsticks? Don’t drop those!” Hailey springs up from her chair to see if I’ve damaged her table gifts.
“They’re heavy,” I tell her. “I could have used some help.”
“Heya, Jen!” Lenny says and stands to give me his patented good-guy handshake-hug-thump-on-the-back howdy-do.
“Hello, Leonard,” I say, taking off my coat and folding it over the back of a chair. “Nice truck. Don’t see gold fleck much these days.”
“Matches the boat!” he says. “You gotta come fishing with us this summer. I got the walleye spot!” Then he says something to my father about using hot dogs for bait.
“Do I smell squash? Like, burning squash?”
“No, it’s the candles.” Mom points to the centerpiece—three thick rust-colored candles resting in a nest of spray-painted pine cones. “Aunt Joan made them. These are pumpkin pie. Spiced pumpkin pie.”
“Ruin any irreplaceable dresses today?” Hailey asks me, her face all screwed up.
“None of that,” my mother says. “Jennifer, have hotdish.”
“Shoot,” I say, “no thanks. I just had hot cheese.”
Mom cuts me a hearty wedge anyway. Her version of seven-layer hotdish goes like this: Take a casserole dish, spoon in a layer of browned hamburger, then a layer of mashed potatoes, then strained carrots, then frozen peas. Repeat. Sprinkle a heavy blanket of grated cheddar cheese on top and then pour a can of Progresso Cream of Mushroom soup over the whole shebang. Bake until it’s solid enough to use as an anchor for a Carnival cruise ship.
Hailey sits down and tells me I’m lucky the chopsticks aren’t ruined and I tell her if I’d wanted to ruin them, I would’ve taken them to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and hired a first-year art student to weld them together into decorative fruit baskets. Not that I’d thought about it.
I tell Mom her casserole tastes great.
“She used extra cheese,” Lenny says. “Wisconsin Amish cheddar. Them Amish might not spring for beer, but they know how to make fuckin’ cheese!”
Hailey smacks his arm.
“Sorry,” he says, “freaking cheese.”
I make a face and put my fork down. “Cheese from Wisconsin? Mother, you whore.”
Her eyes fly open. “Jennifer!”
My dad chuckles and Abbygael toddles in sucking her thumb and trailing a purple blanket behind her. I’m amazed she can walk upright with that pumpkin head.
“Hi, sweetie!” my mom says. “Did you finish your cartoons? Come here.”
Abbygael stares at me.
“There is seriously something wrong with that kid,” I say.
“Jennifer!” My mother covers Abbygael’s ears.
“What? She can’t hear me. I don’t think she even knows people are here.”
“We have Abbygael all weekend,” she says, smooching her on the forehead. “Aunt Joan couldn’t watch her—she’s at a craft fair. She’s selling those candles all over now. Did she tell you?”
“Yeah, and she’s giving us free candles for the wedding,” Hailey says. “White cake ones.”
“White cake what?”
“White cake–scented candles.”
Great. This adds yet another unpleasant dynamic to their wedding. Now the entire place will reek of whatever my aunt thinks white cake smells like. Probably burned apple jelly or Spam. Hailey asks me if I heard about David’s wedding. “He’s marrying the daughter of that car dealership guy,” she says. “That guy, what does he call himself? The Pick-Up King.”
“Yes,” I say, “I heard.”
“That’s her ex-boyfriend,” she explains to Lenny, who never knows what anyone is talking about. I swear, she’s like his hired-for-the-handicapped world interpreter. “You should get his new wife to give you a car!” she says. “Oh my God, Lenny, you should see that orange thing she drives around. It’s like what hunters drive when they go kill deer.”
“Deer season isn’t for months,” Lenny says.
I ignore them. “Well, I don’t really care. I’ve been dating somebody.”
“Really?” Mom asks. “Who’s this now? Is he coming to the wedding? The caterer’s order is already in. Do you think he’d want the chicken or the beef? I hope he doesn’t want the beef. We’re already short on the beef.”
“Shoulda let me bring ham,” Lenny says and shakes his head.
Hailey smacks him. “Nobody eats ham at weddings, Lenny.”
“He’s a vegetarian,” I say, “so forget it.”
Brad is not a vegetarian.
My mother looks perplexed. “A vegetarian? Well, I don’t know what that means. I don’t think you should bring a vegetarian to the wedding,” she says. “That doesn’t sound right.”
“Oh, she’s not bringing anyone.” Hailey rolls her eyes. “Just wait and see. She’ll hire a date like in that one movie. That one where that one girl hires a date and then they fall in love.”
“You could have ham at a wedding,” Lenny says. “Why not?”
“Shut up, Lenny,” Hailey says. “No one’s talking about ham anymore.”
Brad calls me and asks me if I know of a dry cleaner that only uses hypoallergenic products. I don’t, but I Google every dry cleaner in the state until I do. Then I find him an acupuncturist who makes house calls, a masseuse who will come to the office, and a tailor who can turn a suit around in two days.
I order his groceries for him online and even attempt to cook dinner for him because he’s useless in the kitchen, which frankly is fine by me, because there’s nothing worse than a man who’s a better cook than you. Not that that’s hard with me as a standard. I’ve made him fried chicken the consistency of a leather shoe, meatloaf that looked more like stew, and wild rice soup that clung to the spoon like glue.
Brad and I have been dating for two weeks. I ask Christopher if that means we’re exclusive. “Two weeks for the gay bees is considered married.” He sighs. “In Straight Land I have no idea. Shouldn’t you be asking him?”
True, but I don’t know if I can bring it up with Brad or not. I mean, I assume if we’re sleeping together we’re connected and exclusive, but Christopher says it only means we’re sleeping together at that particular moment, and at any other particular moment, he may or may not be connected to any other wharf whore.
“Wharf whore?” I ask. “What’s a wharf whore?”
“It’s an expression.”
“No,
I don’t think it is.”
“Just ask him!”
“As if!” I say, smacking him.
I am not asking Brad anything about anything. Instead, I focus on making our dates superincredible while making it look like it’s Brad who’s making them superincredible. For instance, when he said he wanted to try out the new restaurant on Hennepin called Duplex, I called ahead and reserved the corner table. I actually told the girl who answered the phone exactly what I was doing. I reserved a table for eight o’clock and said, “I’ll be wearing a dark blue dress and he’ll be in a suit. I’ll pretend we don’t have a reservation. I’ll just tell you his name, Brad Keller, and you act like you know who that is. Look surprised or something, like it’s a big deal, and then give us a good table. It’ll put him in a really good mood.”
“I heard that,” she says. “They all love a little ego fluff.”
“Exactly,” I say, and then I tell her something Christopher told me to use if I ever go to New York City and can’t get a table or need special treatment. I say, “I promise I’ll take care of you in the right way.” He told me the wording is very specific. It leaves the reward open to the imagination and the maître d’ curious. They don’t know what it means exactly, but they fill in the blanks themselves. In this case I slipped the girl a ten-dollar bill and a coupon to Cinnabon. Bet she didn’t see that coming.
But all my work is worth it. He never suspects I’ve been two steps ahead of him smoothing things out. He just feels lucky when we’re together. Well, almost every time. I don’t think he felt very special the night we tried a new Indian restaurant and he discovered a hair that looked very much like it came from the pubic region in his extramild masala. Mostly, though, we get good tables, great treatment, and lots of smiles. We get let into the VIP room at First Avenue and “free” tickets to opening night for A View from the Bridge at the Guthrie Theater. (Christopher’s mom works in the box office, thank God. Those tickets would have been a fortune.)
It spreads like a Girl Scout fire through the woods that I’m dating Brad Keller. Everyone at Keller’s knows. I can tell they know by how they straighten up when I’m around, lean in to each other, and whisper. They look at me with their chins slightly elevated, their noses turned up, eyeing me up and down as if to say, Why her?
Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Single Page 13