Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Married

by Heather McElhatton

  I review the article on Japanese etiquette that Emily gave me while putting on my makeup. Japanese people like frequent hugging, touching, and eye contact with strangers. Signs of respect are finger pointing, snapping, and whistling. Lots of touching, kissing, finger pointing, and something. Got it. I take tea candles from the bathroom, carry them downstairs, and put them on the sawed-off Ping-Pong table. It looks far more elegant than I could’ve hoped.

  The sake!

  I forgot the sake out in the car. I run to get it and have to wash the bottle off in the sink. It’s covered with vomit. Looking over my shoulder, I quickly open it and take a generous swig. Not bad. I take another one. “Careful,” Pho says, cruising by. “That stuff’s strong.”

  “Let’s hope!” I say, and take another one. “Hey,” I shout at him. “How would you know?”

  I use my last remaining seconds to tidy up the front hall and prepare the sake tray. The chandelier overhead flickers. I toggle the switch back and forth but it’s still flickering. Why can’t they just fix the damn thing? Finally I stamp my foot on the floor and the flickering stops.

  In the same breath of air, the front door opens.

  There’s Brad. I watch his face as he comes through the front door and sees no furniture. He manages to smile as if everything is just fine. “Hello, sweetheart!” he says, and introduces me to twelve Japanese businessmen, their translator, and two unexpected, unwanted, and unhelpful guests, Mr. Cartwright from the Minnesota Department of Public Health and his radish-shaped wife, Laura. I call her Hateful Laura because . . . well, because she’s here.

  I graciously greet each guest with a big bear hug and a light butterfly kiss on the right eyelid, which is called the Emperor’s Greeting, the highest form of respect one can give. I can tell they’re impressed. They quickly bow and back away, saying nothing. I don’t know what the translator is translating but he’s whispering a mile a minute in their ears. Brad waits for an opportune moment and whispers hotly, “What is going on? Why is there no furniture in the dining room?”

  “I have no idea, darling!” I whisper back. “Let’s just get through it!” I hurry to fetch two more pillows, muttering under my breath but smiling all the while. Then I snap my fingers at each guest, asking if they’d like some sake. Everyone’s a taker. Except for Cartwright and his hateful radish-shaped wife. They’re no fun at all.

  The group tries to mingle, but it’s awkward, as there’s no furniture or artwork and nothing to show them room-wise. I quickly lead them to the dining room, figuring we might as well start dinner. When I finally sit down, Brad shoots me a look and nods at the table. That’s when I realize Pho put his own bedsheets on the table. They’re Superman sheets. Every other inch of space is stamped with a blue and red letter S.

  Nobody mentions it.

  We sit silently, cross-legged on the floor. I have gas pains again and use every ounce of effort not to break wind as Bi’ch serves roasted char-blackened fish. “Why are the fishes’ heads still on?” Brad whispers. I look down at my plate. The tallest businessman sits to my left. He seems to be their leader, probably because he’s the tallest. He nods slightly and says, “Mrs. Keller. May I ask what kind of fish this is?”

  “I was wondering that myself,” says Mr. Cartwright.

  I smile painfully at them. “Roasted walleye, I think.”

  Bi’ch moves at a glacial pace and spoons gloppy pink sauce over our fish heads. I think it might be mayonnaise and Tabasco sauce. Next she goes around like a steady snail and—thwap!—slaps a greasy spatula of sautéed greens on each plate. One of our Japanese guests asks to use the bathroom and I gratefully get up, which is no small task when seated at a sawed-off Ping-Pong table, and lead him to the guest bathroom by the hand. I myself dash upstairs and vault over Ace, who’s parked on the top step. He growls at me as I sail past. “What’s your problem?” I ask him, running into the bedroom, past Trevor watching TV on the bed, and I slam into the bathroom, where I sit on a stack of towels, hoping to mask the sound, and fart.

  Ace starts barking. Damn dog. All this and I still beat our guest back to the table. He takes a long time to come back and we sit there silently, the food getting cold, waiting for him to return before we start eating. Ace starts barking again upstairs. I’m going to kill that dog. I’m about to go get him when our bathroom-bound guest returns and we start eating. Oh, how I yearn for that wonderful time a minute ago, when we weren’t. The fish is bitter and gritty, riddled with sandy bits we must discreetly spit out. Each bite of fish is followed by . . . would I call it a burning sensation? Yes. I might.

  I smile at the Japanese man seated next to me and he bows his head slightly. I bow my head slightly back, hitting it on my water glass. “Do your people eat this kind of fish?” I ask. “Do you mind that your fish has a fish head?”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Brad whispers.

  “I was just asking!” I whisper back.

  Mr. Cartwright sets his fork down. “What is this kind of fish? You said walleye?”

  I nod and smile at him. “We caught it right here, off the end of our dock!”

  One of Mr. Cartwright’s bushy eyebrows crawls like a caterpillar up his head. “What?” he says.

  I repeat myself. “We caught it right here in the lake, off the end of the dock.”

  “The fish we’re eating . . . came from Lake Minnetonka?”

  “Yes, sir!” I grin. “Now that’s eating locally!”

  Mr. Cartwright puts his napkin on the table. “So, I take it, Mr. Keller, that you’re not aware of the public health warning for Lake Minnetonka . . . banning all fish consumption?”

  I freeze and say, “Pardon?”

  Mr. Cartwright stands up. “Laura, get your coat.”

  I look over helplessly at Brad. “What’s happening?”

  “Blue-green algae!” Mr. Cartwright says. “That’s what’s happening! The heat wave caused blue-green algae to bloom all over the place!”

  “Well, we just scraped that off . . .” I tell him.

  “Really! Did you scrape off the neurotoxins too?”

  “Probably . . .” I say blankly.

  “Mrs. Keller, fish caught in a blue-green algae bloom causes bacterial infections, tissue damage, paralysis, respiratory failure, even tumors.”

  The Japanese start looking at each other and whispering. I distinctly hear one say, “Law and order.” I’m hoping he means the TV show. I throw myself on Mr. Cartwright’s mercy. “Oh, Mr. Cartwright, I beg you, please don’t go! You don’t think one little piece of fish could cause—”

  “Liver cancer!” he says. “Chromosome loss! DNA damage!”

  The translator goes apoplectic.

  “Now, Mr. Cartwright,” Brad says. “I can assure you that my wife didn’t know there was any fish advisory in effect—”

  “Well, I can assure you,” Mr. Cartwright barks, “that there is. Now, pardon us, but this is nothing to mess around with.”

  “Where . . . are you going?” I ask.

  “The hospital, to get an antibiotic shot, and I suggest you all do the same.” The translator rattles off what must be the Japanese equivalent of “Your hostess has tried to kill you; please follow the fat white man if you’d like to possibly survive.” All the Japanese businessmen get up quickly and head for their coats in the front hall.

  Overhead the chandelier flickers.

  “Please accept our apologies,” Brad says, his voice soaked with defeat. The tall Japanese man bows slightly. He begins to say something, but his sentiment is cut short by a strange sound above us, a queer clinking of glass crystals that makes everyone look up.

  There’s a creaking sound in the ceiling.

  “Oh no . . .” I whisper.

  The chandelier suddenly gives way.

  Thwissss-ba-boom! The massive chandelier plummets down, crashing with an explosion on the marble floor. We stand motionless, in a rising plume of dust. Nobody was hurt, which is too bad. A little blood and we might’ve all known what
to do next. Instead the Japanese stand there staring at me in a V formation.

  Then I fart loudly.

  Get Ready/Get Set

  8

  Rule of Thumb

  Brad is furious with me.

  He won’t even look at me the next morning. I try to make him talk to me, which is a mistake. I’m following him into the bathroom, begging him to listen to me, when he steps right in a pile of fresh dog poop with his bare foot. “What the fuck!” Brad shouts. “Why’s that fucking dog always shitting in here?” Ace has a thing about pooping in the bathroom. I think it’s because we use it for that function and he assumes he should too, but Brad says it’s because I potty-trained him in a bathroom on our honeymoon and he’s too stupid to unlearn it.

  He pushes away the towel that I try to hand him and sticks his whole foot in the sink, blasting the faucet. “Tell me this,” he says. “Why does everything always go to shit when you’re around?”

  “What?” I stand there staring at him and holding the towel.

  He snorts and shakes his head. “You know, we gave you one thing to do. One thing. We even got a fucking caterer to do the cooking, since everyone knows you can’t be bothered!”

  “I would’ve cooked!”

  “You did cook, unfortunately! Jesus, I give you one damn thing to do and it’s a total disaster! You nearly killed everyone!”

  “I don’t think the fish I served was that poisonous.”

  “Do you hear yourself? Is that honestly a sentence that anyone should have to say in their lifetime? And what am I supposed to say to the next batch of investors we want to entertain? ‘Hey, guys, come on over to our house, my wife might kill you, but she might not! She’s wacky that way!’ No, what do you care? Serve the fish and see who keels over later. Jesus, I wish I had your problems. You sit around here all day worrying about what shoes to wear while I’m out there every Goddamned day, everyone watching me, my Goddamned sister breathing down my neck, just waiting for me to fuck up so she can run and snitch to Daddy. Do you know what she’ll do with this? She’ll have a fucking field day. That’s what. She’s been telling Dad all this shit about me, saying how she’d do a better job, how she has more experience, how she isn’t a drunk, blah, blah, blah . . . She has him halfway convinced to cut me out!”

  “Brad, your father would never cut you out—”

  “Oh really? He told Mom he wasn’t sure about my negotiating skills. That’s why he had us throw the dinner without him here. He wanted to see if I could close the deal without him. Well, ha-ha! I closed the deal, all right! Slammed the door right in their faces! They’re all on a flight back to Tokyo! Won’t be seeing them any time soon.”

  “But they still might—”

  “Nope! They’re out. Todd just called.”

  “No. Really?”

  “Yep. Really.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Me too. Sorry I ever thought you could pull this fucking thing off. I should’ve known you’d screw it up. Mom said you would.”

  I stand there, my face burning with shame. Tears start to well.

  He turns off the faucet and blots his foot on a dirty towel on the floor. “And would you get rid of that fucking maid?” he says. “Jesus! She’s freaky as hell and she can’t clean for shit.”

  “But . . . your mother hired her!”

  “I don’t give a fuck! Get rid of her.”

  “But it’s not their fault the dinner went wrong! It’s my fault, it’s all my fault! They were only trying to help, you can’t fire them because of something I did!” Hot tears start rolling down my cheeks. “Please, Brad!”

  “Oh Christ, now you’re crying? Terrific. Why are you crying? I’m the one who has to fucking tell my dad the Tokyo deal is dead! Fine, don’t fire them! Do whatever the fuck you want to. I don’t even care anymore. God, I have to get out of here, I can’t stand being here.” He pushes past me and storms out of the bedroom. A few minutes later I hear the front door slam shut. Then he’s gone.

  I run and go get my phone. I have to find out what happened. I have to prove last night wasn’t my fault! Okay, the fish might have been my fault, but I should get an “A” for effort and I still don’t think the fish I served was that poisonous.

  I call Emily at work and then I remember it’s Sunday. I hunt down her home number, but there’s no answer there either. I call three more times and leave two messages asking her to please call me back. Then I call the caterer. No answer there either. I am getting pissed beyond pissed. I want answers, dammit! I grab my purse and drive all the way out to Burnsville, where I storm into the caterer’s shop, march right past the girl at the front desk, and burst into the steamy kitchen demanding an explanation. The caterer, who has a smudged apron on and a spatula in one hand, looks at me, confused. “But . . . we’re loading up for your party right now,” she says.

  “What?”

  “Your office called and rescheduled it.”

  “Who rescheduled it?”

  “Someone named Emily? She called last week. Said you had to move dinner to tonight. I had to scramble just to find waitstaff. We already had two other events scheduled.”

  I thank her for her time and storm back out to the car. I sit in the parking lot and speed-dial Emily forty-two times in a row until she gets out of the shower and answers. She’s confused too. “But . . . M-Mrs. Keller told me to change the date,” she stammers. “She called last week to reschedule it.”

  “My mother-in-law?”

  “She said you had to change the date because of a personal emergency.”

  “What?”

  “Oh no, I should’ve double-checked the date with you! This is all my fault! I’m so so so sorry . . . I’m so stupid!” She breaks down crying and ten minutes later I still can’t get her to stop.

  I finally hang up on her and call Mother Keller, who, oddly, picks up on the first ring. She pulls a stunningly impressive award-winning denial act and says she has no idea what I’m talking about. She never changed the date of the dinner. That’s preposterous. “Really, Jennifer,” she says indignantly. “It’s bad enough you tried to poison your guests, but blaming it on me? Pitiful. I would’ve thought you’d be better at taking responsibility for your mistakes by now, there’ve been so many.”

  My heart is racing. I want to reach through the phone and strangle her. I tell her, “I did not do this! Emily says you called her and you changed the date!”

  “Oh, I see! Is that what Emily said? And does Emily have any proof of that? A voice mail, perhaps? An e-mail? Something written down on paper?”

  “Well . . . no . . .” Oh shit.

  “Then it’s her word against mine, isn’t it, Jennifer? Now, think back and tell me exactly what happened. Naturally I’ll believe you. If you say she said I changed the date, then I’ll know she’s been lying to you and I’ll have to terminate her immediately.”

  “You can’t do that!”

  “Ah, but I can. She has no proof to back up her statement and neither do you.”

  My eye twitches slightly. I think I might be having a stroke. “So,” I whisper. “It’s just that easy?”

  “And it always will be.”

  A palpable tension races between us. I have no idea what will happen next.

  “Of course, if this was just a miscommunication,” she says, “then I’d understand. I know how hard it can be to work with you. Oh, and doesn’t young Emily have a wedding coming up? How terrible to lose her job now. Of course it was just a miscommunication between the two of you; she must feel awful. Maybe we should give her a little raise to cheer her up? They always get so excited when you toss a few pennies at them, don’t they?”

  I can’t seem to breathe.

  My head is like a tiny balloon floating miles above earth.

  “Now, I’ll believe whatever you tell me, Jennifer. So just tell me the truth. Is Emily lying and claiming that I changed the date? Or was there just a miscommunication between you two?”

  It is an act
of fierce will to reach through the flames of anger in my head and try to form words. “I . . . think it was,” I whisper.

  “Was what?”

  “A small . . . miscommunication.”

  “Ah, I thought so. Pity. But these things do happen. Best thing is to learn from your mistakes and move on. You know, young brides deserve nice presents. Why don’t you pick out something nice for Emily and tell her it’s from all of us?”

  “Sure.”

  “Oh, and do tell Brad I need to speak to him. All right?”

  “Okay.”

  I drive home, sailing along empty ribbons of road. Overhead, deep V’s of geese bisect the sky, all flying south for the winter, and it takes all my strength not to turn south and fly right along with them. When I get home, there’s a Lemon Fresh Furniture Cleaners van parked in my driveway and two guys are carrying furniture back into the house. “Hey, got a big party tonight, huh?” one says. “Bet you throw big parties all the time!”

  “Yep.” I smile at him. “Big party tonight. Big big parties . . . all the time.”

  I take a long hot bath and stare at the water. I check my messages. Nothing. I have no idea when Brad is coming home . . . or if he’s coming home ever again. The thought of him leaving ignites cold panic in me. I call him sixteen times in a row, but he never calls back.

  On Monday I take Emily to lunch at Pastamania! She orders the Minnesota linguini (linguini and Swedish meatballs) and I order the pasta carbonara. “Here,” I say when we’re seated. “I wanted to get you something.” I hand her a small silver envelope. Inside is three thousand dollars. Her face falls when she sees it and she says, “Are you firing me?”

  She thinks it’s a severance package. I explain it’s quite the contrary. “I messed up, Emily. My mother-in-law left me a message about changing the dinner, but dingbat me . . . I didn’t listen to the whole message. So, I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am and . . . Mrs. Keller knows it wasn’t your fault. It was mine. Just a . . . miscommunication.”

  Emily’s so happy she cries into her linguini.