Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Married

by Heather McElhatton

  “Why aren’t you drinking?” I ask her.

  “I am!” she says. “I had a couple beers earlier.”

  “No, you didn’t. I haven’t seen you drink a beer all night.”

  “Oh, okay, Matlock. Good to know you’re on the case.”

  “Oh my God!” My eyes widen. “You’re wearing . . . yoga pants.”

  “So? You look like a contestant on Star Search.”

  “You’re . . . you’re pregnant!”

  “What?” She makes a face. “No I’m not.”

  “You are!”

  “Shut up already, I’m not.”

  “Liar. You totally, totally are.”

  “Just keep your voice down, would you? I gained a little weight. That’s all. Plus I got my period yesterday, so I’m bloated. Okay? That’s why I’m wearing my yoga pants.”

  I stare at her, speechless.

  “Jen, I’d tell you if I was pregnant, wouldn’t I?”

  “No,” I snort. “You’d totally lie about it.”

  “Well I’m not.” She sighs. “Absolutely positively not. Okay? Trust me. I’m just fat.”

  I gasp and nearly drop my beer bottle. “You are!” I hiss at her. “You’re freaking pregnant! The only reason you’d say you were fat is so no one would think you were pregnant!”

  “Jennifer, please!”

  “Oh my God! You look so . . . like you’re about to burst or something. What’s in there? Quadruplets? Are you like an Octomom? Shit, I can see it. Everything on you looks pregnant. Big. Ripe! Like you’re gearing up to . . . hatch! Your face has this weird shine and your eyes are bright . . . like a vampire’s!”

  “Shit.” Hailey sits down. “How could you tell?”

  “Wait. Seriously? You really are?”

  She rolls her eyes at me. “Yes. I am. It happened on your honeymoon.”

  Then it’s like the room tips and all the sound drains out. I can suddenly hear my heart beating. Slow, steady. “My honeymoon?” My sister got pregnant . . . on my honeymoon? Of course she did. That’s so typical. “Right, I should’ve known you’d get pregnant on my honeymoon.”

  “See?” Hailey says. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. I knew you’d be all weird about it. I’m having . . . twins.”

  “Twins?” I stare at her. I can’t believe this is happening. I walk out of the kitchen and into the backyard for some fresh air. This is the worst night of my—whooomph! A snowball beans me right in the side of the head. I hate everything right now.

  I go home to take a hot bath.

  Then I drink my weight in red wine and watch the Lifetime channel because it makes me cry, every time. Tonight it’s a movie called When Love Fails, Sometimes Only Sick Children and Lost Dogs Can Bring People Back Together. I grab hold of Ace and cry my eyes out until he starts to howl. I fall asleep with the TV on, amidst wadded-up tissue and empty wine bottles.

  The phone wakes me up.

  It’s Sarah. She’s calling in a cold rage.

  “Did you buy Trevor a Barbie lunch box?” she says.

  I don’t have any idea what she’s talking about.

  “Oh, at the store? Yeah, Trev wanted to get a new lunch box, so I let him pick one out.”

  “You let him pick one?” she snaps. “Seriously?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “A problem? I can’t believe how unbelievably irresponsible you are!”

  I can’t believe her. “Am I missing something, Sarah? Trevor wanted a new lunch box, so I let him pick one . . . at Keller’s Department Store. What’s the problem?”

  “The problem is that he picked out a Barbie lunch box!”

  “Oh. Is that . . . bad?”

  “Is that bad?” she says.

  “Based on your tone of voice, I’m guessing it’s . . . bad.”

  “Of course it’s bad! You’re unbelievable! Truly! Did you even know Trevor picked out a Barbie lunch box?”

  “Well, if memory serves me, I believe Barbie’s name did come up in the lunch box discussion . . . but so did Spider-Man’s and the Incredible Hulk’s and a few others. I just thought it was best to let Trevor work it out.”

  “You did? You thought you’d let Trevor work it out? Fantastic, Jennifer. Do you know how hard we work to get him to pick gender-appropriate toys and clothing? It’s constant with that Goddamned kid! Barbie is banned in this house. Banned!”

  “Well, I didn’t know that. We were running late and it was a . . . confusing moment.”

  “A confusing moment? I’ll give you a confusing moment! How’s this? Imagine Trevor bringing a bright pink Barbie lunch box to school with him! A prestigious Christian school with strict rules and firm values! They suspended him!”

  “Why?”

  “Because a little boy does not bring a pink lunch box to school! Especially if it has a perky blonde on it, wearing a rhinestone bikini and rhinestones in her ponytail!”

  Then she curses and hangs up on me.

  Classy.

  As the weeks drag on, I start occupying myself with anything I can find to distract me.

  I finally submit myself to the God Squad and am immediately voted in almost unanimously. One person says nay, but the vote is anonymous, so I’m left with my own imagination. My best guess is it was Mother Keller trying to make me look bad, or I did something to set off Martha Woodcock’s rage counter.

  I volunteer on the Youth Program committee, figuring it has to be more fun than organizing charity jumbles or scheduling confirmation classes or choosing industrial tampon receptacles for the girls’ bathroom toilet stalls. My committee organizes youth group events for our high school students, like the Boundary Waters Camping for Christ and Salvation Canoe Trek and the annual Back to Basic Morals and School Prayer Picnic.

  They launched the new “Episco-Pals” program, an international Christian-based pen-pals program that became controversial after several girls fell in love with their overseas opposite-sex correspondents. Parents demanded the program be pulled before any daughters ran off or lobbed their maidenheads at the feet of whatever swarthy foreigners starting showing up at the door. The subcommittee is also planning the youth group’s Valentine’s Day Abstinence Dance and has already booked Urge Alert, a Christian sex-ed dance troupe, who’ll perform their hit abstinence dance routine: “Don’t Scratch the Itch.”

  The big event that everyone’s excited about is this spring. On Fire for Jesus is an action-packed teen worship rally up at Camp Wapi-Wapawee in Minnetrista. There’ll be food, games, arts and crafts, nature walks, a Maypole, and a huge maze made of hay bales. The rally is aimed at underprivileged inner-city youth, who’ll be bused in from all over the city and treated to Jesus-approved fun. As a welcome present, I’m given the honored task of overseeing the big bonfire and wrap-up sermon given by Pastor Mike. Luckily I’m given two other women to help me, both named Louise.

  Louise and Louise look alike, talk alike, and both have watery blue eyes. I have a heck of a time telling them apart and decide to call the Louise that’s slightly bigger Big Louise. The other one has a slight peach fuzz on her lip. I call her Dirty Louise. The Louises are tasked with helping me plan activities for the kids as they sit around the big bonfire. The fun and games will lead up to Pastor Mike’s campfire sermon and his invitation to the unsaved to accept Christ. It’s like the big sell right at the end and we’re the warm-up act.

  My first thoughts for fun activities teens can do around a bonfire are of the ones I enjoyed, which were primarily illegal, unadvisable, and/or dangerous: drinking, smoking, whipping batteries into the fire, and having a whole lot of unsafe sex. My subcommittee members have more sanitized ideas. Dirty Louise wants campfire tales with a moral ending and Big Louise votes for skits. She loves, loves, loves skits.

  I hate Big Louise.

  I also volunteer for the Senior Fit! program. It’s a low-impact exercise program for the over-seventy gang. It’s the day I’m supposed to help the dance teacher teach the senior citizens basic dance steps but the
n the dance teacher calls in sick at the last minute. I’m stuck there alone, and then of all things, I see someone who looks like Brad walking down the hall with a tall mysterious female. My stomach gets queasy. I feel cold. Brad’s supposed to be out of town.

  I quickly excuse myself from the classroom and follow them to the parking lot, where they get into a car I don’t recognize. I call Christopher on his cell and say he has to get down here and teach this class for me—it’s an emergency. He sighs and says, “Oh, Lucy. You so crazy.”

  I tell the restless seniors that their dance instructor will be here in five minutes. Then I take off in search of Brad. True to his word, Christopher arrives and saves the day. He teaches the senior citizens of Grace-Trinity some basic dance moves, which he picked up in San Francisco while working in a bar called the Manhole.

  They’re stripper dances.

  The first move is called Pickin’ the Cherries, where you stand in place, reaching up to pluck imaginary cherries from the air. The second move is called Driving the Bus, where you hold your hands straight out, as if you’re grasping an invisible steering wheel, and you turn the wheel back and forth while swaying your hips. The third move is called Flossing the Teeth, and you smile wide while holding a fist on either side of your cheeks, then you pump your fists from side to side, like you’re flossing your teeth with a three-foot-long piece of invisible string.

  It was all in vain, however; when I got back to the parking lot, Brad and the woman were gone. Pulse racing, heart beating, I still got in my car and started off in the direction I thought they probably went and wound up circling around aimlessly for hours.

  Why does everything feel dark and wrong? What am I supposed to do in that big empty house all alone? What is everyone else doing? Are there other unhappy housewives drinking wine alone? When I get home I pour myself a glass of wine and I actually take Brad’s binoculars and peer through the trees at our neighbors, scanning across the tangled spans of dark branches for lit windows. I’m not trying to spy, I just want to see what they’re doing.

  All I can see is dark trees.

  Then Brad calls from the airport. I can hear the loudspeakers announcing flight departures in the background. He’s on his way home, he says. Do I have anything at home for dinner? That wasn’t him with another woman. Still, that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been with one while he was traveling. It doesn’t mean anything. Brad comes home and we sit through a sullen dinner at the dining room table. “You missed Supper Club again,” I say sulkily.

  “I was working.”

  “You’re always working.”

  “Hey, we can switch places any time you like, Imelda.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I don’t like how much I work either, but someone has to pay for your world’s-most-expensive-shoe collection, so lay off.”

  “Oh right. You’re doing all this for me. I forgot. I just thought husbands spent time with their wives. I guess I was wrong.’ ”

  “You know why I’m gone all the time, Jennifer? Because I’m out there trying to scare up new investors, since the Japanese investors strangely pulled out after you tried to poison them. I mean, do you think Donald Trump has to deal with this kind of shit? Do you think Ivana accidentally burns dinner up or loses track of where the dining room table went?”

  “He divorced her.”

  “Can I count on you for help? No, I can’t. All I can count on you for is being negative and bitching at me. I actually have another dinner tomorrow night with an investor group from church. Did you know that? Did Todd call you up, or Emily, or my mother? Did anyone ask you to help out with it?”

  “No.”

  “Know why? Because they’re all scared to death you’re going to ruin it! That’s why. These people might actually be able to bail us out of the mess we’re in . . . if nothing goes insanely wrong during dinner! But you know, you still managed to make it awkward, because they’re all bringing their wives and they asked me to bring you, but I can’t, can I? Because you’re not normal. Because nobody knows what completely fucked-up thing you’re gonna do next, right?”

  Hot tears well up in my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  He pauses and pinches the bridge of his nose, as if stanching a headache. “I’m going to bed,” he says. “Good night.”

  “Okay,” I say in a small voice. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah . . . me too. For a lot of things.”

  “I know you’re tired of me.”

  “Jen . . .”

  “I know! I mess everything up, so I try harder, and then I just mess up worse.”

  “Jen, I gotta get some sleep for the meeting.”

  “Okay. I understand. I do.”

  He shakes his head. “Look. If you want . . . If you want to go to dinner tomorrow night, they’d like to meet you and I’d like to do anything that makes them . . . happy. So, if you think you can handle it, just be ready by six thirty. Okay?”

  I look up at him and nod. “Okay,” I say. He leaves. I stifle a sob.

  I have to win him back.

  The next day I’m ready right on time for the new investor meeting. At six o’clock sharp I’m standing with my coat on in the front hall, wearing dark chaste colors and a chastised expression. I stare at my shoes as the clock ticks five, ten, fifteen minutes past six . . . I figure my husband has bailed on me. Can’t say I’m too stunned. Then the front door flies open and Brad is there, looking dashing in his suit.

  “Oh good!” he says. “I was hoping you’d be ready!”

  I smile with relief and we hurry to the car.

  He tells me more about who we’re meeting on the way over.

  “You can’t laugh, though,” he says.

  “Never.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Brad, I won’t. I promise.”

  He says the dinner meeting is with a missionary group that’s started a global import/export business and they’re represented by some of the largest churches in America. The Baptists, the Methodists, the Nondenominational Free Church . . . These guys travel all around the world, to some of the poorest places on earth, and build missions for some of the poorest people on earth. They got the idea to start making villages self-sustaining and invested in little start-up operations in far-flung places, importing products in bulk from their partner-affiliates.

  “What about this is funny?” I ask him. “It sounds pretty serious and amazing.”

  “The group’s called . . . Christian Lambs of God, or CLOG, Industries.”

  I say nothing. I stare straight ahead. Then we hit a bump, and I snicker.

  “You said you wouldn’t laugh!”

  I clam up immediately, but then Brad can’t stop himself from laughing either.

  “Who would have initials like that?” he says. “CLOG?”

  We pull into the parking lot of Applebee’s. “What are we doing here?” I ask, confused. “Aren’t we going to the club?”

  “Nope. We got some down-to-earth pastors here. The leader of the group is a millionaire, but . . . he likes Applebee’s.”

  I look at him and nod. “See this?” I point to my face. “This is me not laughing.”

  “That’s my girl,” he says, and leans over to kiss me.

  Inside Applebee’s plump people munch happily on deep-fried everything. God, I miss this place, but I pretend to be morally offended. “It’s all just deep-fried trans fat on a plate!” I whisper, watching a plate of delectable deep-fried steak waft by.

  We sit in a large booth with Todd Brockman and his vapid fiancée, Cyndi. He introduces us to the import/export missionary group, led by the Reverend Coy Jones from Atlanta First Baptist and his permanently startled-looking wife, Jolene. Then we’re introduced to Deacon Bill Davis, from the United Free Church of Houston. His wife, Arnelle, took sick tonight, poor illness-riddled thing. She’s suffered endless maladies ever since they came back from the mines of Bembezi, Zimbabwe.

  Finally we meet Pastor Joe G
oodrich from Chicago’s Christ Church Evangelical and his “wife” Lee, who I’m 99 percent sure is an Asian boy. “Well, God be praised!” Pastor Joe says when he sees me. “I met this wonderful woman at my neighbor’s barbecue! Wonderful people! The Lord surely works in mysterious ways, brothers. Here we were, praying for a sign, asking God to lead us in our decision to invest with the Keller’s company or not . . .”

  Todd gives Brad a sly smile.

  “Pastor Joe, are you saying what I think you are?” Reverend Coy asks.

  “I am, Reverend Coy. The Spirit is speaking to me even now.”

  “Praise be!” booms Deacon Davis, whose giant fist bangs on the table and makes everyone near us look.

  “Let’s pray on it together,” Reverend Coy says, and the whole table has to hold hands while Reverend Coy prays out loud, emphasis on “loud,” which makes it sort of awkward for the waitress when she tries to deliver three Sea Lover’s Snack Platters, which sizzle as they rest on her meaty forearm. She waits patiently as a saint for the pastor to say, “Amen!” before she serves them . . . then she runs off, to apply first aid lotion to her burns, I’m certain.

  We celebrate that night.

  Brad, Todd, Cyndi, and I go to Nye’s Polonaise Room and Brad pulls me onto his lap. He keeps tickling me and saying, “It was you, babe! They loved you! You’re my lucky charm!” We go home and Brad falls asleep before I even come out of the bathroom, but I don’t care. I turn off the light feeling happy. We spent the night at Applebee’s with a bunch of weird preachers . . . but it was still wonderful.

  The most romantic night I can remember in recent history.

  I’m achy and hungover when I hear Sarah honk her horn. She drops Trevor off, despite her grave trepidations about my moral character, with a note pinned to his jacket.

  “It’s the new rules.” Trevor sighs. “There’s a-lots of them.”

  I read the note with growing disdain. I can’t believe the amount of control Sarah assumes she can assert over not only her son but his free day-care provider . . . me.