Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Married

by Heather McElhatton

  New Rules for TREVOR (Which Are Assumed to Be Obvious but Apparently Are Not)

  Trevor CANNOT

  • Eat sugar

  • Eat processed foods

  • Watch television or movies

  • Buy clothing, toys, or books

  • Make playdates with unapproved parties

  • Take part in dangerous roughhousing activities

  Trevor CAN

  • Read preapproved books

  • Watch preapproved videos

  • Play with preapproved toys sent with him

  “Trevor!” I immediately shout.

  “What?”

  “Wanna go eat some sugar and processed food and then go buy banned books and videos and make playdates with . . . I don’t know, homeless circus performers living in burned-out vans down by the river? If we’re lucky they’ll teach us dangerous roughhousing activities.”

  “Yay!” Trevor shouts.

  “We’ll start at Kidzilla and you can see if there’s a heating duct you can break. I’ll sign you up for the Godzilla Pass again. I heard they just got a go-kart track put in.”

  “Yay!”

  “There’s only one condition. You can’t eat so much junk food, okay?”

  “Okay!”

  What inspires this direct insubordination? What makes me think I can do this? Because clearly I am this kid’s Aunt Ariel. Or I should be. Someone’s got to keep his spirit alive, with all these mud people slapping mud all over his fun heart. Damn. I think it was getting approval from the pastors last night too. I feel like doing something nice for myself for once.

  And for Trevor.

  We pile into the car and head for the Mall of America. I’m dropping him off at Kidzilla before I run for my massage when who do I bump into but Ellie Rathbone, the country club queen herself? She’s dropping off her son, Cody, who, it turns out, happens to be on the same soccer team as Trevor. “Well, hi there, Trev!” Ellie says. “Didn’t think your mom let you come here!”

  “His mom doesn’t,” I tell her. “If she finds out she’ll kill me. I’m his . . . aunt.”

  “My husband thinks Cody is at an afterschool science class.”

  “Well, have you seen Planet Snacker-Snacks? That’s a science lab.”

  “I’m Ellie,” she says, reaching out her perfectly manicured hand. She’s wearing an absolutely adorable tennis outfit underneath her coat, which accentuates her itty-bitty waistline and toned arms. She’s impossibly stupidly unfairly skinny. Like she keeps her organs at home in a jar. “We haven’t officially met,” she says.

  “Jennifer Keller,” I say warmly.

  “My son Cody’s in the same class as Trevor. He’s eight too.”

  “Hi, Cody.” Trevor hops around and waves at the boy, who silently stares at him.

  “You look familiar,” Ellie says.

  “Oh, do you go to Hillcrest?” I ask casually.

  “Oh yeah . . . wait a minute, now I got it—” Her phone rings. “Hang on a sec,” she says. “Sorry.” She takes the phone call and I hear her voice drop; she speaks in hushed tones and annoyed inflections. Without straining to hear her conversation, I can tell she’s arguing about who will pick Cody up. “You know, we could drive Cody home,” I tell her when she’s off the phone.

  “Yay!” Trevor shouts.

  Ellie looks at me and blinks. “No,” she says. “That’s . . . sweet. But, I, um . . . we can figure something out.”

  “It’s really no trouble,” I tell her. “My day is wide open.”

  She looks at me, calculating something in her mind.

  “Look.” I shrug casually. “I’d ask you to do the same thing for me, if Trevor needed a ride. It’s really no trouble, Ellie.” I think it’s this last touch of using her name that seals the deal. She rolls her eyes and smiles, relief flooding her pretty, perfectly toned face, and she gushes with thanks, writing down her phone number, address . . . all of it solid gold. “Hey, let’s grab lunch at the club,” she says as she’s dashing away. “I’ll grab your number from the Hillcrest directory. Bye for now, guys. Bye, Trevor. Have fun!”

  And just like that, I have a lunch date with Ellie Rathbone.

  Unbelievable.

  I chalk it up to my extreme exhaustion, my ever-changing weight-loss pills, and my constant low-grade anxiety. Christopher has always said this is the secret to popularity. If you want to make new friends, then be a new you. The absolute last thing you should do is be yourself. You should be the opposite of yourself, or rather you should be the epitome of those you desire to know. If you were so great you’d already have friends. Anyone who tells you to be yourself is probably plotting against you. So that’s what I did when I met Ellie Rathbone.

  I seemed cool, detached, and easygoing.

  Everything I am not.

  10

  The Cuntry Club

  I’m as happy as Wedding Day Barbie. Sick to my stomach with joy. I’m about to have lunch at the club with Ellie and her infamous sister, Addi. I go all-out getting ready. I get my hair and nails done and Christopher finds me fourteen different Elegantly Invincible outfits that are all “perfect” for a fall club luncheon. I try each of them on seven different times and finally pick one of the more conservative looks, which I call “Sexy Librarian on a Fox Hunt”: an ivory silk blouse with a ruffled front, a rich nut-brown Burberry cardigan, and a tailored tweed pencil skirt that I top with a thin black patent leather belt. I wear tall leather Ralph Lauren calfskin riding boots and small teardrop pearl earrings. If there’s a fox hunt at Hillcrest today, or if Hemingway wants to have a scotch, I’m ready. I’m actually just spritzing perfume on my wrist when Ellie’s car honks outside.

  She’s here!

  Tummy butterflies get all fluttery. I’m nervous! It feels like a date. I hurry downstairs, putting on my cashmere camel trench coat and almond-colored pashmina. Now if I only had a pith helmet and a martini, I might qualify for a vintage safari too.

  Outside I nearly slip on a patch of ice, and in an attempt to summit the passenger seat of Ellie’s tall white Land Cruiser, I slip and painfully bang my knee.

  “Oh! You okay?” Ellie asks me.

  “Yep!” I whisper, tears welling in my eyes. I take my seat and buckle in. Then I wait for . . . ten minutes? fifteen? as Ellie fastidiously prepares to leave my driveway. She puts her sunglasses away, checks her cell phone, texts somebody, flips down her visor and looks at her teeth in the mirror, pops a Tic Tac in her mouth, dabs lip gloss on her bottom lip, digs in her purse for the better lip gloss, sips her bottle of water, turns on the stereo, clicks through the satellite channels and settles on the classical music station, then monkeys with the rearview mirror and asks me if I want an Evian.

  “Ah . . . sure,” I say.

  She pushes a button and a rectangular lid slides open on the armrest next to me, releasing a vaporous cloud from the refrigerated compartment below. Inside is a neat assortment of chilled beverages. “Help yourself,” she says. “But don’t take Cody’s juice box. If he doesn’t get his juice box after school, it’s not . . . pretty.”

  I grab an Evian and the lid rolls shut.

  Ellie rechecks her mirrors. By the time she eases the mammoth white Land Cruiser carefully out onto the street it feels like an eternity has passed. Like lunch should be over. I’m worn out already and realize my face hurts because I haven’t stopped smiling and nodding the whole time. We take off and roar onto the highway; Ellie talks all the way to the club. About what, I have no idea. I’m too distracted to track it. I’m much more aware of my pencil skirt digging into my sides; it now feels like it must be two sizes too small.

  I do this all the time. I try things on and concentrate on how they look, completely oblivious to how they feel. I could stand in front of a full-length mirror with my feet jammed into bowls of broken glass and not even notice the blood spurting out because I’m trying to decide if they make my feet look too “chunky.”

  By the time we arrive at Hillcrest, I’m ready f
or my nap and we haven’t even eaten yet. We’re having tea in the solarium, a pretty room overlooking the garden with tall French windows and a domed glass ceiling. It’s like we’re all canaries in a giant birdcage. We’re led across the room, past a dozen tables with pink skirting and pink hand-painted japan. On each table is a silver tea service. Our table has a wine decanter on it and no teapot. There’s a little sign on the tablecloth saying RATHBONE PARTY. No one else is there. The room and our table are empty.

  “Big surprise.” Ellie sighs. “Addi’s late.”

  A Hispanic waitress appears in a peacock-blue uniform.

  “Mara!” Ellie says. “Martini, please. Also a Pellegrino with sliced lemon on the side, and a decaf skim latte with one shake of cinnamon and one shake of nutmeg. I have to drink caffeine when I drink alcohol or I collapse. Just one shake of cinnamon and nutmeg, okay? Last time he went a little nutmeg-crazy and my coffee tasted like, well, liquid nutmeg. Ick.”

  Mara nods. I’m worried she’s not writing this down. I panic-order a martini too. I never drink them. I can’t usually even get down a sip of one; the alcohol burns my retinas so bad that my eyes start to water.

  Suddenly the solarium doors burst open and in sails a coiffed blonde, smiling and tanned, draped in silks and satins, cuffed with sparkle-chunk diamonds. Addi Rathbone flashes her blinding, trillion-kilowatt smile. She’s known for her excessive augmentations, her luxury obsessions, and her astronomical divorce settlement, as well as for never being on time.

  She sits next to me and holds out a perfectly manicured hand.

  “Call me Addi,” she says. “And I know who you are. Ellie told me all about you. Dumping your nephew off at Kidzilla every afternoon? For shame!”

  “Oh.” I look over at Ellie and blush. “I . . . um . . .”

  “The real shame is you can’t dump his ass there every night too! God. If I didn’t have a full-time nanny I’d have sent Fiona to a nunnery in Milan by now. He’s your nephew, right? The weird kid.”

  “Trevor.”

  “That’s right. Fiona had him in her tumbling class. Please. If you can hand him back in anything but a body bag you get full marks from me.”

  “Trevor’s all right.”

  “Oh, they’re all wonderful in doses. Doses, darling, like acid!”

  Mara serves us drinks and Addi orders a glass of Burgundy. When Ellie sips her latte she makes a face at me. “Nutmeggy,” she says. “I knew it.”

  “Hey, are we ordering any food?” I ask hopefully.

  “Ugh. Not me.” Addi frowns at her cell phone. “The Tin Man upped my Trimexa, thank God. I may never actually eat again. Hooray!”

  “What’s Trimexa?” I ask her.

  “Do you take it too?”

  “No, I . . . just asked you what it was.”

  “You should be on it! We all should be! It works, Goddammit. You can eat three stuffed-crust pepperoni pizzas and four pints of ice cream and then give Godzilla himself a blow job and you won’t gain an ounce.” I have no clue what she means about Godzilla, unless she means swallowing his . . . oh God. I down the rest of my martini and order another one. Now I see why these women drink so much. So they can stand each other.

  “You shouldn’t take that stuff,” Ellie says. “It’ll kill you.”

  “Well, of course it’ll kill me,” Addi says, rolling her eyes. “Say something more obvious. That’s why it works, dummy. Anything that works kills you. But look on the bright side, think about how pretty my corpse will be.” Both Addi and Ellie burst into identical fits of loud honking laughter. Ellie dabs the corner of her eye with a napkin.

  “How do you even get a prescription? It’s illegal in all fifty states.”

  “Ah, but it’s not illegal in the U.S. commonwealth of Saipan.”

  “Where’s Saipan?” I ask.

  “Who knows? Who the fuck cares?” Addi shrugs. “You’ve seen one nuclear experiment on a coral atoll, you’ve seen them all. Trust me. My doctor, the Tin Man, can prescribe trial drugs, many of which, I might add, actually work.”

  “And many of which sometimes kill you,” Ellie adds cheerfully.

  “Well, there’s always side effects,” Addi says. “Jennifer, you should go see the Tin Man and get some Trimexa. I can get you an appointment if you want one.”

  “Don’t do it,” Ellie says. “That guy gave her stepkids dog tranquilizers.”

  “Um . . . because I asked him to,” Addi tells me. “And dog tranquilizers were too good for those little beasts. Hell on earth is three boys under twelve. Literally. You go to hell, and Lucifer hands you three disgusting smelly hormone-crazed perverts who like to order spy cameras online and then hide them in your bidet. I packed those monsters off to boarding school the minute I got pregnant. I was sure they’d kill the baby. You know what they did their first week there? Lit the dean’s couch on fire and locked a classmate inside a chicken coop. Left him there all night. To this day that kid will only talk to chickens. Seriously. Stockholm chicken syndrome or something. Anyway, if I hadn’t shipped those animals off they would’ve probably lit my baby on fire and stuffed her in a chicken coop too.”

  “Fiona,” Ellie says.

  “Fiona.” Addi rolls her eyes. “My little drama queen. Where does she get it? Hollywood will never know what hit them. Anyway I saved my daughter from years of persecution, didn’t I, and I also saved my couch from being burned to the ground, which is more than I can say for Dean Weber.”

  “Where are the boys now?” I ask her.

  “God knows! Probably in jail somewhere or sailing the seven seas with my ex-husband.”

  “Kenneth,” Ellie says.

  “Kenneth.” Addi rolls her eyes. “King of the idiots.”

  “Addi’s quite proud of her divorce,” Ellie says.

  “I’m quite proud of my divorce settlement,” Addi says, correcting her. “You’d be proud too, if you ever divorced that walking sodball of a husband you have.”

  “Rick’s not bad.”

  “No, he’s awful. You should just put my divorce lawyers on retainer.”

  “Who, Henckles, Luststerben and Grump?”

  “Henckles, Luststerben and Grump!” Addi cheers. “Ferocious German divorce lawyers. All women, who specialize in high-impact divorces.”

  “High-impact divorces?” I ask.

  “King Idiot never knew what hit him.” Addi grins. “You should’ve seen my lawyer in court. Ursula Henckles is the biggest, baddest, meanest supercunt in any divorce court from here to Düsseldorf. She was spectacular.”

  “Addi, please don’t use that word,” Ellie says. “Really!”

  “What word?”

  “The C-word?”

  “ ‘Cunt’? What’s wrong with ‘cunt’? I love ‘cunt’! It’s such a pretty word, like ‘cut’ and ‘hunt.’ Plus it sounds like a German tank rolling over and popping a ball sack.”

  “I’m sorry, Jennifer.” Ellie sighs. “She gets this way sometimes.”

  “Don’t apologize to Jennifer,” Addi snaps. “She’s a cunt too, like I am! Aren’t you, Jen?”

  I mutely sip my martini. At this point I’m just hoping to get out of the dining room alive.

  “Well, I find the word offensive,” Ellie says.

  “That’s because you aren’t one. You’re a bitch; it’s quite different. Bitches do just that. They bitch and moan and complain. Cunts take action. Right, Jen? We don’t let anyone hold us down. Joke. Seriously though, we kick and fight and scream if we have to, right, Jen?”

  I nod politely, dreaming of faraway places.

  “Come on, Jen,” Addi says. “Say it, I know you’re a cunt. I have very good cunt radar. Come on! Say it! Say you’re a cunt!” I look around the room, wondering if there’s a hidden camera. Maybe I’m part of some guerrilla documentary about sociopathic adult bullies. “Come on,” Addi says. “Just say it once and I’ll be happy.”

  “She’ll keep asking,” Ellie says. “She won’t stop. That’s what she does.”

&nb
sp; Addi prods me again. This time literally. “Fine!” I smile ferociously. “I’m a cunt! Okay? I’m a big fat hairy cunt! There you are, happy?”

  “I knew it!” Addi smacks the table. I hear whispers on the other side of the room and look up to see a group of older women come in. I think they’re friends of Mother Keller’s. They heard me say, “I’m a big fat hairy cunt.” Oh my God . . . My cheeks burn bright red.

  Then the maître d’ appears and I feel like we’re teenagers caught by the school monitor swearing in the lunchroom. The maître d’, a short, mean-faced little man wearing a burgundy bolero vest, looks down at me and smiles disapprovingly. “Is there a problem here, ladies?” he asks.

  Addi yawns. “Yes, Louie, I need another fucking martini.”

  “Yes, madam. Some of the other members ask that your guest might refrain from—”

  “My guest?” Addi looks around like someone just slapped her. “What guest? Louie! This is Mrs. Jennifer Keller! A VIP club member and daughter-in-law of Mr. Ed Keller, the club’s third admiral viceroy? Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”

  “Yes, madam.”

  “Well. I’m quite surprised you don’t know a VIP member when you see one.” Addi looks at him like he just dumped a pile of dog shit on the table.

  “Yes, madam. It won’t happen again, madam. My apologies to you, Mrs. Keller.”

  “Oh, please.” I smile broadly. “Please just call me—”

  Addi shoots me a look. “Mrs. Keller is a very old and dear friend of mine,” she says to Louie. “Understand?”

  Louie smiles at me and bows deeply. “Of course,” he says, and either this balding man deserves an Academy Award for acting or I see true remorse in his eyes, as well as something resembling true respect. He went from disdaining me to liking me, solely on Addi’s request. I’m angry at Addi for humiliating him and I’m also weirdly grateful to her for sticking up for me like that, even lying and calling me her dear old friend. It’s odd. When someone lies for you, a connection forms. A bond. You’ve silently entered into a pact. At least for the moment, you’re on the same team.

  Louie reluctantly leans over and whispers to Addi. “Madam, the other table complained . . .”