Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Married

by Heather McElhatton

  I smile and say, “Mom, you’re awesome.”

  “But, honey,” she adds quickly. “Don’t drag over a bunch of stuff you can’t use.”

  “What?”

  “I just got the Salvation Army to pick up all those garbage bags of old clothes I had on the back porch all winter. The ones I cleaned out of the attic. Say, I pulled out a cute little dress you threw away. You said you didn’t want it, but it’s just adorable. It’s a white dress with blue piping?”

  “Yeah, Mom . . . I remember it. The armpit is torn. I don’t want it.”

  “Well it has a cute little jacket and everything.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “It’s perfectly good. It just needs a few stitches in the armpit.”

  “Mom, I don’t want it. It never fit me right, the armpits always pinched. I only wore it twice in ten years. Plus I got ink on the front and the hem pulled out.”

  Silence.

  “Mom? I don’t want the dress.”

  “You can fix the hem.”

  “No, Mom, I can’t.”

  “I don’t see why not. It’ll just take a few stitches and a little bleach to fix it.”

  “Then you fix it. You wear it. I don’t want it. If you like it, keep it.”

  “Me? Well, I don’t want it, honey.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s all torn up and there’s ink stains on it.”

  “Good-bye, Mom, love you.”

  I hang up the phone and close my eyes. How can you love someone and be so . . . so . . . thoroughly irritated by them at the same time? I’d donate any organ that my mother needed, both my eyeballs, both my kidneys, all my teeth. I’d defend her to the death if I had to, but one thing is for sure: I cannot live with her. I cannot move back in with my parents.

  I’ll never make it out alive.

  I stop going to the country club. I’ve been declining all social invitations, but that’s been the hardest one to pull off so far. Ellie isn’t too pushy, but God help you if Addi feels scorned. That woman will go teenage batshit crazy and leave drunk messages on your phone demanding answers, which she’s done now several times. She corners me in the bathroom. She asks why I’ve been avoiding her and I tell her I’ve just been busy. I’m just working on things and Brad and I are spending more time together.

  “Bullshit,” she says.

  Didn’t sound true to me either, but still, I personally don’t need more than a hint when someone wants me to go away; Addi needs a frying pan to the head. We get into a huge fight right there in the bathroom, yelling and shouting. The fight bleeds out into the dining room as we stumble toward the front door, two grown women yelling at each other right there in the club in front of everybody. I feel bad for Addi, but it’s not fair that she doesn’t respect boundaries. “See, you push people until they get to this point,” I tell her. “To where they have to hurt you in order to get you away. Now . . . who else on earth has that problem but a junkyard dog?”

  She gasps at me. “Did you just call me a junkyard dog?”

  I did, and even I’m flummoxed by the statement.

  “Why you filthy little piece of . . .” Sploosh. She throws a drink from a nearby table right into my face. Louie arrives and says, “Okay, Ms. A and Mrs. J. I think you gotta go or things are gonna get real messy today.” Louie hustles me out to the valet stand, while the rest of the staff keeps Addi inside. “Guess I won’t be coming back around here again.” I sigh remorsefully. Louie nods at me sadly as my car rolls up.

  “Prolly not, Mrs. J. Okay. Bye-bye.”

  I refuse to go home and sink into a sticky mire of self-loathing; instead I drive straight to the gym to see Big D. It’s not our normally scheduled time, so I don’t know where to look for him. He’s not on the loading dock, where we usually meet; he’s not inside the gym on the floor. I ask the fake-tan blonde behind the counter if she’s seen Big D. “Um . . . Yes. He’s standing right next to you.” I look over at the black man standing beside me, writing on a clipboard. He has coiled pythons tattooed on his arms. “Your name’s Big D too?” I say. “That must get confusing.”

  “Ma’am?” He looks at me. “I’m Big D.”

  “You’re a trainer here too?”

  “Cardio, weights, Pilates . . .” He watches a brunette passing by. “Hey, Laura! I still need a ride downtown.”

  “Fuck off,” she says.

  “I don’t think I have any open sessions right now,” he says to me. “But you can check the schedule in the front office.”

  “I already have a trainer. The other Big D.”

  “What other Big D?” He looks at me. “There is no other Big D.”

  “An older gentleman? Gray beard?”

  “Don’t think we have any trainers around here with gray beards . . . We like to keep it tight, right, ladies?” He smiles at a group of women walking by. “Hey now, Mrs. Magney, Mrs. Jewson . . . how you doing, Mrs. Hoyos? Looking good, ladies! Looking good!”

  “Um, Big D . . . you never worked with a woman named Ellie Rathbone, did you?”

  “Sure!” he says. “How is Mrs. E? Haven’t seen her in a while now . . .” The brunette appears with a stack of towels. “Need help with those, Laura?”

  “Fuck you,” she says.

  I shake my head, confused. “I usually meet Big D on the loading dock, but—”

  “Oh, you mean Dizzy Bee?” says the blonde. “He lives back there. The manager said as long as he didn’t build another smokehouse he could stay.”

  “Stay where?”

  “In the alley. He lives right out there.” She points to the loading dock. I make her come outside and show me. She points at a pile of garbage on the other side of the alley.

  “Hey, Dizzy Bee!” she shouts. “Hey, Dizzy Bee!”

  The pile of garbage moves.

  “Why you holler like that?” Big D shouts at her. “Do I come to your house and holler when you in bed? A black man did that at your house, the police would kill him! Just kill him right there. Tell everybody he slipped an’ hit his head. Shit. What you want, girl?”

  “He’s so sweet,” the blonde says. “We just love him.”

  It turns out Big D isn’t a trainer. He’s a homeless man living in the alley behind the gym. He gets his clothing from the Dumpster behind the gym, which is why he wears sweatshirts with official Sweatbox logos. “Big D,” I say. “What are you doing here?”

  He looks at me sideways. “I ain’t here to impress you,” he snaps. “I ain’t here to get your vote. Why wouldn’t I be here? I got the diabetes, don’t I? And that dumb-ass juice bar throws away shitloads a fruit!”

  “I don’t understand why you’d pretend to be a physical trainer.”

  “What the hell’s that?”

  “A physical trainer, someone who coaches you, gets you to work out.”

  “Ain’t that a thing! I’m a physical trainer!”

  “No, you were pretending to be one.”

  “Pretend? Pretend, my sweet ass! I coached the hell outta you. I got you off your ass, every time you come around. That ain’t no small thing. You lazy as hell!”

  “You should’ve told me who you really were.”

  “Who I was? You shoulda tole me who you was. You rude, you know that? You lazy and rude. I was set right there minding my own business, getting my oranges, when you come up going all firecracker in my face, talking ’bout your big butt and how I’m supposed to do something about it. Then we off running around the city like crazy people. I almost turned you in at the police station. I thought you was an escaped crazy person.”

  “B-but . . . Big D,” I stutter. “I . . . I mean, Mr. Bee, didn’t you wonder why I was telling you all that stuff, everything about myself?”

  “Hell yes I wondered. Shit! You talk the ear off a dead man, woman. I didn’t understand a damn word you said. Something ’bout what-all and who-knows. White-girl problems. One thing got clear quick, though. You was in over yo head and didn’t have the sense of a bet
sy bug. You afraid of yo own shadow. Felt sorry for ya. I got a daughter. She don’t talk as much, though.”

  My mind is reeling. “So you just . . .”

  “I just what? I just ran your ass off so you could fit into them skinny jeans!”

  I have no idea what to say. So I just shrug and say, “Same time next week?”

  “You bet, girl. Bring me a chicken sandwich too.” He clamps his headphones on and starts singing the Isley Brothers’ “It’s Your Thing.” “It’s your thing! Do what you wanna do! I can’t tell you who to sock it to . . . Ow!”

  My cell phone rings. It’s Hailey.

  “Can you pick up the twins?” she asks, out of breath.

  “Sure. Where are they?”

  “Lenny took them down for a catalog shoot. Christmas angels, I think. Then some unexpected delivery turned up at the dock, a refrigerated shipment scheduled for next week. I’m stuck at the doctor’s office, and the twins are probably stuck to the hood of his forklift with duct tape. I need them home in an hour so I can feed them. Can you get them home by then? You can take the car seats out of Lenny’s truck.”

  “You bet I can. I’m on my way.”

  When I get to the shoot, they’re just finishing the last shot and the twins are dressed as shepherds herding small stuffed sheep. They look ridiculous. These big beefy babies wearing white robes and glue-on beards. Billy keeps chewing on the sheep they gave him. It’s practically soaked. That’s when I have a funny feeling in my stomach and I ask someone where the sheep came from.

  Nobody knows.

  I run around until I find the boxes in the loading dock. There they are, all stacked up and pretty as you please, with a CLOG Industries symbol stamped surreptitiously behind the shipping label on each box. I freak out. Brad swore he’d never use those Jesus thugs again. He lied to me. The sheep could be stuffed with anything—cancerous fiber, crushed coca leaves, pulverized plutonium. I wouldn’t put anything past them. I ignored the fact we are selling bizarrely dangerous crap to the public; now it isn’t me paying, it’s my newborn nephew. “Lenny!” I shout at him as he rounds the corner driving his forklift full-tilt.

  “Hey!” he shouts. “What’s up, peanut butter cup? Got the boys okay?”

  “Lenny, listen to me, I have to find the ship’s manifest for the CLOG sheep shipment, okay? It’s critical. I don’t care if we have to drive to Duluth or Chicago or wherever, we need to find the ship’s manifest now. It’s a matter of life and possibly death, God help me. So, get on the phone, get your jacket on . . . do whatever you need to do and find out where the fuck it is!”

  “Sure,” he says, grabbing a clipboard off the wall next to him. “It’s right here.”

  “What?”

  “Yep.” He hands the clipboard over. It’s the ship’s manifest.

  “Lenny, I asked you how to find these months ago and you said you didn’t know!”

  “No, you asked me how to find cargo ships months ago and I’ll be damned if I know where any motherfuckin’ cargo ships are. We keep all the manifests on this wall. Help yourself . . . Gotta go.”

  I take the manifest for the CLOG sheep shipment, and I fax it over to Greta at the animal hospital. I ask her to look it over and tell me if there is anything poisonous or harmful to humans on it. There isn’t, thank God.

  Not this time. But there will be a next time and a time after that, if I don’t do something. I find CLOG truck deliveries scheduled clear into the new year. Brad has no intention of discontinuing CLOG’s products. Hell, he’d even give them to his own family. It’s high time that Rome started burning. The empire needs to come down.

  All I need . . . is a match.

  19

  The Ice Empress

  Our one-year anniversary finally arrives.

  It took a Herculean effort, but when the big day finally comes, everything’s ready. Our glorious moment will be celebrated at Keller’s Department Store. Where else? Mother Keller arranged everything months ago, taking control of the event and citing my near-lethal investor dinner and my recent giant cross burning as proof I cannot be trusted.

  I sort of had to agree.

  Mother Keller decided to combine our anniversary celebration with Ed’s official announcement that Brad is to become the new Keller’s president. She thinks it’s an ideal day to showcase family values and moral correctness, since the Minnesota senate is voting on the hideous Family Equity Act the same afternoon. Mother Keller can’t resist flaunting her thoughts on the severe consequences of passing such a law, a law that flies in the face of matrimony, Christianity, and all heterosexuals’ God-given right to monopolize legal unions.

  Before the press conference, there’ll be a celebratory champagne brunch at Hillcrest Country Club. Everyone will meet there to welcome the new president with toasts and melon. Afterward we’ll all take a limousine to the store, where we’ll park in the underground VIP parking lot so we can enter without crossing any nasty antigay picket lines outside.

  There are always nasty antigay picket lines outside.

  After Ed gives a speech introducing the world to his chosen one, he’ll mention it’s also his son’s one-year wedding anniversary. Brad and I are scheduled to kiss as a banner unfurls behind us that says HAPPY FIRST ANNIVERSARY! Then doves will be released. Doves are the symbol of love and peace, and an ominous reminder of Noah’s ark and the flood and what happens to godless nations who allow gays to run around all married and free.

  Then we’ll eat cupcakes.

  The whole thing is captured on video, thanks to Pho, who works hard to install cameras all along our journey. He edits all the footage himself. I’ll see the final video almost a hundred times, and I’ll never get tired of watching it. It will become one of my favorite possessions. If there was a fire, I would run through open flames to retrieve it.

  The video starts with Pho filming me in the kitchen.

  “So today’s the big day, huh?” he asks me.

  I nod and ask the Ice Empress for some chipped ice. She flickers onto the screen and smiles at me. “Naniga hoshiino!” she says cheerfully. “Moshi moshi, Jen Aho-Onna!”

  “Can I get some ice, please?”

  “Hai!” she says. “Ice! Pinpooooon!”

  A landslide of ice shoots through the dispenser and rattles into my empty glass.

  Pho and I start to giggle.

  We can’t help ourselves. The Ice Empress just said, “What the fuck do you want? Oh, hi, Jen, you dumb bitch! Ice? Sure, have some ice! Yay!”

  The Ice Empress rocks. I can’t believe I ever wanted to shut her up.

  Soon Brad bellows that it’s time to go and Pho follows us out to the car. It’s stifling hot outside and even though I’m wearing my yellow Chanel suit, which is too warm for the day, I’m still cool as a cucumber. I am the Ice Empress.

  “Bye, Mr. B!” Pho waves. “Bye, Mrs. J!”

  The Audi pulls away and Brad blasts the air conditioner. On the way over to the country club he lectures me. “I need you on your game today, Jen. You’ve been acting weird lately.”

  I tuck my hair behind one ear. “Have I, dear?”

  “No strange behavior today, right?”

  “Of course not. Why’re you so nervous?”

  “Oh, I don’t know!” he barks at me. “Maybe because it’s a pretty big day? You know?”

  “Well, you’ve gotten through far bigger days than this, darling.” I give his knee a little pat. “This is nothing! I mean, what could happen? All you have to do is give a little speech and accept the presidency. That’s it. The odds of you getting a spontaneous nosebleed or having a stroke are so unlikely . . . they’re almost insignificant.”

  “Why would I get a spontaneous nosebleed or have a stroke, for God’s sake?”

  “Well, you wouldn’t! People do get them every day. Every minute of every day, technically speaking. I saw a TV anchor have a grand mal seizure on live TV once. It was awful. Her body went all rigid and her mouth was stuck in the letter O. She started dr
ooling and foaming. She’d never had a seizure before; it just hit her out of the blue. I guess that’s how it happens. Wham! They think it was the lights that did it. So just don’t look into the lights. There’s nothing to worry about. Don’t worry about nosebleeds or seizures or falling. But you know . . . don’t look at the lights.”

  When we arrive at Hillcrest, Brad gets out of the car and nearly falls flat on his face.

  “Jesus!” he shouts.

  “Honey, are you okay?” I help dust off his jacket. “Honestly.” I smile. “You’re so klutzy sometimes!”

  The Kellers are already in the dining room and at the table. They brought Trevor with them and he comes running up to me shouting, “Auntie Jen!” He hugs my knees. It’s a good thing he’s there. He’s the only one who is happy to see me.

  “Hello, Jennifer,” Mother Keller says with a tight smile. She’s wearing an impossibly flouncy, gauzy dress, which is the exact color of putty, or a Band-Aid.

  “Hello.” I smile pleasantly. “You look . . . lovely today. Very frilly.”

  “It’s chiffon,” she sniffs.

  “Quite flammable,” I say. “Stay away from the candles.”

  “Yes, well.” Her eyes narrow slightly. “You’d know.”

  “Auntie Jen!” Trevor tugs on my yellow jacket. “Can I sit next to you?”

  “Of course you can, buddy!”

  “Mommy’s home crying,” he says, and Mother Keller pats his head to shush him. She says Sarah wasn’t feeling that well this morning and decided to stay home. Bill decided to stay home too. “Must be something going around,” she says, inspecting a nail.

  “My, yes.” I nod. “There is definitely something going around.”

  We take our seats at the head table. Waiters whisk in glasses of orange juice and plates of dry scrambled eggs as the even drier speeches begin. It’s as boring as waiting for water to boil, but halfway through the sliced-melon course, things perk up a bit when Trevor gets a gushing nosebleed.