Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Married (4 page)

Hailey winks at me. “We stopped at McDonald's on the way over,” she whispers.

“Not fair!” I whine. “Then why is Lenny eating?” I nod at my brother-in-law, who is heaping up a big plate of grub. Hailey shrugs.

“I don't know,” she says. “He'll eat anything.”

“Damn this looks good!” Lenny grins. “Shit, I'm hungry enough to eat the balls off a low-flying duck.”

We sit at the table and Brad raises his glass for a toast. “To Mom and Dad,” he says. “You're
the best.
”

Mother Keller basks in her son's glow. “It's our pleasure, dear,” she says. “Your father and I realized you couldn't stay in the guesthouse and raise a family.” My cheeks turn pink. I hate it when she starts in about Brad and me having a family. She's always insinuating that I don't
want
a baby, or worse, that I can't have one, and I do want one and I can have one. She never gives me a chance to tell her
how much
I want to have a baby, she just starts harping on how we better hurry up and start trying before my ovaries are like dried-up beef jerky. I have half a mind to tell her that I deliberately stopped taking birth control even before Brad proposed to me. That might shut her up. Then maybe she'd finally believe that I want to have her son's baby.

Ed leans over. “Have I ever told you how much you look like my cousin Ada?”

I nod at him. Ed's told me many,
many
times that I remind him of his cousin Ada. Almost every time he sees me. Ed has this weird relationship with his cousin Ada, and every time he mentions her, Mother Keller gets very quiet and looks like she does right now. Like she swallowed a bee. “Ada's a real beauty,” Ed says. “And a wonderful cook.”

Mother Keller stares down the table at him. “A wonderful cook?” she snaps. “She once set fire to the stove on Christmas morning.”

Ed ignores her. “Ada can sing too,” he says. “Did I ever tell you about Ada's voice?”

“You did, Ed.” I smile politely. “You definitely did.”

Suddenly the swinging door opens and an ancient-looking woman shuffles in. She has dark yellow skin that's deeply creased and wrinkled. Her face looks like dried apple. She's wearing a black burlap sack; the waist is tied with a piece of yellow cord. We all look at her and the table falls silent. “Heavens, I nearly forgot about little Bi'ch,” Mother Keller says.

“Who?”
I sit up. It sounded like she said “little bitch.”

“Bi'ch!” Mother Keller repeats. “Since poor Jennifer here has
no
experience running a house properly, I wanted to make sure she had enough help.”

“Help?” I repeat.

“Your maid,” Mother Keller says. “Everyone, please meet Mrs. Bi'ch Fang.”

The woman's last name is “Fang,” as in wolf fang. Her first name is “Bi'ch” and rhymes, unfortunately, with “ditch.” She's Hmong; she came from the Bridge Program at church, which Mother Keller says relocates displaced immigrants looking for a new home. Bi'ch will be our maid. “Oh, I don't need a maid!” I say. “Thank you, but . . . it's not necessary!”

“Oh my, yes it is.” Mother Keller smirks. “Bi'ch is going to help you keep your house in order.
For once.
I had to get you a maid, Jennifer. We all know how you keep a house!”

The whole table chuckles together happily as I glower.

“But where will she . . . live?” I ask gloomily.

“Right here,” Mother Keller says. “In the little guesthouse out back.”

“She's going to live
here
?”

“Of course. It's all been arranged.”

So there it is. The super-awesome cherry on top of my super-surprise sundae. Not only has my mother-in-law decided
where
I'll live and
how
I'll live, she's even selected
who
I'll live with. A woman who looks like her last position was cleaning up the prehistoric cave of some Neanderthal man. Fine. At least she won't be afraid of Brad's laundry. Some of his socks stand up for themselves. Literally. Especially the ones he masturbates in.

Nine million years later, everyone's leaving. I'm so tired, I feel like I might pass out. “It'll be so wonderful having you all right next door,” Mother Keller says, air-kissing me good night. “We'll get to see you
all
the time.”

After everybody leaves and we're finally alone . . . we're not alone. The strangely shaped Bi'ch clanks and shuffles around in the kitchen. As Brad and I lie in bed, I fight back tears. I don't want to ruin my first night back, especially since we're both worn out and exhausted.

I finally break down though, and my shoulders heave as I start weeping. Brad asks me what's the matter and I tell him everything. How I'm distraught about the honeymoon and feel like a complete failure. Now we come home and his parents have picked out our house? It feels claustrophobic, manipulative, and overbearing. I wanted to get away from his parents. I wanted to start our own life. Now we're trapped here . . . for how long?
Forever?
Brad works his jaw and says this is a fine way to thank his parents, who shelled out $3.2 million for a house.

“Our house,” he says, looking around the room. “You see them here? No. Because this is
our
house. Not theirs. There's a lock on the door, Jen. Use it.”

“That's not enough, Brad. You shouldn't have said we'd take the house. You always let your mother run your life. You never ask me what I want to do.”

“We always do what you want to do!”

I look at him, aghast, and have my ammunition ready. My eyes well up with tears. “You . . .
left
me!” I cry.

He looks around, confused. “I left you where?”

“At the airport! You took off running without me!”

“I didn't leave you,” he snorts. “Jen, I told you to run.”

“You
told
me to run? Am I a child? Am I a German shepherd?”

“Jen, what are you talking about?”

“What are
you
talking about, Brad? One minute you're swearing to honor and protect me, the next minute you've abandoned me at Miami International Airport! I find that concerning. I really do.”

“Come on, the Miami airport? It's perfect for you! It's got stores and massage chairs, and I saw at least two Cinnabon joints. You'd be set!”

I stare at him and grab my cell phone off the nightstand. “I actually
timed
you, Brad. I timed you to see how long it took before you looked for me.”

“You timed me?”

“Yes I did.” I frown grimly at the imaginary numbers on my phone's screen. “It was
not
good, Brad. Not good at all.”

“How long did it take?” He leans over, trying to see my phone, but I turn it off and shake my head. “Let's just say that in the amount of time it took you to look for me, I could've been kidnapped by Norwegian sex traffickers.”

“Aw, Jesus.” He shakes his head. “What is it with you and the Norwegian sex traffickers?”

I start to cry in earnest.

He comes and sits by me on the bed. “Babe, please. Don't. I'm sorry I made you run at the airport. I am, but you gotta understand there was never, ever a single chance in
hell
we were sleeping in Miami that night.”

“I know.” I wipe my eyes. “Because you
have
to win. You have to get your way. You were determined to get the last seats out of Miami. God forbid anyone else did, screw any old people or orphans who needed them. Well, congratulations. You won and I got to spend my entire honeymoon with no luggage.”

“But . . .” He shrugs. “I had to get you on a plane that night. Don't you get it?”

“No, Brad, I really don't.”

“It was our
honeymoon.
Babe, did you really think I'd let you down on our honeymoon? Just scrap our plans and find some hotel in Miami? I would've chartered a private jet if I'd had to. I would've built a bamboo raft and rowed you to Saint John
myself
if there was no other way
.
Jen, nothing could've stopped me from getting you to Saint John that night . . . you know why?”

I smile and shake my head no.

“Because we just got
married,
babe, and that was our honeymoon . . . and you? Honey, you are my
wife
!”

“Oh, Brad . . .” I whisper.

He kisses me on the forehead as tears spill down my cheeks. “Screw the orphans and the old people,” he says. “Only the best for you.”

We make love. Sort of. We're both exhausted and still a little queasy from the food poisoning. I lie there in his arms afterward, recounting everything that's happened. “I'm sorry I got mad about the house,” I tell him. “Just promise me you'll fix it, okay?”

When he doesn't answer, I look over and he lets out a huge snore.

He's unconscious. Deeply asleep and blissfully gone . . .

Once again without me.

3

Queen of Keller's

T
he next morning I take Ace to the vet, Doc Hodge. An excellent vet with a personality akin to irritated oatmeal. He's boring, but he gets cranky if you don't do things right. Mother Keller took her beloved Pomeranian to him and Doc Hodge kept that awful little creature alive much, much,
much
longer than it ever should have lived. A large woman in a bubblegum-pink smock leads us down to an examination room.

Ace is not happy. He's been highly suspicious of this situation from the get-go and now he whimpers pitifully, locking his legs up so I have to carry him. “Sorry about all this darn mess,” the woman says. “Got a buncha construction going on this week. Expanding the physiotherapy room.” She leaves us alone in the room and a construction worker wearing a safety-orange jumpsuit pops his head in.

“Oh,” he says. “You in here?”

I look around and sigh. “Apparently.”

“Mind if I do some work real quick?”

“Where?”

“Ceiling.”

“Why?”

“Pipes.”

“Oh.”

He comes in clattering a long aluminum ladder behind him and nearly takes my head off swinging it around. Ace squirms as the guy sets up the ladder. I realize he's actually kind of cute, in a rough Steve McQueen way. His stitched name tag says
NICK
. He climbs up the ladder and starts monkeying with the ceiling tiles while we sit there for ten hours or so. I get bored. “So you're in construction?” I ask him. His head is stuck up in the ceiling tiles.

“Nope.”

“An electrician?”

“Nope.”

“Well, you're not a plumber.”

“Why am I not a plumber?”

“No plumber would wear moccasins.”

“Maybe I'm a
poor
plumber.”

“No such thing, unless you're a plumbing social worker. Out there helping PVC pipes get into low-income housing, finding jobs for unemployed faucets. Trying to keep caulk guns off the streets.”

“Funny lady,” he says flatly.

“Oh, I can go on.”

“I have no doubt.”

Ace whines and Nick looks over his shoulder. “Doesn't like the vet much, huh.”

“He's never been before. I smuggled him here from the Caribbean.”

“Wasn't having a good time down there?”

“Neither of us was.”

“Yep.” He sighs. “Paradise can be hell.”

“Where're you from?”

“You know, I always hated that question.”

“Why, are you from Wisconsin?”

“Wow. She's mean too.”

“I'm not really that mean.”

“Too bad. You just got interesting.”

“Really? Well, you're lucky. I'm still waiting.”

He snorts and shakes his head, grabbing a wrench from his belt. “Wisconsin's not all bad. Wisconsin's like Minnesota's storage shed. It's where we put all our messy, dirty, and dangerous crap. Like firework factories and cheese plants. The Wisconsin Dells too. Plus all our serial killers.”

“I know.” I shake my head. “What's with Wisconsin and serial killers?”

“No idea. But if I lived in a storage shed, I might make butt-skin lamps too.”

“What?”

The door suddenly swings open and Doc Hodge walks in. Ace starts growling at him and pretty much keeps on growling the entire time we're there. The doctor asks if I bought Ace from a breeder or a pet store and I say, “Yep! They were having a half-off sale.”

Doc Hodge stares at me. He gives Ace a full examination and about an hour later, after multiple blood tests, fecal smears, and X-rays, he frowns at me. “So
where
did Ace come from?”

“Where?” I look over quickly at Ace and Nick clears his throat.

“I ask, Mrs. Keller, because Ace has some intestinal parasites normally found only in the subtropics.”

“He isn't sick, is he?”

“Nothing too serious, it should respond to antibiotics, but if Ace came from a subtropical climate, he'll need to be quarantined.”

“Quarantined? No, no . . . he's from here. He's a rescue dog.”

“A rescue dog from where
?
”

My mind goes blank and the ladder guy clears his throat again. “Wisconsin! I rescued him from Wisconsin.”

“Where in Wisconsin? We'll need to get his paperwork.”

“Oh. I just found him . . . down by the old . . . cheese mill.”

The doctor looks at me. “The old cheese mill?”

“Yep. Ace was just walking along, eating some cheese. He loves cheese.”

“Cheese is very bad for dogs, Mrs. Keller.”

“Nope. I don't ever let him eat cheese.”

“All right, well, we'll have to do some more tests and I'd like to fit him for a prosthetic at some point, but for now I'm giving him an antibiotic for the parasites and antifungal drops for his ears. I'd like him back in two weeks.” Doc Hodge leaves and Nick, still up on his ladder, shakes his head and chuckles. “Lady,” he says, “you are the worst liar in the
world.
”

“I know. Damn it! It was the cheese mill. Why did I say ‘cheese mill'?”

The cheese mill fucked me up.

Ace and I drive home, where he runs around the yard like a lunatic. He's so happy to be away from pokey-proddy-pinchy Doc Hodge. He gallops down the dock, where Bi'ch is fishing with a chubby little Hmong boy, who says he's her grandson.

It turns out Bi'ch Fang lives in our guesthouse with her entire family, including her glittery sixteen-year-old granddaughter, Star Fan; her chubby fourteen-year-old grandson, Pho; and Pho's eleven-month-old son, a little dumpling of a baby named Pac Man. Pac Man was conceived by Pho and his girlfriend at the Kenwood Rec Center in the handicapped bathroom stall. Anyone who thought they were too biologically young to conceive children . . . was corrected. Now the whole Fang Gang lives with us: Bi'ch, Star Fan, Pho, and Pac Man. Leave it to Mother Keller to find me a maid who's ancient, can't cook or clean, and comes with her own village. I decide to
not
freak out and instead focus on the afternoon, which is important.

There's a big board meeting this afternoon about Ed Keller's retirement plans and who might succeed him as the new president. It could even be Brad. Imagine that! If you went back in time and told me I'd be married to the president of Keller's someday . . . I'd think that was about as likely as my marrying the president of the United States. After the board meeting there's a pep rally in the lobby. Ed wants me to be there because all Keller's royalty should be
.
That's what he said, a statement I found both bizarre and heartwarming. Imagine me as a queen.

The Queen of Keller's.

I get ready quickly, throwing on my trusty black dress and my “no problem” black pumps, which I can walk a mile in and not get a blister. I know because I walked a mile in them once, when Christopher and I went to a club downtown and his car broke down on the way home. Christopher's my best friend, my little gay bee who goes
buzz-buzz-buzz
all around me. He works at Keller's Department Store, in visual display.

He dresses the mannequins and does the store windows, and I'll never understand why a bigger store hasn't whisked him away yet. We've known each other since high school. Without him they would've found me hanging from the aluminum bleachers on the football field. The secret to surviving a religious high school or any war zone is to find your people. Even if it's only one people.

One is enough.

I meet Christopher for lunch before the pep rally. He hasn't seen me in weeks, not since the wedding, and the first thing he says to me isn't “Hello” or “Welcome home” or “Gee, you look terrific!” It's “Seriously, Jennifer? I thought we decided you weren't wearing black anymore.”

He hates it when I wear black, but I look good in black. Half my wardrobe is black. It's the gold standard for girls with body issues. He says I'm just addicted to being boring.

“So I don't understand,” he says. “Brad's parents just
gave
you a house?”

“Yep! The house right next door. Hideous. Like a Ramada Inn crossed with a ski chalet.”

“Still, it's right on the water. Must've cost—”

“Three point two million.” I nod.

“Huh. A bargain! Still, how delightfully manipulative. So Disney evil queen. I love Mother Keller, she's like a . . . Christian Cruella de Vil.”

“It's true.” I shrug. “You've always loved evil queens. Ever since your first boyfriend.”

“Come on,” he says. “You have to admit, it's the perfect trap. It's a gift you can't refuse, it makes them look ultra-generous, and Mother Keller gets to keep her baby Brad tied nice and tight to her apron strings.”

“Christopher, please stop calling him a baby.”

“Sorry! I calls 'em as I sees 'em.”

I glumly sip my water.

“So how was the honeymoon?” he asks me, taking a bite of scampi. “Was it filled with condoms and horses galloping down the beach?”

“No. It was sponsored by a three-legged dog and Imodium A-D. I'm exhausted. The wedding was brutal, but the honeymoon was from hell.”

“I'm not allowed to have a wedding.”

“Consider yourself lucky.”

“I consider myself discriminated against.”

“Well, that too.”

“Still, a girl can dream. The senate's voting on the Family Equity Act soon.”

“I forgot about that.”

He sips his water. “I have our whole wedding completely planned out, just in case the bill passes. I want to be the first married gay bee in Minnesota.”

“Does Jeremy?”

Christopher shrugs. “Jeremy doesn't care what party he goes to, as long as there's dancing.”

“It's not a party . . . it's a binding legal union.”

“With a party at the end. Besides, marriage was meant for gays. The pageantry! The drama! The dresses! Why do you straighties even care about who gets to have one?”

“It's not that
we
want it, we just don't want anyone
else
to have it. Are you registered?”

“At Williams-Sonoma, Ralph Lauren, and Discount Sex Barn.”

“Didn't you register at Keller's?”

“Why? Do I want crappy wedding gifts?”

“Don't talk to me about crappy wedding gifts. We got some of the crappiest wedding presents ever given. Brad's aunt gave us a basket of ceramic walnuts. What is someone thinking when they decide that of all the things in all the world . . . what you need is a basket of ceramic walnuts? Brad thought they were real. Nearly cracked a tooth. Then he set them out on the deck, hoping to piss off the squirrels.”

“And the ceramic walnuts are officially . . . awesome.”

“We got four fruit hammocks too. Heard of those? It's a miniature hammock . . . for fruit.”

“It's also an uncomfortable sex act involving dental floss.”

“Well, we own
four
fruit hammocks now, which require
four
handwritten thank-you notes. What am I supposed to say to these bastards who completely ignored my bridal registry and gave me something so stupid it shouldn't even exist? I'm supposed to write them a thank-you note? When they've essentially slapped their dicks in my face . . . on my wedding day?”

“Lovely image.”

“What am I supposed to say? ‘Thanks for ignoring our gift registry and getting us something so stupid it makes me want to kill myself'? ‘We love weird fruit-containment systems, how did you know?' ”

After we finish lunch Christopher asks if this is what I'm wearing to the pep rally and I say, “Yes, Christopher, it is. I'm not Cher, I wasn't planning a costume change.” He sighs and says all I do is hurt him.

Then he leaves me to go buy hair-care products, which he has to do on the sly and then sneak them back home, where he transfers them into different bottles. His boyfriend, Jeremy, has his own product line, which he sells at his chic salon in Edina. Christopher hates the stuff, though, and only pretends to use it. That's how I know they really love each other. Christopher transfers his shampoo so he won't hurt Jeremy's feelings . . . and Jeremy never lets on that he knows about it, just so he won't hurt Christopher's. They are definitely together forever.

I walk through the skyway alone.

I pass Frontier Travel, the wide glass windows filled with exotic travel posters and sleek white cruise ships on aquamarine water. I see my old pal Susan sitting behind her desk and I wave. “Hey, lady!” I say, popping my head in.

“Hey, Jen! Come to accept one of my humble writing assignments? I need an article on Spam Jam in Austin.”

“Really? Nobody's snapped that up yet? A weeklong canned-meat festival?”

“Come on, Jennifer. You have to start somewhere.”

“Yes, but does it have to be covering Spam?”

“No! I need loads of stories for the guidebooks. There's the Bean Hole Festival in Pequot Lakes or the Eelpout Festival in Walker . . .”

I arch an eyebrow at her. “What's a . . . bean hole, exactly?”

“You could even do something more edgy, like Gnosticon or Polka Fest!”

“Tempting.”

I politely decline her kind offer and promise to let her know if I change my mind. All the while I'm wildly
thanking God
that I was spared from a life as a writer. I can't believe that once upon a time, I actually wanted to
be
a writer. A real one. I wanted to pen the next great American novel and break hearts with my searing insights and razor-sharp wit, but then there were bills to pay and rent to make and thousands of meaningless items to buy with high-penalty-interest-rate credit cards. No matter how much money I made, I needed more. I could hardly cover my expenses, let alone luxury items like unprocessed food or basic health insurance
.
So I took a job as a copywriter at Keller's Department Store and there I honed my craft, weaving together the perfect ad campaigns for preteen bra sales and men's incontinence underwear.