Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Single (11 page)

“Oh, she could be in a cult, for all we know!” she says. “One of those ones where they take you to the airport and make you scam the Internet and weave straw baskets!” She bursts into tears. My poor mom. That's it. Game over. When Mom cries, it's time to surrender anything and everything.

“I was burning things,” I say. “Things I didn't want anymore.”

“Uh-huh,” the lieutenant says. “Things?”

“Mementos.”

All the firemen stop and listen.

“What's a memento?” the lieutenant asks, and the guy who handed him the plastic doohickey says, “It's like a keepsake.”

Someone else says, “What you put in a scrapbook. Jerry's
wife does scrapbooking. Right, Jerry? Scrapbooking's for mementos, right?”

“And keepsakes,” Jerry shouts back.

“It was just stuff my boyfriend gave me. I mean, my ex-boyfriend.”

“The
musician
?” my mother says and smacks her forehead. “Him again!”

“Arlene,” my dad warns.

“I just wanted to burn it all,” I say. “Get rid of it. I thought the tub would be safest. I soaked everything in lighter fluid from the grill. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

“I don't understand,” my mother says forlornly to my father. “She was such a good baby. A champion ice skater! And she wrote that Mother's Day poem that won the school award. What happened? What did I do wrong?”

“It's okay,” Hailey says and sits down. “I would have burnt all that stuff, too. That guy was a jerk.”

“Why didn't you just use your grill?” the plastic doohickey guy says. “You can burn anything on a grill.”

“If it's far enough away from the house,” the lieutenant adds.

“Well, yeah,” the doohickey guy says. “I'm just telling her she could use the grill to burn keepsakes if she wanted. Better than the tub.”

“Tell her to watch out for glue guns,” Jerry says, who's now standing with the group coiling a length of yellow nylon rope. “My wife got that glue gun that got no safety switch. Nearly started the kitchen table on fire.”

“When was this?” the lieutenant asks.

Jerry shrugs. “Month ago maybe.”

“Well, it would have been nice to know about that,” the lieutenant says. “That should have gone in the newsletter.”

I put my hands over my face because the tears are coming and
there's nothing I can do to stop them. I start to sob. My mother puts her arms around me and kisses me on the head because the crying game goes both ways.

“All right,” the lieutenant says, “I guess that's all. We taped up that door downstairs, but you better have your landlord fix it before your neighbors get home.”

“Thank you, Officer,” my mother says as they load up on the truck. “I'm so sorry.
We're
so sorry about this. She really is a good ice skater.”

My family and I go look at my apartment so my mom can make sure there are no peepers, rapists, or ex-boyfriends lying in wait. We stare silently at my charred bathtub and the burned shreds of shower curtain dangling like smoking cobwebs from the curtain rod. My mother goes to the kitchen and reappears with a can of Comet and a green scrubbie sponge.

“All righty, then,” she says, “let's get to work.”

I sit in a shame stupor on my bed as they all clean the house. Hailey doesn't even get mad when she discovers her old Barbie head on my bookshelf, the one she used to style when she was little until I dyed the hair blue with food coloring and gave it a Mohawk. I just keep saying how sorry I am and how they don't have to help. When I do try to help my mother just tells me to lie down. “Everybody needs to just lie down sometimes,” she says.

They work until the ashes and crisp bits of burned shower curtain are gone, and in the end, everything almost looks normal again, but it still smells like smoke. My mother wants me to come home and sleep at the house. “I'll be all right,” I tell her and she finally concedes, shaking her head, weary from the world, trying to understand the complicated nature of things.

“First the pickle dish,” she says, “and now this.”

 

In the morning I get up super early so I can start my life of utter solitude.

Alone, naturally.

I still smell like smoke. Everything I own still smells like smoke. I do a big load of laundry in the basement. I even run it through twice, but no amount of detergent can wash the smell away. The worst part is it would be cheaper to buy all new clothes than to dry-clean them. I asked my dad if I should call the insurance company, since it was him who made me get renter's insurance, but he said, “Sweetie, renter's insurance is for accidents. Not arson.”

So much for renter's insurance. If they won't cover the occasional personal meltdown or anger fire, what's the point in having it?

I drive to work an hour late. I don't even care if I get yelled at. What could be worse than what I just went through? I'm waiting for the elevator, imagining my clothes are smoking and my hair is singed to a crisp when my cell phone rings. It's Hailey.

“Thanks for last night,” I say, “for being so nice.”

“So, are you going to pay for your replacement dress?” she asks.

“What?”

“Your replacement dress,” she says. “We have to pay double because now it's a rush order.”

“Can't…can't I just wear a dress that's the same color?”

“You can't just try to match the color, Jen. All the dresses are supposed to be identical.” She's talking to me like I'm retarded and sounds out each consonant, like “
eye-dent-i-cal
.”

“You wouldn't have to pay for a new dress if you hadn't ‘slipped' under the sink,” she says. “And I don't think I like you trying to ruin my big day.”

“Don't worry,” I sigh, “there'll be others.”

She hangs up on me. I can't believe her. One minute she's nice to me and the next she's a psychobitch. Why? I punch the elevator button again and consider using the emergency fire stairwell, but before I can decide, Hailey calls back and the elevator doors open. She starts screaming at me about the cost of replacing my dress and accusing me of doing it on purpose.

“No, I didn't,” I shout, “that's completely untrue.” I step on the elevator. “Well,
I
remember the time you vomited on my sundress at the Valley Fair. Are you telling me you didn't do that on purpose? I know for a fact you did it on purpose. I saw you deliberately eat relish right out of the plastic hot dog condiment thing. Then you turned around and barfed on me and then you cried so Dad would pick you up and put you on his shoulders while I had to walk all day covered in your hot dog vomit. So don't tell me I am the only one that ruins everything, Hailey, because as far as ruining things go, you pretty much took the big ruining cake when they brought you home from the unwanted Swedish baby shelter, all right? Hailey?”

She's gone. The line's dead.

I'm so mad right now I think I'm going to blow an artery. Then someone clears his throat behind me. I whip around and there is Brad Keller.

“Yeah, there's really no way for me to pretend I didn't hear that,” he says.

My face gets hot. “I didn't know anyone was…was here.”

He smiles. “It's cool. Sometimes I hate my sister too. Once she shaved my eyebrows off.”

“Oh! I don't hate my sister…” I stammer. “I just…”

He shakes his head. “Took three months to grow back. To
tally bald face. The kids called me testicle head. She still thinks it's the funniest story she's ever heard.”

He snickers and I feel this light, free-flowing breeze around me, like someone just opened a window to Tahiti.

The doors open and he steps off.

“Coming?” he asks and I follow him.

We're standing on the fourth floor in the home furnishings department, surrounded by living room displays and mahogany dining room tables. It's relatively empty up here. I immediately imagine these aren't just displays in a department store, they're real rooms. Our rooms. Brad and I are having martinis on the leather Millstone three-piece couch set, and then I'm serving him dinner at the Brownville high-gloss black dining room table, which is perfectly set with white Wedgwood china and sterling silver candlesticks with tall tapered white candles. Then, after proposing to me, Brad knocks the candlesticks off the table and takes me right there on it.

“I hope this isn't weird or whatever,” he says, looking a little nervous, “but do you want to get a drink sometime or something?”

I make a face. I don't think I heard right. “What?”

He smiles. I think maybe he's talking about finding a water fountain, and I'm about to direct him to the customer service comfort station when he says, “You know, like a date?”

“A date?” I repeat. A lone saleswoman wheels around the corner carrying an armload of upholstery samples and stops dead in her tracks when she sees us.

“Sure,” I say.

“Great. How about this Friday?”

I blink.

“Is that a yes?” he asks. “You've got this sort of…unique way of communicating.”

The sample woman has her eyebrow arched so high it threatens to join her hairline. “Sure,” I say, keeping an eye on her, “you bet.”

“Okay, so Friday then,” he says, backing away slowly. “You're not going to cancel or not show up or something, are you?”

I shake my head no.

“Okay, good, and you'll get whatever anger management help you need by then.”

I smile.

“Good,” he says, “good. We need that, because I didn't want to have to call ahead and have them clear out any sign of hot dog relish.” I cover my face with one hand. He's practically standing right next to the sample woman when he says, “All right then, see you Friday!”

“All right then,” I say to his retreating back. The sample lady looks at me and then back at Brad and then back at me. I quickly retreat to the stairwell, where I can panic in private. I try to call Christopher, but he doesn't pick up. I leave a message.

“Something amazing just happened,” I tell him, “and I need you to confirm I am not asleep and this is not a dream.”

I dash over to the Skyway. I want to shudder and tingle in the presence of my lovely fellow humans.
Hello, thick-ankled secretary! You're beautiful! Hello, fat man! Aren't you jolly!
I walk right past Cinnabon and the counter girl says, “Where do you think you're going?”

“Not today!” I sing out.

“You'll be back,” she says grimly.

I stop into Frontier Travel and pick up a bunch of travel brochures and promotional magazines. I have no idea why. “Planning a trip?” Susan asks.

“Possibly!” I say. “You never know!”

“Ever thought of writing for one of those magazines?” she
asks. “I know one of the editors in New York. They pay for your expenses and everything.”

“I would love to do that!” I grin. “I'm not going to be a copywriter forever!”

I practically skip back to the office, where I promise myself I will not visualize what it would be like to be married to Brad Keller.

I will not.

Maybe a little.

T
here's a lot to fix. I need new hair, new clothes, a new face, a new me. Parts of me are sagging, not shining, or need to be cut off, not necessarily in that order. Completely making yourself over is a time-consuming and costly endeavor, plus most of my credit cards are maxed out, but it helps that I work in a department store. “Have no fear,” Christopher says, “a little gay bee is here!”

He takes me down to the visual display department where he works. Normally all nonessential employees are strictly forbidden for insurance reasons. They have hammers and tools and glue guns down there, all manner of loose signage, bolts of fabric, chipped disco balls, glass chandeliers, disembodied mannequins, and sheets of colored Lucite stacked everywhere. “It smells like the inside of one of those chemical barrels,” I tell him. “One of those ones kids in Guatemala sniff.”

“I know!” Christopher says, taking a deep whiff. “Isn't it wonderful? Now come here. This is for you.” He leads me around to his work area, where several heaps of clothing are thrown over the back of a chair, and on his desk is a neat swatch of green velvet displaying several sparkly pieces of jewelry.

“Everything was just taken down from the windows,” he says, picking up a red wraparound dress. “It all has to be restocked, but not until Monday! You can wear anything you want for your date.”

“The shoes, too?”

He nods. “The shoes, too.”

Then he rolls out two matching hard-backed suitcases they use for shipping product and helps me pack everything in them. We work quickly, because if anyone saw us, we'd both be instantly fired.

Its amazing how one small event, like the man of your dreams asking you out, can change your whole outlook on life. Everything seems happy and possible. Colors look brighter. Food tastes better. Gravity seems to be turned on lighter, so walking is easier and keeping my chin up seems more natural. Even Ted sees the change.

“What's wrong with you?” he asks.

“Nothing! Can't a girl be happy?”

“I don't like it,” he says, crossing his arms. “I don't like it one bit.”

I hum at my desk, I ignore my incoming Exploding Hearts e-mail, I even water Big Trish's fern, and when she snaps at me that it's
her
fern, not
mine
, and she knows
perfectly well
when to water it, some of the leaves are
supposed
to be brown, I take the time to use the interpersonal conflict-resolution skills we learned in last month's employee seminar about building a better co-worker habitat and I say, “You know, Trish, I didn't even consider your perspective on this. I see where you're coming from and in the future I'll be sure to consult you before moving ahead on any plant-watering activities.”

She scowls at me but I don't care. I'm on cloud twenty-two.

 

Christopher buys me a shiatsu massage for Thursday night after work so my head will “be in the right place” for my date on Friday. We dash down a freezing five blocks to the Medical Arts building and go up to the seventeenth floor.

“I didn't realize they had a massage parlor in the Medical Arts building,” I say.

He nods. “They also have an anal bleaching office.”

“A what?”

“We're here!” he says and opens the massage parlor door. “Paradise awaits you.”

The whole interior has been outfitted to look like a miniature Chinese temple, with faux-stone walls and a small marble fountain. Even the dropped ceiling panels have been painted a rich red. There is delicate string music playing and a tiny Asian woman behind the desk is wearing what else but a lovely silk kimono. She looks perfect in it, like an Asian confection with little egg noodle arms.

“I don't feel better yet,” I say.

The lady has us fill out medical-consent forms and sit in the tiny lobby until someone else comes and takes us back to the locker rooms, which have wooden lockers and bamboo benches. I take off my clothes and put on the robe. I meet up with Christopher back in the hall and the lady takes us to a cedar-lined sauna and it's hot as an oven inside.

“Ten minute,” the lady says and disappears.

“Now just relax,” Christopher says. “Breathe deep. Do you smell eucalyptus?”

I inhale and exhale slowly. “Do you think I should tell Brad I'm on antidepressants?”

“No,” he says.

“But everyone's on antidepressants. They're like aspirins.”

“Stigma.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just don't give him the third degree,” he says. “Men hate that.”

“Doesn't it show him I'm interested in him to ask questions?”

“No,” he says, “and don't talk about your family.”

“We bonded over hating our sisters.”

“This is supposed to be sexy time, not family story hour, and don't talk about sex. Straight guys think girls are slutty if they talk about sex.”

“Well, why don't I just not talk at all?” I say. “I'll just be mute. I shall be Mutey McMuterson from Mutington Downs.”

“You can talk about needing space,” he says. “All guys want to hear that you need space, that you're really independent, that you're not going to bug them every night, that you have your own money and your own friends and that you're not going to cling to them like a barnacle. Men want to know you're not going to be any inconvenience whatsoever, that you won't interrupt their guy's night out or their sports games or their sudden disappearances. They want a lot of space, like an astronaut who only comes in to dock his penis from time to time.”

“Nice visual.”

“Whatever you do,” he says, “
don't
talk about marriage. If you remember only one thing, remember that. DO NOT talk about marriage, getting married, wedding dresses, cakes, anything. Don't even mention your sister's wedding.”

“Don't worry,” I say.

The Asian lady returns and leads us to a dim room with large palms and six low beds. There is a metal pipe above each bed, and at first I think it's a sprinkler system. She tells us to lie down in beds next to each other. I lie down on my bed and Christopher lies down on his. Two new ladies wearing white shirts and white pants silently come in and start poking us. It's quite unpleasant. This goes on for a while.

I shut my eyes and try to block the poking out. I try to distract myself by reviewing the signs when a guy is NOT into you. If he stays physically far away from you, like more than three
feet, odds are he doesn't want to be “close” to you. Second, if a guy focuses anywhere but your eyes, he's deliberately distancing himself from you. Third, if he stands at an oblique angle, that's bad. I don't know what oblique is, but I'm sure I'll recognize it when I see it. Last is speech pattern. If a guy talks to you like you're at the office, then he probably wants to keep the relationship “professional.” Also, if a guy likes you, he'll copy your body language. Like, if you lean in, he'll lean in. If you use your hands to emphasize something, so will he. Monkey-see, monkey-do = he's into you.

Crap! I remember I haven't waxed my nether region. Unshaved for weeks. This puts me in a mild panic. I don't want him putting his hand up my skirt and getting it caught in a pussy Afro. Ouch! This “massage” is taking forever. The woman who's been poking me jumps up on the bed and grabs the pole overhead. She then steps on my shoulder blade and presses down until I think my lung is going to pop.

“I just don't want to embarrass myself,” I say to Christopher between breaths, which is considerable, because the woman is now crunching her way up and down my spine. “I figure my date with Brad has a one in two chance of landing me in a mental asylum. I can't take one more humiliating scene. I really can't.”

“I don't know how you do it,” he sighs. “It's like one nightmare after another.”

“Thanks.”

The lady starts massaging my arm with the ball of her foot. It sort of feels good, except it's painful.

“Sorry,” Christopher says. “I just don't get how you keep putting yourself out there.”

“There just aren't any good ones,” I say.

“I found a good one,” Christopher sighs. “Jeremy the pill. Love that boy.”

“Well, what do you mean?” I ask, feeling suddenly and acutely irritated.

“Nothing,” he says, “I don't know, I just mean. I think there are still good guys out there. You just have to look.”

I'm silent for a minute as the lady switches to my other arm. She kneads my flesh with her feet and stands full body weight on my open palm.

“So, good guys are everywhere,” I say. “I just lack the skills to find them?”

“I didn't mean that.”

“Well, that's what it sounded like.”

“Well, that's not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

“Just that, I don't know, just that maybe you should be more patient or something.”

“Are you serious?”

He doesn't say anything. We lie in silence for the rest of the massage, which is about as relaxing as an emergency root canal.

I shower in the locker room and put my clothes on. I'm already aching all over. In the Chinese-temple lobby Christopher pays and asks me if I want to get a drink. I say no thanks. He sighs. “Are you being pissy?” he asks.

“I don't know, are you acting all high and mighty because you've already found the love of your life and you look down on the poor slobs who haven't?”

“I'm going,” he says. “I hate it when you're like this.”

“Well, I hated that massage!” I tell him. “What was that? I think she dislocated my shoulder!” I am enraged. Just furious.

“I'll tell you why you're alone,” he says, pointing a finger in my face. “Because sooner or later, you attack everyone. You're paranoid and insecure and you pick and you analyze everyone
and everything until everything is picked and analyzed to death. You get so insecure, so sure someone is going to leave you, you attack them until they finally go. Well, good job, Jen. Here's one more person in your life that's sick of you.”

Then he storms out of the office and it feels like I just ended another relationship, but this one feels like the worst ending ever. The worst part of the whole day is I never found out what anal bleaching is.

 

On my desk Friday morning is a lemon poppy-seed muffin and a note. It's from Christopher and it says, “Let's not break up, okay?”

I call him on his cell phone.

He apologizes.

I apologize.

He says he won't go to David's wedding.

I tell him, don't be ridiculous, go.

He's sorry we fought, I'm sorry we fought.

He says it was his fault, I say it was mine.

He tells me I'm the pretty one and I tell him no, he's the pretty one.

I tell him I wish I were a gay man.

He says it's his greatest sorrow in life that I'm not.

I laugh. He laughs.

We're back.

 

Friday I leave work early to get ready for my date with Brad. I tell Ashley I have an emergency dental appointment. Another one. She makes a face at me. I feel the white pinpoint pulsing of a headache behind my right eye. “You're pale,” she says. “Do you have another cold? Don't tell me you have another cold.”

I tell her I'm fine.

“Except for your tooth,” she says, tilting her head. “The one that needs another emergency dental visit?”

“Right,” I say, “except for that.”

I rush over to Christopher and Jeremy's house. They're helping me get ready. One must always incorporate the gay bees for major functions. It's stupid not to. Christopher has talked Jeremy into doing my hair, which is a big deal. He's like a celebrity hair stylist, which in Minnesota means the mayor's wife, the TV weatherman, and Garrison Keillor, I guess. Anyway, he's never done my hair before.

It's a big production when I get to their immaculate apartment. Christopher has chilled champagne and chocolate-dipped strawberries waiting for me, which immediately reminds me of Ashley's perfect proposal. Music is blaring. These guys are trying so hard to make me feel good, it actually makes me feel good. Jeremy ushers me into the bathroom, where I sit backward on a kitchen barstool staring at my face in the mirror.

He goes to work.

“This color is direct from Paris,” he says, glooping some brown paste on my head. “You can't get it in America.” He parts my hair in careful sections and massages the dye into my hair. It smells like lilacs. Only the French could make hair color smell so good.

Christopher and I try to keep my panic at a minimum by sipping champagne and rehearsing all the first date do's and don't's, which include, but are not limited to:

• Let him open doors for you.
  
• Turn your cell phone off.
  
• Be yourself, but not too much.
  
• Be honest.
  
• Be engaging.
  
• Compliment him on his clothes.
  
• Don't order anything too expensive.
  
• Don't talk about your ex-boyfriend.
  
• Don't talk about money problems.
  
• Don't come on too strong.
  
• Don't eat too much.
  
• Don't eat like a bird.
  
• Don't drink too much.
  
• Don't not drink.
  
• Don't ask him too many questions.
  
• Don't look at other guys.
  
• Ignore it if he looks at other girls.
  
• Be confident.
  
• Be funny.
  
• Don't talk about sex.
  
• Don't talk about religion.
  
• Don't talk about politics.
  
• Don't challenge him on his views.
  
• Be interested, even if you aren't.
  
• Listen attentively.
  
• Don't complain about anything.
  
• Say you like the food, no matter how you feel about the food.
  
• Use positive body language.
  
• Touch your hair if you want to sleep with him.
  
• Keep your feet facing him.
  
• Mimic his body language.
  
• Watch to see if he's mimicking your body language.
  
• Make eye contact.
  
• Don't yell at him if he looks at other girls.
  
• No matter what, act happy.
  
• Flirt.
  
• Say thank you.
  
• Think like a winner.
  
• Don't ask him for a second date, let him ask you.
  
• Don't call him on the way home.
  
• Don't call him the next day.
  
• Don't call him, period.
  
• Wait for him to call you, no matter how long it takes.
  
• If he doesn't call you, he's just not into you.
  
• If he waits too long to call you, he's just not into you.
  
• If he calls you right away after a date he's possibly a stalker.
  
• If you call him right away, you're possibly a stalker.