Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Single (22 page)

I wish beyond all wishes I could ask for a glass of wine.

“We're having duck casserole,” Mrs. Keller says. “Do you like duck, Jennifer?”

“Yes, Ma'am!” I say and she gives me a funny look. She takes the potatoes and carrots out of the oven, which have been roasting in their own special potato and carrot oven-roasting dishes.

“Jennifer,” she says, smiling over the steaming vegetables, “would you like to help?”

“Of course!” I say, jumping up and knocking my knee painfully into the table leg.

“Why don't you get the butter,” she says. “In the Frigidaire.”

I practically sprint to the refrigerator. I think the last time I heard anyone call a refrigerator a Frigidaire was on an episode of the
Honeymooners
.

I'm taken with not only the number of items inside her Frigidaire but also the fact they're all facing labels-out. “See it?” she asks and I say yes, but I don't see it. You keep butter in the door, right? In the little flippy-lid butter compartment? But there is no flippy-lid butter compartment, just rows of short shelves that hold every kind of jam you can imagine and a tall wire rack that neatly holds cans of pop.

“I guess I don't see it,” I say, looking over my shoulder, and possibly see her rolling her eyes as she walks over, but I can't be sure. She shows me the heavy crockery pot on the top shelf, where she always keeps butter, like that's where any sane person would keep butter.

After we're all seated, I've already picked up my fork when Mrs. Keller begins to pray. “Dear Jesus,” she says, “blessed Father, blessed be this food and this house and all the people in it, including the people who are in our family as well as the people who are not in our family. We ask that you be with us here tonight, Lord, and to guide us in all our thoughts and decisions. Amen.”

I open my eyes and half expect Jesus to be sitting there at the fourth place mat. “Is there anything to drink?” I ask meekly, holding my empty water glass.

Mrs. Keller drops her fork loudly and says, “If it's not one thing, it's another,” and pushes her chair back. Brad is oblivious, slopping glops of duck casserole on his plate.

“Here you go,” Mrs. Keller says, holding an earthenware pitcher and pouring a liquid that looks like rust water into my glass. I take a sip, and it burns.

It turns out Mrs. Keller makes her own apple cider. The strongest, spiciest cider you ever tasted that doesn't have a drop of alcohol in it. My eyes water and I nearly choke when I take a sip. “Isn't it good?” Brad asks, taking a big gulp.

“Is there pepper in it?” I ask, dabbing at my eyes with my napkin.

“Family secret!” Mrs. Keller says, eyes glowing.

Boots stares at me from the floor.

Mrs. Keller starts asking me questions. She asks me about everything from where I went to school, to whom I've dated, to what my father does for work, to my religious beliefs, to
whom I voted for in the last election, to which kind of lettuce I prefer.

“Romaine?” I say, thinking it's the most biblical-looking lettuce of all the lettuces. I can't picture iceberg lettuce at the Last Supper.

I keep looking at Brad to help me, but he seems as curious as she does. I do my best to answer her questions the way I think she wants me to answer them.

I lie.

It's not hard to know what she wants to hear. Not really. You know you're on the wrong track if she starts zipping that gold cross around her neck back and forth on its chain. By the time she serves us two pieces of strawberry shortcake with big dollops of whipped cream on them, I am exhausted, utterly drained, and I've given her every impression I'm a highly religious, politically conservative virgin who wants Brad to join my Bible study.

I still don't think I did it right.

“My husband said you look just like his cousin Ada,” she says, looking me over, “but I don't see the resemblance at all.”

I go to the bathroom and press my face against the cool peach walls. I flush the toilet and run the water, even though I wouldn't dare actually use either for their original intention. When I go back, they're already almost done clearing the dishes and Mrs. Keller says not to worry, I can do all the washing up next time.
Next time.
Dear Lord in heaven, there might be a next time.

When Mrs. Keller is off getting some article on sailing she cut out for Bradford, he tells me he thinks the night was a great success and his mother really likes me. He thinks we should make meals together a regular habit since they're so close and everything.

After a round of small hugs and polite kisses, Mrs. Keller tells me how good it was to meet me and how she does hope I can come back soon. “And, Bradford, buy the girl some new stock
ings!” she says, shaking her head at the hole in my toe. “Goodness. She looks like an orphan from
Tobacco Road
.”

We finally escape down Mrs. Keller's perfectly appointed walk. Then we cross the driveway and follow the short Kennebunkport cobblestone path up to Brad's back door. It takes about thirty seconds total.

“Isn't that nice?” he says. “We don't even need to get in the car to visit. They're always right next door.”

 

Hailey wants to “really go wild” for her bachelorette party. I'm not sure why I said I'd go. The idea of dancing to remixed eighties house music and slamming girly alcopop like the Buttery Nipple (butterscotch schnapps mixed with Irish Cream), the Kickin' Chicken (whiskey and Tabasco sauce), and Liquid Cocaine (peppermint schnapps, Jägermeister, and 151-proof rum) gives me a girly alcopop headache.

Maybe I said I'd go because disasters are entertaining. Ten girls, a rented limo, and my sister in a Life Savers–covered “suck-a-buck” T-shirt? True disaster and whatever happens I want my mother to have an eyewitness account.

I'm not jealous. How could I be? All the prepackaged “significant moments,” it's all just built-in disappointment, like Christmas or your birthday. Birthdays are such a big deal when you're little. Everything is so amazing. You plan for months beforehand and you invite everybody. Every present thrills you; it hardly takes anything to make you happy. Clowns are great, balloon animals are great, grocery-store sheet cake is great, and dollar plastic prizes you get after you smash a piñata to pieces are great. You get so hysterical and crazy running around playing with your friends that eventually you have to be separated from the group.

Then when you get older your birthday sucks no matter what
you do. If you saw a balloon animal or a piñata or a rented clown on your birthday now, you'd just cry and cry and cry. Sheet cake is still cool, but nothing can really completely bring back that feeling you had when you were little of being utterly thrilled, of feeling like you were literally the luckiest person in the world and this is the best day of your life. When's the last time you felt like that?

Maybe that's why falling in love becomes so important. The hope of it. Because it's the last standing pillar in the temple of thrill. When you fall in love with someone, it's your birthday and you are nine. It's sunny and your parents love you and there are clowns and they don't creep you out or make you wonder what they did in life to end up a clown; they just thrill you through and through with this radiant green joy that feels like maybe it's going to last forever.

I guess I'm jealous after all. Hailey is experiencing her ninth birthday all over again, and here I am trying to poop on it every chance I get. That makes me feel awful. It really does. God help me. The nice side of me is in hell, the dark side is in heaven.

“We said we would pick you up at six,” Hailey snaps. “Where are you?”

“You said seven! You did! I was just stopping to get you some champagne!” I hold up the wrapped bottle with a blue ribbon on it, as though it was proof, over the phone.

“Well, we're here,” Hailey says, “sitting like idiots in a white stretch limo in front of your ugly house. God, this is a shit-hole.”

“Did you get the limo with strobe lights? Because those actually can give you seizures.”

“Well, if it doesn't have strobe lights,” she says, “we'll go get one that does.”

“I swear you said seven. I have the text message you sent. You did.”

“You suck,” she says.

“I suck? Who goes out at six p.m.? Are you seventy? Where are we going, Old Country Buffet?”

“If you don't get here, we're leaving.”

“I'm just pulling around the corner. Seriously. Can you see me?”

“No, I can't,” she says, “and we're only waiting one more minute, Jen. Seriously. You so suck.” One of the girls behind her shrieks, “You suck, Jen!”

“You suck,” Hailey says, “everyone thinks you suck.” She holds the phone away from her ear. “Okay, group vote!” she shouts. “Should we leave my stupid sister behind or should we wait for her?”

“Is she bringing any guys?”

“Shut up, Lexi! It's my bachelorette party. She's not bringing any guys.”

“Then leave her!”

Up goes a chorus of “Leave her! Leave her!”

“All right, shut up, you guys! Shut up! Okay, Jen, we're waiting five more minutes and if you're not here, you're queer. We're leaving.”

“You do know the bar you're going to is gay, right?”

“Excalibur is not a gay bar. It's an alternative bar.”

“I don't think you know what alternative means.”

“Yes, I do, it means they're funky but they're poor.”

“You're an idiot.” I hang up and speed through two more lights and turn the corner to my apartment just as my cell phone starts vibrating so my spasmodic sister can tell me she and the titty-studded booze crew are leaving.

“I'm here, I'm here!” I park alongside an ice bank, praying there won't be a snow emergency and the Scout won't get towed. I dash out of my car and take a single sharp breath of cold air
only to duck back into the hot, perfume-heavy, neon-blue-lit limousine that's waiting for me.

“Hi, guys!” I say. “Wow, Hailey, nice shirt.”

My sister is wearing a white-sequined miniskirt and a white tank top covered with unwrapped Jolly Ranchers.

“We couldn't get the Life Savers to stick,” Lexi explains, “but if you lick a Jolly Rancher and press it hard enough, it sticks really good!”

They're all drinking prebottled Pink Squirrels and blasting old Blondie songs. Lexi tells Hailey about a book called
Penis Pokey
, which has a hole on every page in the book that's big enough for a guy to slide his penis through, so his dick looks like anything from an elephant trunk to a fire hose to an old man's nose. Before I know what's happening, they decide they want to go find this book and the white limousine pulls up in front of the Barnes and Noble in Calhoun Village. All the wild, screaming girls pile into the store, fanning out through the aisles looking for
Penis Pokey
.

I stand at the counter, where an employee asks if I need help. Her name badge says
KELLEY
. “Hi, Kelley,” I say, “I'm looking for
Chicken Soup for the Suicidal Soul
. Do you have that book? Because that's the one I need.”

She blinks and says maybe the crafting aisle.

Then Christopher calls. He's broken down on Highway 12 and there's a two-hour wait for a tow. “I'm just afraid someone will stop and it won't turn out like the porno I imagined, but look more like the Matthew Shepard story.”

“Where's Jeremy?”

“Cooking class,” he sniffs. “I can't even get a cab to look for me, because I can't tell them where I am. All I know is I'm on highway twelve about a quarter mile past that hotel where we had a three-way with that bingo guy.”

“The bingo guy?” I say. “I know right where you are! The Fairfield Inn, right off the Ridgedale exit. You've told me that story a thousand times! I'll be right there.”

“I have to go,” I tell Hailey. “I'll be right back. Christopher broke down. Just go have dinner and I'll see you at Excalibur.”

She pouts and calls me the Ruiner.

I have a cab take me to my place and I get my car. I think that's better than paying a taxi to cruise highways looking for my little wandering parakeet.

I drive down Highway 12 as slowly as I legally can, which is forty-five miles an hour. Have you ever actually driven forty-five miles an hour on the freeway? You might as well get out and crawl. Cars pile up behind me and honk, drivers shout expletives and give me the finger as they zoom past.

Christopher turns out to be exactly where he said he'd be, precariously huddled in the center of the highway against the median about a quarter mile past the Fairfield Inn. I pull the Scout off onto the narrow shoulder and honk twice. He's actually got the hood up on his car and is peering into the engine, like he has any idea what he's looking for.

“What are you doing?” I holler over the cars speeding past us. “Get in!”

“I think I've got it!” he says, and motions me to come look. I pull the emergency brake—I guess because this is an emergency—and make my way alongside the cement divider to the front of his car. “I think this is it!” he says and pulls whatever totally retarded, wrong thing he's got ahold of and suddenly sticky green fluid explodes everywhere.

“Oh my God!” I scream. “Is it acid?”

A truck roars past and hoses us down with a huge sheet of slushy ice water. We both do this weird “it's-all-over-me-get-it-
off-of-me” Riverdance thing as we run to the car. Inside, out of breath and panting, Christopher makes a face.

“It smells like damp hamster bedding in here,” he says.

“I'm sorry, would you prefer to wait outside?”

“We could have stayed out there.” He licks his lips, tasting a smear of green on the corner of his mouth. “I think it's antifreeze.”