Read Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Married Online
Authors: Heather McElhatton
Addi says her ex-husband clipped his nails for hours on end in bed and ate cereal like a “jackass.” I tell them I keep thinking if I could just stop annoying Brad he might look at me like he used to. Like he wants me. I'd give anything if he'd look at me that way. “Oh, please!” Addi rolls her eyes. “Men always complain about something. There's no point in trying to please them. Trust me, I know.”
“You're divorced,” Ellie says.
“Exactly. I know everything about being a wife. I have three ex-husbands to prove it.”
The truth is none of us is exactly happy with her domestic life. We soothe ourselves by hunting down things that please us and are perfect. We search tirelessly for the perfect massage, the perfect handbag, the perfect carpaccio. It's a particular thorn in our side when we think we have the best of something, only to discover there's something better. I bought a new Prada handbag and was about to show it off to the girls when Addi walked in with an Hermès. I just shoved my handbag under the chair and didn't say anything.
People tease me about how “picky” I've become, but the truth is I'm a lot more educated about quality. I can tell cow leather from calfskin ten yards away. And I now know the difference between a skilled facial technician and an ape flinging crap at my face. Still, people frown upon pickiness around here. Christopher commented on my “increased sensitivity” last week, when we went to Hillcrest for lunch. I ordered a seafood salad with no scallops, extra lemon wedges, and dressing on the side. An order that would've seemed monastic to the club girls seemed “fussy” to him.
I don't care. I like how I am.
Not really.
Reverend Coy comes for a visit and I ask about the Olya doll. He says she originated from an impoverished village in Russia called Olkhovka. “If you could only see these families,” he says. “They have nothing . . . we dressed Olya up in clothes most children from the swamp dream of seeing.”
“Swamp?” I ask.
“The Olkhovka Swamp was contaminated by radioactive water leakage, from the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant nearby. They've cleaned everything up now, of course.”
“Of course,” I say, inching away from the Olya doll sitting on the table.
“So now we must find a way to get the village back on its feet. Let them grow strong again! Praise Jesus!”
“Yep . . .” I nod. “He's got a heckuva world going on down here.”
I tell Brad about the nuclear-leak dolls and he's completely unconcerned, if not annoyed I'm bothering him with these unimportant details. “But, Brad,” I say, “how do you know those dolls have no contamination in them? Do we test them?”
He says oh yes,
hardy har har,
every doll goes to Leningrad for testing and then a special spa in Minsk. “Jesus, Jen.” He sighs. “I know you're not a business major but even you know commercial products are made with chemicals.”
“This isn't chemicals, Brad. This is radioactivity.”
He rolls his eyes. “Fine,” he says. “You want to test the dolls? Test away, darling. You do keep things from getting boring.” I take the matter very seriously and send a sample doll away to a lab recommended to me by the animal hospital.
I finally attend Supper Club, my first one in months. I go because finally my family's not annoyed with me. I've been missing in action for some time, but I gave Lenny and Hailey a super baby present: one of every single item sold in Keller's Peapod Department, which is what they call their infant section. Blankets, bedding, clothing, strollers, appliances, everything. Brad went ballistic but it was worth it, because everyone in my family is smiling at me again.
The other reason I show up is this week's Supper Club theme is the state fair. Everybody brings their favorite dish from the state fair; it's sort of a way to bring a little bit of summer into the dead of winter. It's also a way to get food,
any food,
on sticks. Everything is on a stick. Corn dogs on a stick, fried green tomatoes on a stick, barbecued rib fingers on a stick, fried jalapeño peppers on a stick, corncobs on a stick, pizza on a stick, walleye cheeks on a stick, cheesy pretzels on a stick, deep-fried pickles on a stick, frozen bananas on a stick, etc. . . . My favorite is martini on a stick. A frozen alcoholic Popsicle.
We also exchange belated Christmas presents, since everyone was somewhere else for the holidays. Hailey and Lenny went to Brainerd to visit Lenny's family (scary), and my mom and dad booked a Caribbean cruise like the Kellers, in the hopes that some warm weather would make my dad's health issues go away. He's been working too hard and gets worn down easily. I give Mom and Dad a new flatscreen TV. I give Hailey a gift certificate to Keller's for new clothes and I give Lenny a new box of ice-fishing lures.
They didn't get me anything. Nobody. Not even my mom and dad. They smile and say I have everything already, don't I? This makes me mad for some reason, even though it's completely and totally true. In the midst of the rest of them opening presents I find myself childishly wanting attention and I announce that I'm opening a college fund for each of the twins.
“Opening a what?” Lenny asks.
“A college fund, Lenny. It's like a coffee can, but bigger.”
At home that night I find Pho has updated the Ice Empress. She appears with a big X of electrical tape over her mouth, a result of my telling Pho to “just shut her up!” Now I wince as she mumbles incoherently. I put a Post-it note on Pho's Yoo-hoo sitting on the counter:
Â
Pho Fang!
Â
Please degag the Ice Empress. It's creepy.
Just give her new words or something.
Â
Love, Auntie J
Â
I go exercise with Big D. We have a standing appointment for every Wednesday at three. We usually go jogging, and often through dicey neighborhoods. He says it makes me run faster.
On one of our jogs, I get a pebble in my shoe and stop to fix it, but Big D just keeps jogging faster, shouting, “I wouldn't slow down around here, white girl!”
“Big D, stop!”
“Why?” He turns around, jogging in place. “You under arrest by the Holy Spirit?”
“No! I have a pebble in my shoe!”
“Lord, now she got a pebble in her shoe.”
“My leg is cramping too.”
“Uh-huh. You some kinda flaw junkie, lady.”
“I'm a what?”
“A
flaw junkie.
Always lookin' for problems. Any itty-bitty little thing. Then you go, â
Wooooo!
I found one. I found one! I found me a flaw. Looky here, big beautiful world. You can suck my dick. I found me a little pebble in my shoe.
Woooo.
' ”
“ âWooo'? I don't go âWooooo
.
' ”
“You go â
Wooo!
' Shit, woman, all you do is wooo.”
“Sorry. My foot
hurts
. Should I keep running and get a big blister? I
hate
these shoes. I always get blisters when I run in these. Always.”
“Lord, now she Godzillafying.”
“I'm what?”
“Godzillafying. Makin' everything huge. Knockin' down buildings get in your way. Shoot, can't you just take a Goddamn pebble outta your shoe and get on with your damn day? You think
this
here's the worst day of your life? Sun shinin'. God smilin'. Woman with big titties over there.”
“Big D!”
“Mmm-hmmm.” He shakes his head. “Love big titties. Come on, you givin' me a headache, woman. Let's go!”
I'm still sore the next cold wintry morning when I have to don my heavy coat and troop down to Keller's Department Store to sign more papers in Todd Brockman's office. Why I have to sign these damn documents there, and not at home, is a mystery. Todd's on the phone with his door closed when I get there, so I visit Brad in his office. He tells me to close the door and says I'm spending too much money. “How much money did you spend at this Medi-Spa place?” he asks me angrily. I tell him to stop shouting at me. I'm supposed to spend money; he said I had to make everything perfect. “Not so
much
money, Jen! Jeez! Todd Brockman saw your monthly spa line item and freaked.”
“Line item? What line item? Who the hell is looking at our monthly expenses?”
“Todd Brockman!” he says. “He checks our monthly spending report!”
“What monthly spending report?”
“The one that tracks our costs, utilities, transportation, food, clothing, and expendables? And your stupid spa treatments.”
“What else is in this report?” I ask him suspiciously. “Can
Todd Brockman
see how often I buy tampons?”
“If you put it on a credit card, it goes in the report.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I will
not
have that slimy little toad making pie charts about my tampon drawer!”
“Ahoy there, Jen!” Todd Brockman is standing right behind me.
“Ahoy . . .
Todd.
” I sigh. “Be right with you.”
Todd knocks on the door twice and says, “Righty-o!”
Brad says pie chart or no pie chart, we have to cut down on our spending. His mother says the only people who spend money like I do are the wives of sheiks in Dubai. I'm incensed. “She's allowed to look at our spending reports too? Where did she pick up that little tidbit about sheiks? Does she watch
The Real Housewives of Dubai
?”
“My mother's part owner of the company,” he tells me. Then he says, “Did you in fact give Pho, the son of our maid, ten thousand dollars? Tell me you're joking.”
“Pho is our maid's grandson, and I didn't give him the money; he worked for it. He fixed that big stupid refrigerator from your Japanese friends. I called the regular repairman; they didn't even know where the electrical panel was to fix it.”
“Get the money back,” he says.
“No!”
“Yes.”
“Brad, how can you stand there and tell me to stop spending money when you buy a freaking Lamborghini?”
“Because I'm the one who
works
for a living,” he says. “It's
my
money!”
“
Your
money?”
“
My
money,” he repeats.
“Funny,” I say. “With all that marriage-vow crap, I thought it was ours.”
I turn around to leave.
“Hang on,” he says. “One more thing. Is there anything else you have to tell me?”
I stare at him blankly. “Like what?”
“Like . . . about any new family members you might be having?”
“New family members?”
“Courtesy of Lenny and Hailey?”
A slow dread crawls over me. “Oh. Right. I forgot to tell you, Hailey's having twins.”
He crosses his arms. “You
forgot
to tell me?”
“I thought I did tell you. Didn't I tell you?”
“No, you didn't. My mom is furious.”
“She is?” My mind races. “Why?”
“Because she's not stupid, Jen! She found out from somebody at church and figured out when they were conceived! On our honeymoon? Jesus!
You're
the one who's supposed to be having babies!”
“Well, it's not like a competition or something! Hailey and I don't share a uterus; I have my own eggs, you know. I'm perfectly capable of having a baby.”
“You sure about that?”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“It means you should've gotten pregnant by now. My parents expect us to have a family.”
“I hate to break this to you, Brad, but you have to have
sex
to have a baby.”
“Of course, blame everything on me.”
“You are a pretty important part of the puzzle, Brad! I can't get pregnant without your piece!” His phone rings and he takes the call. What a jerk. What an insensitive creep!
I storm down to visual display in the basement, hoping Christopher will get a coffee with me, but he's in a bad mood too. Everybody freaking is. He starts in about the cheap merchandise he's handling and how at this rate he'll have to find hospice care for a fabulous gay man with umpteen forms of cancer. I tell him to lighten up and he flies off the handle at me. He says he doesn't even know who I am anymore. He thought all this trophy wife stuff was funny at first, but he doesn't want to play the game anymore. I've changed. I'm insensitive and mean now, I'm a terrible friend. He doesn't even think he can be friends with someone who's as callous and insensitive as me.
Oh, whatever. I don't have time for the drama. I can get coffee without him. I make my way to the third floor and weave through the crowded skyway. I pass the Cinnabon counter and a voice says, “Going somewhere?” The Cinnabon girl smiles at me. I should flex my Keller royalty credentials and force her evil empire of icing out of the skyway altogether, but then where would I eat my secrets? “Free sample!” she says, holding up a tray of piping-hot, freshly iced sinning.
I step back and shake my head. “Sorry,” I tell her. “I'm on a diet.”
“I won't tell anyone,” she says coyly. I stare at her. Damn her circular thinking. I pounce quickly, grabbing a sticky cinnamony sin ball, which I stuff in my face and swallow almost immediately.
“I'll take three more,” I tell her. Why the hell not
?
I'm on diet pills, I'm paying top dollar to be irritable and nauseous twenty-four hours a day, why not wolf down some Goddamned hot lard if I want to?
The Cinnabon girl nods at me. “Diet pills?”
“Absolutely,” I say. “Trimexa.”
“Everyone's taking that stuff,” she says. “Our sales have doubled.”
“I'm so
happy
for you.”
“Toilet line has doubled too.”
I look down the hall at the public restroom, the only restroom on this stretch of skyway, and I panic. There's a line snaking out of the ladies' room. “No,” I gasp as my stomach rumbles.