Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Married (20 page)

We sit and we wait. Somebody goes to get food. Hamburgers. Another nurse comes in. There's a problem with Dad's insurance. They can't keep him in ICU. The doctors want him to stay, but the insurance policy says he must move. Hailey starts arguing. Mom starts crying. I freeze up completely. Then the door flies open. Brad is standing there, eight feet tall and full of fury. He takes command of the situation. He takes control. He asks the nurses specific questions. He speaks with authority to doctors.
Was this test done? Are those results back?
He summons new rounds of specialists. He makes phone calls, he makes requests, he stays on top of everyone. The nurses start moving more quickly. Answers start appearing. He seems like a genius. A hero. All talk of removing my dad from the ICU disappears.

I'm so grateful to him, my legs almost buckle. Then Hailey starts bellowing and there's water all over the floor. It's like a surreal Fellini film, with more irony than explanation. The angel of death hovers over my father and my scene-stealing, attention-nabbing-to-the-last-minute-of-every-day, stupid sister . . . has gone into labor.

Typical.

Go

15

A Walnut in the Muffin

I
need to get pregnant.

Fast.

My father's health scare steeps my tender brain in inky black images of the angel of death. My demise seems imminent, should my parents ever leave the planet completely . . . and they both look weak to me suddenly. Frail. If they went and Brad kicked me out I would surely die quickly, and probably somewhere tragic, like the woods behind Bennigan's.

Conversely Hailey is quite literally bursting with life. Two lives. She gave birth to Billy and Buddy, the biggest twins on record at the hospital. They're bruisers with blocky heads who look ready to rumble or belly up to the baby bar and toss down a pint before lifting Fisher-Price dumbbells at the Playskool infant weight room. Lenny is over the moon about them. Hailey seems less enthusiastic. Every thirty seconds she's sending him for more chipped ice or a lemon Coke or more painkillers, which she needs because of the cesarean section, which Lenny watched and about which he says, “It was like watching high-definition Syfy channel!”

Between my sister and father, my entire family more or less lives at the hospital for a full week, which is ten times what the insurance companies allow—most new moms get the boot within twenty-four hours of giving birth, but Mother Keller is at the helm now and the doctors give Hailey and the twins extra-extra special-special treatment. Mother Keller pays for a full-time nanny to move in with them and builds a state-of-the-art nursery at their home.

Dad's weak but recovering. The doctors say he can go home. Mother Keller gets a state-of-the-art hospital bed and a bunch of heart-monitoring equipment and has it installed in my parents' bedroom. She hires a full-time home health care worker, a nurse named Susannah, who takes care of my father.

At home we arrive at another unexpected event.

The reporter from the annual Heck of a Home Designer Home Showcase had visited the house while I was gone, and Bi'ch let her in, graciously allowing her and the photographer she brought along with her to see the whole house. Together they chronicled all the unique details of my life, including my junk food stash and failed sex toy collection in the closet, my library of mewling how-to-save-your-marriage literature for insecure wives, the dirty laundry heaped up on the floor, Ace's poop museum behind the couch in the living room, and the foul-mouthed Ice Empress in the refrigerator.

The featured item in the catalog, which was delivered to hundreds of thousands of homes, was of course on the table in the front hall. The artist himself delivered it and set it under the warm lights: a statue of my vagina, cast in bronze. My slick, gleaming vagina outshining all other calamities and still looking like a smashed bat stuck on the grille of a car. Brad takes one look at it and doesn't say another word.

I think it's a sort of truce.

Mother Keller doesn't say anything to me about the catalog either, but two weeks later we get a supplement in the mail and both her house and mine have been crossed off the list.

Nick calls to see how my dad is and I say much better. I thank him for all his help that night. Then I hang up. No distractions. Not anymore.

I need to focus on my life with Brad. I got lucky with the Angel Bear fiasco. The security cameras did show a wild woman destroying the store window, but the angle never shows my face. The only thing recognizable is my dress and my shoes. I burn them both. Actually I just wad them up in a Walgreens bag and throw them away . . . but in my heart I burn them. I burn any doubt. I decide to completely forget Valentine's Day. All thoughts of Brad's possible deceit drain from my mind. I mean, I never saw exactly who was in his office. I wasn't even supposed to be there. He could've been anywhere, and so what if the office smelled like his cologne? Of course it did. It's his office. His office could easily smell like his cologne even if he wasn't there. Probably. There are holes in my logic, but I don't care.

I need Brad. I need his family. What would I do without them? They pay for everything; they house me; they employ my brother-in-law, who supports my sister. They gave my dad one of his biggest insurance accounts. He might not even be alive without them. How do you walk away from that? The world is filled with terrible people and terrible situations. For some reason I'm being protected. Cared for. So is my father. This is not something you walk away from.

This is something you hang on to . . . and I'm going to.

I seek counsel from the girls at the club. They're there with their families and they unanimously agree there's only one sure cure for keeping Brad. “Have a baby,” Addi says. “Get a walnut in that muffin,
quick.
” They say having a baby is the only guarantee I won't be tossed out and replaced by some vicious delphinium from the Lancôme counter. I agree completely. The only problem with this plan is that Brad and I don't have sex. Ever. So, how do you get a walnut in the muffin when you can't even get the tricky little squirrel in bed? Even when I do wrangle him, I don't think he enjoys it anymore. I make a mental list for Emily. Most men and women think about very different things during sexual intercourse.

Top Ten Things That Women Think Men Think During Sex

  1. God, I really love her.

  2. I have never felt this connected to another person before.

  3. We truly are soul mates.

  4. We should probably get married.

  5. I wonder how I should propose. Flash mob at the Mall of America or hot-air balloon?

  6. Sometimes I want to cry in front of her, but I'm afraid to reveal my weakness.

  7. I wish she texted me more often.

  8. I want to write a poem about her and me and our souls' journey together.

  9. I hope she sleeps over.

10. I'm going to get up early and make her favorite strawberry waffles.

Top Ten Things That Men Actually Think During Sex

  1. Bang! You've now officially banged all of the Sullivan sisters.

  2. Crap. Which one is this? Kristen Sullivan or Kirsten Sullivan?

  3. You call that a blow job? You should get some tips from your sister.

  4. Could I get Kirsten and Kristen to do a three-way?

  5. Easy! Don't come too soon . . . Think dead pets, dead pets, dead pets . . . whew.

  6. Easy now . . . Think about baseball . . .

  7. That's it . . . rock her world!

  8. Man, the schwang is rockin', buddy!

  9. Damn. Foot cramp.

10. Let her rip, buddy, then let's get her outta here and eat bacon!

 

I try to increase the chance I'll get pregnant during sex. I make appointments at a prestigious fertility clinic, and the MD there says there is absolutely nothing wrong with “my system.” I'm perfectly capable of having a baby. Brad's doctor has told him the same thing. “So why can't we get pregnant?” I ask her, and she shrugs.

“Maybe your head wants to, but your heart's not in it.”

“That's absurd,” I tell her. “My heart's leading the way! My heart is strapped into the very front car of this stupid emotional roller coaster!”

“Our bodies are highly calibrated machines,” she says. “I suggest that if your body is refusing to get pregnant . . . you listen to it.” Poppycock, as Christopher would say. What I need is drugs. I consult doctors and nutritionists and talk with other women who had to use unconventional techniques to get pregnant. I take everyone's advice and use it all at the same time. I fill the house with ovulation prediction kits, fertility monitors, digital thermometers, and big chunky fertility crystals. I wear Incan fertility jewelry, I do headstands, I take Japanese herbs, eat oysters, carry fertility talismans, take prenatal vitamins, and do “fertility yoga” every day, adopting the fertility mantra “The strong sperm swims to the good egg.” I even drink the fertility tea Bi'ch makes me, a potent Hmong brew I sip every morning and every night. I don't know what's in it, but it tastes like yak's ass.

Next I try to increase the likelihood that Brad will have sex with me voluntarily. I incorporate various diets, eating only whole foods, no gluten, big protein, strict portions, set times, no eating after eight
P.M
., etc. . . .

I work out three times a week with Big D. We don't do much weight training, mostly cardio; he believes getting the blood pumping is more important than a whole hell of a lot else. He says the last thing I need is to show up for some fancy high tea looking like Popeye. We always talk during our jogs and his pearls of wisdom can be both unexpected and insightful. He says, “Shit, girl. That dog don't hunt . . . Speed the plow, now! Speed the damn plow! Girl, nobody can ride less you bent . . . You got unlived lives in your head? Live 'em, girl, or they gonna fill your coffin with what you never done. Hear me? Just a big box of dead dreams. Nothin' else. Listen now, Big D is tellin' you. No man can ride you, girl, less you already bent.”

I scour bookstores for baby-making self-empowering reading options.
Miracle Babies Happen Every Day.
Baby Now! How to Give Birth to a Perfectly Perfect Baby. Nine Months to Your Life Beginning! Babies Are for Everyone. Healthy Baby-Making Made Easy. Fertile Myrtle Says YES! Alternatives to Traditional Forms of Conceiving. Not in My Uterus You're Not! If We Don't Have a Baby . . . Why Are We Even Here? A Precious Pea for Every of One of God's Pods.

After I read about the power of positive thinking for the childless (aka, deciding something is real even if it's patently untrue), I decide to take matters into my own hands.

I build a nursery.

I convert the upstairs guest bedroom. First I hire a crew to repaint the room vibrant non-gender-specific yellow. Then I hit Keller's broadside and tell the shop girls that I want one of everything, two if it's a bestseller. They send over a truckload of stuff, much of which, it seems, has the blue CLOG logo on it, featuring a tiny dove sitting on the “G,” or possibly stuck on it. Anyway, I make a pile of Christian Lambs of God products, including toys, clothes, baby bottles, blankets, crib pads, etc., that say “Made in Japan,”
“Hecho en Mexico,”
“Imported: Russia,”
“Afrique du Sud”
. . . Just imagine what creepy-crawlies could latch on to them.

Once I set up all the furniture, though, I'm missing one thing that is actually in the CLOG pile: a mattress for the crib. There's one from a Hong Kong district called Mongkok, which sounds like Montauk, an idyllic beach town in the Hamptons. So I rip open the plastic, open up the box, and carefully put the little mattress in the crib. Cute! Then I drive out to my parents' house and load up all my old toys and stuff from the attic. I drive them back to Lake Minnetonka and lug the boxes of my old retro kitsch up to the nursery. I begin unpacking all my old vintage toys, Japanese paper lanterns, collectible Kewpie dolls, and a plaster replica of Princess Diana's wedding cake. It's a little unconventional, but babies should be inspired and educated by their environments, not dumbed down with boring colors or insipid cartoon characters. Not
my
baby, anyway; my baby will require decorations exactly like these. Nude geisha prints and Vargas Girl calendars. Hmmm. Technically those are Asian porn stars and 1950s prostitutes. I wonder which my baby will be?

Okay, it's not perfect, but I'm ridiculously happy that my dollhouse made it here. It's an heirloom, which I've filled over the years with quirky miniatures, tiny figurines, and pint-size antiques. It's cheap therapy. An hour playing with those goofy little pieces is completely soothing to me. I especially love the stars of this little freak show: the Tinkertoy family.

They're the worst. They have lives that are more confusing and upsetting than my own. Little Husband cheats. Little Wife is a pill-popping nympho and both the little Tinkertoy children worship Smoking Monkey, who controls all of their minds from the breakfast nook. I sigh and arrange my Tinker people, realizing how stupid it is that they're this soothing to me. The truth is, I get a perverse pleasure from lording over this mucked-up little family, whose lives are even more complicated and poorly thought out than mine.

Once again, things aren't looking too good for my little family. Little Husband is back in rehab and Little Wife's started up with G.I. Joe again. The Tinker kids are building a meth lab in the doghouse. I smile to myself and nod. I'm glad that something around here is still normal.

A week later, however, I discover something's wrong with my nursery. Furniture is moved around in the dollhouse, like a buffalo roamed through. Things that were brand-new, like blankets and stuffed animals, seem frayed and ragged. I find little piles of fluff here and there, clearly shed from items across the room. Who knows.

I shut the door and forget it.

I want to have Brad's baby . . . but the problem with having a baby is it doesn't matter one ova how fertile you are or how sexually appealing you become; if you're not in the vicinity of sperm, there is not going to be a walnut in the muffin. No walnut. No muffin.

It seems like Brad always comes home now too late and too tired to have sex. Even if I do manage to ensnare him in my Delilah grasp, he peters out before the job is done. I can't even get him hard half the time; it's like there's no sensitivity in his dick anymore. I consider wrapping his cock in a sheet of sandpaper before giving a hand job. Maybe he'd feel that.

Two weeks later I walk into the nursery and there is a monster rat in the crib staring at me. I scream. Then I hear something behind me and look over at the dollhouse, where, I freak you not, there are forty-plus rats staring at me from inside the dollhouse. From
inside
the dollhouse. It's like they've moved in. I scream even louder when I see them and throw my stack of towels or whatever I'm holding and I run. I refuse to set foot in the house again until an exterminator named Hutch comes out to catch those . . . those . . . things. I'm hysterical. I sit in my car in the driveway, but I never would've stayed if I'd known what the old craggy Vietnam-vet exterminator would come out and say. I would've gotten Valium first. Hutch claims to have caught the big rat I saw in the crib . . . but it'll take him a while to catch the dollhouse ones.