Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Single (32 page)

I stare at the small wisp of steam coming off my hot cup of tea.

“Sacrifices?” I repeat.

“Yes. But there are perks for making sacrifices. Lots of perks. For instance, Mr. Keller has an apartment downtown. He uses this apartment for certain meetings he can't have anywhere else. I accept this fact and he in turn accepts that I buy myself a new car every year, among other things.”

I'm staring at her, trying to comprehend what she's saying, because I think it's possibly the most disgusting thing I've ever heard.

I am in a cuckoo clock.

Ed comes out of the bathroom. “Alrighty then!” he says. “Coffee on?”

“Tea,” Mrs. Keller says.

“Well, I guess anything hot'll do.” I get the strange sensa
tion they've done this all before. I turn to look at Ed, who's always been good to me, always been the relative voice of reason, and I'm praying he'll say something that makes sense. Instead he shrugs. “Got to admit he's doing better than before Hazelden.”

My eyes widen. “Hazelden?”

“He was in rehab,” Mrs. Keller says and sips her tea. “Didn't he tell you?”

Her face seems warped and waxlike. Someone has to wake me up from this nightmare.

“Alcohol in general,” she says, “vodka in particular.”

Ed shakes his head in disgust. “I told him he had to come home and beat it. I told him it was a lousy beverage, for crying out loud! A beverage! Like milk!”

“Ed was traveling while Bradford was incapacitated,” she says. “I don't think he ever fully understood the program.”

“Some program,” he says. “All that twelve-step hooey.”

“The twelve steps work for him,” Mrs. Keller says, and a photographic montage of all the drinks Brad and I have had together starts firing off in my mind.

“Oh baloney,” Ed says. “We admitted we had become powerless to milk and milk had taken control of our lives.
Blah
,
blah
,
blah.
And those damn tokens! Should I give you a prize for every month you don't drink milk? Hell, I should get a thousand prize thingies! I haven't had milk in years!”

“He's lactose-intolerant,” Mrs. Keller says, “but really, Ed, I can't say I appreciate the swearing.”

“Ah, nuts,” he says and stands up. “I'll go check on him.”

My mind is unpinning, it's hard to breathe, I feel like I'm wading into very dark water.

“You're upset,” Mrs. Keller says. “Drink some tea.”

I take a sip, because, why not. I'll try anything to make
this roaring in my ears go away. Brad was in rehab? At Hazelden? That's like a hard-core treatment center somewhere in Minnesota. I think the king of Dubai went there to beat heroin.

“I've got to get out of here,” I say and stand up.

“Now, Jennifer, don't rush. We're all here to support you, dear, and besides, where do you have to go?” She smiles at me pleasantly.

I sit back down.

“I have places to go,” I say, “plenty of places. My mother's, my sister's, my friends'.”

“Yes, yes,” she says, “of course anyone would be happy to have you stay with them for a few days, maybe even a few weeks, but think about it, Jennifer, what about after that? When your anger is gone and your friends are tired of you sleeping on their couch? You have to think about the future. Your friends aren't going to financially support you and neither is your family. Not for forever. Plus, haven't they sort of, oh how do I say it, put in their time already?”

That hurt. Possibly because it's true.

“My point,” she says, “is that even though Bradford isn't perfect, he's willing to support you for the rest of your life, and your children, too. Not just support them, but give them a life you never could give them on your own. Private schools, Ivy League colleges, medical care. Whatever they need they'll have. And think about your family,” she says. “Your father signed a large contract with Keller's, and young Leonard has become the loading-dock foreman.”

“Yes,” I say miserably, “I know.”

I picture my ratty old apartment, my dirty grout.

It's true, I never want to go back there. Never.

“We went to great expense to get Bradford to come home.
We told him we were going to stop supporting him if he didn't come home, go to treatment, start working, and raise a family.”

“Start a family?”

“Oh, yes,” she says. “Getting married was part of the deal. We converted this house just so he could raise children. Added on the third bedroom. We told him we would cut him off completely unless he would abide by our rules. We even gave him a deadline.”

“A deadline?”

“Yes. Be sober and engaged by Valentine's Day this year or else he was on his own. Cut off completely. No more help, no more money, no more bailing him out. We were so worried he wouldn't find a girl in time, but then he took an interest in you, which made Ed terribly happy, as you can imagine, what with you looking like Ada and everything.” She pronounces
Ada
with a sharp
a
, as though she was trying to spit something out of her mouth. “He was always in love with Ada,” she says. “If it were legal, he would have married her.”

I cover my face with my hands. I can't believe any of this.

“You'll understand better when you have children. There gets to be a point when you can't stand the constant worrying and you have to do something drastic. We had to do something drastic with Bradford because he was running around hurting himself. You were the answer to our prayers. Still, I guess we answered some of your prayers too.”

I'm trying to hang on to reality right now, because I feel like I'm hallucinating. My name is Jennifer Johnson. I work at…I don't know where I work anymore. I don't know where I live anymore. I was having a wedding and now my fiancé turns out to be an alcoholic sex addict with religious-zealot parents who are telling me it's all okay.

Mrs. Keller reaches over and puts her thin clawlike hand on top of mine. I stare at the large emerald ring perched on her manicured finger.

“We don't want you running around hurting yourself, either,” she says. “Brad will make this up to you. I promise he will. Just think about your wedding and how happy your family will be. Not just now, but in the future. Just stand back, breathe deep, and look at the possibilities. One little incident like this can't undo a lifetime of opportunity.”

Ed comes out of the bathroom with his arm around Brad, who's mumbling something incoherent. I've never seen him so completely knocked out before. I've seen him drink, slur his speech, and not be able to drive, but this is something else. He looks like he's having a diabetic reaction or something.

“He's all cleaned up,” Ed says heartily, “just needs to sleep.”

They manage to get Brad to the couch and lay him down. Mrs. Keller takes off his shoes and gets a blanket to tuck him in, like a little boy. After he's all arranged they head for the door and tell me to call them in the morning. Mrs. Keller says Brad probably won't remember much of this tomorrow, he usually never does. As she leaves she blows Bradford an air kiss.

“Nighty-night, Prince Charming,” she says.

 

I leave the house early the next morning. I don't want to see Brad. I get into my stupid mammoth Mercedes and go to Macy's and pick up the wedding participant thank-you gifts, little engraved silver letter openers we're giving the caterer, the photographer, the florist, all the people we're already paying to work at our wedding. Mrs. Straubel says we're expected to give them gifts. Unbelievable. Where's my gift for showing up at the wedding?
For wearing in a hot, itchy dress I didn't choose and enduring a church service while standing up? Shouldn't I get something? Like maybe a silver-plated gun so I can shoot myself in the head?

As I'm pulling out of the parking ramp, I accidentally cut off a girl in a rusty old station wagon. I didn't even see her; this car has so many blind spots I might as well be driving a shipping container down the street.

Luckily she slams on her brakes just in time and avoids crunching into me. “Fuck you, rich bitch!” she yells as I roar past.

I look at her in the rearview mirror and catch sight of myself in my dark oversize Prada sunglasses and trim pastel jacket. I realize what it must look like. It must look like a wealthy, bossy, self-important woman just cut her off.

Ha. If she only knew!

I want to tell her, “It's all borrowed, sweetie, it's all an expensive loan,” but I smile at myself instead. I just got called a rich bitch, and a part of me liked it.

At home Brad is sleepily coming down the stairs as I struggle through the door, dropping shopping bags on the kitchen floor.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” I say.

He rubs his head and asks if there's any coffee. “Killer headache,” he says. “The guys really made me hit it hard.”

I stand there staring at him and I can tell by his casual posture and unquestioning expression that he has blacked out last night. At least a major portion of it.

So this is it.

This is when I decide whether to let him have it or to pretend everything is okay. Do I read him the riot act and storm out? Break off the engagement? Call all my friends and family and
tell them the wedding is off? End everything? No more wedding, no more marriage, no more rich bitch? Or do I make him coffee?

These choices we make, they seem so small—they're made in a split second and yet they can have a ripple effect for years.

The doorbell rings.

Brad wanders off with an open robe to answer it. I'm left in the kitchen by myself with my very important thoughts, surrounded by a paper garden of shopping bags.

“Jen?” Brad shouts. “It's for you!”

It's the travel agency's messenger service dropping off our plane tickets and hotel confirmation for the Virgin Islands. That's where we're going on our honeymoon. Our hotel suite has its own pool and mini-waterfall.

I sign the slip and take the package.

I'm about to say something when the phone rings. Brad says he's going to take a shower.

He leaves and I answer the phone, because what else am I going to do?

 

There are perks for keeping quiet. My reward for overlooking Hookergate is a pearl necklace, a yellow Chanel suit, and my own membership at the Country Club. Mrs. Keller sends it all over with a note congratulating me on my upcoming nuptials, which is a word I despise. It reminds me of rupture and nipple. There's also something sinister and sexual about it, like coitus, which makes me wonder if Ma Keller is hoping for a quick grandchild. My mind flashes to that scene in
Rosemary's Baby
when everyone is standing around Mia Farrow copulating with the devil, all anticipating the birth of a new demon seed.

Which makes me think of Trevor.

 

I don't even want to go to my own bachelorette party. We're having high tea at the Grosvenor Mansion. After Brad's big night out with the boys I did consider scratching all my plans and hiring male strippers, but the truth is, I don't want male strippers. I want high tea. I want everyone to wear lovely hats and sit still.

“Are you sure you want me to come?” Christopher says. “I know the Kellers aren't exactly queer-friendly. It's okay if you want me to skip it. I know the head waiter there, I'll just call and tell him to stir Mrs. Keller's Darjeeling with his Earl Grey.”

“Mother Tarantula won't be there,” I say. “You're coming. You have to come. This is my bachelorette party and you're the best girlfriend I have.”

It kills me not to tell Christopher about Brad and the lipstick, but I can't. It's too horrible. He'd probably tie me up in Fendi scarves and ship me to Reykjavik in order to stop me from getting married, and despite everything I don't want to be stopped. I've worked too hard, put too much time in, and invited too many guests to back out. It's vanity that has the real teeth here. Common sense and self-preservation are defenseless against vanity.

My vanity, anyway.

My vanity turns out to be uglier and stronger than I ever imagined.

So, Christopher comes to the Grosvenor Mansion, along with my sister and all my other bridesmaids. All five of them.

We arrive at the big fake stone castle and walk past the manicured English garden and row of British flags. “Welcome to Ye Olde Grosvenor Mansion,” the host says. “Your journey across the pond begins here.” We're shown to our light,
airy table, which is covered with white linens and silver. I'm briefly pleased until someone throws a pink plastic dildo on the table.

“For your honeymoon!” someone shouts. “Hope you don't need it!”

The waiter, who had come up to the table to take our order, sees the dildo, turns on his heel, and walks away.

I'm mortified.

“Give me that!” I snatch it up and hurl the disgusting thing under the table. “Didn't I say no gifts?”

“We all brought gifts,” one of the girls whines. “It's tradition.”

“Fine,” I say, “but nothing disgusting! We're having high tea, for freak's sake!”

“Okay, open this one,” somebody says and passes over a shiny pink metallic bag. I don't know what's in it, but I already hate the wrapping.

I try to smile as I dig in the pink tissue paper, and I pull out a big, hairy latex vagina, which starts vibrating in my hand.

“It's for Brad, for when you're tired!”

Everyone breaks apart laughing until I throw it back in the bag as hard as I can and it stops moving. “Listen,” I hiss, “you can all drop to the lowest common denominator if you want, but you're not dragging me with you.”

Silence. Everyone just sort of looks at each other. The waiter comes back and I tell him we want the Queen Elizabeth high tea all around and then I give him Mrs. Keller's credit card. When he leaves the table is silent. Everyone looks nervous and worried. That's fine by me. I'm starting to get the hang of Mrs. Keller's intimidation deal. It's better to have people scared of you and quiet than acting like monkeys and ruining everything.