Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Single (13 page)

I'm alone at a bar with a pity elf.

I decide I'll wait here until the bar closes. It's simple math. The pain of having Brad stand me up is far greater than the humiliation of having him be late, even five hours late. I'd much rather have him be late than not show at all. I can't even mathematically quantify how much more I want one more than the other.

I suck ferociously on my elf, but I don't know if there's enough liquor in this world to get me through this. I break down and call Christopher. No answer.

Brad is fifty-five minutes late.

Right now I don't care if he ever comes. The hearty midwestern girls reappear. They're going outside for a smoke.

“You're still here?” one asks. “You want to come join us?”

I tell them no thank you, and point to my elf and say I'm not
really alone. They all laugh and I just want to die. I wonder if it's quicker to kill myself by ramming the elf hat repeatedly into my eye or electrocuting myself with the margarita blender.

Then I hear Brad's voice. “Why are you French kissing a leprechaun?”

He looks confused. “How long have you been here?”

I shrug.

“Didn't we say nine?” he asks. “I changed it and…my secretary was supposed to tell you.

I shrug. All I'm thinking is
Thank God I didn't leave
.

“So why were you making out with this leprechaun?” he asks again.

“It's an
elf
.”

“That's a leprechaun. He's holding a shillelagh.”

“It's an elf.”

“Well, whatever you were doing to him,” Brad says, “it looked like it belonged on some kind of porn blooper reel.”

“Then that's what we'll call him—Blooper the Elf.” Brad laughs and I feel fantastic and sick all at the same time.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“No, this is nerve-wracking. I just want it to be over.”

Brad smiles. “You really say the worst things to me.”

“It's true.”

“Well, I love it,” he says and helps me up. He asks me where I want to go.

“For real, for real?” I ask, feeling a little wobbly.

He nods.

“I want to get chilidogs,” I say, “really cheap, greasy chilidogs and eat them by the river.”

His eyes widen the slightest bit and then he throws his arms up. “Then that's what we're going to do,” he says. “Let's go.”

We march outside to the valet stand and get inside his car (a dark blue BMW 5 series, not that I noticed), and we drive to Dairy Queen, where we load up on every type of junk food possible—chilidogs, french fries, cheeseburgers, onion rings, caramel sundaes, Chocolate Xtreme Blizzards, and paper sacks packed with other things too disgusting and wonderful to mention.

I show him where you can get on the old defunct railroad tracks and drive across the river. We park directly over the black swirling waters of the Mississippi River, which is my favorite place in the world to be.

“This is disgusting,” he says, shoving a big bite of chilidog in his mouth.

“I know. My mother never let us have junk food, so now it's all I ever want.”

“Where are the cheese poppers?”

“Blooper ate them.” I hook a thumb at the ceramic elf seat-belted into the backseat. We liberated him from the bar.

After we're done shoving about six thousand calories each in our mouths, we sit back, relaxed, and let that I-just-ate-something-terrible-for-me malaise sweep over us. It's like a coma, but you can still talk.

“Tell me something about yourself no one else knows,” Brad says.

I think for a second. I want to tell him something true.

“I wanted to be an old black man when I was in high school,” I say, “a blues singer like Muddy Waters. A Delta blues musician.”

Brad looks concerned.

I keep going. I don't know why, I've never told anyone else. Not even Christopher. “I wanted to be seventy and wear long-sleeve plaid shirts with suspenders and porkpie hats. I even had a name picked out for myself.”

“What was it?”

“Catfish Johnson.”

There's a moment of horrible silence in which I feel he must be calculating the immense geekiness of my very sad personage…and then he bursts out laughing. A giant belly laugh. He hammers the dashboard and holds his stomach.

This goes on for some time.

“Catfish Johnson?” he says, tears in his eyes. “You're the whitest woman on the face of the earth.”

“But I have soul. Even a white woman can have soul.”

He wipes the tears away and nods.

“Well, white woman,” he says. “Wanna dance?”

I do. I really do want to dance.

We walk to Nye's Polonaise Room across the river and I carry Blooper.

“Why not leave him in the car?” Brad asks.

“I can't believe you'd even ask me that. What if someone stole him?”

“We stole him.”

“Not the point,” I say and charge onward.

Inside the hot and sweaty bar the band is in full swing. The place is packed to capacity with every type of cold-weather citizen. Old men, art students, housewives, republicans, Union members, steelworkers, Goth kids, retro-junkies all drinking and dancing side by side.

We set Blooper on the bar and order Leinenkugels. Then the band starts playing a fast accordion version of “Funkytown.” Brad says he's sorry, but he has to dance. I can tell I've definitely had too much to drink, because I agree to dance, too. I don't care. He's insanely funny, a really crazy dancer with leaps and jumps and weird jerking. I think he's trying to be weird on purpose, which is adorable. For sure no one's looking at my crappy
dancing when he's on the floor. I dance so hard I take off my shoes and dance in my stockings. Brad grabs me by the waist and twirls me around, crashing me into the bathroom door. It's the best night of my life.

Brad grabs Blooper and starts to dance with him, which makes everyone laugh. He does this tango thing, and then the people make a circle and Brad pretends to moonwalk while he spins Blooper on the floor.

“Surf him!” someone shouts, “surf him!” and up goes a cheer as Blooper is passed overhead from hand to hand across the bar. He goes full circle around the room, some women stopping to kiss him or take a picture with him, and he comes back to us relatively unharmed.

“He's back!” Brad says. “You filthy elf!”

“You better ground him for staying out so late,” I say.

“I had a stern talk with him,” Brad says, “and he's gay.”

“He's what?”

“He's gay. Our elf is gay.”

“Aren't they supposed to be gay?”

Brad smacks himself on the forehead and kisses Blooper on the mouth. We dance for four or five songs more and then I tell him I'm hot. I'm beyond hot. I'm roasting.

Outside the cold air feels fantastic. I don't even put my coat on. I'm so hot I just want to come out here and steam in the chilly night air. I lean up against the building and put the hot palm of my hand on the cold bricks. Even though I feel tipsy and the world seems a little blurry, that cold brick seems more real to me than anything I've ever felt before. It feels solid and sure and safe. There is something so different about this moment. It's like I'm suspended above the scene, floating and looking down on everything. It's because, for the first time I can remember, I'm happy. I'm not watching happy people on TV or in the real
world walking past me, I'm actually one of them. I'm a happy person and I really don't know what to do about it.

“There you are!” Brad says, handing me my beer. “You're not cold?”

“I got so hot dancing,” I say. “Look, I'm steaming.” I hold my hand out for him to see the slight vapor drifting off my skin.

“Come here,” he says and puts his hand on the back of my neck. He pulls my face close to his. We kiss. We're the couple kissing outside the bar. That's us.
Oh, Brad? He loves kissing me on the street. I don't know what it is
,
some Casablanca complex or something but if we're outdoors
,
I can't keep his hands off me.

I pull back. “I like you,” I say, trying not to slur my words.

He brushes a strand of hair off my face. “I like you, too.” He kisses me on the cheek.

“It's not easy to find guys you like,” I say, “guys who eat disgusting chilidogs and take good care of your elf.”

“I thought guys were a dime a dozen,” he says.

“Water, water everywhere,” I sigh, “but not a drop to drink.”

“Is that right?”

“I don't want any guy. I want the right guy.”

“And who is the right guy?”

“Oh, I don't know.” I kiss him.

Brad, Blooper, and I head out into the cold night and I'm stalling because I don't know if I should ask Brad back to my house or not. I totally want to; I've been staring at him all night and I'm ready to melt, but Christopher wouldn't shut up about not sleeping with him right away. I think about texting my little gay bee for counsel when Brad turns to me and says, “So, my place or yours?” and I feel like I'm standing in front of the Cinnabon counter. Do you want to be a big slut or a superbig slut? A superbig slut comes with more icing.

“My place,” I say.

Now he probably thinks I'm desperate and clingy, which I am.

“Good,” he says. I smile but then it hits me—help me, sweet precious baby Jesus, Brad Keller is coming home with me.

 

We get to my apartment and I set Blooper down next to the sassy working girl figurine. Sorry missy, but he's my new favorite possession.

“This place is something!” Brad says, looking around my kitchen in wonder. “Where'd you get all this stuff?”

“I steal a lot,” I say. “You know, from children and toy stores and stuff.”

He laughs. “Have anything to drink?”

“Maybe wine?” I look in the fridge.

“Red or white?” he asks and wanders out to my living room.

“Um, box,” I say, picking up a Franzia party ball of pink wine. “I think it's pink.”

I pour two glasses.
Just stay calm
,
just stay calm
,
just stay calm
. I'm so nervous I feel remarkably sober, given how much alcohol I've already had. That's not good. I'm not going to be able to do what it is I think we're about to do unless I am at least buzzed. I peek to see if he's looking and then quickly slam my glass and refill it. No need to show him I'm a hobby alcoholic quite yet.

I walk out into the living room, expecting Brad to be reclining on my rose chaise lounge, hopefully admiring the irony of my oversize orange kidney bean ashtray or the wit of my Zippy the Chimp poster, but he isn't there. “Where'd you go?” I say in a mild panic. There are so many things I wouldn't want him to discover. The dirty underwear on my dresser, the cat turd museum behind the couch, or the Shaun Cassidy poster in my closet, just to name a few.

He's around the corner, gazing into my little office, which is
really just a big second closet, and I realize my stupid “manifestation vision board” is propped up on my desk. It's a big cork-board covered with images of everything I want to attract into my life. There's a couple kissing on a rowboat, a big house on a lake, a private jet midflight as it banks and bisects the setting sun. It's a vision board, not a reality board.

“Whoops!” I say and tug him back by the belt loop into the living room. I shut the white folding door. “It's a mess in there,” I say. “Usually it's neat as a pin.”

“Was that a picture of a baby,” he asks, “above your desk?”

“My cousin!”

He frowns. “It looked like it was cut out of a magazine.”

“Here's your wine,” I say, “straight out of the box!”

He takes the glass and I lead him to the couch. I turn on some music and sit down next to him, our knees almost touching, but not quite. I'm feeling pretty good, and the wine is finally starting to warm me up. “When I was about eight years old,” I say, “my dad took me to this indoor amusement park. I don't even remember where it was. It's gone now, but it was like one of those carnivals that's indoors and open all year. My dad always went on rides with me, and this one time he must have gone on a dozen roller-coaster rides, but I really wanted to go on the Octopus. That's the one where you get in a cab and it spins like crazy and tilts up and down.”

Brad kisses my neck.

“My dad said his stomach was acting up. He told me I could go by myself, but I'd never been on a ride by myself. He said I could do it. Hailey was too scared. I said I wasn't scared and I took my ticket and got in line, but the longer I stood in line and the closer I got to the ride, the more scared I got. When I finally got up to the front, I thought there was no way I could do it. I was terrified. All those lights and kids yelling. There was a
boy in front of me, a little bit older and about a foot taller. He must have seen me worrying or something. He asked me if I was scared and I said yes. I told him I was scared I'd fall out of the car. I'll never forget it, he just looked at me and said, “‘Don't worry, if you fall, I'll jump in and catch you.'”

I look down at my wineglass. “It was something about how he said it. I guess in one way or another, I've been looking for that little boy ever since.” Brad picks up my hand and kisses the pads of my fingertips.

“What if white knights exist?” he asks.

“I don't know. What if they do?”

“Would you let someone save you?”

“No,” I say, “but I'd certainly go for a ride.”

“I think I'd like to take you on one,” he says, and that's about the time I decided I would make it my life's mission to marry Brad Keller.

I get up and lead him to the bedroom.

 

The next morning I wake up alone with Mrs. Biggles standing on my stomach, her paws painfully kneading my abdomen. Brad is gone, and I have a monster hangover.