Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Single (28 page)

 

I throw myself into work. I show up early and I stay late. I volunteer for shit jobs nobody wants just to buy a few more hours at the office every day. My motives are to maintain mental health and keep out of Mrs. Keller's hair and off Brad's bad side, just until the wedding's over, but other people in the office think otherwise.

Ashley is really starting to fray at the edges.

“Are you trying to make me look bad?” she says, holding up the sheet of brainstorming ideas I gave her. “Because I know a thing or two about making people look bad, and I don't think you want to go there with me.”

I tell her I was just goofing around and jotted down some ideas. “It's no big deal,” I say. “Throw them out if you want to. I was just trying to help.”

She stares at me as if trying to decipher my maniacal strategy and storms off. This won't be the end of it. Ted tries to cheer me up, and it's too bad I can't open up to him because Ted probably has it the worst. He has to put up with me the most. When you do the actual math, I spend more waking hours with him than anyone else. At least he's joking around with me again. A little. We just stay away from certain topics.

We have to put the finishing touches on our print ad for the
HOUSEBOUND
sale, Keller's annual housewares sale, where we try to unload out-of-date vacuum cleaners, microwaves, electric hair removal systems, and daiquiri blenders. Keller's doesn't have that big of a housewares section; the whole department
takes up just half the basement, so we don't have that many sales and we pretty much suck at marketing them. Plus, we're two weeks behind on ad copy, mostly because my phone won't stop ringing. I can't get any real work done while people are calling me to double-check toothpick counts.

Ted sits next to me at my desk with the
HOUSEBOUND
files open and my phone rings.

“Jen? It's Sarah. Listen. I got Trevor fitted for his pantaloons, but he's so busy down there always pulling on his thing, I'm thinking we should go one size bigger. Then I can stuff something in there so he can't get at it and he won't walk down the aisle like a monkey tugging on his thing. I don't know what I'll stuff down there, maybe like a baseball glove or stuffed animals or something. Trevor! Leave that dog alone! Trevor!”

I shut my eyes. “Pantaloons?”

“I gotta go,” she says. “Now he's tugging on the dog's thing.”

“Sarah, what pantaloons?”

“Nana made him ring bearer,” she says. “Trevor! Get off of him! Good cripes. I gotta go. Bye.”

I hang up and cover my face.

“You really don't have to work on the copy,” Ted says. “You know, if you're busy or whatever.”

“No,” I say, “I want to. It's like we're in the home stretch here.”

“Then you're free,” he says.

“Yeah, then I'm free. Really, really super-freaking free.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

Ted hands me the Keller's ads set to run in Saturday's paper. The first ad is promoting our
TYKE-TASTIC
! section, furniture and room accents for toddlers. Little race-car beds and canopied princess chaise lounges, that kind of thing. This particular ad
features a little blond girl in overalls sitting with her teddy bear on a miniature leopard-skin couch.

“Why would we sell a miniature leopard-skin couch?”

“Dunno,” he says.

“I mean, why would a little kid need a leopard-skin anything? What kind of copy are we supposed to write? Looks like it's time for baby's first porn shoot? Tricks really are for kids?” I bat the paper away so he hands me the next one, which has a picture of a comely woman whose ethnicity is completely up for grabs. She has cinnamon-colored skin and light hazel eyes. Her hair is neither blond nor brown, but a silky butterscotch that shines as she laughs and holds the handle of a Devex five-series vacuum cleaner. The copy beneath her airbrushed smile is in bold white quotes. It says: “I need a vacuum cleaner that's as strong as I am!” I look at Ted and hand it back. “That's what we're going with?”

“Ashley wrote it.”

“But what does that even mean? A woman should compare herself to an appliance? Her vacuum cleaner has to take as much shit as she does? I don't believe it. That's like saying this woman wants a vacuum cleaner that will suck up all the crap in the world and hold on to it just like she does! Like consuming other people's garbage is her job!”

Tears begin to brim. Shit. I hate crying in the office

“Okay.” Ted frowns. “Are we still talking about the copy?”

“Yes, we're talking about the copy! I want to know why all men assume women are supposed to take their shit and their mother's shit!”

“Um, okay,” Ted says, “I think I'll mosey along now. I'd love to stay for the ‘I hate men' speech, but I need to catch this online seminar on keeping your bitch in line.”

“I don't hate men! Not real men.”

“No,” Ted says, backing away, his eyes wide open, “no, please, not the ‘real man' speech.”

“I will not be denied my real man speech,” I tell him, “because real men aren't afraid to say ‘I love you.' They respect women and they go down on their girlfriends after they get blowjobs.”

“Hey,” Ted says, “I always go down on girls. That's just like company policy with me.”

“A real man is emotionally generous.”

“And financially generous,” Ted adds.

“Yes. And they do dishes and they like their mother and they have raw pirate sex with you.”

“Have you actually met one of these freaks?” he asks. “Because I think maybe—maybe you had a seizure while you were watching the Lifetime channel again.”

Normally I'd be joking right along with him, but today I can't. I don't know why I'm acting like this. Why everything is sounding alarms in my head and I feel like I can't breathe. I feel hot tears ready to escape. So I burst into the bathroom, where I try to sob silently into a wad of toilet paper, which disintegrates into bits in my hands. I guess what I really need is to find a toilet paper that's as strong as I am.

 

Mrs. Keller sets up my first appointment with the wedding planner. “You'll have no interference from me!” she says, smiling tightly. “I trust Mrs. Straubel completely. I know you'll be fine. You tell her what you want, and we'll tweak it all later. I gave Brad my solemn oath I wouldn't monopolize your big day!”

Notice she didn't say she trusted me completely.

I go to the wedding planner's shop, which is in a depressing strip mall in Rosedale. As I push open the glass door a little brass bell rings, and the smell of spiced oranges hangs thick against a wall of framed photographs showing happily married couples.
So many happy couples, it seems impossible anyone would ever be alone. Some are kissing, some are gazing intently at each other, and some are waving as they sprint down the chapel steps while being pelted with rice.

“Right there!” a woman in back says. “Have a seat and help yourself to a cup of tea!”

I obediently sit down on the prickly wicker couch and try to pour myself some tea, but I knock the cup over and send it sailing onto the floor. A stocky gray-haired lady comes barreling out of a back room a few minutes later, her solid body neatly packed into a heavy blue wool suit, her thick legs opaque in ivory stockings, and her formidable feet anchored by black orthopedics. She reminds me of senior-citizen centers and denture commercials and diabetes medical home delivery services. Functional, practical, and creepy. She moves pretty fast for a bigger woman and she seems very harried and annoyed as she plops down in the big wicker chair beside me.

“I'm Mrs. Straubel,” she says, offering me a terse handshake. She grimaces/smiles at me and there's a tiny bit of spinach in her teeth. Why does Mrs. Keller, who could use anyone, use her? Then I spy the Lutheran cross on the wall. That's why.

Mrs. Straubel speaks Jesus fish.

“My apologies again!” she says, frumping and fah-lumping around in her seat, trying to get comfortable. “I was on the phone with
Bridezillas
. Can you believe that? That television show about the wacko brides? They called me and asked if I had any clients who were, you know”—she rolls her eyes around clockwise in her head—“cuckoo! I told them even if I did I wouldn't be telling them that over the phone. That's not information you hand out. Sure, I've seen plenty of breakdowns and even some breakups, but that's not the kind of thing most people
want filmed.” She gives me a wink. “Gee, sweetie,” she says, “you want some water?”

I say no thank you.

“Honey, I've done a million and ten weddings,” she says. “Don't you worry. I've seen it all. Fire, floods, tornados, food poisoning, grooms that cork off in the middle of the service, jilted lovers who try to break up the ceremony, the works. Don't you worry, you leave the worrying to me. That's my job. Your day will be perfect.”

I feel somehow she might be filming this.

“We handle everything down to the last detail,” she says. “Now, what theme were you thinking of?”

“I don't want anything fancy,” I say. “I wrote that on my form. I just want it simple.”

“You know, Mrs. Keller loves themes,” she says. “Biblical themes. We did Sarah's wedding and they went with a Jonah and the whale theme.”

“I don't really want a theme.”

“It was so cute. They had aqua bridesmaid dresses and pink coral centerpieces. Mrs. Keller loved it. I think she still has a piece of coral on her mantel.”

I don't know what to say. I don't want to be difficult and I know Mrs. Keller has a very particular way of doing things, but I tell Mrs. Straubel I'd like something more refined. “Well,” she says, taking the pen out of her hair and snapping open her FranklinCovey day planner. Of course. “It's your day, and we'll do it any way you like. Let's just look at your intake form.” When she says intake form, I'm hit with the image of a long line of women in white wedding dresses queuing up to go to jail. Bride jail, where they recite vows and string pearls all day.

“Well, this is cute,” she says. “You wrote ‘fun' here. See that? We can do a lot with that.”

“I meant, like, not too serious.”

“You bet. Now let me ask you something, Jennifer, and this is important. Would you say you have a fun relationship? A relationship where you like to have fun? Now be honest, there's no right way or wrong way to have a relationship.”

“Well, you haven't seen some of my relationships!” I laugh until I catch her stony face. “No, um, sure we do. Brad and I are very fun!” My cheeks feel like hot plates set on low.

“Very
fun!” Mrs. Straubel says, as though I've finally answered a question correctly, and she writes something on the form. What could she possibly be writing?
Get whoopee cushions
?

“And, Jennifer,” she says, “would you say the two of you have modern personalities?”

I have no idea what she means. “Well, we're not old-fashioned,” I say.

“Good.” She checks something off her list. “Modern. Good. We're almost done here, hang in there, kiddo, because I know the wedding planning process is an ordeal. Believe me, I completely understand. It's exhausting and frightening and you have no idea what's going to happen next, right?”

I stare blankly.

“Okay,” she says and shifts in her chair. “God, my sciatica is killing me. Ever have sciatica? You're probably too young. Just you wait, it's like someone's carving at the back of your leg with a meat cleaver. Strikes out of the blue. Sitting in this chair feels like I'm locked in one of those Viking iron maidens!”

Now why would she say Viking? Does she know I'm Danish? Is she messing with me?

“I had a bride who got sciatica the actual day of her wedding.” Mrs. Straubel sighs. “What a tragedy. She had to say her vows sitting in a chair with her husband squatting next to
her. Not a pretty sight. No one should have to squat at their wedding.” She takes a big breath and blows the thin gray bangs off her forehead. “All right, back to the salt mines, where were we?”

I can hear the fan in the back hall running. I finally say, “We were at fun.”

“Right! Fun. Okay, based on your answers, Jennifer, I'd like you to look at these.” She pulls out a heavy white photo album and hands it over. “Now look at page fifteen there. You'll see something I think might fit very nicely.”

She shows me a picture of the manger scene from the Bible. Baby Jesus is in his little hay manger and his plaster parents are watching over him while the three wise men look on. Also, there's a camel. “I don't think I get it,” I say, hoping she won't be offended.

“Your wedding theme could be Mary and Joseph,” Mrs. Straubel says, “the most popular couple in the Bible!”

“Popular?”

“Well, they gave birth to Christ, didn't they? It would be so cute. We could put little haystacks on the tables with incense and myrrh, only not real incense. Mrs. Keller has allergies.”

I shift around in my chair.

“I don't know,” I say, “I still don't think I get it.”

I wonder if sciatica is viral, because I feel like I'm catching it. I feel like someone's hacking at me with a meat cleaver, only it isn't my legs, it's all over.

“Now you have to trust me,” Mrs. Straubel says. “I know what your mother-in-law likes.”

“Wow. Mother-in-law. No one's called her that before.”

“Well, you better get used to it,” she says grimly.

I nod. I'll never get used to it. It's too scary, too menacing. Too overpowering. If Mrs. Keller becomes my mother-in-law,
I don't know what will become of me. Who will I be then? Girl servant? Tyrant-in-training? I feel like my clothing is shrinking and cutting off circulation to my wrists, neck, and ankles. I can't breathe. My momentary show of irritation has dissipated and now I am dry and wind-worn, ready to be blown away by the slightest breeze.