Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Single

by Heather McElhatton

  I thought dating a Keller executive might make my current position a little easier, but no. If anything, the opposite is true. I hear whispers and snickering when I walk by. Women who used to be nice to me aren’t anymore, and one morning in my mailbox is an interoffice envelope with a xeroxed article inside. “Why Affairs in the Workplace Are Inappropriate” is the title. The sender is marked out with a black pen.

  Ashley calls me into her office and tosses the couch-sale script on her desk. “What’s this?” she asks. I never know how to answer these rhetorical questions; I never even know if they’re rhetorical, so I usually play dumb.

  “That’s the couch-sale script,” I say.

  “I know it’s the couch-sale script,” she snaps. “I just don’t get it.”

  I try to explain. “Well, it’s an announcer, a Twilight Zone ‘Rod Serling’ character, and he—”

  “I can read the script,” she says. “I know what it says. I can read, you know.”

  “Yes”—I nod—“you can read.”

  “You’re not the only smart cookie around here, Miss Cinnabon.”

  I stare at her awards on the wall. Every one of them is from Keller’s.

  She tells me to sit down and I sit on the very edge of her couch. “Jen, I’m worried we have a problem,” she says.

  “We do?”

  “Yes. You haven’t been around lately. You’ve taken several half-days and you leave early a lot. People notice.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “And your work,” she says, standing up, “I don’t know. There seems to be something missing. The quality is different, like part of you isn’t here. A big part.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “Is something bothering you?” She perches on the corner of her desk. “Something at home maybe?”

  “No,” I say, “nothing like that.”

  “Dating trouble?” She crosses her arms.

  I raise my eyebrows the slightest degree. So this is what she’s after; she wants to know about my relationship with Brad, which I’m very careful not to talk about in the office. Nobody asks me about it either. It’s the elephant in the room that we ignore. Looking at Ashley’s awards, I feel an odd sensation I don’t immediately recognize. It’s not happiness, or kindness—it’s something like power.

  My inner analyzer goes to work and I feel even a little stronger. This is one place I have everyone beat. A lot of people can beat me at a lot of things, but no one can beat me at finding potential disasters. Ashley has probably only heard rumblings about Brad and me, and she doesn’t know where we stand. She probably wants to fire me and is checking to see if she can. These are simple eighth-grade social skills. Right now she’s trying to figure out whether to distance herself from me, or become my best friend.

  “I am negotiating a personal challenge,” I confess.

  “Really?”

  “I’m learning how to balance work and a relationship at the same time.”

  She pauses. “Relationship?”

  “You’re so good at these things,” I say, standing up, “juggling your family and your career. I don’t know how you do it. We really should have a girls’ coffee sometime and you should give me some pointers, because frankly”—I put my hand on her arm—“I think this is the one.”

  I have to borrow money from my parents. Well, from my dad actually, because no way was I going to ask my mom. It’s his money, anyway; he’s worked at the insurance agency his entire life. How did Mom get such a good deal going? Where are men like my dad now? The ones who are breadwinners and come home from work and put on their slippers and smoke a pipe silently while reading the paper? All you had to do was make them a Manhattan and serve a hot casserole every night, maybe have a kid every two and a half years and that was that. Your bills were paid.

  “I’ll pay you back, Dad,” I say, standing in his den. “Promise.”

  “Don’t worry about it, sweetie,” he says. “My pleasure.”

  “Really. I will. I just need some money to…”

  He holds up his hand to stop me. “You’re a grown woman,” he says. “You do what you want with it.”

  “I just have some new expenses. That’s all.”

  He looks up at me. “You’re all right, though?”

  “Yes. It’s nothing bad. I don’t need a doctor or anything.”

  “Well, good,” he says, going back to his paper. “Your mother would enjoy someone in the family getting a disease too much.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” I kiss him on the head. He smells like tobacco and lime aftershave and love. I wish I could ask him a few things about men, but it isn’t really like that between us. I’m just glad he’s still here, braving the den.

  Of course the money he gives me is gone in an instant. Already spent. My spending has gone way up, which is weird because even though I grease palms and sneak tips, Brad pays for absolutely everything. He has seriously never even let me get near a check. It could be because I’ve been buying a lot more outfits and more expensive makeup and even more expensive hydrating lotions. I don’t care how much a new face lotion costs, I’ll try it, because, let’s face it, after a certain age, it’s all about hydration.

  I even got an expensive personalized “love Tarot reading” online for eighty bucks. Stupid, I know, especially since it told me Brad and I are totally wrong for each other. If I could just calm down about him, get comfortable, not feel so jumpy about him leaving me for another girl, maybe I would spend less. But how can I spend less when he may be the last living breadwinner in America? A man who would gladly and easily pay all his wife’s bills? When am I going to meet another one of those in Minnesota?

  I’m not. That’s when.

  I just need to balance my expenses more. Cut down on food and gas. Maybe drag the Weber grill into my living room and heat my apartment with a small, ongoing fire. I have to do something, cut back somewhere, but where? I tried to start one of those bill-paying programs that track where your money goes and generate a morbid-looking pie chart so you can see where you can economize, but after I entered all my line items, the pie chart didn’t say much of anything. Only that eighty-five percent of my income was going to nonessential items, which is ridiculous.

  Christopher is getting really irritated with me. “Are we ever going to hang out again?” he asks, “or has Lard Boy taken over your life?”

  “Don’t call him that,” I say. “He’s gained a little weight since we started dating. So what? Vogue says it’s normal to put on weight if you’re in a happy relationship.”

  “You’d think with all his money he could pay someone to suck it out.”

  “That’s mean.”

  “He’s mean.” Christopher sniffs. “He’s got you running all over town doing his errands like some errand girl, only he isn’t paying you. You’re just going broke dressing up for him.”

  “I like helping him! He just moved here and he’s under all this pressure. His whole family is watching him to see how he does. So what if I pick up his dry cleaning from time to time?”

  “And you pick up his groceries and his new stereo system and his hemorrhoid cream.”

  “Just stop! It’s normal to help your boyfriend.”

  “Please. You don’t even know if he is your boyfriend.”

  “I do so. We hang out together all the time.”

  “Wow,” he says, rolling his eyes. “That settles it. You’re as good as Matlock.”

  Of course I have no idea if Brad’s my boyfriend. None whatsoever. I mean, I think he is; we spend enough time together that he seems to be. He already gave me keys to his house. I even drive his car sometimes. I know it’s only been a few weeks, but doesn’t that sound like a girlfriend?

  “Did he give you front door keys or back door keys?”

  “Back door, but we only use the back door!”

  I decide to be brave and ask Brad directly. We’re always together, so I can ask him if we’re a couple, right? Sure I can. Just play it cool. No big de
al. I get my nails and hair done and then buy salmon with dill sauce at the gourmet counter, which I say I cooked for him, as I serve it up by candlelight in the sexiest dress I own.

  No big deal at all.

  “That was just delicious, babe,” he says, tossing his napkin on the table and unbuttoning the top of his pants. “Best yet, light and tasty. Perfect after work. Work was a killer today.”

  “Was it?”

  “Dad has been on me all week. God. The guy’s going to retire next year, he’s got to let go of some control. You know? He’s a control freak.”

  “Ed’s retiring?”

  “That’s off the record,” he says, “but yeah. And if I play my cards right, you’re looking at the new store president.”

  “Very nice,” I say. “Want some dessert? Pumpkin pie.”

  “Let me digest. Damn, that was a good dinner. You spoil me.”

  “Thanks, sweetie,” I say, picking up my wineglass and gently swirling the expensive pinot noir I bought. “I just wanted to know if—God, this is so stupid.”

  “What?”

  “No, I mean it’s no big deal either way. I just wanted to know if, you know. About you and me. About us.”

  He leans back. “Am I in trouble?”

  “No! I mean, it’s just that I was at dinner at my mom’s house and Hailey asked me if you were, you know, if you were my boyfriend.”

  Brad doesn’t say anything. I can feel the deck chairs sliding as the ship begins to tank.

  “I mean, I don’t care.” I say. “No, not that I don’t care, just, I didn’t know what to tell her, you know?” Brad picks up his wineglass and takes a sip. He seems to be thinking. Thinking of what? Of how to profess his undying love? Of how to politely tell me he’s dating thirty girls right now and can’t possibly commit to just one?

  “I wish you’d say something.” I laugh. “You look so serious.”

  “No,” he says, “not serious. Preoccupied I guess. Work and everything.”

  This is not going the way I planned at all. I get up and clear the dishes. If he had two IQ points to put together in his head he would follow me into the kitchen and tell me I’m his girlfriend. Kiss me at least, but no, nothing.

  I shovel out two pieces of pumpkin pie onto hand-painted dessert plates and bring them back to the dining room, where Brad is still staring pensively at his wine.

  “Here,” I say, dumping a plate in front of him. “I didn’t bake it.”

  “Sorry if I seem out of it,” he says, and my heart catches. “The thing is, the board still has to vote. About the presidency. About my position. It’s sort of an all-or-nothing deal.”

  The presidency? Here I slave all week getting ready for this dinner and he can’t even look me in the eye? I take an angry bite of pie and that’s when I realize we’re sitting at the Brownville high-gloss black dining room table I saw when he first asked me out. I feel sick. I’m not his girlfriend, I’m his cook. His maid. His personal assistant.

  “You talk about work too much,” I say with whipped cream in my mouth. I’m stabbing at my dessert like I’m checking to see if it’s dead.

  “Yeah,” Brad sighs. “Hannah says that, too.”

  I swallow. “Who?”

  “My ex-girlfriend.”

  “Your ex-girlfriend? Which ex-girlfriend? You still talk to your ex-girlfriend?”

  “Why?” he asks. “Is that bad?”

  “You said, ‘Hannah says that, too.’ Present tense. You still talk to your ex-girlfriend?”

  “Well, yeah, we’re friends.”

  “Friends?”

  “Don’t you talk to your ex-boyfriends?”

  “Nope. Can’t say that I do, but it’s great you talk to yours and you get advice from her even! That’s super.”

  “Jesus, you’re mad.” He sighs.

  “I’m not mad.” I’m actually furious. “I think I’ll go home now. To my house.”

  He rolls his eyes.

  “You just rolled your eyes!” I point at his face. “Scientists say that is the number-one indicator that a couple will not stay together. The number-one indicator!” I cross my arms and refuse to speak.

  We sit there in silence until I can’t take it anymore. “So her name is Hannah?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “Lovely.”

  He shuts his eyes. “Jesus.”

  “It’s none of my business, Brad. It’s your life. I don’t even know if you’re my boyfriend. So you talk to whoever you want to.”

  “Come on. All I said was she agreed with you, that I talk too much about work!”

  “You never even mentioned this Hannah person before.”

  “We only lived together for like six months before she broke up with me. It totally wasn’t going to—”

  My eyes open wide. “What!?”

  His eyes open wide. “What?”

  “You lived together? She broke up with you?” My head is reeling. “You never told me you lived with anybody. You never told me that!”

  “I thought I did.”

  “No, I would most certainly remember you living with someone.”

  “It was four years ago! Before I went to China!”

  “Before you went to China? I didn’t know you went to China.”

  “Well, there you go,” he says, frustrated. “I went to China. I took a three-month vacation. Sabbatical. Whatever you want to call it.”

  I think about this for a minute. Something doesn’t seem right. Something seems most definitely wrong. “Wait a minute,” I say. “Did you go to China because of her? Like to get away from the pain or something?”

  He shrugs.

  I glare at him. “You lived with someone who broke your heart and you had to go to China to get over her. Nice. I’m glad you enjoyed the salmon.”

  “Maybe you should go,” he says.

  I feel tears welling up in my eyes.

  “Fine,” I say. “I’ll go and why don’t you go back to China! Go get over your soul mate ex-girlfriend you still talk to.”

  Then he actually gets up and leaves the room. I stand there, speechless. Humiliated. I open my heart and he leaves? I will never speak to him again as long as I live.

  I storm out to my car. He doesn’t even come out after me. I just drive away in the night, alone and unloved, and certainly not anybody’s girlfriend. I’m just me.

  Chubby, boring Jennifer Johnson.

  I don’t understand what I did wrong. Am I too picky? Is that it? Should I have settled, like every other woman I know? I have sat through more weddings where I knew for a fact the groom had a drinking problem or more than one affair under his belt or even a violent temper from time to time and still every bride was ecstatic. White dress, rosy cheeks, happy parents, successful life story. Brother. Is it that important to land a man?

  I should just focus on my life and me, on making my world better. I really need to clean everything. More than just the junk drawers. I need to scrub, boil, and disinfect everything in my entire place. I make a list of things to buy even though I probably shouldn’t buy anything right now. I’m not really a “budget” person—in fact I really don’t know how much I have in my checking account, I just use my cash card for what I want and hope for the best. I know that’s bad, but if I’m overdrawn there’s nothing I can do until my next paycheck, and looking at the negative numbers in my bank account is only going to depress me.

  By midnight I’ve left four messages on Brad’s phone. The first one was just a sniffle and some weepy noises. The second, I was angry and told him two can play the flirt-with-others game. The third, I apologized for the second. And the last message was about ten minutes long and I don’t really remember what I said, but regretted saying it.

  Christopher says he’s going to come chop my hands off if I don’t stop calling Brad. “Just leave Fatty Glumpkin alone!” he says.

  “I can’t believe I’m such an idiot,” I sob into the phone. “I really think he’s going to break up with me!”

 
; “Maybe he will and maybe he won’t. Maybe you should break up with him for being an emotionally bankrupt asshole.”

  “I ruined everything.”

  “If it’s meant to be, it’ll be,” he says. He’s already said this three times during this conversation.

  “Maybe I should call him again, so he knows I want to talk.”

  Christopher sighs. “You already called him too many times. It’s like when you overwater a plant. All you can really do is wait. You don’t keep watering it, right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “That’s right,” he says. “All you can do is wait.”

  The next day at work, I check my cell phone and e-mail every thirty seconds to see if Brad has tried to contact me. I don’t leave my desk all day, except once, for the Heart Bear fiasco. The Heart Bears were these little stuffed teddy bears that were supposed to be made by deaf kids or epileptic refugees or something, and Keller’s was selling them for Valentine’s Day. They were red with white hearts on their bellies and they had a small recording device tucked in their butts, so you could record a special Valentine’s Day message like, “I love you!” or “Marry me!” or “For the best Grandma ever!” Keller’s was giving the bears away with any purchase over twenty dollars or for five dollars apiece, a buck of which went to the deaf kids or the epileptic refugees or whatever they were.

  We got a truckload of these red bears and built a special Heart Bear kiosk that had big Lucite walls and a light-up sign that said, GIVE A BEAR TO SOMEONE WHO CARES! And as an added incentive, you could have your Heart Bear mailed anywhere in the lower forty-eight for free. So you could buy a bear, record a message, and then get it shipped to your niece or nephew or the person you were stalking and it really didn’t cost very much. People started to buy them in quantity. HR even hired two temps to shovel these bears out to the public, so the regular salespeople wouldn’t be hampered by the mad rush. Except that turned out to be the problem. Every bear these two temps sold had gone missing.