Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Single

by Heather McElhatton

  “We have to tell your mother,” I say.

  He shakes his head no.

  “Brad, we have to. It makes me look bad, not you.”

  He rolls his eyes.

  “Okay, fine, it makes you look bad because you brought me to the cabin, and I’m the stupid slut who forced you to have sex in your bedroom and then flung my dirty tampon all over the place. Okay? Happy?”

  Then Mrs. Keller walks into the kitchen with a stack of plates. My hands are sweating. “Mrs. Keller,” I say, closing my eyes so I don’t have to see her face, “there might be something wrong with Boots.”

  It turns out rural veterinarians don’t see all that many Pomeranians. Hunting dogs and housecats, but not many “foo-foo dogs from the city.” That’s what the front-desk lady at the vet’s called Boots. “We got a foo-foo dog from the city!” she shouts and everyone in the crowded, hot waiting room turns to stare at Boots, who stands innocently in a plastic laundry tub on Brad’s lap. I sit next to Brad and Mrs. Keller sits next to me.

  I have a lot of questions as I’m sitting there cramped between the Kellers, staring at the glossy tiled floor, like why is this waiting room so crowded? How could every single chair be occupied? Also, I’ve already done the right thing by admitting the situation to my boyfriend and his family, so why do I now have to be the one to explain to the husky front desk lady what happened?

  “I’m sorry?” the front desk lady says. “You think she ate a what?”

  “A tampon,” I repeat.

  “I still can’t hear you,” she says.

  I raise my voice ever so slightly. “I think the dog ate a tampon.” At this point the waiting room has gotten pin-drop quiet and I think I hear someone snicker. This is what I get for trying to save the dog’s life.

  The lady smiles. “Are you serious?”

  I glare at her and count backward in my head to keep myself from lunging over the counter and strangling her. “No,” I say, “I made it up. This is what I like to do on weekends.” She drops her smile and writes something on the form. Then she asks me if it was new or used.

  “What?”

  “New or used?” she repeats, staring evenly at me. Do I detect the faintest hint of sarcasm in her voice? Is she screwing with me? I will kick her chunky front-desk ass if she’s screwing with me.

  “Why do you need to know that?” I ask.

  “We need to know,” she says.

  Someone behind me coughs.

  Why can’t the world, just once, open up and swallow me whole?

  “Fine,” I say. “It was used.”

  I hear Mrs. Keller mumble something like, “Oh dear Lord,” from her chair and that makes me think of Christopher and how he’ll react when he hears this story. I realize that possibly for the rest of my life I will have to hear people tell the story of the time Jennifer nearly killed the dog with her tampon. I stare at the ceiling. I wonder if I could compose a suicide note that would convince my mother none of this was her fault.

  The front desk lady leans in. “Could you repeat that?” she says. “New or used?”

  Okay, now she’s screwing with me.

  “USED,” I say at the top of my voice, so loudly people stop talking and a smattering of chuckles and snickers ripples across the room. Fine. Screw them anyway. I’m saving a dog’s life. If they want to laugh then let them.

  “Okay, used,” she says tightly and writes it down. Then, in a voice that matches the one I just used in both volume and tone, she asks, “SO HOW LONG AGO DID THE DOG EAT YOUR USED TAMPON?”

  After we finally finish the intake form, she walks over to Boots, pats her on the head, introduces herself to Brad and Mrs. Keller, and then tells us if “the obstruction” is still in the dog’s stomach they can give her a simple syrup of ipecac-type medication and make her vomit it up, but if it’s moved into her intestinal track, it’ll require surgery.

  Mrs. Keller is shocked. “Surgery? Can I go back with her? I really should go back with her.” The front desk lady tells her to sit tight, Boots is in good hands. Then she picks Boots up and carries her away.

  I sit there silently for the next hour and try not to let any part of my body touch Mrs. Keller, who’s lecturing me on the virtues of foresight, or Brad, who’s obliviously playing a stupid puzzle game on his phone.

  Finally the front desk lady reappears with a much perkier-looking Boots and sets her down on the floor. That’s when I realize she’s trying not to laugh. I can see the faint quaking in her arm as she mirthfully says, “She was lucky. It was still in her stomach.”

  There! I shout in my head. See? I saved the damn dog’s life! She did eat a tampon and it would have killed her if I hadn’t sacrificed my dignity and told everyone! I hope I’m going to get credit for this. I mean, I think most people would have just acted like they had no idea what was going on. I actually did the right thing and I expect to be commended for it.

  “None of us ever saw anything like it,” the front desk lady says. “She barfed that tampon up so hard it shot clear across the room.” Then she starts to giggle and some other idiot behind the counter joins in laughing. She wipes a tear from her eye and tells us the bill is waiting at the window.

  We all drive home together in silence, Mrs. Keller at the wheel with Boots in the front seat next to her, while Brad and I sit in back. After an hour or so hovering in the cabin, Brad tells his mother we’re heading back to the city early.

  There are no objections.

  nail him down

  Valentine’s Day arrives. I’ve been preparing all week, rehearsing self-love speeches in the mirror and taking hot baths with soothing ingredients, but no amount of imported bath oil can disguise the fact I have not one but two weddings to attend today and neither is mine.

  I can accept the fact Valentine’s Day is going to suck, all I’m asking the universe for is to survive it without a public humiliation or massive mental breakdown

  In other words, I want this Valentine’s Day to be different.

  David didn’t believe in Valentine’s Day. He thought it was a commercial ploy to bamboozle the public not only into spending money but spending sentiment, time, and thought. “It’s like you have to say, ‘I love you,’ even if you don’t mean it,” he complained. That, coincidentally, was about half an hour after he had told me he loved me. And forget candy or cards or flowers. God, no. Those were for losers.

  He spent every Valentine’s Day in a hotel with his buddies drinking beer and playing poker. I’m not kidding. It was a whole bunch of his artist and musician friends who never normally played poker, just this one day out of the year, to prove they were still wild and free. I of course said I had no problem with that because I wanted to be the cool girlfriend. The tough girlfriend. I laughed at all the girls who got red roses in the office.

  What losers.

  So now David, Mr. “I hate all establishment and commitment,” is getting married and for some reason I have an irresistible urge to see the flower arrangements. Maybe because he never gave me flowers once in my life. Or maybe because I want to see just how powerful this new wife is. Did she reprogram him entirely? Did she convince him to go with white roses? Baby’s breath? Black spray-painted Venus flytraps?

  “I’m going to David’s wedding,” I tell Christopher. “It starts at noon and Hailey’s is at three p.m. I can do both.”

  He puts a hand on his hip. “Just how many disasters do you plan on surviving in one day?” he asks. He threatens to rent an animal tranquilizer gun and shoot me. I tell him I’m going with or without him and he says, “Fine, then I’m coming with so you’re accurately represented on the police report.”

  The night before the day of weddings from hell I can’t sleep. I take three Lunestas, which should knock out a Brahman bull, but a Brahman bull is no match for a tortured woman. No, sir. I took those sleeping pills, drank half a bottle of wine, and tossed back some antihistamines for good measure, but I was still up at four in the morning, pacing the floors like a panther.
/>   Why did David break up with me? Why wasn’t I good enough? What was I missing, what could I have done? Was it how I looked? Of course it was how I looked. It was that and how stupid you are and the fact you have no talent or charisma or luck. Plus you’re terrible in bed and your thighs look like spreading bread dough.

  I watch the sun come up over the rooftops. Then I take four hours getting ready, give or take, and in the end, I look like I’m going to the funeral of a heavy metal star. Lenny would approve. I wear all black. Black dress, black heels, big black sunglasses. Christopher picks me up wearing a conspicuous shiny gray suit and a bright orange tie.

  “You look like an Elton John Mini-Me!”

  “I’ll take that for the compliment you don’t know it is,” he says and links his arm in mine as he escorts me up the steps of the big stone church. We’re much slower than the other guests, who stream around us like pastel ribbons, rustling past in the cold breeze.

  I feel sick.

  “Why are you stopping?” Christopher asks.

  “I can’t go in there.”

  “You can’t?”

  I shake my head no.

  “No scene?” he asks. “No last-minute shenanigans or sudden global truths?”

  I shake my head no again.

  He sighs. “Okay, normally I’d wheedle you,” he says, “but you’re white. Like geisha-with-the-flu white.”

  “I see David’s mother,” I say, trembling, “over by the door. I can’t let her see me.”

  Without another word Christopher pivots me around and we head back to the car.

  That was my experience attending my ex-boyfriend’s wedding. I got dressed up, wobbled up to the spectacular moment, and then fell apart like a cheap wedding cake left out in the rain.

  At home, I have a few hours to rest. I kick off my heels, peel off my dress, and take a hot shower. I try to imagine myself in my special Tahitian hut with my well-oiled island man, but every time we start getting down to business, David’s new bride taps me on the shoulder and says, “Oh my God, I remember you!” and my eyes fly wide open and I’m left staring at my vanilla-pudding-colored tiles.

  I set my alarm clock and climb into bed. I can take a short nap and still have time to get to the church. We’re all getting ready there. Hailey’s hired a makeup artist. Good thing, too. I hope she knows how to make people who feel ugly inside look pretty outside.

  I go to sleep.

  I oversleep for Hailey’s wedding.

  My therapist would posit the theory that maybe I did this by accident/on purpose due to some on-the-surface/deep-down feelings of competition/jealousy/anger/rage, but how could I possibly control the fact that there was a power blip sometime during my nap, causing my alarm clock to stop functioning and flash a big, angry red 12:00? Am I that powerful? Is my jealous nature so strong that I can telekinetically shut down electricity grids?

  Possibly.

  I’m late. Really late. So late I don’t want to figure out how late, because I’m already moving as fast as I can and if I realize that I only have fifteen minutes before the ceremony starts, I’ll wrap the Scout around a tree.

  No. Just breathe, relax.

  I can do this.

  I honk at a little old man driving down the road and roar around him. Get out of the way, you asshole! A terrified squirrel dashes across the road and I don’t slow down. I just hold my breath and gun the engine. Please oh please be okay, little squirrel….

  My phone rings. It’s Brad. He’s worried, he’s already at the church and where am I? I tell him I think I have the flu and I fell asleep. He would have flipped if he knew I went to David’s wedding. I’m so used to lying to him it doesn’t even feel like lying anymore. It feels like I’m protecting him. Protecting us. Smoothing things over, smoothing things out. This is what couples do. I think.

  By the time I get to the church I am in a complete panic, sweating profusely, hair matted to the back of my head. My mother is pacing back and forth outside and I bound up the stone steps two at a time. “All right,” she says, “all right, slow down. They haven’t started. We have five minutes. Let’s not panic, let’s just get you inside so you can put on your dress.”

  I stop dead. “My dress?”

  She closes her eyes.

  “I forgot it,” I whisper. “I forgot the dress.”

  She doesn’t say anything. This frightens me more than anything and I break free of her icicle grip. “Wait here!” I say and run back toward my car. After all, I do have a dress there—sent to me with love.

  By the Mormons.

  Yes. The pictures will show and the stories will testify that this is how I came to wear a fundamentalist Mormon dress in my sister’s wedding. It was powder blue, just like all the other dresses. The only difference was the other girls looked like sleek supermodels in their satiny kimonos and I looked like a plural wife about to go milk a cow. Some of the photographs would suggest that I was possibly the cow itself.

  Brad snickered at me through the entire ceremony. I could see his shoulders shaking, even when he was supposed to be praying. Jerk.

  After the ceremony everybody trooped over to the hotel, where we had to face the shrimp ordeal. The long and the short of it was the caterers forgot to order the shrimp. They realized their mistake and even called Lenny early in the morning to tell him there would be no shrimp at his wedding, to which the esteemed King of Ham apparently said, “Cool.”

  It was hardly the worst thing about the day, but like all fragile, neurotic brides Hailey had to hyperfocus on one thing and get hysterical about it, and she chose to come undone over the shrimp. “But how could Len say it was okay?” she says, face toward the ceiling, blinking hard to hold back tears. “How could my own husband tell them it was okay to forget the shrimp? Is this how the whole marriage will be? People ruining everything while he sits there and says, ‘Cool’?”

  “I think he realized it was a mistake,” my mother says, “and chose to forgive them. That’s a good quality in a husband, hon. Believe me, you, none of them are perfect.”

  This makes Hailey burst into tears and mascara starts running down her face. Lexi hurries to retrieve the makeup artist, who’s already packed up and about to get into her minivan.

  “I…thought…there…would be…shrimp!” Hailey says, hyperventilating.

  “Oh, you don’t need shrimp,” my mother says. “If no shrimp is your biggest problem in life then I say you’re batting a thousand, kiddo.”

  “The wedding is ruined!” Hailey shrieks before collapsing on the bed.

  “Good Christ,” I mumble.

  “Alrighty now,” my mother says, “it’s just nerves. Jennifer will go get you a shrimp tray.”

  What? I’ll get her a what?

  My mother stands up and comes over to me. “Jennifer,” she says.

  “No.”

  “Jennifer, please.”

  I shake my head. “Absolutely not.”

  “You won’t be able to understand this,” she says.

  “You got that right.”

  “In fact you might never once in your life understand this, but you’ve got to believe me, when a bride decides something’s got to be fixed, well…” She looks nervously over her shoulder at Hailey, who’s seeping through the blotting technique. “Well, we have to fix it. She’s your sister. Your only sister and she looks up to you. I’m serious! Don’t roll your eyes like that, they’ll stick. It’s the least you can do since you showed up wearing…that.”

  “What do you want me to do, Mother?”

  “The reception starts in an hour. Go to Sam’s Club. Get my membership card out of my purse and go get five, no ten, shrimp party trays from the seafood counter.”

  “What? No.”

  “Your aunt Ellen has thrombosis!” she says, as though this is the ultimate reason to get shrimp.

  “Sam’s Club?” Hailey says, looking at us with her tear-streaked face. “Did I hear you say Sam’s Club has shrimp?” She looks like someone just told he
r the groom disappeared, not the edible crustaceans.

  “Shrimp party platters!” my mother says. “Jennifer has volunteered to go pick them up.”

  “She did? You did?”

  “You bet she did, didn’t you, Jennifer?”

  Hailey jumps up from the bed, nearly knocking the makeup artist over, and in an almost never-seen move, flings her arms around me and squeezes hard. “Oh thank you, Jen! Thank you! You’re the best!” I hate hate hate it when she pulls this. I can’t stand it when she cries.

  “I’m a makeup artist, not a miracle worker,” the makeup artist says. “I need your face to fix it.” Hailey goes back to the bed and I dash downstairs to find my mother’s Sam’s Club card.

  Freaking hell.

  I call Brad but he doesn’t answer. He’s somewhere in the lobby of the hotel with his phone off. He’s probably talking to some twenty-year-old receptionist. I finally get ahold of him when I’m in the vast, baffling store. “I tried to call you before I left,” I bark at him. “I had to come to Sam’s Club by myself. Where were you?”

  “I was right where you told me to be,” he says. “At the bar watching your Uncle Eddie and making sure he only had three screwdrivers.”

  “Well, I could have used your help! YOU should have gone to Sam’s Club. Not me!”

  Brad is chuckling.

  “So let me get this straight,” he says. “You’re in the seafood department at Sam’s Club in your Mormon dress?”

  “Yes! I’m in my Mormon dress. It’s hysterical. People are staring at me and one little boy started crying. Plus they don’t have any shrimp. None.”

  “I gotta see this,” he says. “Please. Take a picture of yourself and text it to me.”

  “Stop laughing! Hailey’s going to say I ruined her wedding because I didn’t get her precious shrimp party trays.”