Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Single

by Heather McElhatton

  “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.

  “You better take all the help you can get,” Mrs. Straubel warns me, “because that lady—and I’m not talking out of school here because Mrs. Keller has said this to me out loud herself—but that lady is picky and when she’s not happy, nobody’s happy.”

  My heart is beating in rapid, short bursts, like it’s out of breath. It’s so quiet in here, interrogation-room quiet. The perfect intake facility for bride jail. I look at her notepad. “Mrs. Keller told you what she wanted for my wedding theme, didn’t she?”

  Mrs. Straubel shrugs. “She might have mentioned it, we talk all the time. It might have come up. Let’s just say you’re lucky I know what she wants. You’re going to have your hands full with other things, like making your new husband happy. He’s Mr. Picky himself,” she says, “but I’m sure you already know that.”

  All I know is that I want to get out of this place so bad I could dive through the plate-glass window.

  “You do what you want,” Mr
s. Straubel says. “All I’m saying is she’s a picky lady and she’s got good taste, plus she’s footing the bill, so maybe her ideas are all right to consider.”

  There’s the back-hall fan again and another wave of spiced orange smell. I feel hot and queasy. “So, she likes themes?” I finally say. I sound like a small mouse peeping out of a hole in the wall.

  Mrs. Straubel nods and smiles.

  “You leave it to me,” she says. “You’ll be glad you did. Everything will be perfect.”

  I leave the wedding planner’s shop and walk across to the mall, where Mrs. Keller will meet me for lunch. That’s when I can tell her my wedding has a theme. Mary and Joseph, the most popular couple in the Bible.

  “You can’t say you were bullied into it,” Brad says, exasperated. “Mother said she wasn’t even in the room.” I bite my lip and hold the phone slightly away from my ear. We’ve been talking so long my cell phone is blister-hot, like it’s getting angry, too. I don’t want to sound whiny, but things have gotten so far out of hand, my stomach is in a constant state of torment. I’m nauseous or have diarrhea or am constipated all the time. Not that I would ever mention any of those words to Brad.

  “It wasn’t your mother,” I say. “It’s the wedding planner. She talked me into things I don’t want.”

  “So change them back,” he says.

  “I can’t! Things have already been ordered. You can’t just change stuff up.”

  “So you want a different wedding planner? Is that it?”

  “No! Mrs. Straubel’s done all the family weddings. I don’t want to rock the boat.”

  “Well, rock it or don’t,” he says. “I have a meeting.”

  “Fine,” I snap, “I’ll let the Grace Church Lutheran choir sing ‘In His Hands’ at our wedding. It’ll kill me, but I’ll do it. For you.”

  “That’s my girl,” he says and hangs up.

  Unbelievable.

  I sag into my desk chair. A Lutheran choir. That’s only the latest horrible thing they’ve done to my elegant, simple wedding. They’ve also increased the guest list to three hundred, made the color scheme baby blue “with silverish accents,” and forced me to have Sarah as my maid of honor. I say they “forced” me, but I couldn’t prove it in a court of law. Somehow all these decisions are “mine,” even though I didn’t make any of them. Mrs. Keller uses Mrs. Straubel who uses her skittish staff to inform me what my decision should be. If for some reason I want something different, it becomes impossible or improbable or financially absurd.

  When I said I wanted white linen tablecloths, I was told it would be astronomically expensive, while the colonial-blue skirting, which looked like the exact color of Mary’s robe, was available for a song. When I asked for the irresistible fifty-dollar 1940s vintage wedding cake topper I saw on eBay, it was mysteriously purchased by a bidder named “QueenAnne,” who paid five hundred dollars for it, and a new cake topper showed up from Williams-Sonoma the next day. A set of sterling silver doves.

  This is how it goes until my dream wedding no longer bears even the slightest resemblance to my actual dream. At some point I sort of give in, like how castaways eventually accept their situations. After a certain amount of time you have to stop scanning the horizon with hope and just go build a palm-frond shelter. Do you prefer a palm-frond shelter to the comfort of your own bed? You do not. Did you hope your boat was going to sink and that you’d be stuck on a hostile island with a blue and silver color scheme? You had no idea it was even possible. Yet here you are, stranded, and at some point you just have to go lie down in the freaking palm fronds.

  “You have to be reasonable,” my mother says. “They’re paying for everything. So what if she chooses a few things?”

  I can’t believe her. “A few things? She chose my wedding dress and she chose the underpants I’m supposed to wear underneath my wedding dress. They’re like these creepy lace shorts, because she says the other kinds bunch up.”

  “Well, she makes a good point,” my mother says. “You don’t want a bunching issue.”

  A bunching issue?

  They’re all against me now. Even my own family. Hailey has been delighting in torturing me with after-you-get-married facts. “After you get married he won’t hide his farting anymore,” she says. “And after you get married he stops buying you presents.”

  Ha. Well maybe her husband stopped buying her presents.

  I have no doubt that presents won’t be a problem. Brad LOVES spending money and ever since we got engaged, he seems to have a lot more of it. He buys me a big, black Mercedes-Benz SUV. It just shows up in the driveway with a sticker still in the window and a tiny red bow on the hood, the kind you’d put on a regular present. “I wanted to get one of those really big red bows,” he says, “but nobody knew where to get one.”

  “Wow,” I say, arms crossed and staring. “It’s really…big.”

  “It’s a GLK with a four-cylinder compressor motor,” he says. “Do you like it?”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever driven a car that big before. I don’t know if I know how.”

  “It’s got four-wheel drive for the winter,” he says. “Mom told me if we ever had…you know, if there are ever kids around, you’d need something safer to drive.”

  I stare at him. “Your mother told you to buy this for me?”

  “No!” he says. “It was my idea. I just asked her what kind would be good for a woman. It’s for putting up with me and my family and all the other stuff,” he says. “I know you’re stressed out.” He taps the hood. “I made sure it had seat warmers.”

  I don’t know what to say. On the one hand, a man just bought me a Mercedes-Benz. That should make me happy. I should be grateful. On the other hand, it’s an SUV, a soccer mom car for when I start popping out babies. Plus, it was hand-selected by his mother, which makes me livid. I decide to remain neutral.

  “Thank you,” I say, not uncrossing my arms. “It’s very thoughtful.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “No. I mean, yes. Of course I do. Where’s my car?”

  He looks confused.

  “My other car,” I say. “My 1985 safety-orange Scout? The car I saved up for and bought by myself. The one that I love?”

  He blinks. “Oh, I traded it in.”

  “You…traded it in? What do you mean, you traded it in? It’s gone?”

  He looks at me like I’m crazy.

  “Did you get the little angel wings pin out of the dashboard?” I ask him. “The one my mother gave me? Where are all the maps that were in the glove box? What about the hand-embroidered map of Mexico pillow in the backseat?”

  I don’t wait for him to answer; I just run in the house and call the dealership. I want my Scout back. This must be some sort of theft, but what would I tell the police? My fiancé traded in my used car and bought me a brand-new Mercedes, so please arrest him?

  Just breathe, relax.

  It’s going to be okay.

  I talk to the sales manager and the assistant sales manager at the car dealership, asking them if they know the whereabouts of my 1985 safety-orange Scout. They’re confused at first and want to speak to Brad, but I start yelling like an enraged teenager, demanding to know where they get off selling my property without my consent, and if I can’t locate my truck, maybe my fleet of lawyers or the Minneapolis police or the guys I’m going to hire to break their legs can, until they apologize profusely. They admit my truck was pretty unique, not many of them like that around, and it was only on the lot for a few hours before it sold. The guy who bought it is going to repaint it and trick out the wheels.

  The Scout is gone.

  My apartment is cluttered with packing boxes and various piles of crap. One pile, the biggest one, is all the crap left that’s being thrown out. The second pile is all stuff I don’t need but don’t want to throw away yet. The last pile is smallish, it fits on the kitchen table; it’s the stuff I’m bringing to Brad’s house. I’m breaking my lease early so I can move in
with him full time, not that it wasn’t full time already. My apartment has become a larger version of a storage space, housing the clothing and belongings I don’t really use.

  Blooper is still on the kitchen counter.

  I knew it would be a big job, getting rid of all my stuff, but I didn’t know it would be an astronomical, mind-numbing, soul-killing job. The first thing I did was pack up the really precious things and try to give them to friends and family. Even if I can’t display my treasures in my own home, maybe people close to me can.

  “What is it?” Christopher asks, making a face at the box.

  “It’s the aluminum Christmas tree!” I say. “Very retro. Very kitsch.”

  “That’s so sweet!” he says, handing the box back to me.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Don’t want it.”

  “Christopher, you loved this tree.”

  “No, I didn’t. It was a pity compliment.”

  I try to give my dolls to Hailey, citing the idea her unborn children might like them. She also turns her nose up at me. “Those are all used! I bet there’s lice in them or bedbugs or whatever you had in that creepy place of yours!”

  I wise up on the third try and leave a box of precious treasures in my parents’ garage without telling them, which I’m later told went out to the curb with the rest of the recycling. Everything was tossed except the carefully boxed dollhouse and Tinkertoy family. Mom considers those family heirlooms, so they were safe. (When I packed the Tinkers up I told them this would be like a calming holiday for them, not a punishment, but they didn’t look convinced.) She grudgingly lugged them all up to the attic and let me know, once again, she wasn’t going to live forever, and I’d better find a better way to store all my crap. “You’re moving into that big house!” she complains. “Why not put it there?”