Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Married

by Heather McElhatton

  Rage.

  I listened to them as long as I could, but when the sadistic calypso band started up in the lobby, I said I needed to go back upstairs, before a gastronomic event happened. We passed a smattering of joyless Bible Scrabble players sitting on the sun-dappled patio. A man nearby let out a sigh. “Goll darn it,” he said. “Almost had the bonus word. Look at my board. I had ‘pro-lice.’ ”

  We stopped at the front desk and discovered our luggage was still missing. The manager was apologetic but wholly unsympathetic, especially when we told him we might’ve gotten food poisoning from the soup we ate last night. He found that unlikely. None of the other guests had complained. In fact the kitchen was serving it again that night, and he directed our gaze to the nearby menu board. At the mere sight of the words “crayfish bisque,” Brad fled up the stairs. I smiled politely and asked where the nearest bathroom was.

  There, I pondered my clothing situation, which was dire. The outfit I’d worn on the plane could be washed in the bathroom only so many times and I didn’t dare send it to the cleaners. I didn’t want it out of my sight. Hailey offered to lend me clothing, but she was two agonizing sizes smaller, and so I declined. But I had to do something, so I decided to brave the resort’s gift shop, Onward, Christian Shoppers, a tacky crap emporium filled with cheap plastic and neon colors. You could buy a lime-green bucket of bleached starfish for twenty-eight dollars or a king-size Snickers bar for six. I wound up buying two muumuus at eighty bucks each. One was neon safety-orange; the other one was bright Day-Glo pink. I donned my new tent-size attire in the room and Brad said, “What . . . what are you wearing?”

  He looked horrified.

  “This is a muumuu, darling,” I told him, and climbed into bed. “It’s the official attire of women who’ve given up. Get used to it.”

  He laughed. Sort of.

  I also laughed sort of and we lay there, assuring each other that the worst of the food poisoning had surely passed and we’d feel better soon. An hour later there was a horrible gurgling in my stomach. Gurgling with intent. “It’s happening!” I shouted, and flew from the bed to the bathroom. The bisque was back. The next wave hit Brad a few hours later. This wasn’t some shitstorm that would pass over with a handful of Tums. No. We named it the Crayfish Jihad. The concierge gave us the number for a doctor, who agreed it was either food poisoning, a virus, or a bacterial infection. So basically, he didn’t know what we had. He called in a prescription at the local pharmacy and said for insurance reasons the hotel would be unable to pick up the prescription for us; we had to get it ourselves. An eighty-dollar cab ride and several sudden stops for the bathroom later, we found the pharmacy, which informed us they only had enough antidiarrheal medication in stock for one prescription.

  We were quiet on the ride home and decided to split the medication, ensuring that neither of us got better. Not completely. You’d think the trouble was gone and then pow, you were sprinting for the bathroom. Our recurring episodes of gastric distress continued to alternate throughout the remainder of the trip and were obviously present to one degree or another in every photo we took. In all our honeymoon photos one of us looks worried. Either Brad has a deep crease in his forehead and is poised at the edge of the photo to sprint for the bathroom, or I have a panicked smile on my face, saying, “Hurry. Take the damn picture.”

  Meanwhile Hailey and Lenny were having the time of their lives, surfing, swimming with dolphins, dancing to that damned calypso music. (They bought two CDs of it to bring home.) We, on the other hand, were still terrified to venture too far from indoor plumbing. Our honeymoon was almost over and we hadn’t had sex once, which didn’t upset Brad nearly as much as the fact that he hadn’t been scuba diving once. Stubbornly, he donned a snorkeling mask and went for a short paddle around the reef, while I sat on the beach with Hailey and Lenny reading magazines. I seethed with rage at my copy of Cosmo, which was brimming with gorgeous supermodels who aggravated and vexed me. We’re perfect and you are not. Whatever you have, it’s not enough. Whoever you are, you’re not who you should be. Whatever you want, it’s just out of reach and always will be. You will never be finished, fixed, or free. They should just call the magazine You Will Never Be Happy.

  Suddenly Brad came roaring out of the water like a wet moose, bellowing and stumbling toward the beach. I was afraid it was a level-six crayfish insurgency. He charged toward us, his howling louder and louder. Lenny put down his copy of Crappie Fisherman and told us that if a man hollered like that on the Iron Range, he’d find his snowmobile spray-painted pink by morning. “Pee on it!” Brad shouted, hopping on one foot.

  I tried to comprehend his gestures. (I knew hand gestures were important.)

  “I stepped on a freaking sea urchin!” Brad howled. “Jesus freaking Christ, somebody pee on my foot!”

  “Pee on your what?” Hailey squinted at him.

  “Pee on my freaking foot!”

  Lenny finally stood up, muttering, and unzipped his pants. “Shit,” he said. “I’ll pee on your damn foot, all right? Why dontcha quit hollering? You’re scaring the damn seagulls. Shit. Peeing on a grown man’s foot. I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  Mistake #8: Getting lost and winding up on the kitchen loading dock. I got lost while trying to get back to the room and wound up wandering down some employee-only service hall and turning down another service hall, and then I was in the kitchen. Through the steamy racks of stainless steel kitchenware I saw a loading dock and sunlight pouring in through a partially open garage door. I headed for the light, thinking I’d get my bearings more easily outside. Ducking under the door and stepping into the blinding sunlight, I found myself standing outside on the loading dock with three young men, presumably members of the kitchen staff, judging by their dirty white aprons.

  They were sitting on folding chairs and smoking. One kid with dark greasy hair and a pimple-pocked face tore off a hunk of bread and hurled it at a bunch of dogs standing on the cement slab below. There were a dozen dogs or so standing there, all rough looking and full of mange. They snapped and snarled over the thrown morsel and I asked the boys why all these dogs were there. The kid with greasy hair told me they were stray dogs. The island is full of them. They roam around in packs and knock over garbage cans. “It’s a problem,” the kid said. “That’s why we poison ’em.” Then he whipped another hunk of bread at them.

  “Poison?” I croaked. “What do you mean, poison?” Apparently it’s common practice to feed stray dogs food laced with rat poison. It cuts down on the population. I watched the boys throw three more chunks of bread to the dogs before it dawned on me and I asked them, “Is there rat poison in that bread?”

  Yes. There was. Didn’t they just tell me that?

  “But . . . but . . .” My brain raced stupidly around my head for an answer. “But that one is a puppy!” I finally said, pointing to the little pudgy mutt pawing the gravel below us. He was all white except for a black dot near his tail. Somehow this was the only argument I came up with, as if people who poisoned dogs for fun would care that one of them was a puppy.

  “Yeah, get him,” the greasy-haired kid said lazily, as though I’d just alerted him to which dog I’d like them to poison next. A boy chucked a bread ball at the little dog and without thinking I shouted, “No no no!” while leaping over the edge of the loading dock, landing painfully on my ankle. On the ground I started clapping my hands and stamping my feet, separating the dogs and driving them away from me. The dogs all stared at me, not sure what I expected.

  That’s when it occurred to me that there was nothing I could do if they decided to attack, and wouldn’t that be perfect? UNLUCKY WOMAN ON VERGE OF WONDERFUL LIFE WITH NEW HUSBAND TORN TO DEATH BY WILD DOGS ON HER HONEYMOON. “Shame on you!” I shouted. I was looking at the dogs but shouting at the boys. I didn’t know if either group was aware of this. “That’s no way to treat a living animal!” I yelled. “You should be ashamed of yourselves!”

  Using disgust as a shield, I pus
hed my way toward the little dog and scooped him up. The puppy let me do this without so much as a whimper and I held him up with both hands. That was when I realized the poor little guy only had three legs. “Shame on you!” I repeated angrily at the boys. I cradled the pup, sniffing his neck, which smelled like garbage left out in the sun. I left, indignantly brushing past surly canine faces around me. “You should know, I’ll be informing the hotel manager about this,” I told the boys on the loading dock. They hadn’t moved from their chairs. “I’m going to tell him that you’re out here poisoning these dogs!”

  Mistake #9: Complaining to the hotel manager. My ardent appeal to the mean little hotel manager was met with irritation. It turned out he paid the kitchen crew extra to “assist with maintaining the hotel’s ongoing high standards.” He paid them to poison dogs, five bucks a body. The hotel manager scolded me for entering restricted employee-only areas and then he started asking me where the dog was. “What dog?” I asked.

  “The one they said you took? The puppy?”

  “Huh. Never heard of him.”

  The manager said any guest found with an animal in their hotel room will be kicked out immediately, and all refunds will be forfeited. I told him he was one heck of a Christian, letting his staff kill God’s creatures left and right. I defied them all. I hid the three-legged puppy in our bathroom for three days, refusing to let housecleaning in. I put newspaper down on the floor and sneaked him bacon. Brad, recovering in bed, said I was crazy; there were dogs running around loose all over the island. “What difference does saving one dog make?” he asked me.

  “It makes a big difference to one person I know. To Ace.”

  I named the puppy Ace, because he’s a lucky little guy.

  I was lucky too. Ace was great company. He accompanied me all over the island as Brad slept in the room. I hid him in my bag with loose muumuu over him and sneaked him past the front desk. We went out for lunch together, we went to the beach, we went sightseeing, we even went on a paddleboard ride together. Then Brad got better and started accompanying me on short trips downstairs and the maids found Ace snoozing on his bed of towels in the bathroom. They reported me to the manager, who threatened to kick us out.

  Brad calmed him down with a large cash bribe and he promised we’d get rid of the dog immediately. Luckily I was able to find Ace a new home, with an elderly woman living nearby. She sold baskets by the roadside and kissed him on the forehead. “I can be a good mama for him,” she said, and agreed to take Ace home. I gave her enough money for a year’s dog food supply. My ever-indulgent husband let me. He just shook his head and said I was crazy.

  Mistake #10: Booking a romantic moonlit dinner. We only had one night left, so I booked what was to be the highlight of our trip, a romantic moonlit dinner for two on our own private island at sunset. We decided after much debate to go for it. We let a festive wooden boat drop us off on a tiny island three miles offshore, and they told us they would return in two hours. The captain said we’d find our gourmet candlelight dinner waiting off the end of the dock and bathroom facilities just beyond it. We nearly ran down the dock to the beach, where we found a small raised platform and a lovely table with plates covered with silver domes. It looked just like the brochure.

  Under our plates were round battery-operated plate warmers, which kept Brad’s filet mignon warm and my chicken Kiev toasty. A chilled bottle of champagne rested in its battery-operated cooling bucket. As a spectacular sunset unfolded before us, we sighed, smiled at each other, and clinked glasses. Finally, a small piece of sanity. We ate dinner, then we ate dessert, which was chocolate cake with fresh strawberries. After dinner we took a leisurely stroll around the circumference of the tiny teardrop-shaped island and found a sand dollar, a pretty feather, then another feather, and then a desiccated dead seabird. We kissed, hugged, and reviewed the many events of the past week. Finally we made our way back to the dock and waited for the boat. We waited . . . and waited . . . and waited.

  No boat. Once we thought a boat was headed for us, but then it turned and veered away. We hadn’t even thought to bring cell phones. It was getting cold. And windy. I thought briefly of sitting on a plate warmer. As the sky darkened we discussed our options. We talked about the currents, the tides, and every castaway/maritime disaster and shark movie we’d ever seen. We could see the lights twinkling on the shore and even tried to light a signal fire, but without matches and only dying plate warmers, it was useless. We huddled together under the table, now strewn with empty glasses and debris. The only other structure on the island was the Porta-Potty, and I just couldn’t. We were rescued the next day by a passing pontoon boat of teenagers. We staggered into the resort sunburned, dehydrated, and covered with bug bites. Nobody at the hotel had noticed we were gone, not even my sister.

  The only not-mistake? The only decision that wasn’t a mistake was one I made the morning we left. It was raining and we packed in silence, despair setting down on my shoulders like a heavy, damp blanket. I kept trying to think of something funny to say that might lighten the mood, but everything I thought of sounded stupid. Finally we piled into a pink taxicab and headed for the airport. A few yards away from the hotel, however, I shouted “Stop!” and the cab screeched to a halt. I jumped out and Brad stuck his head out the window. “Jen? What’s going on?” I marched toward a row of aluminum garbage cans by the side of the road. There he was, poor little guy. Ace. He was eating garbage by the side of the road. That devious old woman took my money and tossed my dog out the minute I wasn’t looking. Ace started hop-walking toward me, tail wagging. I scooped him up and we got back into the taxi.

  Brad said, “Honey, you can’t bring a dog home. They’ll stop you.”

  “Well, darling”—I put on my sunglasses—“they can certainly try.”

  2

  Home Is Where the Hell Is

  Airport security is not what it could be.

  Ace sails through the TSA inspection, riding through the X-ray machine while sound asleep in a bundle of muumuu fabric inside my canvas bag.

  “But what’re we going to do with a dog?” Brad asks when we’re in the air. “My mother won’t like a dog in the guesthouse.” I remind him we’re not going to live in his parents’ guesthouse for very long. He promised we’d move out as soon we came back from our honeymoon.

  “Remember?” I say, smiling.

  Brad just groans.

  “You said we’d find a house of our own, Brad. You know, our own house with its own address and its own cable connection? So your mother never lectures me on Satan’s grip on the Independent Film Channel again?” I say this as sweetly as my shattered nerves will allow. The truth is, we’ve been fighting about it for eons. “Besides,” I tell him, “your mom will love Ace. He’s like her first grandchild.”

  “Right.” He snorts. “What about Trevor?”

  “Trevor’s not a grandchild. He’s like a grand-oddity.”

  We land on schedule and Brad’s parents pick us up at the Minneapolis airport. Mother Keller wears a pea-soup-colored linen pantsuit. She’s surprisingly pleased with Ace. “My goodness, it looks like you’ve started your family after all!” she says. Mr. Keller, who says I should call him Ed, gives me a big squeeze and winks at me. “Bring us back any other souvenirs, Jen-Jen?”

  “Um . . . like what, Ed?”

  “We were hoping for a bun in that oven!” He grins.

  Ick.

  No surprise though. Are they ever hoping for anything else?

  Hailey and Lenny take a cab home while Brad and I bundle our ragtag luggage into the car. It’s warm out but not humid and tropical like Saint John. The Kellers drive us home in their big white Lexus SUV, which smells of new leather and continually broadcasts Christian talk radio. Ace sleeps on my lap. Mrs. Keller peppers me with awkward questions, questions I don’t want to answer, like, How was the trip? Did you guys have fun? Did you get to go scuba diving? Finally, when we’re almost home and salvation is almost delivered . . . Brad’s father tu
rns down the wrong driveway.

  “What’s up, Pop?” Brad says. “Why’re we going to the Morganthalers’ house?”

  “A-ha!” Mr. Keller says, his eyes twinkling. “It was their house, dear boy. Was!”

  I sit up; my heart skips a beat. “What’s going on?” I nearly whine. I’m so exhausted. I just want to get home and take a bath, where I’ll begin concocting the elaborate lie that will take the place of my actual honeymoon.

  “Don’t worry.” Mother Keller pats my knee. “You’ll see.”

  Right. It’s when she says “don’t worry” that I worry the most.

  The car rolls up to the front door of the Morganthalers’ house, a huge behemoth of a house, a monstrosity of confused design best described as a New American McMansion with Swiss turrets, Victorian elements, and Mediterranean accents.

  Ed stops the car.

  “So,” he says. “We have a little surprise for you kids!”

  I moan quietly and Ace starts to get squirrelly in my lap, licking my face.

  “Welcome home, son!” Ed Keller beams.

  “What?” Brad says.

  “What?” I echo.

  “We bought you a new house!” Mother Keller says. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “You bought us a house?” I chirp, looking out the window.

  “Right next door!” she says evil-gleefully.