Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Married

by Heather McElhatton

  “I did . . .”

  “Okay, that’s not even heard of, pumpkin!” Her face twitches ever so slightly. “I just can’t believe it! Look at you . . . all important and married, for the time being . . . Gosh! Miracles really do happen, don’t they? Crazy miracles . . . that make no sense!”

  “Hi, Ashley,” Ted says, and she looks almost startled, like she hadn’t noticed him.

  “Ted,” she says flatly. “You’re here too? Wow. Sorry, I was just so excited to see . . . our Jennifer here in her . . . splendor. Um, so you obviously know, Jen . . . I’m getting a divorce.”

  “I . . . I did not know that.” I lie for Ted’s sake. “I thought you two . . . were for keeps.”

  Ashley turns bright pink. “Okay then, Jen! Hafta get back to . . . work. Imagine! Having to work . . . not you, though. Not anymore! Well, not everybody went and slept with the president’s son, so . . . Some of us have to do it the hard way I guess! Okay, bye-bye!”

  I wave at her as she leaves, and just as I think my head might explode, she’s gone.

  “Oh my God.” I stare at Ted. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know what to do. I always say the wrong thing when I panic!”

  “I know.” Ted sighs. “If it weren’t so entertaining, it might get really annoying.”

  7

  Fishwife

  I wake up at six A.M. after a tortured night of sleep.

  I kicked and thrashed around so much Brad went down to sleep in the guest room. I hate it when he does that, but I knew the odds were against my sleeping. Today is the big Japanese investor dinner. My Day of Judgment has finally arrived. Who knew it would be unseasonably cold? One of those late-September days that feels like deep November. Arctic wind from the lake whips up the steps and hammers on all the windows of the house, rattling the doors and trying ceaselessly to find a way in.

  I can’t worry about the weather. The house looks perfect anyway. I cleaned the whole mausoleum myself. Actually I gave Star Fan and Pho twenty bucks each to dust. I was told Bi’ch was a qualified maid, but I have no empirical evidence of this. She makes huge messes, speaks intermittent English, and is terrified of all electric appliances. The espresso maker in particular causes her to flee. Animal husbandry seems to be the one area she thrives in. She fishes constantly, and I discovered a chicken coop she built behind our house, and a fledgling chicken pen beside it housing six fat squirrels, which she dotes on and feeds. Are they pets? Meals? To be used in rituals? I’m too traumatized by the situation to inquire further.

  Just like with the chicken coop, I choose not to panic about today.

  Relax. Breathe. I can do this.

  After all, everything is already arranged. The party-rental delivery is at nine, the catering staff sets up around ten, and the florist delivers the orchids at noon. Guests arrive at six and dinner starts at seven. God, that seems early. I just have to pick up a few things for tonight and go to the spa and get my hair done. No need to fret. No need to catastrophize and picture in my head every conceivable scenario in which the dinner could be a disaster. Before I leave, I double-check the kitchen; I want everything to be ready for the caterer when she arrives. Star Fan lumbers into the room and I frown at her. “Were you smoking?” I ask her.

  “No.” She scowls through smudgy kohl eyes. I know that look. I know why her hair is all kinked up in the back too. I clear my throat. “Star Fan,” I say, “are you on birth control?”

  “You can’t ask me that.”

  “Well, I just did. I’m sorry, but I’m concerned. I think one preteen parent in this—”

  “Naniga hoshiino?” the Ice Empress shouts, causing me to curse and swear.

  No matter how many times I approach the stupid refrigerator, I can’t get used to seeing a disembodied geisha head appear. “Is she changing outfits now?” I squint at the chrome door. “Star Fan, is she wearing a different . . . Star Fan?” I look up. She’s gone. I tug on the door but it won’t open. I sigh and say, “Ice Empress, open the door please.”

  She giggles at me. “Moshi moshi, Jen Aho-Onna!”

  “Yes, hello,” I yawn. “Sayonara, Fuji Film, et cetera . . . Can you please open the door?”

  “Oooops!” She giggles. “Damatte-yo! Kono ama!”

  “Why isn’t the door opening?” I tug on the handle. “Speak English, Ice Empress!”

  “Oooops! Sorry, Jen Aho-Onna! Time for express steam-clean! Wheeeeeeee!”

  “No, I want coffee right now. No steam-clean!”

  The Ice Empress giggles and bows. “Kutabare!” she says, and the door stays locked.

  Bitch.

  I groan, banging my head lightly on the door, and shout up to Trevor that it’s time to go. I have him for the whole weekend because Sarah’s at some leadership conference. As Trevor and I leave, the overhead light in the front hall flickers.

  “Auntie Jen, why does the light keep doing that?”

  “Because the house is cursed, honey. We’re all damned. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  We get into the car and head for the Mall of America. The Mall of America is evil. Also, it’s fun! It has everything you could ever possibly need and everything nobody should ever own. Karaoke golf carts with neon light shows, giant robot dinosaurs that fight, a collection of magnets in the shapes of every known animal’s poo. A huge amusement park sits at the center of the mall with a roller coaster and a Paul Bunyan flume ride. The amusement park is ringed like a stack of doughnuts by five floors of movie theaters, restaurants, department stores, food courts, and hundreds of specialty stores that allow you to shop for two weeks straight without ever going into the same store twice.

  I drop Christopher off at Kidzilla, the Mall of America’s babysitting emporium. I read about it in the paper; it’s like the Las Vegas of day-care centers. Trevor’s heard about it too, and he’s nearly hysterical with glee when I slap down my gold credit card and sign him up for a Godzilla Pass, which includes unlimited access to all the Kidzilla attractions and activities, like the Zero-Gravity Chamber, the Tsunami Soak Pool, the Mega-Paintball Canyon, the Big Lizard Exotic Animal and Petting Zoo, and Planet Snacker-Snacks, just to name a few.

  Trevor busies himself at the Welcome Wagon while I sign legal waivers and medical consent forms. “Great,” a Kidzilla counselor named Joe says. “Does he have a bathing suit?”

  “Why does he need a bathing suit?”

  “Tsunami Soak Pool? He’ll get wet. You can rent him a suit too.”

  “That’s fine. Rent away.”

  “Cool. Most moms get all weird about their kids wearing used bathing suits. I tell ’em they got nothing to worry about. There’s more industrial-strength bleach in that pool than there is water.” He gives Trevor a pair of neon-green swim trunks, which Trevor rejects in lieu of a neon-pink pair. He also gives Trevor a waterproof name tag lanyard and a neon-green electronic GPS tracker, which he clamps around his ankle.

  “Is that really necessary?” I ask.

  Joe sighs and shakes his head. “Lady, you have no idea.”

  I sign a few more release forms and conspiratorially whisper to Joe. “Look,” I say. “I don’t care what Trevor does today, as long as he comes back to me exhausted. Got it?” I slip a fifty-dollar bill across the counter and Joe smiles at me.

  “Lady,” he says, “don’t worry. That kid won’t know what hit him.” I turn to say good-bye to Trevor, but he’s already shooting down the Adventure Launch Tube. Lucky kid. I wish there was an Adultzilla for women. It would have well-oiled men doing laundry and lush fountains of sangria. Adultzillas for men would have roasted meat platters and naked waitresses and be one big fart-contest room.

  Wait, that’s Hooters.

  I make my way to the spa called Mallspa, the mall’s spa, where I have a ninety-minute massage done by a very small girl who still beats the living tar out of me . . . in a good way. I’m all kneaded and unknotted when I get my hair colored and my nails done. Then I buy new earrings, stockings, lipstick, and over-the-counter weight-loss p
ills. I pick up a specialty bottle of Shimizu-no-mai sake, which I ordered at a specialty store called Hot Socky by the mini-putt place. They sell expensive Japanese sake there and also expensive socks to wear. Many people come in for both products at the same time and say warm feet really complement good sake and vice versa. I take advantage of the complimentary spring water and swallow three of my over-the-counter weight-loss pills. I want to look slim and alluring in my dress tonight.

  On my way to retrieve Trevor, I’m feeling quite confident and relaxed as I walk down the colorful chaotic halls, passing loud roller coasters, fragrant fudge factories, and clusters of small kiosks selling odds and ends. Cell phone cases, glass paperweights, whirligig kites, clip-on ponytail hair extensions . . . I take the escalators up to Kidzilla, where Joe tracks Trevor’s GPS anklet down to a heating duct near Planet Snacker-Snacks.

  “What’s he doing in a heating duct?” I ask.

  “Happens all the time,” Joe says. “Don’t worry, it’s all mostly escape-proof.”

  A special captivity task force catches my nephew and loads him in the Adventure Termination Tube and whoomph! Trevor gets spit out from an air vacuum tube, wide-eyed and grinning. “Auntie . . . it was so cool!” he shouts. “This was the best day of my life!”

  I beam at my adorable nephew. Maybe I’m not a failure as an aunt after all. Maybe I could even be his Aunt Ariel one day. Trevor yawns and trudges behind me all the way to the car, where he falls deeply asleep in the backseat. Thank you, Joe at Kidzilla.

  I love you.

  Fifteen minutes later, however, Trevor wakes up and projectile-vomits all over the car. He keeps going and brings up about three times his body weight in puke. He starts groaning so badly I call the emergency room on my cell phone. The nurse asks me what he ate, and in between moans, Trevor tells me he ate: two triple-meat cheeseburgers, a basket of cheesy chili-pepper French fries, six grape juice boxes, a supersize Kidzilla sundae, a jumbo banana milkshake, a bowl of maraschino cherries, a box of blue Popsicles, and a cupcake shaped like a robot head. “How could you eat that much food?” I hiss.

  He looks up at me and says, like John Wayne gasping his last line in a dramatic spaghetti Western, “Unlimited . . . candy. I had to . . . get . . . the . . . candy . . .”

  “Um . . .” I say to the nurse. “He had a little candy.”

  She says to keep him hydrated and to bring him into the emergency room if he keeps vomiting. I get off the phone and say, “Trevor, buddy, I have a big event tonight, so please stop vomiting. Okay? I will buy you any toy you want. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he says.

  Then he vomits.

  He proceeds to keep projectile-vomiting until my car is merely a vomit-transportation system with a nearly weeping woman at the wheel. We’re a mile from home when I can’t take it anymore. He looks deathly ill. I turn the car around, heading for the emergency room. Goddamned kid. He better be terminal. As I sit in the ER waiting room I get my first painful cramp. Gas from the diet pills. I go into the bathroom, where I burn with shame in my stall after accidentally letting out a loud fart. To think Lenny and his buddies have farting contests . . . but to me it is the epitome of all shame.

  Four eternities, six encyclopedias of hospital intake forms, an illegal signature claiming to be Trevor’s legal guardian, and a two-hundred-dollar pair of sunglasses lost in the emergency room later, the doctors determine Trevor has an upset stomach. Probably from eating candy. Gee, ya think? They give him some Imodium and tell him to drink clear fluids. Imodium. I have Imodium tablets in my purse and a bottle of liquid Imodium in the glove box of my car.

  “That’s a far cry from being terminal, Trevor.”

  We race home.

  When we get there, the house is empty. No party planners, no glasses or linens, no caterer. I check the upstairs. The upstairs furniture is there. Bizarre. I run around double-checking every room. Ace runs around barking at me. In the kitchen I run into Pho, who’s drinking a bottle of Yoo-hoo. “What happened?” I ask him. “Where is everyone? Where’s the furniture downstairs?”

  Pho shrugs and says, “They came and put it in a van.”

  “Who came and put it in a van?”

  He shrugs. “How should I know?”

  “Pho, didn’t you think it was strange that people were putting our furniture in a van?”

  “No.” He takes a gulp of Yoo-hoo. “I don’t know how white people throw parties.”

  Unbelievable.

  Not only is the house empty of furniture, it’s empty of food. The caterer is completely missing in action. She was supposed to be here this morning, but at ten to five, there’s not a chef or a chafing dish to be seen. My head is swimming. “Okay, let’s not panic,” I say to myself. “Yes, let’s!” I shout back. “We have no furniture and no food, and the guests are coming in an hour? What else is there to do but panic?” I look around. “We can do this. We have half an hour. All we need is a meal for a dozen people and a table and chairs. We don’t even need chairs. They’re Japanese, we’ll sit on the floor . . . Pho!”

  “What?”

  “Jesus, you scared me!” He’s standing right behind me like a chubby ninja. “Go get your sister and your grandmother. Check and see if the Ping-Pong table is still in the boathouse. Hurry!”

  He sighs and shuffles off. I race to the refrigerator and the Ice Empress bows at me.

  She says “Moshi moshi, Jen Aho-Onna!”

  “Ice Empress, tell me in English, do we have enough food for twelve to fifteen people?”

  She giggles. “Sorry! We are still steam-cleaning! Steam- clean . . . wheeeeeeeee!”

  “What?” I tug on the chrome handle and it still won’t open. I can’t believe this.

  “Pho!” I shout. “Pho, come and fix this damned thing! Make it stop steam-cleaning!”

  “So, what do you want me to do first?” he says. “Find my sister or my grandma or a Ping-Pong table in the boathouse . . . or fix that?”

  “Yes!” I nod, then take a dramatic gulp of air. “Oh my God, we’re all going to die.” Okay, think. I look at the clock on the wall. How fast can I get to the store? Panic rises in me like a balloon. When Star Fan and Bi’ch come into the room I say, “Okay, D’Amico can’t deliver any food in time so listen up. We need to brainstorm here . . .”

  “Grandma B fishes wicked good,” Star Fan says.

  I look at her. “Fishes?”

  “Yeah . . . you know, like fishes for fish? That swim in the lake?”

  I stare out the bay window at the wide expanse of water in our backyard and parrot back blankly, “The lake?”

  Star Fan nods.

  That’s when it hits me. My God! We can serve fish from the lake!

  I ask Star Fan if Bi’ch can fish fast and she says, “Faster than you, that’s for sure.”

  “Okay . . . let’s do this. Let’s do this!”

  Star Fan goes to get the fishing poles and I shout for Pho just as he walks through the door. “Did you find the Ping-Pong table?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “It’s down there.”

  “Well we need it up here! We need it here! Go get it . . . Go!” He rolls his eyes and trudges back down to the boathouse. “And then come get this Goddamned geisha to open up!” I shout after him. Five minutes later I’m down on the dock with Bi’ch as she puts something sticky and tarlike on my hook and points to the water. “Tod,” she says, pointing. “Tod, tod!”

  “Put it in there?” I say. “Tod? Okay, I’ll put it in tod. Ew . . . here we go.”

  Two minutes later we have both our poles in the water. Ten minutes later heaven has taken mercy on us. We’re reeling in fish. My line jerks and Bi’ch shouts, “Zoo tod!” which apparently means “Reel it in!” We slap fish after fish into the bucket. Then Bi’ch quickly builds a crackling fire by the shoreline while I haul our impressive catch up to the kitchen. Star Fan cleans the fish over the sink. Pho has monkeyed with the refrigerator and gotten it to open up. “Great!” I shout. “Now look for any
thing in there that makes fish sauce!” He looks around inside and shrugs. As I sprint back outside, he thunks a bottle of mayonnaise on the counter.

  I go to the garage to get the saw, which I use to shorten the legs of the Ping-Pong table. Pho helps me haul it into the dining room. I tell him to go find a clean sheet and throw it on the table. Outside Bi’ch is roasting fish, five at a time, wedged inside a handmade reed box. She grins her big toothless grin at me and says, “I cook!”

  “Roasted over an open flame. I can’t believe you know how to do all this! I mean, this is amazing! We caught all of this—right here in Lake Minnetonka!”

  Even Star Fan smiles.

  “Did Bi’ch make that reed thing she’s roasting the fish in?” I ask her.

  Star Fan nods. “She made it in like five minutes, from shit she got from the shore. Bi’ch can do anything. She’s badass. She led a resistance group through Laos.”

  “She did?”

  “Hell yes. She was their survival guide. She was the reason they ate.”

  Amazing. I’d always thought of Bi’ch as some helpless little old woman, when she’s actually like a MacGyver who can’t sing. Bi’ch stands up, dusts off her skirt, and points to a basket of greens, which she also apparently collected while I was inside. “Oh yeah,” Star Fan says. “Grandma B found salad.” Bi’ch gives me a big toothless grin. I pause for a moment and then seize her by her tiny waist and twirl her once around. “Aiyeeeee!” she shrieks, and I kiss both her dried little apple cheeks, laughing before setting her down.

  “Thank you!” I say. “Unbelievable. Unprecedented. Bi’ch saves the freaking day!”

  “You have ten minutes before they get here,” Star Fan says.

  I race upstairs. Ace and Trevor are on my bed watching TV. “You feel okay, buddy?”

  “No.”

  “You need anything?”

  “Yes. A Coke.”

  “No Coke ever again, mister!” I get him a glass of water and then hurry to get ready, wrestling into my most severe foundation garment to date, then pulling on my white sweater dress with the green alligator accent belt and matching green alligator pumps.