Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Married (24 page)

Shake.

Before I know what's hit me, the tears spring forth and flow for everything. I weep for my life, I weep for my choices, I weep for Rome.

Then the sun comes up.

I'm asleep in the guest bed with a kimono on. “Ace?” I sit up and panic as I run to the kitchen, where Addi is hand-feeding my dog applewood-smoked bacon.

“Who is the most precious little dog in the world?” she coos. “You are!”

Ace and I go home. Funny to think he's safer in Ted's drafty little low-rent apartment with mismatched furniture than he is in my sprawling mansion on a lake. It turns out heated floors can't keep you warm and locks don't make you safe. I'm driving to one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in America, where all my neighbors are millionaires, but to me it's quite literally . . . a civil war zone.

I go to the gazebo and start to look through old wedding albums. Symbols of my ruined dreams, my buttercream candied-violet fantasies. I was going to be Wedding Day Barbie, all tiny-waisted and misty-eyed. Instead I wound up being Debbie Downer Divorcee, all chunky-butted and red-eyed. I hear someone whistle. I look up and there's . . . Christopher.

Hallelujah.

I had called him and asked him to come over. I tell him about everything that's happened, about burning down the cross, about my awful Valentine's Day, about Mother Keller tossing Ace in the pound and Nick helping save him.

“When I saw Ace inside that chain-link cage,” I tell him, “it's like I never really cared about how anyone treated me . . . but Ace? No. I'm sorry. That's not okay. Hurt me all you want, but touch my dog and we're done.”

“I once had this hairdresser,” Christopher says. “Brett. Jeremy always said I only went to him because he looked like an Abercrombie and Fitch model. He gave me terrible haircuts.”

I tell him I remember that. “The guy who gave you a half Mohawk.”

“Exactly. I believe you said I looked like an eighties pop star who survived a car accident.”

“Barely survived.”

“Anyway . . .” He sighs. “It didn't matter who told me I looked terrible, I didn't believe them. I thought Jeremy was just jealous, and you? I never listened to your fashion advice. Still don't. But the point is, I only realized the truth when
Jeremy
went to Brett and got a haircut.”

“I remember. He looked like Tina Turner in
Beyond Thunderdome
.”

“I never saw Brett again. It was only when I saw what Brett did to someone I love that I realized what he was doing to
me.
Understand?”

“Unfortunately.”

We sit there for a moment.

Finally I look up at him. “You know what?”

“What?” He squints at me.

“I have to leave. I have to leave . . . Brad.”

A rusting Mazda pulls into our driveway and parks. A girl in a floppy red hat gets out carrying a big cardboard box and Christopher stares at me.

“You got the Cinnabon girl to
deliver
?”

“Satan made me join the Cinners Club,” I tell him. “So she owes me. Down here, Satan!”

She makes her way to the gazebo and hands me the large cardboard box, which says
CINNA-NUM!

“They're still warm,” she says. “Like you wanted.”

“Can you drive a stick shift?” I ask her.

She shrugs and says sure.

“Then here you are. Have a Lamborghini.” I toss her the keys and she smiles at me.

“You want me to move your car or something?”

“Christopher, do you see an envelope around here with . . . oh, there it is.” I hand her the manila envelope I have with me in the gazebo. “Here you go. Title and registration. You'll need those to prove you own it.”

The Cinnabon girl frowns at me. “You're giving me a car?”

“No. I gave you one.”

She peers up the driveway. “That green Lamborghini right there?” She holds the keys above her head and clicks the button.
Beep-beep!
The Lamborghini's headlights flash twice and its venom-yellow eyes wink open.

“Um, Jennifer?” Christopher whispers.

“Not now, dear. We're transacting. All right, Satan?”

“I can't take this.”

“Well, of course you can. It's for years of service. You provided more comfort and advice and support, frankly, than any psychologist. Take the car, because, as my friend Addi once said,
life's
not fair and nobody asked you to be here, so shut up and just wax your damn pussy.”

The Cinnabon girl looks back at me. Then she heads up the lawn and a moment later we hear the Lamborghini's engine roar to life and the car peels out, followed by the sound of laughter, and then . . . we see a red hat go sailing
up, up, up
into the blue sky.

Christopher looks over at me and says, “I think someone's in love.”

“I think I just figured out something about love.”

“Spill it.”

“Well, last night when I found myself demolishing a government building with a pickup truck in order to save my three-legged dog, I realized something: that finding true love and finding true north are the same thing. You just toss the maps and use your own compass . . . because true love can turn up anywhere and it can look like anything. Even something super freaking unusual, even like a three-legged dog by the side of the road, eating out of Pampers. True love is saying, ‘I love this creature . . . even if no one else wants me to.' ”

“Welcome to being gay,” Christopher says.

“True love is saying, ‘This is a bad idea . . . and I'm doing it. This bad idea . . .
it's mine.
' You can lock it in a building or put it on the moon. You can pass a law that says it's illegal. It doesn't matter. Do what you will . . . I will never give up on it. I will always come back for it. I will find it every time, because I've got a compass that shows me the right way and all you have is maps that don't know where true north is anymore.”

I look over at Christopher and he's staring at me.

“So.” I sigh. “Want to help me get out of this crappy marriage?”

Christopher squeezes my hand and nods. “Honey, I've been dreaming about it ever since your wedding day.”

“Good. Then we'll launch my new plan: Operation Awful Wife.”

Christopher smiles at me and nods.

“Of course,” he says. “You had me at ‘Awful.' ”

18

Operation Awful Wife

B
rad's pretty irritated about his Lamborghini. I take the simplest road out and tell him I was moved by the Lord to give it away.

“You gave my Lamborghini away?”

“Well no, of course not!” I tell him. “I sold it for a dollar. God told me to.”

He looks for his beloved car. He places ads and calls the police and is told if he wants to get it back, he'll have to find the new owner and negotiate a deal. Brad asks me
who the fuck I sold his car to
and I say I can't remember. When he starts to yell at me in earnest, I call Pastor Mike and schedule marriage therapy counseling. I say Brad seems inordinately attached to material things. When Mother Keller finds out we're about to go into marriage counseling and embarrass her in front of the whole church, she calls Brad in a fury and he never mentions the Lamborghini again.

Winter drains away and spring blooms. I told Christopher exactly what the divorce lawyer told me: If I walk away from this marriage without justification, I'm screwed. It's the prenup I signed. I'll get nothing, less than nothing. Brad will get to keep everything, the stocks, the money, the property, the cars, the furniture, even my clothes. The prenup says whoever leaves without cause gets nothing. It also says anyone caught
cheating
gets nothing. Anyone caught committing adultery automatically forfeits all assets, joint and otherwise.

“The real question,” Christopher says with a sigh, “is why'd you sign a prenup? Who on earth would sign a prenup?”

“I was an idiot.” I sigh. “Like every girl getting married. I was in love. I thought my marriage would last forever. I would've signed anything.”

Christopher groans.

I tell him Brad's mother made us sign a prenup, so neither of us would quit early or cheat and run off with all the family's money. Christopher nods and looks impressed. “Well, at least she did her homework,” he says. “She knew to nail your shoes down.”

“But the infidelity clause works both ways,” I tell him. “If Brad gets caught cheating on
me,
then he gets nothing and I get to keep everything. See?”

“Um . . .” He looks around, confused. “No, not really.”

“We need to catch Brad cheating.”

“What if he isn't cheating?”

“Well then . . . we have to make him cheat.”

“Make him? How do you make your husband cheat?”

Top Ten Ways to Make Your Husband Cheat

  1. Tell him he can.

  2. Leave him alone with your cute friends.

  3. Reduce/eliminate talking to him. Walk out of the room when he walks in.

  4. Cut off all sex, including masturbation. Bang into the bathroom while he's showering.

  5. Make yourself look like a lesbian folksinger. Wear baggy clothes and stop shaving all your leg and armpit hair. Glue extra hair on for added effect.

  6. Smell French. Refrain from using soap, perfume, or deodorant.

  7. Stop feeding him. Stop shopping for him. Stop cleaning up after him.

  8. Cancel all social engagements with him. Never have fun together. Look disappointed when he comes home.

  9. Take long trips away from home. Suggest he do the same and bring his secretary.

10. Hang a big “Honey Do” list, aka “Nag Board,” on the wall, filled with lots of smiley faces and hearts along with nasty chores and ways he can improve himself.

    
How 'bout going to the gym, honey? I'm worried about your blood pressure
. . . Also, you're getting a gut . . . I bought you a nose-hair trimmer because it looks like two miniature gorillas moved into your nose . . . I canceled your golf game and made you a doctor's appointment—time to get checked for colon and prostate cancer!

 

First things first. I tell Brad he can have an affair if he wants to. Big mistake. I thought he might take me up on it, look surprised but delighted, and say, “Really?” But no, he looks at me with suspicion and then around the room as if I'm filming this. Right away I backtrack and say I'm kidding. I smack his arm and remind him we're cleaved together till death do us part. Of course, the way he eats and takes care of his body, that might be sooner rather than later. That triggers an argument about how I always nag him, which is exactly what I wanted to have happen. We are soon shouting at each other and quickly diverted from the topic of cheating.

Whew.

I move on to the next plan. Christopher and I launch into gear by . . . buying gear. Spy gear. We need
hard evidence.
I learned from listening to all of Addi's divorce stories that eyewitness testimony is worthless. I could walk in on Brad balling the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and it wouldn't mean a thing, not even if they testified against him as well and signed legal affidavits stating they were all pregnant with his baby. It still doesn't count. We need to catch Brad on tape. Red-handed. In the meantime I have to act normal; I can't let on I'm leaving. Addi says that's mistake number one that most women make. They blurt out that they want a divorce before they've gotten ready and stashed assets away for later.

We order a boatload of creepy spy gear online, and using the dollhouse, we decide where to install all the spy cameras we bought. We have cameras disguised as a pen, an ashtray, a dictionary, a fluffy pink teddy bear, and a tabletop gumball machine. I find all of those items highly suspicious and unlikely to be in any home, but the spy gear website guarantees results.

We call the pen-cam “Mr. Inky” and stash him on Brad's desk. The ashtray-cam, or “Li'l Smokey,” goes on our bedroom fireplace mantel in case there are unsanctioned shenanigans going on in our bed. The dictionary-cam, or “Brainy Boy,” is shoved into the bookshelf in Brad's office. The fluffy pink teddy bear, “Gay Ted,” goes in the front hall, so we can see who comes and goes. The gumball machine, “Chewy,” goes in the kitchen and looks absolutely retarded.

We struggle with our roles as domesticated spies. Mr. Inky is out of the game after Brad grabs it, thinking it's a real pen, and scribbles furiously on a piece of paper. Then he chucks it in the garbage can under his desk. Mr. Inky dies. Li'l Smokey is placed too high up to record anything useful, Brainy Boy is half obscured by a hockey trophy sitting on the bookshelf, Chewy records the Ice Empress insulting people, and Gay Ted falls over on his face repeatedly, the camera lodged in his nose making him top-heavy, and he records no footage whatsoever.

We're not completely amateurs, though. I get Pho to reprogram Brad's Audi R8, which he bought to replace the Lambo, so the voice commands all do different things than they're supposed to. Normally if Brad says something like “Adjust temperature” or “Turn on radio,” the car responds to those commands exactly. We make a few adjustments to the system, however, so now if Brad says any of the key words we've programmed in, the car will give us clues. If Brad says “pussy,” “wet,” or “girlfriend,” then the left backseat seat warmer goes on. If he says “How much?” the right backseat seat warmer goes on. If he says “blow job,” the passenger-side headrest rotates to the right. If he says, “Oh baby, yes!” the rearview mirror clicks two notches to the right. Now I'll know if Brad is having sex in his car. Or eating a really good sandwich.

I follow Brad to work and wear disguises so he won't recognize me. I love the feeling of becoming someone else and stalking him like a blond, brunette, or redheaded panther into the store. I watch who he talks to and how; I sit through employee seminars and watch him just like I used to do when we were dating as smarmy seminar guys extol the virtues of change.
Change!
(Cue the sound of pennies dropping.) I follow him down hallways and peer at him through makeup displays and watch him through racks of clothing. I stand behind him as he rides the escalator. To my disappointment, he never speaks to anyone unusual or out of the way. I expect him to be cavorting with the whores behind the hosiery counter or with the sluts selling Clinique lip gloss, but he doesn't. He's always talking to or meeting with someone quite appropriate, like his father or his sister or fellow members of senior management.

Infuriating.

But I don't give up. I follow Brad after work, to restaurants and bars, where he sips and sups with a variety of people. Nothing about it is scandalous, except that the amount of time he spends with Todd Brockman should legally be considered a crime. The man is heinous. It's at one of their favorite sports bars downtown that I run into my ex, David. David, my longtime love, whom I loved since second grade, when his family moved in down the street. Everyone thought we'd get married . . . including me. Instead of a wedding, however, all I got was a long, grueling, tortuous on-again, off-again “relationship” with a hipster doofus who had a drinking problem, a tendency to borrow large sums of money that he never paid back, and a horrible garage band he loved called Obscure Cold.

They were awful.

David smiles at me. He says I look great and asks if he can call me sometime. I sort of bat him off uninterestedly and say, “Sure, whatever.” An action I would've thought was inconceivable until recently. Now, however, I'm someone quite different from the girl he used to know. Now I'm doing things I never thought possible. Like ordering two hundred Patty Wee Wee dolls from a remarkably inexpensive wholesaler in Taiwan, who ships them to the house express overnight. I unpack the black-eyed dolls wearing diapers and line them up like a firing squad in our bedroom.

“What're all these freaky dolls doing everywhere?” Brad shouts at me when he sees them.

I tell him I've started a new charity for incontinent children.

“These dolls are freaky as shit!” he says. “I'm sleeping downstairs.”

I continue to make the house as unpleasant as I can. I have Pho reprogram the Ice Empress to be the most annoying person I can think of: Brad's mother. I have him download Tammy Faye Bakker's voice and Billy Graham sermons, so whenever you ask her for anything she spits out a Bible verse. It goes like this: “Ice Empress, can I have a bottle of water?”

“
Amen!
” she shouts. “Verily I say unto you, that through the valley of the shadow of death I was hungry and
He
gave me food. I was thirsty and
He
gave me drink. Behold!” (Panel flips open and bottle of water appears in frosty nook.) “I was near death!” she says. “And
He
gave me a generous donation! At 1-800-GO-JESUS!”

I make sure I myself am as gross as possible too, so Brad won't want to touch me. I stop shaving and cease wearing deodorant. I tell Brad that I have sleep apnea and wear a CPAP machine to bed. I wear baggy boxy clothing from my absolute favorite new clothing designer: the Mormons. They sell Fundamentalist LDS dresses on the Home Shopping Network now to raise money for their compounds or jail funds or whatever. The dresses are all handmade and totally porn-on-the-prairie. They're made of worsted felt and have high necklines, floor-length hemlines, and little peaked, tufted shoulders. They're boxy and big. I look like I'm wearing an enormous felt tea cozy. The opposite of sexy . . . in a dress.

I make sure my activities are disgusting. I take up the lost art of Victorian hair jewelry and spend hours with pale women from the nearby Mennonite community, who join my regular hair-weaving roundtables and sing hymns and braid long tresses of dead hair in the kitchen. Afterward I forget to sweep. I hire a graphic artist to paint random religious murals on the walls. The crucifixion of Christ stares at us from our bedroom ceiling. I sell all our traditional furniture and replace everything with big blocky modern furniture . . . so modern I often I don't even know what the furniture is. A couch or a collapsible bed? A rug or a wall hanging? A lamp or a flower vase? Who knows. I give up after I put what was a porcelain bidet in the living room, thinking it's a wet bar. I routinely rearrange the furniture, especially upstairs, so Brad trips over things when he goes to the bathroom at night. I sigh when he does this and call him Mr. Klutzy.