Read Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Single Online
Authors: Heather McElhatton
He tries to say something, but I won't let him. “I know you still care about me and you want to be
friends
, Brad. I get it, but here's what you don't know, I don't want to be friends with
you
.”
“But, Jenâ”
“I don't want to be your friend because you're a snob and because your penis bends to the left. Because you don't clip your toenails and I know you downloaded porn called âGrannies Who Chug Cock.'”
The orange snowsuit guy says, “Ouch!”
I go on. “I don't want to be your friend because you won't stop bothering me about anal sex and you never once asked if you could pick up
my
dry cleaning.”
I'm really getting going now and his bad habits are popping up in my head like a field of bright yellow daisies. I can hardly
pick them all in time. “Because you don't like my toy collection or my cat and because I called you once and told you there was a spider as big as my head in my bathtub and you didn't come over and kill it!”
The orange snowsuit guy shakes his head. “Ya gotta kill the spiders, man,” he says. “Ya gotta.”
I put my hands on my hips. Maybe it's my nervous exhaustion or my new tequila-sponsored honesty, but I feel a jolt of something I can only describe as angry joy surging through me. “I don't want to be your friend, Bradford, because worse than everything else combined, worse than you being selfish and inconsiderate and always late, you're a
mama's boy
.”
There, I said it.
I step back, out of breath. He gulps air like a big, stupid fish.
“But, Jen,” he says, “I wanted to apologize.”
I don't think I heard him right.
He shakes his head. “I wasn't breaking up with you.”
“Uh-oh,” the orange snowsuit guy says.
Brad tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “I was trying to tell youâ¦that I want to be your boyfriend.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, you nutcase.” He wraps his arms around me.
I feel unsteady. Tears ready to roll. “Really?” I whisper.
“Really,” he says and kisses the top of my head. “I love you. You're the only woman I want on this whole broken planet.”
“I did not see that coming,” the orange snowsuit guys says, shaking his head.
“I love you, too!” I say and bury my face in his coat. He smells like heaven. Absolute, perfect heaven. “I wasn't trying to download âGrannies Who Chug Cock,'” he whispers. “I swear. I clicked the wrong thing.”
I laugh, eyes full of tears, and we kiss. It's like no other kiss
before. It's deeper, truer, and with more tongue. I'm flooded with relief, like I'd been dying of thirst and now a river of crystal-clear water is washing over me. I look up at him and frown. “Why did you take three whole days to tell me? You should have just told me right then! We wouldn't have had a huge fight.”
“Just shut up and be my girlfriend,” he says.
“Really?” I ask. “Your girlfriend?”
“Really,” he says. “My girlfriend.”
God, I love this man.
“Let's go home,” he says. “We can talk about all that other stuff you said, um, tomorrow or maybe never.” He links his arm in mine and we walk down the sidewalk together.
I hold back the tears for two blocks.
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I throw myself into fervent “good girlfriend” research. If there's advice, I want it. If there's a tip, I'll take it. I don't care where it comes from.
Vogue
,
Cosmopolitan
,
Woman's Day
,
Teen Beat
, they all have a
lot
of articles about “capturing” and “luring” and “keeping” men. It's like getting a man to stay with you is the equivalent of hunting for large game. The ultimate goal is to find the tastiest prey, hunt it down, and then nail it to the altar.
Woman's Day
says the best way to keep a man is through his stomach. They have recipes
he'll love!
and provide ample ways to incorporate comfort foods with intimate evenings so your guy starts to associate food and sex with you. “Capture a man's appetite, and you capture the man.” This of course is pure, unmitigated bullshit. The key to keeping a man is to keep him
wanting
you, and that particular code has as many variables as there are men.
Vogue
says men will tell you what they like; you just have to watch for the clues. They've been trained to keep what they really want subtle to invisible for fear of being clocked in the
head with a flying stiletto so they recommend paying attention to your guy's “stories.” Especially about their friends. Example: He says, “My friend XXX likes anal. Is that weird?”
Brad isn't subtle at all. He wants anal bad, and I won't budge on the matter.
“It hurts,” I told him. “It'd be like me trying to stick a rolling pin in your eye socket. Is that sexy? No. So don't ask me anymore. The day I can stick a rolling pin in your eye is the day I let you put your thing back there. That's it.”
Elle
says the hardest part about capturing a guy's heart is playing it cool. They insist a girl has to act nonchalant even in the most ardent situations. The minute guys think they have you, they lose interest in you. It comes from caveman days, when men hunted for food and chased after creatures that ran away. The minute they caught it the hunt, and therefore the thrill, was over. So you have to keep the hunt going by acting like you don't really care, like you could take off at any moment. If you start acting “caught” or, worse, advance on him, he'll be the one to turn and run.
So great. While I'm cooking scrumptious meals in the kitchen and being a triathlete in the bedroom, I also have to act like I'm bored. And how long am I supposed to keep that up? For life? Am I supposed to be emotionally detached and generally uninterested when we're ninety-two and sitting in rocking chairs next to each other on the porch?
While it's almost impossible to ignore Brad, it's very easy to ignore Ted, who's gotten really moody lately. We hardly talk anymore, but then again I hardly talk to any of my friends. I'm too busy. I'm always scrambling to get my work done, not that it matters because Ashley hates everything I do and has hit a new level of hostile.
“What's this?” she shouts at me in her office, holding up the
Super Saver coupon book. It's just this stupid book of nearly meaningless coupons, like twenty-five percent off men's socks and buy-one-get-one-free pencil cups. We spend about half a day doing the marketing copy, which goes on the front, and in this case says,
KELLER'S! COME INTO CLASSY!
“What's wrong with it?”
“What's wrong with it? Are you telling me that I'm showing you this and you do not automatically know what's wrong with it?”
I shrug. Why doesn't she ever call Ted in to yell at him about this stuff? We write all of it together. “I'm sorry, Ashley,” I say, “I'm not sure what to look for.”
“Why don't you look for the word âclassy,'” she says, “and tell me if we did or did not decide to spell classy with a
k
this year.”
“Oh, you wanted it to say, âcome into Klassy' spelled with a
k
?”
“No,” she says. “
We
wanted it spelled with a
k
. The entire marketing department. We all agreed and you were at the meeting. No, wait! Maybe you weren't at the meeting. Maybe you were out gallivanting around on one of your extralong lunch breaks or spontaneous pedicure appointments! Or maybe you were there and your brain just doesn't have the capacity to retain a single thought anymore!” I just stand there with the coupon book in my hands.
“I'm sorry, Ashley,” I say. “I'll try to do better.”
“Super!” she says. “Just grand. You better pull your act together, my little lamb chop, or you will be out of here. Consider this an official warning.”
“Seriously? You're writing this up?”
She doesn't say anything.
I ask her again, “Are you serious?”
She holds up a manicured hand and shoos me away.
I sit at my desk and stare at my photograph of Mrs. Biggles. My phone rings. Brad asks me if I want to grab dinner after work and then he asks me what's wrong.
“Nothing,” I say. “I just, I got in trouble but I don't know why.”
I tell him about Ashley writing me up and what a terrible day I'm having; just like any girl might tell the guy she's dating. That's the whole point, right? Spend time together and talk so you can get to know someone? Share your dreams, your troubles, your stories of psychobosses? He tells me not to worry, everything will be all right, and I tell him I'll be okay. I feel a little bit better after we hang up and I meet Christopher in the cafeteria for lunch.
We both bravely try the chicken cacciatore.
When I come back to my desk, Ashley is standing there with Ed Keller. Ted is sitting in his cubicle across the way with a weird look on his face. No one is speaking.
Am I about to get fired? For all I know this is how it happens. Ed comes down and says, “Get out and remember God loves you,” and then a beefy security officer comes down and hustles you past your sneering co-workers and out the door where you stand on the street, probably never to get another job again.
“Hi?” I say, like it's a question. “Are you, are you here to see me?” I'm blinking and wincing as though someone might slap me.
“We are here to see you,” Ed says and clears his throat. “Ashley here has something to say to you.”
Ashley's eyes are locked on the carpet and they do not leave this position at any time. Her voice is low and steady. “I'm sorry,” she says. “I'm sorry that I communicated inappropriately with you earlier and I promise to express myself in a more respectful manner in the future.”
Good Christ!
I look at Ted, who seems equally baffled. My mind races through the variety of possibilities that could explain her bizarre behavior, which include a brain tumor and Ashley's sudden religious conversion, but then I think of my phone call with Brad.
Crap.
Ed steps forward and smiles benevolently. “We value you as an employee,” he says, “and that goes for all of you!” He raises his voice over the tops of the cubicles for all to hear. Of course he must realize every single person in the office has been at their desks straining to hear this interaction the whole time. “No one here should accept disrespectful behavior at any time!” he says. “Not from their co-workers and not from their managers. We're a company with God at the helm, and we strive to act as he would!”
That Ed, I tell you, he has claws.
He pats me on the shoulder as he leaves. “We expect to see you at the house for supper sometime soon,” he says. Then he turns and marches down the corridor, Ashley in tow.
They go into her office and close the door. They're in there together for about five minutes and when he comes out, he shuts the door behind him. It stays shut for the rest of the day.
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Brad takes me to his parents' house for dinner, and he promises it's no big deal, just “super casual.” Ed is away, so it's just me, Brad, and Mrs. Keller, which is what I'm told to call her, and unless someone corrects me, what I think I'm expected to call her for the rest of my life. I shouldn't worry about her correcting me, though; I don't think that will be a problem.
Mrs. Keller is a tiny woman and yet she walks into a room like a lit furnace. You always know she's there; you can feel her
sharp eyes watching you and her sharper mind making mental note of every detail she surveys. Details are her thing. She has a short silver pageboy that she sprays into a perfect helmet. There's never a single hair out of place. She always wears feminine pastel dresses made of highly flammable materials, which flounce and ripple when she walks. There's an almost forced innocence, a living-doll quality about them, as though she was a seventy-year-old little girl.
When I meet her she's wearing a knee-length Pepto-Bismol-colored dress with poofy sleeves and a high neck that doubles over into a wide ruffle so her head looks like a pink Gerber daisy. She tells us to take off our shoes because she's just had the carpets done and I wish to God I'd thought of this possibility before, because there is the smallest hole in the toe of my stockings.
Mrs. Keller has a crippled Pomeranian named Boots, who has her back legs strapped into a doggie wheelchair. Boots rolls along with us as we take a tour, beginning in the immaculate mostly white living room, which looks like a nondenominational church sanctuary. Then we go to the gleaming dining room, which has a table that can seat twelve. We end up in the spotless kitchen, which has every kitchen amenity and appliance invented.
“What's that?” I ask, pointing to a big boxy thing. I think asking questions might make me seem polite. “Why, that's a bread maker!” she says, tapping it with her manicured nail. “Hasn't she ever seen a bread maker before, Bradford?”
I was surprised to learn the Kellers don't have a maid. “But your house is so big!” I say, wondering how on earth she cleans the cathedral windows in the living room, which are two stories tall. “I do all my own housework,” she says proudly, “all the cooking and cleaning. I believe it's a good mother's duty. Isn't that right, Bradford?”
“Mom's a great cook. She baked every birthday cake I ever had.”
“Bradford loves pecan pie,” she says, “but I'm sure you already know that.”
I didn't know that. I also had no idea pecan pie was considered a type of birthday cake, or that anyone made it after 1959.
She busies herself with getting dinner ready. “No point in using the dining room,” she says, taking a dish out of the oven. “That's for special occasions.”