People I Want to Punch in the Throat (6 page)

“I can’t. What if Marci has no idea what I’m talking about? Then she’ll know Rosa fired us. I’ll be so embarrassed.”

“You
should
be embarrassed. After all these years, Rosa had enough of you. She fired us. Now what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to find someone else. Maybe Teri can give me that list of the ones she fired.”

“Well, you better do something fast. I don’t want to go to marriage counseling.”

I spent the next couple of weeks searching for a new cleaning lady. I couldn’t find anyone who clicked with me like Rosa did. Even though I was long past my breast-feeding days, every time I interviewed a potential candidate all I could think was, “Would I let this woman grab my naked boob?”

I was starting to get worried—I’d even created a board on Pinterest I called “Marriage Vow Renewal Ideas”—when one day my phone rang. “Hello?” I answered.

“Jen?” a familiar voice asked.

“Rosa?”

“Yes, it’s me, Jen. How are you?”

“I’m not good, Rosa. How are you?”

“I’m not good, either. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.”

“I hate St. Louis.”

“Oh. So you
really did
move there?”

“Of course I did, Jen. Did you think I didn’t?”

“It doesn’t matter now, Rosa. You were saying you hate St. Louis.…”

“Yes. And the kids hate St. Louis.”

“Oh.” I felt a little tingle. If Rosa hates it
and
the kids hate it, maybe …

“Javier hates St. Louis.”

Yes!
I tried to play it cool. She’d hurt me, but I didn’t want her to know. “Oh.”

“I come Saturday, Jen?”

Oh please God, yes
. “Saturday would work for me, Rosa.”

“I can clean behind the fridge now. I know you like that.”

“No!” I cried. I’d just gotten her back—I didn’t want to rock the boat with outrageous demands and risk losing her again. “We’ll just stick with your usual routine, Rosa. Just do what you do best.”

“Okay, Jen. I see you Saturday.”

“Rosa …”

“Yes, Jen?”

I hesitated. Could I really say it? How could I not say it? I had lost her and now she was back. Had I learned nothing from all of those “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” articles I’d been using as makeshift marriage counseling for the Hubs and me during her absence? Rule number one: tell your loved one what they mean to you—out loud and often. “Rosa, I love you.”

“I know, Jen.”

With our cleaning lady situation locked down and our marital bliss revived, the Hubs and I headed into our first summer in Kansas. I’d recently started a new job at a large company selling office equipment. We didn’t know too many people who weren’t related to me, and we were looking to branch out and meet some new people, so when Maryanne, a woman in my office, invited us to her Fourth of July party, I accepted.

“Remind me again: how do you know this woman?” the Hubs asked as he drove to Maryanne’s house and I balanced a tray of deviled eggs on my lap.

“We work together. She’s in the cubicle next to me. I can always hear her on the phone wheeling and dealing. She has a lot of big accounts. It seems like every day she’s selling truckloads of Aeron chairs while I’m struggling to get my clients to pull the trigger on a box of staples.”

“Hmm. Okay. And you’re sure we can see the fireworks from her house?” The Hubs is a bit of a pyromaniac.

“Yes,” I sighed. “Maryanne lives in the neighborhood right next to the park where they shoot off the fireworks. She told me
we can see them easily from her backyard. It will be so nice not to have to deal with all the crowds at the park!”

“Good, because I want to see the fireworks.”

“I know.” I sighed again.
God, can he be any more demanding?
I didn’t know it then, but he was actually training me on how to deal with our future children someday.

“And why did we need to get this dressed up?” the Hubs asked, tugging on his “good” (aka clean) shorts, which I’d made him put on.

“You’re not even that dressed up! You’re wearing a pair of shorts that required a bit of ironing. Relax. I’m the one in a dress! I just wanted us to look nice. Maryanne is very professional and she would be a great mentor for me at the office. I need to suck up to her a bit. I have no idea what her friends will be like, but just once in my life I would like to make a good first impression. My mother taught me that you can never be overdressed, but you can be
under
dressed.”

We rang the doorbell and a woman with bright red hair wearing the tiniest star-spangled bikini I’ve ever seen up close and personal answered the door. Sure, you see those types of bathing suits in
Sports Illustrated
or something, but they’re almost always on toned, tanned, perfectly styled, and airbrushed twentysomething models. This one was tied around a fifty-year-old piece of rawhide that had been left out too long in the sun. The only thing that didn’t sag on her body was her boobs. Her huge fake breasts looked like small beach balls glued to her chest.
Holy crap!

“Maryanne?” I asked cautiously. Maybe Maryanne was on the phone closing a hot deal on an all-in-one scanner copier fax machine and this was her sister, whom she’d just picked up from the plastic surgeon’s office.

“Joslyn!” Maryanne slurred, enveloping me in a bear hug. “Of course it’s me!”

I choked on the fumes emanating from her. It was a combination of coconut tanning oil, Jell-O shots, and body odor. “It’s Jen, actually,” I corrected her.

“Right! Jen. So glad you could come! Come on in and meet the gang. You’re so late!”

“Well, you said we should come anytime. We wanted to come in time to see the fireworks.”

“Cool. That makes sense. Well, you missed a helluva day. We’ve just been playing in the pool and drinking and doing Jell-O shots and having a lot of fun. I’m sorry you missed it. But you know what? You’re here now. And now you can play! Did you bring a swimsuit?” she asked, looking me up and down.

“No. You didn’t mention you had a pool.”

“I didn’t? Oh well, yeah, I do. And a hot tub!”

“It’s okay, I don’t really like to wear a swimsuit.”

“I hear ya! You guys can totally skinny-dip. You won’t be the first naked butts in my pool!” she cackled.

“I can’t swim!” the Hubs said quickly. It was a half-truth. The Hubs is a terrible swimmer.

“Ah, whatever! Come on in!” Maryanne ushered us through her immaculate house, where professional family photos hung on the walls. A picture of Maryanne and three teenagers, all subtly color-coordinated and posing in a wheat field, hung over the sofa. Another picture of Maryanne and the three teenagers playfully frolicking together in jeans and white T-shirts hung over the piano. In the kitchen a huge photo magnet dominated the refrigerator. This one was Maryanne in her signature red power suit leaning casually against our company’s most popular color copier. When I saw that one I nudged the Hubs and whispered, “That’s the real Maryanne!”

“Sorry, Jen, but I think
this
might be the real Maryanne,” he
whispered back, pointing at Maryanne’s tanned derriere hanging out of her thong.
My eyes! Her swimsuit is a thong!

“Look who I found!” Maryanne called as we stepped out onto the patio. “It’s Joslyn and her hubby!”

A chorus of hellos rose up. I looked around the pool to see who was there. I’d heard Maryanne inviting many people from the office, and I was sure there would be someone I would recognize. But I didn’t see one face that I knew.
Where is everyone?
I wondered.
And who the hell are these people?

We were surrounded by more fiftysomething people in teeny-tiny patriotic swimwear. WTF?

“Hi there,” a barrel-chested man in extra-small flag shorts said, smiling at me.

“Hello,” I replied.

“Want to try the hot tub? It feels great today!”

“Uh … no thank you.” I looked around for the Hubs. Surely he would not like this semi-nude man chatting up his new wife. I couldn’t see him anywhere.

“Maryanne said you forgot your suit,” Flag Shorts went on. “It’s okay, Elliot forgot his suit, too!” He pointed to a bald man lounging luxuriously in the hot tub.

“I always ‘forget’ it!” Elliot laughed.

“You’re so bad!” Maryanne squealed as she jumped into the tub next to Elliot. Before I could avert my eyes, they started making out full throttle.

“My eggs,” I squeaked. “I need to get them out of the heat before they spoil. Excuse me.”

I turned back toward the house and heard Elliot call, “Hey, Joslyn, after you put those down, come on back! I’ll save you a seat! Maryanne doesn’t mind sharing, do you, babe?”

“Nope. I’ll share if Joslyn will share,” Maryanne said.

Are you fucking kidding me?
Holy shit! This was no ordinary Fourth of July party with co-workers. These people were swingers! And not hot ones. God, why are swingers always so gross? Why is it always old, fat men with ponytails and wrinkled women with fake boobs? Why can’t I just once be invited to a swingers party where I’m the hideous one and everyone else is smoking hot? It’s a pretty sad state when
I’m
the best-looking one at the swingers party!

I ran into the house and quickly found the Hubs hoovering appetizers off the food table. “They’re swingers! They’re swingers! Red alert! They want to have sex with us!” I grabbed the Hubs’ plate and threw it in the trash. “Stop eating their food! We can’t owe them anything. We cannot be in their debt. They will want to be paid in blow jobs!”

“What the hell are you talking about, Jen?” the Hubs asked, starting another plate of food.

“Put down the food and listen to me! I just got invited into a threesome with Maryanne and some old douchebag who isn’t wearing a swimsuit!”

“You did? Is there anyone good for me?” the Hubs teased me.

“Shut up. This is serious. We need to go! These people might rape us!”

“No one is going to rape us. They’re too old and too drunk. We can totally fight them off. Besides, this pasta salad is delicious. I’m not leaving until you try it.” He offered me a forkful of pasta.

“I’m being serious!”

“So am I. This is fantastic! Is the grill hot out there? I want to grill up one of these brats.”

“Oh my God! Don’t go out there! They’ll invite you into the hot tub.”

“Relax, Jen. I just want to make a brat.”

“Seriously, stop eating right now! I want to leave. I am
very
uncomfortable with this.”

“Hold on.
You
are the one who wanted to come here. You told me that Maryanne is so cool and you wanted her to be your mentor. You wanted a mentor, so get mentored. I’m going to eat. Where are your eggs?”

“You’re really going to eat?”

“Of course. I’m starving. I didn’t eat much lunch, because I hoped there would be a spread like this. Just grab a seat on the couch and wait a few minutes for me.”

I sat on the couch gazing at Maryanne’s normal-looking family pictures while the Hubs stuffed his face.
Where are her kids today?
I wondered.
Do they know their mother is a swinger?

“Joslyn?” It was Flag Shorts. “Are you coming back outside? We’ve got Jell-O shots.”

“Thanks, but I can’t. My
husband
needs me to stay in here with him while he eats.” I emphasized “husband,” hoping Flag Shorts would get the hint.

“I can’t borrow her for a bit?” Flag Shorts asked the Hubs.

The Hubs chewed his cud slowly and contemplated the question.
You son of a bitch!
“No,” he finally said. “She’s right. I need her with me. I like her to get my food for me. Joslyn, I need more deviled eggs, woman!”

Flag Shorts shrugged and left us.

“I will be in the car,” I announced.

“Wait. I’m not done,” the Hubs said.

“I don’t care. I will be in the car. Waiting for you.”

“What about Maryanne? Don’t you want to say goodbye?”

“No. She doesn’t even know my name. She’s so sauced she won’t even remember I was here.”

I got out to the car and texted my co-worker Dennis.

Jen:
Hey, what’s the deal with Maryanne?

Dennis:
Why? Did she invite you to her party?

Jen:
Yes.

Dennis:
DON’T go.

Jen:
Too late.

Dennis:
LOL. Is she in her thong?

Jen:
Yes!

Dennis:
Sorry. Thought you knew. She’s tightly wound at work, so when she’s home, she likes to let loose.

Jen:
She likes to swing!

Dennis:
Yeah, that too. You really didn’t know?

Jen:
Of course not.

Dennis:
Thought everyone did. Every year she ropes some newbie into coming to her party. You’re the sucker this year.

Jen:
Great. You saw me talking to her; you should have told me.