Dearest
Diary,
I am trying
to pinpoint the exact moment that my life turned into a cheesy soap opera. Maybe
it was when my mother shoved me kicking and screaming into a marriage with my
current (and now soon-to- be-ex) husband or when I developed a drinking problem
out of boredom that went on for two years before I had to give it all up to
have a baby that I never really wanted in the first place. Or maybe it happened
six months ago when, thinking my husband Eli was having an affair with his
secretary, I decided to one up him and have an affair of my own with an
Australian millionaire by the name of Simon Dever. But of course, as is often the
case on those shows, there was an unexpected twist in my story. The truth was
that Eli was staying late after work only to get dance lessons from his secretary
(who was very limber to be sure) so he could wow me back into his bed and possibly
put some much needed “spice” into our marriage. The irony was that the
truth about Eli's salsa lessons didn't come out until after I was caught in flagrante delecto with Simon.
It's also possible that my life became a bad “Days of Our Lives” rip-off when Eli kicked me out of the
penthouse for the affair, cut off all of my credit cards, and essentially
banished me from the city. Leaving me, of course, with no recourse but to pack up
and head home to Mommy Dearest.
I shudder to
think of my mother Carolyn – AKA Satan; AKA Mother-thinks-she’s-so-superior; AKA hell on
wheels – as I write this. Yet here I am on a train headed to Mansfield,
Michigan (where I was born and raised) where I will soon have to stare my own personal
version of hell right in the face. Of course I can mean none other but my mother.
Now to look
at Carolyn Clegg, you might not be able to tell that underneath the burnt
sienna hair dye, the Botox, and her expensive, designer clothing, that she is anything close to being the most demanding, haughty and hypocritical
bitch this side of the Atlantic but that's just the disguise she wears until she can ferret out your weakness and use it against you. She's positively ruthless. She is going to give me
so much hell for cheating on Eli!
Okay but
enough about Her for now. This is my journal and it should be all about me. Anyone
who happens to discover and read this diary a few years down the line will probably
want to know a bit about what makes me, Jennifer Lindsay Brown, well, me.
For
starters, I am in my thirties (I am not going to say how close I am to forty;
that’s not anyone’s business but my own!), physically fit (planking is simply a way of
life!) and attractive (that’s not vanity speaking here. It's just the truth). I have naturally blonde hair that is very straight and cannot hold a curl. A former friend of mine, Shay Harrison (truthfully, I only ever considered Shay a friend because we traveled in the same circles), used to say that I looked just like that snooty blonde lawyer on “The Young and the Restless” though I have personally never seen the resemblance.
I have one
child, a teenage son named Zeke, and to be quite honest, he hates me with a flaming passion. He has always found me to be lacking as a mother and takes great pleasure in telling me so. I can't help but blame Eli for Zeke's grude against me. Eli always insisted on spending a lot of time with Zeke (monopolizing him, in my mind) -- probably so he could brain-wash Zeke against me!
Zeke is
taller than me at 5’9 and he’s skinny as a beanpole. I have told him that he could benefit
from “pumping some iron” but he always says that he isn’t into “all that stuff” and that I
am too caught up in appearances. Zeke is a bit of a toad at times and uses some
really choice vocabulary words when addressing me, but I do care about him deep down.
Of course though, he chooses not to believe that.
I married
Eli when I was just barely out of high school. That was all mommy dearest’s
idea of course. Eli, though only a lowly med student at the time, came from a wealthy,
socially connected politico family and Carolyn thought it would be a simply
splendid idea to match me up with him, even though at that point we knew very little about each
other. Eli was – and is still – very handsome and wealthy so I did like that about
him. I think at one point Eli actually liked me too. Possibly.
I really had
no say in whether I married Eli or not though because Carolyn put her foot down and
demanded it. Mother swore that if I didn’t allow Eli to slip a ring on my
finger immediately, she would disinherit me and I would end up standing in back
of the line at some soup kitchen begging for handouts. I knew her evil ways well
so I knew that she could and would make good on her threat.
The wedding
was a grand affair the likes of which few people have probably ever seen. There were
500 of mom’s “closest” friends in attendance (only fifty of which I knew
personally). I wore a lavish white gown that cost over twenty-five-thousand-dollars.
I admit to having a big teary-eyed pity fest (party of one) before the ceremony
but I did eventually get caught up in the excitement of the day. When I stood at the altar and looked
into Eli’s dark hazel eyes as I said my vows, I thought maybe I could actually
learn to love him someday. The honeymoon in Europe was good and the sex was mind-blowing. We once had an incredibly active and amazing sex life but after awhile, it got
boring. Everything got so boring and stale.
Eli and I
started having problems early on. You see, he thought I was spoiled and self-centered and I
thought he was brutish and self-righteous. Soon into the marriage I started
that drinking habit I mentioned to pass the time. Plus, it helped chase down
some of the annoyance he evoked in me. He had never liked associating with
“drunks” so my addiction pissed him off. He would go off on long tangents about
the “inappropriateness” of my getting even a little bit soused when we
went out to some formal event or another. He’d also rant about how his favorite uncle Rufus shattered
his pelvis in a drunk driving accident and was miserable and laid up for months (blah blah
blah). I swear that Eli enjoyed going off on those rants more than he ever
enjoyed my company.
Eli eventually began to pressure me for children and though I tried
to fight off conception any way I could (for example, I still took birth
control religiously even after I had lied and told him that I’d thrown out the pills), but as usual I
didn’t get my way. Nature had its own ideas - and maybe my mother had made a pact with the devil himself to help make it happen (she desperately wanted a grandchild to “carry on
the family name” and would do anything to get one). I wouldn't put it past her.
I had to give up the drinking of course (which sucked) since I was expecting. It was a long
and torturous pregnancy and to say that I got fat would be an understatement (it
took me seven-plus months of going to the gym twice a day to lose the extra
weight I had gained in carrying Zeke).
I will tell you that Zeke was not
an easy child to deal with from day one. As a baby, he cried a lot and was
colicky and sometimes I thought I’d go out of my mind even with the help of our Mexican nanny, Rosalina. Eli kept encouraging me to bond with Zeke but I just
didn’t know how. Breast feeding, according to my oh-so-smart physician husband, was the
best way to make a "lasting and healthy connection" with our son but I tried it a
few times and it really just didn’t work for me. It felt weird and painful, and
Zeke was a fierce nibbler even with no teeth. Zeke and I sadly, never got
really close as I mentioned earlier. He has always just seemed to like his
father so much more. Oh well…
Anyway, I just heard
the conductor announce over the intercom that we will be pulling into the
station at Mansfield imminently. I predict that my mother’s elderly chauffeur
Davis – a man who has been in the service of my family for the past forty and
some odd years – will be waiting for me on the platform, ready to take my bags
into his gnarled old hands. I also predict that my mother will be pacing furiously
back at the main house and when I arrive, she will immediately pounce on me,
demanding to know why I am coming back to town now and without Eli and Zeke surgically
attached to my hip. Oh what fun that will be! (You will understand that I wrote
that part with extreme sarcasm in my mind, all the while rolling my eyes until
they nearly flopped out of my head!)
The
train just pulled to a stop so it is time to go. Here’s to hoping that Mother doesn’t
strangle me!
Always yours truly,
Jennifer
Lindsay Brown
