Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Married by Heather McElhatton Read Free Book Online Page B

the Cinnabon counter quickly, ignoring the sweet, cinnamon-scented air swirling around me. If I had a nickel for every calorie I consumed at that godforsaken counter, I could buy Keller’s Department Store myself.
    I nod at the girl behind the counter, who wears a red hat. She’s the seat of evil itself.
    The Cinnabon girl.
    â€œHey, Satan,” I say.
    â€œHey, haven’t seen you around for a while.”
    â€œI’ve been . . . away.”
    â€œWell, looks like you’re back.”
    A colorful poster catches my eye.
    Â 
    JOIN THE
    CINNERS CLUB
    FOR CINNERS . . . JUST LIKE YOU
    Â 
    â€œWhat’s that?” I ask.
    She says it’s an all-you-can-eat-Cinnabon club. You just pay one low annual fee and you can have as many Cinnabons as you want. They also deliver. My jaw drops.
    All-you-can-eat Cinnabons?
    I shudder at what I might look like if I had a membership. I’d become some blobby glutinous mass that oozed out everywhere. I’d look just like a Cinnabon. She tries to hand me a glossy pamphlet, but I don’t take it. “I’m doing a gluten-free thing these days,” I tell her. “And no sugar. I feel like a new person basically. I’m running marathons . . .”
    She just looks at me and holds up a key chain. “Every membership comes with a free scratch-n-sniff Cinnabon keychain. It smells like a real Cinnabon. It’s warm too. There’s a watch battery inside.”
    â€œThat’s . . . that’s . . .” I’m too overwhelmed to speak. I pivot on my foot and march away.
    She’s the devil.
    I take a deep breath as I walk through the heavy glass doors of Keller’s Department Store. How strange to be back, to walk through the doors as a Keller family member and not just a lowly copy girl in the marketing department. I try to maintain a semblance of dignity as I walk through the store. I walk in a stately manner, like Cleopatra balancing a book on her head.
    It’s still too early to go up to Brad’s office, so I sneak up to the marketing department, where I used to work. Where I spent untold hours writing mediocre crap, reworking old sale copy, recutting used radio scripts, refreshing stale slogans . . . or trying to, constantly resurrecting the same dead marketing ideas that were dead for a reason. God, I hated myself while I was doing that. I would’ve been better off selling makeup. At least I wouldn’t have had to watch my own hands butcher the English language so much.
    Walking back into my old office is icky, weird, and hot. Nothing’s changed. The ceilings are still too low, the carpet is still worn out, the heat’s still on too high, and the same torn motivational poster is still Scotch-taped to the break room door. Two little acorns rest on a bed of moss and it says: THINGS THAT ARE SMALL NOW CAN BECOME GREAT SOMEDAY. It might be more inspiring if the acorns didn’t look like small brown baby testicles.
    It’s the perfect time to look around; the whole department is at the weekly roundup meeting. I peek at them through the conference room’s glass window. I do not miss that meeting, which is run by Carl, who’s still wearing the same upsetting crotch-bulging khakis. I used to terrorize myself in meetings just to stay awake by imagining that for some post-apocalyptic reason, I had to have sex with Carl, because the fate of the planet depended on it.
    I see my soul-crushing cubicle, Old Ironsides, where I worked every day, underneath flickering fluorescent lights that eventually would induce seizures. I have no idea who sits in my cubicle now. Ted’s still at his old desk; his Star Wars action figures are positioned in some sort of group orgy. Ted was my fellow inmate, my friend, and my Bookmark Guy. The guy I always held a place for in my mind if nothing else worked out. He’s so nice . . . but he’s a redhead, and not in a good way. We