For the first time ever in our more than fifteen-year friendship, Janine is waiting on me at the coffee shop. Because I’m running late. So, so late. And it’s all her fault.
Not only am I late, but I’m embarrassed. And mortified and… and… embarrassed!
How could I do something so stupid? How could Janine not warn me?
Rushing through the door, looking like a madwoman with my hair whipping around me violently, I see her sitting at a small table in the back corner. I make a beeline toward her, ready to give her a piece of my mind.
“I fucking hate you, you know that?” I hiss in her ear before I plop down across from her and begin to unravel the scarf around my neck. Janine just rolls her eyes at me.
“Why do I have a feeling this has something to do with porn?” she asks as she shoves a steaming coffee cup my way.
“Shh! Keep your voice down!” I admonish, still trying to settle in. It’s not easy because my nerves are already shot. “I never would have gone looking at dick last night if it weren’t for you. So thank you very much.”
“Ah!” Janine says with interest, leaning on the table. “Did you find anything interesting? Maybe something you can use later?”
“Eh. Maybe,” I admit, blowing the steam from the top of the cup before taking a sip. “Don Dean is not the most attractive man.”
“He’s not,” she agrees. “But you have to admit, he’s very… um… focused on a woman’s needs. And he’s got a really big…
“Yes, I know!” I whisper-yell across the table. “I spent over an hour watching videos last night. I wasted an hour of my sleeping time watching a bunch of skanks have better sex than me!”
Janine crinkles her nose and looks at me in confusion. “That’s why you’re so pissed at me?”
I roll my eyes. “No, you perv,” I begin, remembering that I’m mad. Somehow, she always makes me forget. “I’m pissed at you because you neglected to mention that after the two-day membership runs out, it’s forty dollars a month!”
“So?” she asks, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s the best forty dollars a month I spend. I consider it one of my necessary utilities, like water and electricity.”
I drop my head on the table. “It’s like talking to a brick wall sometimes,” I mutter.
“Okay, okay, so you don’t want to pay the monthly subscription fee,” she relents, petting the hair on my head for some reason. “I get it. But what did you expect would happen after the two-day trial ran out?”
I pop my head up and look at her again as she digs around in her purse and grabs some lip gloss.
“Oh, I expected there to be a monthly fee,” I admit. “Which is why I planned to cancel my membership. But what I didn’t expect is to have to call to cancel.”
“So what?” she says with a final swipe to her now glossy lips.
“So what?” I’m trying not to screech at her. “There is no way to cancel your membership online. You have to pick up the phone and call! Do you know when their office hours are?”
Janine shakes her head, still not following.
“Between the hours of nine and five,” I say, gaining momentum. “When my kids are home and awake. Do you know how it felt to be canceling my porn subscription while feeding my kids Cheerios?”
The proverbial light bulb finally goes on and Janine starts laughing.
“Let me get this straight,” she finally says, struggling to stop laughing. “You didn’t know you had to call to cancel the membership and you ended up doing it with your sweet, innocent, completely sheltered children in the room with you?”
“Oh, it gets worse,” I say, trying very hard not to break out into hives. “I didn’t find out this information until just a couple of hours ago. So of course I’m scrambling to make the call before my forty-eight hours are over. Which means, guess who walks in when I finally reach an operator?”
“Your mother-in-law?” Janine asks, her eyes wide with excitement.
I nod. “My mother-in-law.”
Try as she might, Janine can’t hold back, and she roars with laughter once again. “Did you… did she…” She’s laughing so hard she can’t even finish her sentence.
“Oh yes,” I say with as much venom in my voice as I can muster. Which isn’t much since she did spring for a peppermint mocha for me and even upgraded to a medium. “I was on hold until about ten seconds before she got to my house to watch the kids. I had to explain to the operator why I was canceling my membership and how satisfied I was with the service in front of my mother-in-law and kids!”
At this point, people are starting to stare at Janine, who is laughing so hard she’s not making a sound. Part of me sees the humor in the whole situation. The other part hopes she holds her breath long enough that she passes out.
“Why didn’t you warn me?” I hiss at her over the table.
“I didn’t know!” she finally hisses back, gaining a little control over herself. “I’ve been a member for two years! I’ve never tried to cancel before!”
I hold my hands up to stop her. “Wait, you’ve had a membership to the Don Dean website for two years? Why?”
She shrugs and picks up her coffee again. Now that my humiliation has been discussed, she’s able to pull herself back together. “I got it right after my divorce. Had to find something that would help me and my rabbit keep each other warm at night.”
The man behind us spews his coffee out of his mouth and across the table he just sat down at. I warned her to keep her voice down, but she never listens.
Unfazed, Janine turns around. “Yo, eavesdropper,” she says to the man who is now trying to wipe his tie with a brown napkin. “If you would keep your nose out of other people’s business, shit like that wouldn’t happen.” She turns back around towards me, shaking her head. “Honestly. Some people should never be let out in public.”
I snort and take another sip of my coffee.
“Okay, but tell me the truth,” she says, her mind never straying off topic. Especially this topic, apparently. “What did you think of the videos?”
“Meh.” I shrug my shoulders. “The man literally will fuck anything. It made me kind of sad, actually.”
Janine rolls her eyes at me. “Of course, you would be the bleeding heart that feels bad for the king of porn.”
“Well, did you read his bio?” I ask her. “He started in high school. High school! Not shooting movies or anything, but having people watch him! Something is seriously wrong with a person’s psyche to do that!”
“Wait,” she stops me. “He has a bio? I didn’t know that.”
I snort a laugh. “Of course you didn’t. You were too busy watching videos.”
“Exactly!” she answers, pointing a finger in the sky. “Gotta get my money’s worth!”
“Okay, okay,” I say, feeling much more calm now that I have some caffeine in my system and Janine has given me her version of ‘perspective.’ “New topic. Now that Killer is more of a dud than a stud, what’s next for the online dating world?”
“Pfft,” she says, sitting back and crossing her arms. “Not a damn thing. I only have one potentially interesting match and he hasn’t asked me out yet. So at this point, it will continue to be just me and my rabbit.”
I eye the man behind Janine as his shoulders stiffen just slightly. He’s trying really hard not to listen, but this conversation makes it almost impossible.
“I’m sorry,” I say sympathetically. “I know you were really hoping to have better luck than this.”
She shrugs. “It would be nice to at least find someone I found interesting enough to hang out with, but I’m not all that worried. Been there, done that. Eventually something will happen.”
I nod in agreement.
“Oh!” she starts. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. Have you started sexting Jeremiah yet?” She waggles her eyebrows up and down.
I sigh. “No.”
“Why not?” she practically shrieks. “You’re trying to add a little spark to your marriage, so you need to be pulling out the big guns! Give me your phone,” she says, reaching over to grab it off the table. Fortunately, I’m faster.
“No way!” I say as I snatch up my phone and clutch it to my chest. “I’ll do it when I’m ready.”
She leans forward, trying to give me the evil eye. It just makes her look high. “Do it now.”
I bite my lip and contemplate. Can I do this? Will he get mad if I do this while he’s at work?
“Stop overthinking,” she says. “You are a woman who tackled internet porn. You are a sexpot who wobbled her way through a strip tease. You can sext your husband and get him hot and horny for you.”
“Fine,” I say, gathering the courage to type out something quickly.
Me: I’m not wearing any underwear.
I show it to Janine, who nods her approval. A few seconds later, my phone dings with an incoming message.
Jeremiah: Did you forget to do laundry or something?
I show Janine, who rolls her eyes. “Try a different angle,” she says. So I start typing again.
Me: What are YOU wearing?
I show Janine again. She shrugs and we wait. Apparently I caught him at a good time. The return message is almost immediate.
Jeremiah: My normal work clothes. Why? Is the washer broken or something, babe? You’re acting kind of weird.
I sigh and throw my phone on the table. Janine immediately picks it up and checks the new message.
“Maybe you canceled your porn subscription a little prematurely,” she says.
I just shake my head and take another sip of my coffee. I’ll never admit it out loud, but she just might be right.