Something New (9781101612262) Page 2

  Jill lives about a mile away, and since I have no reason to apply makeup or earrings, or even brush my hair, I make it to her place in four. As I pull to the curb in front of her ranch-style home, I notice a moving van in the driveway of the house next door and several young guys hauling furniture into the house. I can tell by their bronzed (and bulging) biceps that they are surfers and/or sun worshippers—and probably students as well, earning extra cash to support their extracurricular activities. They are the kind of strapping youths who cause even the most happily married women to simultaneously clamp their thighs together and drop their jaws. I watch as two of them effortlessly pull a floral sofa from the van’s rear end and, instantly, I think about my own rear end, which is currently encased in a tattered pair of gray sweats that may or may not have a hole revealing my left butt cheek.

  Let me take a moment to dispel any notion that I am some kind of hag or that I look like a vagrant who just stepped out from under a cardboard box. I’m not, and I don’t. I am a moderately attractive, almost-forty-three-year-old woman who manages to look more than presentable at PTA functions and cocktail parties. I do all the requisite primping when I need to, so as not to embarrass my children or my husband. I fit into a size ten, although nowadays I prefer that my waistbands have elastic. I own two pairs of Ferragamo pumps (which Jill talked me into because they were on sale) and a great Versace dress that I wore to Jonah’s firm’s Christmas party last year. But I prefer sweats or jeans and T-shirts for my everyday ensemble and cannot be bothered to apply makeup regularly. But as I stare, gape-mouthed, at the four studly twenty-somethings hefting chairs and tables and lamps and boxes across the lawn, I wish I had taken thirty seconds to drag a brush through my hair. And put on a pair of pants that I was certain didn’t have a goddamn hole in the butt.

  I reach for the sweatshirt I keep in the back of my Flex for emergencies. As I squirm and gyrate in order to tie it around my waist, hoping that it will cover the alleged hole, Jill appears at the front door.

  “Come on, come on!” she calls, drawing the attention of the boys next door. She glances over at them and gives them a coy wave reminiscent of a beauty queen.

  Jill is not classically beautiful, but she has that fresh-faced, youthful quality that brings to mind those Ivory Girl commercials from the eighties. Originally from the South, she is the epitome of a Georgia peach, with a rosy complexion and a bubbly personality to match. She is two years older than me and looks thirty-five. (Bitch!) And she is always perfectly coiffed and well groomed. (Yes, she manages to find time to shave and pluck despite the fact that she has three children.) At the hands of her menacing African American trainer, Buick, she keeps herself fit and trim. (Buick, like the car, though he more closely resembles a Hummer.) And she has the loveliest green eyes I’ve ever seen. Why her husband, Greg, won’t touch her anymore is one of the great mysteries of life, equal to the current resting place of Jimmy Hoffa.

  Jill flashes the movers a smile, and I notice that the two carrying a computer desk up the porch look like they might drop it on their feet. I alight from the car and head up the flagstone path, where Jill meets me halfway. She drapes her arm around me and giggles.

  “A little eye candy to keep you going all day.”

  I laugh, but I can feel all of the boys’ eyes on the two of us and can almost hear their thoughts as they consider us: The Beauty (Jill) and the Beast (who else?). Well, at least the sweatshirt is covering the hole on my ass.

  She guides me up to her front door, takes one last look at the testosterone fest, then ushers me inside.

  Like Jill herself, her house is neat and orderly, bright and cheerful. No piles of stuff lying on surfaces, which I find mystifying since she has three boys. (Four, if you count Greg.) She tells me that she allows her sons freedom in their own rooms; she doesn’t care if their personal dwellings look like they’ve been hit by a monsoon as long as they keep the rest of the house neat. (I tried this edict at home, but to no avail. My children, God love them, are themselves little monsoons who regularly leave a trail of destruction in their wakes. I hustle after them like FEMA, and with about as much success.)

  As I enter the kitchen, I detect the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Jill has set two mugs on the granite counter and goes about filling them from the Braun all-in-one she got for Mother’s Day.

  “What’s the matter?” she asks with an uncharacteristic frown. Frowning and Jill’s face do not go together, which is why she has never needed—and probably will never need—Botox. I, on the other hand, am a frowner of the first order and would require at least three vials of dead botulism cells for the furrow between my brows alone.

  “What do you mean?” I counter, stirring two teaspoons of sugar into my mug.

  “You look…MI don’t know. Bummed out.”

  Jill knows me better than anyone, even my own sister. And she has a way of getting me to talk about things I’d prefer not to talk about. She has an intuitive side that always emerges when I’m around. I consider just how much I should reveal to her, what she’ll make of all my inner musings. I wonder if I should tell her about my failed attempt at reinvention and, consequentially, my inevitable obsoletion.

  “Is obsoletion a word?” I ask aloud.

  She looks at me, almost cross-eyed with puzzlement. “What the h-e-l-l does that mean?”

  Jill has been spelling out swear words for so long that it’s become a habit. She does so even when her children aren’t around, and ironically, all of her children can now spell. I am suddenly reminded of a conversation I bore witness to about three months back when Jonah had taken the kids to a ball game and I’d stayed at Jill’s for dinner. She, cooking her old standby, chicken with peanut sauce and rice, burned her hand on the electric range and had blurted out a shrill f-u-c-k!

  Her son Decatur, thirteen going on forty-seven, had given her an award-winning eye roll. “Jeez, Mom. Why don’t you just say fuck?”

  Jill had promptly ordered Decatur to wash his mouth out with soap, to which he replied, “I will if you will. Just because you spelled it out doesn’t mean you weren’t thinking it.”

  At which point, Denver, nine years old (and no, I don’t know why my cousin named her boys after cities starting with the letter D—another great mystery) chimed in with, “Pastor McInerny says that the thought is as bad as the deed.”

  “Pastor McInerny is an a-s-s,” replied Decatur.

  “Who’s an ass?” came the voice of six-year-old Deet (short for—wait for it—Detroit) as he walked into the kitchen to grab a juice box from the fridge.

  “Well, d-a-m-n!” Jill had said, throwing up her arms in surrender, then proceeded to drink three quarters of a bottle of white zinfandel before pronouncing herself s-h-i-t-faced.

  “What’s so funny?” she asks me now, noting the smirk that is pasted to my face.

  “Nothing. Not a d-a-m-n thing.”

  “Ha ha ha.” She takes a sip of her coffee and eyes me over the rim. “You’re bummed, right?”

  “I am most definitely not bummed.” I refuse to be described by a phrase that lost all popularity by the year 1991. “You asked me over, remember?” I hazard a glance at her long acrylic nails as they tap a staccato rhythm on the countertop. Jill usually chooses a color with one of those cutesy names like Just Peachy or Everything’s Coming Up Rosy. Today they appear to be Out Damn Spot Red. I lower my eyes to my own fingers, which are currently clutching my coffee mug. My nails are short and unembellished, as usual, and I think, Balefully Boring.

  “Yes, I did.” She nods thoughtfully. “I saw something at the salon this morning that made me think of you.”

  I remain silent, waiting, thinking, what could it possibly be? UFO? Machete-wielding madwoman? Hugh Jackman naked, streaking across Vale Street? (That would definitely be something.)

  She reaches into the drawer behind her and withdraws a magazine, and I can’t help but think of all the magazines decorating nearly every flat surface in my house, from the living room coffee t
able to the backs of all three toilets. Who carefully places magazines in a drawer in the kitchen except for a completely anal-retentive neat freak? That’s my cousin Jill. And I both love and resent her for it.

  “I saw this article,” she says, pointing to a headline on the right side of the cover. I am able to read the boldly printed name of the magazine, Ladies Living-Well Journal, but, my eyesight being what it has become, I cannot read the title of the article. It’s just as well, I think. It’s probably about how to spice up your sex life or how to cleanse your body of unwanted toxins. Or maybe it’s about how cleansing your body of unwanted toxins can spice up your sex life.

  “It’s a writing competition,” Jill declares, barely keeping her excitement under wraps. “The best blog wins ten thousand dollars!”

  “I don’t even know what a blog is,” I reply. In truth, I have a vague notion, since all three of my kids are required to blog for school. But theirs are the only ones I’ve read, and since the subject of their blogs ranges from the age-old debate of lunch boxes versus paper sacks to why PF Flyers are the absolute bomb and no other shoe should ever be worn, I sort of zone out when I fulfill my parental duty by skimming through them.

  I realize that Jill is talking and I try my best to do what I always ask my children to do: to give her my full attention and listen with both my ears.

  “Now, the deadline to enter is next Friday, and you have to post once a day for two weeks,” she says, “but you can write your blog posts in advance if you want. The magazine gives you all the info you need to get started.”

  “Blogs are losing popularity,” I tell her. “I heard it on the news.” Actually, Connor told me, but hearing it on the news sounds more authoritative.

  “Only with kids,” she counters knowingly. “Blogs are still the rage with middle-agers.”

  “Who are you calling middle-aged?”

  “Stay on point, will you? You’d be a great blogger!”

  I take a deep breath and blow it out on a sigh. Then I snort. Now, I know that snorting is not the most attractive habit, but it is a very effective way to convey derision.

  “Don’t do that!” Jill complains. “I’m serious, Ellen. This is perfect for you.”

  At one time I was a mildly successful journalist. I wrote freelance for a variety of magazines and newspapers and had garnered a reputation for being fast, funny, and philosophical. I’d even begun a novel, just before meeting Jonah. Needless to say, the first eight chapters of said novel are, at this moment, lying in the bottom of a box on the uppermost shelf of my attic, collecting dust and feeding mice.

  “I haven’t written anything since Connor was born,” I say.

  “I know. And I just can’t understand why.”

  “I’m busy!” Defensiveness creeps into my tone because I know what Jill is thinking. She’s thinking exactly what I’m thinking. Busy with what?

  “Look, when your kids were little, yeah, okay. But they’re all in school now. I know you can carve out some time for this. A few hours a day is all you’d need.”

  “I’m busy reinventing myself,” I blurt out before I can slap my hand over my mouth.

  Jill is silent for a full ten seconds, regarding me as though I am a new and interesting species of insect—fascinating to look at for a moment, but almost certainly about to be squashed.

  “And what, pray tell, does that mean?” she asks.

  I shrug noncommittally. “I’m just taking some time to reassess my life and make some positive changes.”

  “Like wearing T-shirts that don’t have stains on them?”

  I look down at my white peace-sign shirt. Sure enough, there is a tear-shaped drop of strawberry-colored goo just above my right breast. Perhaps I should have put the sweatshirt on instead of wrapping it around my waist. But then, what would I have done about the hole? I guess I could have walked backward into Jill’s house.

  “Yeah. Like that,” I say, folding my arms across my chest.

  “Pop-Tarts?” she asks, and I nod. “Frosted or unfrosted?”

  “Frosted,” I reply, and it’s her turn to nod.

  “So, how’s this reinvention thing working out so far?”

  I agree to take the Ladies Living-Well Journal with me because I know that Jill will pout and moan if I don’t. She basks in small victories, and I haven’t the heart to deprive her of this one. I tell her that I will think about it, to which she replies that I really ought to do more than think about it. I am a wonderful writer, she tells me. And getting back to the computer will fit right in with my resolution to improve myself. This is something just for me, she says. Perhaps she is right. And I will look at the article. If not today, then tomorrow. Or over the weekend, between soccer and T-ball. Or between Jessie’s costume fitting for the school play and Matthew’s science project. Or after I finish the ten thousand other chores I’ve racked up. Oh, who am I kidding? I might as well dump the magazine in Jill’s recycling bin on the way to my car.

  But I don’t. I cheerfully hug my cousin and make my way down the path to my Flex. As I shove the key into the door lock, I see movement in my peripheral vision and automatically assume that it’s one of the movers. But when I look up, I see a handsome man dressed in faded jeans and a white T-shirt heading in my direction. He waves and smiles, and I see the laugh lines etched into the corners of his eyes—because men, no matter what their age, have laugh lines, not crow’s feet (totally unfair, but what can you do?)—and a smattering of gray hair in his closely cropped sideburns.

  “Hey there,” he says.

  “Hi.” I pull open the door, toss the magazine onto the passenger seat, then internally argue with myself as to what to do next. Jump into the car and speed off like a wheel man for a bank job, or just stand there like an idiot with the car door open? And as I struggle to make this decision, I realize that I haven’t had a conversation with an attractive stranger in a very long time. And as this realization dawns, I am suddenly frantic to hide the Pop-Tart stain on my shirt.

  “I’m Ben Campbell,” he offers, sidling up to my Flex. “My family just moved in next door.”

  “Oh,” I say. I desperately want to cross my arms over my chest, but I don’t want to come across as closed off or aloof, which, according to Dr. Phil, is exactly the impression that this particular gesture suggests.

  “Yeah,” he says. “It seems like a great neighborhood.”

  I notice that his eyes are the warm hue of melting chocolate. His hair is a shade lighter. His face is angular but not harsh; his smile gives him the ingratiating look of a faithful puppy. Oh, and his body ain’t bad either. He’s probably in his midforties, but there doesn’t appear to be an ounce of flab on him, and the tight white tee he’s sporting leaves little to the imagination. His six-pack abs are practically bursting through the fabric.

  Perhaps I should feel guilty for doing something that is so closely related to outright, drool-dripping ogling, but I have been married for thirteen years, and during that time I have never strayed. And let me tell you that any married woman who claims she doesn’t assess members of the opposite sex is either blind, a liar, or a closeted lesbian who is using her unknowing husband as a beard.

  I suddenly wonder how awkward it would look for me to remove the sweatshirt from my waist and tie it around my shoulders, like Ally Sheedy did with all of her sweaters in St. Elmo’s Fire. And a split second later I am truly ashamed of myself for giving thought to such a ridiculous idea. Besides, who in the new millennium even remembers bad 80s Brat Pack movies, no matter how iconic they were at the time?

  “I saw your car here when we signed the escrow papers last week,” he explains. “I figured you must be a friend of the family.”

  “Cousin,” I reply. I usually don’t speak in clipped, one-word sentences, but I am irrationally worried that Ben Campbell will see the stain on my shirt and immediately put his new house on the market in order to find a home with more suitable neighbors, or at least neighbors who don’t have relatives who are part of
the unwashed masses.

  I am perplexed by the visceral reaction I am experiencing just by having this conversation. I assume it is because, at my age, thrills are hard to come by, and talking to a fine man clad in ass-hugging Levi’s certainly counts as a thrill.

  “Cousin, ah,” he says and nods. His eyes dart to my shirt and he sees the strawberry goo. How could he not? It’s right there, just above my right nipple; in fact it’s exactly where my right nipple would be if I were twenty-three.

  “I hear the school system is terrific,” he suggests.

  “The best.” At least I have now graduated to two-word sentences. Yay for me.

  “Well.” He sighs good-naturedly. “I guess I’ll see you around.”

  “Definitely,” I reply. Okay, so I’ve reverted back to one-word sentences. At least this particular word has four syllables. And I can be proud of myself for not stammering or stuttering like a schoolgirl, or breaking out in a cold sweat. And I’m pretty sure I didn’t flinch when I saw him notice the stain. So there’s that.

  I give Ben Campbell props for not looking at me as though I am some kind of mentally challenged nut job. He does quite the opposite, in fact. He flashes me that easygoing smile and gives me a two-finger salute, then strides back toward his property. The four moving guys have emerged from the house empty-handed and Ben Campbell stands for a moment shooting the breeze with them. I pray he is not telling them about the wacko he just had the displeasure of meeting, the one with the bright red stain on her boob who also happens to be conversationally challenged. But I will never find out. Because I hop into my car with as much agility as an almost-forty-three-year-old woman can muster, crank the key into the ignition, and speed away with my composure, if not my dignity, intact.

  • Three •

  Thursdays for the Ivers children are jam-packed with activities, and adhering to their schedule requires tactical and strategic planning worthy of a SWAT team. From the moment school ends at two thirty, it becomes a mad dash to get all three of them where they need to be, on time and appropriately dressed. Connor, who is twelve, has baseball at three fifteen. Matthew has soccer at three thirty. Jessie also has ballet at three thirty, and because her dour-faced Russian ballet coach informed me that it is “dire zat she be here on time!” I have to drop Matthew on the field at three twenty and leave him in the care of the other soccer moms while I race to the far end of town to get Jessie to the studio. At four thirty, Connor has karate, Matthew has Wilderness Scouts (held at the local Y, which has acres of concrete—the only sign of “wilderness” is a five-foot-square, balding patch of yellow grass), and Jessie has rehearsal for the elementary school musical. This year, they are doing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Jessie is delighted to have been chosen to play an Oompa-Loompa, not realizing that every child who auditioned got to be an Oompa-Loompa.