Something New (9781101612262) Read online

  “Are we?” I can’t help myself. Definitions are almost as important to me as words. And I can’t help but feel like I am missing something, something important.

  “I hope so,” he replies, his voice low. “I feel connected to you, Ellen. I know that sounds strange, but it’s true. And that doesn’t happen to me very often.”

  I let out a sigh and rub my forehead with my free hand. “I feel the same—”

  “Great! That’s perfect. I’ll let you know,” he says hurriedly. Then the phone goes dead in my hand.

  I glance up at the TV and see that the old woman looks like she’s about to hurl herself into the ocean. She doesn’t, I know. She throws the necklace in instead. But if I were standing at the side of a ship right now, I’d jump.

  Two seconds later, the cell rings. I hit the Talk button. “Is everything okay?”

  “I was going to ask you the same thing.” It’s Jonah. Of course. I realize with horror that I could have said something like, “Hi, Ben” or “Are you all right, Ben?” or “Come on over and climb on top of me, Ben.” Beads of sweat pop out on my upper lip.

  “Everything’s fine,” I say evenly. “Why?”

  “I called the house earlier and got no answer, so I called your cell and got no answer on that, and you still hadn’t called me back, so I started to worry.”

  With good reason, I think. Just not the right reason.

  “I was in the bath when you called,” I tell him, glad that this is the truth. “And I fell asleep without even checking my voice mail.”

  “You fell asleep at seven o’clock?” he asks skeptically.

  “Mia came over today, you know, her annual send-off? I might have had a bit too much wine.”

  “Oh. Well, it’s good to know you’re having a grand old time without us.” He is using the same tone Ben used at the marina, and it’s enough to make me want to scream.

  “What would you like, Jonah?” I ask icily. “That I curl up into a fetal position and spend the next six days bawling my eyes out?”

  “It would just be nice to know that you missed us.”

  You just left! He sounds so petty and juvenile that I can’t resist telling him the truth. “I miss the kids a lot.”

  “The kids, huh? But not me, right?”

  “Jonah, your behavior of late hardly inspires me to pine away for you.”

  That shuts him up for ten whole seconds. “Okay,” he concedes. “But just for the record, I don’t miss you either.”

  “Give the kids my love,” I say through clenched teeth. Then I disconnect the call and fling the phone across the room. Sally looks up quickly, snorts, then falls back against the pillows.

  Eleventh Post: March 26, 2012

  SomethingNewAt42

  MEN ARE SCHIZO

  Enough said.

  Hanging around. Nothing to do but frown.

  Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.

  Monday, Monday. Can’t stop that day.

  It’s just another manic Monday, I wish I could run day…

  A constant string of Monday songs echoes through my brain as I sit on the floor of Connor’s closet and proceed to go through every single pair of shoes he owns. In terms of mental stimulation, this job ranks about a one-point-two, whereas in terms of the smell factor, it rates a solid nine. My son, God love him, has stinky feet. I gave up on handing down Connor’s shoes to Matthew before Connor turned eight because of the offensive odor that emanated from his sneakers even though he’d worn them on only a handful of occasions. And I should note that Connor is a very clean young man. He showers every day and is positively anal about grooming, a trait he inherited, obviously, from Jonah. But put his feet in a pair of socks and entomb them in anything other than sandals and you have a recipe for a stench that could knock out a stadium full of people.

  The house phone rings. My stiff muscles protest as I push myself off the floor and head for my bedroom to answer it. I pray that it won’t be Jonah. I have already spoken to my children this morning. Jessie called from her father’s cell, since her grandparents don’t let the kids use their phone because of the “outlandish long distance rates, by God.” She spent five minutes telling me about a lizard she spied this morning that was as big as a cat before handing off the phone to her brothers. Connor and Matthew had little to say other than to bemoan the fact that Grandma and Grandpa don’t have a Wii and only have basic cable and won’t let them use the computer to play games and what the heck are they going to do for the next five days? When Connor asks me if I want to speak to Jonah, I give him the excuse I always do when I want to avoid speaking to my husband: that I have to make number two.

  I don’t expect it to be Jonah on the line, but just in case, I answer with a chilly “Yes.”

  “‘Yes?’” Jill echoes. “Is that your new way of answering the phone?”

  “I thought you might be Jonah.”

  “Ah, the one-syllable tactic,” she says. “I take it things are still a little rocky with hubby.”

  “If the fact that I can’t stand the sight or sound of him equals things being a little rocky, then yes.”

  “You know,” she says, “you could just answer the phone Prick.”

  Oh my God! “Oh my God!” I say aloud. “Jill, you just said prick! I mean, you actually said it! You didn’t spell it! What the h-e-l-l is going on? Did you check in to swear-word-spelling rehab?”

  “Ha ha,” she says, amused. “For your information, prick is not actually a swear word. ‘If you prick us, do we not bleed?’”

  Since when does Jill quote The Merchant of Venice? Something is definitely up.

  “What is up, cuz?” I ask.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she says coyly, and I think she knows exactly what I mean.

  “You just quoted Shakespeare.”

  “So? I love Shakespeare. I could compare Shakespeare to a summer’s day.”

  “Are you high?” This is the only possible explanation I can come up with.

  “I am high on life,” she says. “And on the fact that I had the most incredible sex of my entire life last night.”

  “With who?”

  She laughs. “With Greg, of course. You know, my husband?”

  “Since when are you having the most incredible sex of your life with your husband?” I can’t help but ask.

  “Since last night,” she replies. “Since I told him that if he didn’t start treating me like the desirable woman I am, I was going to divorce him.”

  I sit down on my bed, shocked at my cousin’s brass balls. I’ve always known she has balls, but I just assumed they were made of something softer, like Knox Blox.

  “Wow,” is all I can say.

  “Wow is right,” she agrees. “Do you know that he actually cried when I threatened divorce? Said he couldn’t imagine his life without me in it. And I told him that he better start proving it to me because I was almost done.”

  “Jill, you are the man!”

  She giggles effervescently and I realize that I haven’t heard her sound this happy for a very long time. The cynic in me wonders how long Greg’s renewed attentions will last, but I don’t give voice to this question. I don’t want to spoil her mood. And maybe, just maybe, this is the kick in the ass he needed to change his ways for good. I pray for this with all my heart because my cousin deserves it.

  “So I read your blog this morning,” she says breezily. “Were you in a hurry or something?”

  Actually, I wrote the blog last night after throwing my cell phone across the room. I went downstairs to make myself a sandwich, then sat in front of the computer, intending to write a long and laborious treatment on how men are schizophrenic and multiple-personalitied and bipolar and just plain psychotic (and those are the good ones) as an addendum to my first post, Men Are Cheeseballs. My hope was that writing it would be therapeutic for me and I would be able to release some of my tension over Jonah and Ben. But after coming up with the title, I realized that no amount of description or
detail was necessary. I sat for a long moment, debating as to whether I should expound, wondering if I was copping out. I even began several paragraphs. But everything I wrote ended up taking away from my main point, so I scheduled it for today’s publication and shut the computer down.

  “You didn’t like it?” I joke. “I thought it was brilliant.”

  “Apparently, so do a lot of readers,” she says. “You got more comments for today’s blog post than any of your others. And every single one agrees with you!”

  I laugh. “Simplicity is key,” I say.

  “So, what’s on your agenda for today?”

  A sigh escapes my lips because I know that as soon as we end this conversation I will have to return to smell central. “Finish going through Connor’s closet, start on Matthew’s. I don’t know if I’ll get to Jessie’s today. I think I should pace myself.”

  “Gee, you really know how to live,” Jill says.

  “What about you?”

  “Well, I’m going to bask in the afterglow of my magnificent lovemaking for at least another hour. Then I promised the boys I’d take them to the movies. The Pixar one that came out on Friday. Want to join us? That is, if you can tear yourself away from your closets.”

  I contemplate a theater full of popcorn-munching, sugar-frenzied, vociferous preteens and decide, in true Jack Nicholson fashion, that I’d rather stick needles in my eyes.

  “Thanks anyway,” I tell her. “I really want to get these chores finished.”

  “Okay. But let’s do a girls’ lunch later this week. Just you and me. I’ll get Patty down the street to take the boys.”

  “Sounds great,” I say. I put the receiver down, stand up, and head back to Connor’s closet, wishing I had some of that ointment that coroners rub under their noses before an autopsy.

  • Twenty •

  It’s amazing how much you can accomplish when you don’t have four people and a dog constantly asking you to do something. (Well, Sally is here, but she is, without a doubt, the most low-maintenance of the bunch.) By four o’clock that afternoon, I have successfully rampaged through my children’s closets, leaving them frighteningly neat and organized. I know how the kids will scream and complain when they see the fruits of my labor (Where’s this? and What happened to that?), and I also know that within a month, said closets will be restored to their usual chaotic state, but at this moment, as I pull open the door of the fridge and grab a well-deserved beer, I am feeling very pleased with myself. It’s only Monday, after all. If I can get the garage done tomorrow, I will have the rest of the week at my disposal to indulge myself in whatever activity suits my fancy.

  I haven’t heard from Jonah today, which is fine with me. For the first time in my marriage, I realize that I have absolutely nothing to say to him, with neither love nor anger. I feel as though our marriage is an ocean, and for a long time now, we have both been sitting in separate life rafts, floating aimlessly along on the whim of the tide. Up until now, the currents have been moving in the same direction, but a huge swell has surged between us and is pushing us apart. I don’t know whether this comparison was influenced by my aquatic hijinks yesterday, but it seems right on the mark.

  I was never one of those women who suffered from the delusion that marriage is forever and that love lasts a lifetime. I come from divorced parents, after all. But I did believe that making it all the way to old age with one person, persevering through troubled times and surviving the unavoidable ups and downs of married life, would give a person a mighty sense of accomplishment, akin to climbing Mount Everest. But my opinion of marriage has changed along with my views on mountain climbing. Both are too damn much work. Just the thought of attempting to have a conversation with Jonah exhausts me.

  I take my beer into the living room and park myself on the couch, grabbing the new edition of the Ladies Living-Well Journal. I ended up reading Jill’s March issue cover to cover, and although the contest isn’t over yet, I figure I should familiarize myself with the content. Just on the very way off-chance that I win. Not that I honestly believe that is a possibility, and not, believe me, that I care a great deal about it. But should the impossible become the actual, I want to be prepared.

  The April issue has an interview with Sandra Bullock and I skip ahead to that page. I like her, I really do, but when I look at the picture of her next to the article, I think, Sandy, what have you done to yourself?

  I am squinting down at her image, trying to find a single wrinkle on her forty-eight-year-old face, when I hear the slam of a car door out front. My first thought is that Jonah has already had too much quality time with his parents and the kids and has come home early. But I quickly dismiss the thought, knowing full well, from my daughter’s loquacious ramblings this morning, that Jonah is finally making good on a promise he made to the kids three years ago. He is taking them to see Meteor Crater.

  Thinking the car outside must belong to a neighbor’s friend or a meter reader, I return my attention to the magazine, only to be interrupted by the doorbell.

  Frowning, I get up and head for the door, casting a quick glance out the front window to see a plain black sedan sitting at the curb in front of my house. I don’t recognize the car, but when I open the door, I recognize my guest, and I have to swallow the lump that immediately rises to my throat.

  Ben Campbell stands on my front porch, dressed in slacks, a sport coat, and a conservative blue-and-gold tie.

  “Hi,” he says, looking as awkward as I feel. When I say that I am not dressed for visitors, I mean that I suddenly wish an earthquake would hit Garden Hills and tear a gaping crevasse right through the baseboards of my foyer that would swallow me up, tattered painter pants, Flashdance-style collarless T-shirt, and all.

  “I tried to call your cell,” he explains, “but you didn’t answer. I thought I’d just come by.”

  Suddenly I am thankful that our house is situated at the end of the block. There is no one on our right and no one across the street, just my neighbor to our left, Vivienne Dulac, an eighty-seven-year-old woman from France who doesn’t hear very well and pretends not to speak English even though she has lived in the States for forty-two years. Even if, perchance, she caught sight of a strange man entering my house, Jonah would never be the wiser because he doesn’t speak French.

  “Come in,” I say, drawing the door open, but he shakes his head.

  “Actually, I was hoping you’d come with me. I have kind of a surprise for you.” When I don’t respond, his expression falls. “I’m sorry. It’s a bad time. I shouldn’t have just dropped in on you. How rude. Sorry.” He starts to turn away, but before he can reach the steps, I reach out and grasp his sleeve.

  “Just give me a minute to change, okay?”

  The inside of the sedan is as unremarkable as the outside, if you don’t count the shotgun mount between the seats, the squawking CB radio, and the mesh grate that separates the front from the back.

  “Nice car,” I say with a grin, and Ben winks at me.

  “Courtesy of the GHPD.” He has relaxed completely since I accepted his invitation, even went so far as to loosen his tie and remove his jacket. I, too, feel relaxed. Although Ben’s side of the conversation on the phone last night was cryptic, he did manage to give me clarity on one subject. He thinks of us as friends. Just friends.

  Suddenly, Billy Crystal’s voice pipes up in my head. Men and women cannot be friends because the sex always gets in the way.

  I mentally tell Billy to fuck off.

  “So where are we going?” I ask, trying to change the course of my thoughts.

  “You don’t like surprises?”

  “No, I do,” I assure him. “As long as they don’t require me to wear a wet suit.”

  “Ah, but you had fun!”

  “Yes,” I agree. “But I’m still trying to warm up.”

  “I promise, no ocean adventures today.”

  As he aims the car toward downtown Garden Hills, I gaze out the window, taking in the shops and r
estaurants and local landmarks as we pass them. I am struck by the odd realization that I am very rarely a passenger in a moving vehicle, and that when I am, it is usually at night, on a date with my husband. It’s fun to see the streets of my hometown in broad daylight, and I notice things for the first time, like the way the light posts in the civic section are made to look like gas lamps, or how the top scoop on the sign for the Garden Hills Ice Cream Parlor magically falls off, then reappears seconds later, or that the roof tiles on Casa Mexicana have letters painted on them that spell out comida buenisima over and over again. These things are all new to me, and I smile to myself as I drink them in.

  When we reach Police Plaza, Ben turns into the parking lot and weaves past several buildings before coming to a stop in a slot designated for civil servants. He opens the door and gets out, and I follow suit, giving him a questioning look over the top of the sedan.

  “You’re going to give me a guided tour of the jail?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.

  He laughs. “No. But I’ll let you try out my handcuffs if you’d like.”

  Gulp. Just friends. Sure. Yup. Friends say things like that to each other all the time. Billy Crystal snickers at me in my head.

  Ben comes around the back of the car and holds out his hand to me. Without thinking, I grasp it, and he yanks me in to him as though we are doing a tango on Dancing with the Stars. A surprised laugh escapes me as he clutches me to him. For a microsecond that seems to last a year, he stares intently into my eyes, and I allow myself to stare back. Then he twirls me out to arm’s length and lets go of my hand.

  “This way,” he says, gesturing toward the redbrick structure in front of us. Instead of heading for the double doors, he gives the entrance a wide berth and heads around the side of the building, and I trot to keep up with his long strides. When we reach the back courtyard, I freeze in my tracks and suck in a quick breath at the sight before me.

  A helicopter sits smack-dab in the middle of the helipad adjacent to the courtyard. I feel my jaw drop and my eyes go wide, and I know that I must look like a gaping idiot, but I can’t seem to pull my teeth and lips together. Any moment, drool will start to leak out of the corners of my mouth. I glance over at Ben, who is sporting a Cheshire grin. He takes hold of my elbow and ushers me toward the forest green flying machine, talking as we go.