Something New (9781101612262) Read online

  “We share this with two other police departments,” he says. “The pilot’s a buddy of mine from up north, moved down here a few years ago.” As if on cue, a tall, trim man in his late thirties, with close-cropped hair just going silver at the sides, steps out of the helicopter and walks purposely toward us. He grasps Ben’s hand and gives it a hearty shake, then smiles at me and puts out his hand.

  “This is Sergeant Fred Walker,” Ben says. “He’ll be our pilot today. Fred, this is Ellen Ivers.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I say as I withdraw my hand from his Wolverine-like grip and flex my fingers open and closed just to make sure they still work.

  “She’s all fueled up and ready to go,” the pilot says with a nod to the helicopter. “Just climb on board and fasten your safety belts. I’ll be right there.”

  He walks over to a small booth where another officer sits. The officer hands the sergeant a clipboard and a pen, and Walker starts checking things off.

  I look at Ben, feeling something close to awe. “You arranged all this?” I pause, then clear my throat. “For me?”

  He smiles. “I figured I owed you.”

  I am so overwhelmed I don’t know what to say. No one—not my husband, not my parents, nor any of my friends—has ever executed a surprise as magnificent as this. I am beyond touched. I am undone. This is like a fairy tale or fantasy or a really good romantic comedy. And though I am well aware that there will be no happily-ever-after in this story, at this moment, I don’t care a damn. I am going to take this ride, both literally and metaphorically, and if I crash and burn, so be it.

  “Thank you,” I say quietly, and the intensity of my gaze causes Ben to look suddenly serious. He glances past me, I assume to make sure the two officers are not looking in our direction, then slowly bends down and kisses me tenderly on the lips.

  I am thirteen, and Sean Goldman is awkwardly grasping my shoulders and pulling me toward him as my knees turn to spaghetti. I am seventeen, and Kyle Krauss is revealing his newfound talent for French kissing behind the gym during fourth period. I am twenty-three, and David Carlson is clutching my hair with his fingers as he presses his lips against mine, leaving me breathless and inspiring in me a yearning that persists long after he breaks my heart. I am twenty-eight, and Jonah is hungrily crushing his mouth over mine, demanding my tongue, sending heat all the way to my groin.

  It lasts only for an instant, but Ben’s kiss will now be archived among my greatest hits.

  “You’re welcome,” he says, his face an inch from mine. He lingers a second or two, then straightens up, takes my hand, and leads me to my seat.

  My seat in a fucking helicopter.

  There are four seats in the chopper, two in the cockpit and two behind. Ben and I sit in the second row and strap ourselves in with safety belts so cumbersome and complicated that it takes me a few minutes to get mine in place. Sergeant Walker leans in, eyeing my belt to make sure I am tightly restrained, then climbs in and takes his seat in front of the console, donning a large white headset. He punches some buttons, and immediately the helicopter comes to life. A low hum sounds, slowly gaining volume and coupled with a deep vibration that shudders through the aircraft.

  My heart beats crazily in my chest, and I feel like I am a child about to take her first ride at Disneyland. Ben looks over at me, and his grin falters.

  “You okay?” he asks, and I realize I must look scared shitless instead of what I really am, which is so excited I might not need an aircraft to take off.

  I shake my head. “I’m not okay. I am fantastic!”

  He smiles, relieved. “This is a Eurocopter EC 120 Colibri,” he explains. “The wide cabin design makes it perfect for law enforcement, and the tail rotor makes it fairly quiet in comparison to other types of choppers.”

  As the rotor blade starts to churn, I realize that fairly quiet is a subjective phrase. A high-pitched, rhythmic whine fills the cabin as the blade picks up speed. I watch Sergeant Walker flick a few switches and depress several buttons before reaching for the joystick. The helicopter lurches slightly, and then I feel the kick as we ascend, a few feet only, then higher and higher until we are hovering about thirty feet over the helipad. Sergeant Walker is speaking into his mike, his words unintelligible from where I sit. He glances back at Ben and me and nods, and five seconds later we are airborne, hurling toward the Pacific Ocean.

  I feel like I am going to burst through my own skin. Never before have I experienced such sheer exhilaration, all of my senses on hyperdrive. We sail over the long stretch of beach, right along the shore, and from our perspective the deep blue-green water sparkles with a million sun-made diamonds. From the height of an airplane, the ground seems disconnected, and when I fly, I always feel detached from life below. But from the far closer vantage point of a helicopter, I feel completely connected to, almost reverential toward, the vista below me.

  Conversation is made difficult by the buzz of the blade and the wind whipping through the open window, but I wouldn’t want to speak anyway. I just stare, wide-eyed, as we move inland along the nature preserve, wind up over the cobbled streets of downtown, past the huge expanse of Garden Hills Buffalo Park, where half a dozen dancers in colorful garb are giving some kind of performance on the grassy knoll. We zoom over the soccer field, empty today save for a few kids breezily kicking around a ball, then up we go, the helicopter picking up speed along with my racing heart, and head for the reservoir. Along the concrete planes of the faux river, Sergeant Walker seems to put his pedal to the metal (yes, I know there is no gas pedal) and we whoosh back toward the ocean.

  I have been so focused on the sights below me that I have almost forgotten that Ben is seated beside me. When I feel his fingers intertwine with mine, I snap my head around and flash him a smile of sheer joy. He smiles back and rests our interlocked hands on my thigh. I don’t pull away, have no desire to. I expect a voice in my head to whisper a warning, or an angel to appear on my shoulder and tell me to be good. But perhaps both the voice and the angel are on vaycay. Perhaps they realize that I am too content at this moment to pay them any heed. Perhaps they are well aware of the fact that I would tell them both to get lost. For the rest of the ride, down the river, south along the coast and back to Police Plaza, our hands remain there, and only when the feet of the chopper hit concrete does Ben finally release me.

  Back at my house, Ben kneels on the floor of my kitchen, good-naturedly allowing Sally to smother him with dog kisses. His sport coat and tie are slung over the back of a chair and he has unbuttoned his shirt far enough to reveal his white undershirt.

  “You’re a good girl,” he coos as he strokes her fur and scratches behind her ears. Sally looks like she has died and gone to doggie heaven, and I think, I know what you mean, girl.

  I am trembling slightly as I pop the tops off a couple of beers, not because of Ben’s presence in my kitchen, but because I am still reeling from the helicopter ride. It’s as though all of the endorphins produced by a triathlon were injected into my veins at once and the euphoria has yet to evaporate.

  “Would you like a glass?” I ask, Miss Manners that I am.

  “No, thanks, the bottle’s fine.” He stands and walks over to the sink, much to Sally’s chagrin. She follows him, watery eyes pleading for more love, tail thumping back and forth. I set Ben’s beer on the counter next to him as he washes his hands, and then I grab a dog bone from the bag next to the fridge to offer Sally. She considers it an unworthy substitute for Ben’s affections, but reluctantly takes it from me and carries it to her dog bed.

  Ben dries his hands on the dish towel next to the sink as I try desperately not to think about the fact that that very towel was a gift from Jonah’s mother. Then he reaches for his beer. He turns to face me, and our eyes lock. There we stand, beers in hand, saying nothing for what feels like an eon, an eon I spend trying to resist the magnetic pull of his gaze. Honestly, his eyes are like two tractor beams and I am a mere star fighter whose thrusters are down. I take a
step toward him, then another, and he closes the distance by taking a step of his own.

  He’s going to kiss me, I think. He’s going to kiss me in my kitchen.

  I break the stare first, look down at my beer, at the floor, at Sally, at anything other than his hypnotic brown eyes.

  Ben sets his beer down, undrunk, and pulls mine from my grasp, returning it to the counter. Then he cups my chin in his hand and raises my face so that I can’t help but look at him. And now I am trembling because of him, because of the heat of his fingertips on my skin, because of the fact that this is the line, the point of no return, and as he lowers his head toward me, that inner voice suddenly comes to life with THX force, screaming, No, Ellen! Stop, Ellen! DON’T, ELLEN!

  His lips touch mine, tentatively at first, so soft and delicious, and the decibel level of the voice in my brain must be what causes people to go postal with machine guns, and I can literally feel the shocked glares of my husband and children from the photographs affixed to the fridge behind me, but I cannot stop myself, cannot pull away. Ben cocks his head ever so slightly to the right, then covers my mouth with his and claims it completely, crushing against me as the metaphorical dam bursts. And suddenly, everything goes silent in my mind.

  He presses me against the counter, his strong arms encircling my waist, his hands sliding across the small of my back as he kisses me hungrily, his tongue seeking out mine. And I kiss him back, yes, with reckless abandon, my arms reaching around his neck and clutching him fiercely as I feel every corpuscle in my entire body turn to molten heat. And I can’t breathe, and I don’t care because it feels so good, so goddamn fucking amazing that I don’t think I will ever stop kissing him, even if the Big One hits, even if my kids or Jonah walk into this room right now, because if I spent the rest of my life sucking face with this man I would die happy.

  “Ellen.” A guttural whisper in my ear. One word, two syllables that make me instantly wet, and he grazes my neck with kisses, then begins to suck at the tender skin on the side of my throat, and it feels incredible, but his lips are no longer on mine, and I miss them already, so I grab his face and guide his mouth back to my mouth and experience that same inner explosion when our tongues meet again. And then I realize, with ever mounting anticipation, that I can feel his erection through both of our clothes, rock hard against my abdomen. Without thinking, I reach down and place my hand over it, tracing its outline with my fingers, my pulse throbbing in my throat as I detect his pulse throbbing in my palm.

  A gasp escapes him and when I look up at him, I see that his eyes are practically rolling back in his head. I walk my fingers up to the clasp of his trousers, and quickly, urgently undo it, then tug on the zipper. So frantic am I to free him that I barely notice the small vibration coming from the pocket of his pants. Just as I reveal the cotton fabric of his underwear (boxer-briefs, for the record), his cell phone blasts me with a rendition of “Ballroom Blitz.” I immediately recoil as though the cell phone has see-through vision and at this moment is recording the fact that my hand is on its owner’s crotch.

  Ben moans, then says “Shit” under his breath as I disengage myself from his grasp and head for the sink. In a hasty move I’m certain he’s perfected at countless urinals, Ben restores his fly to its upright position, then reaches into his pocket and pulls out his cell. His brow furrows as he reads the Caller ID, and he glances at me apologetically.

  “I have to take this,” he says quietly, and I nod, not trusting my voice to come out sounding remotely normal.

  He leaves the kitchen in a hurry, stopping at the foyer long enough to answer the call, then continues through to the darkened living room.

  As much as I’d like to follow him and eavesdrop, I don’t. Instead, I open the tap at the sink and splash my burning cheeks and forehead with cold water, then reach for a glass in the dish drain and pour myself a healthy belt. I gulp it down, then refill the glass and sip it slowly as I stare out the kitchen window toward the park.

  For the second time today I am waiting for the remorse, the guilt, the voice in my head to call me a sleazy no-good hoochie mama. But none of that comes. I am still glowing from the inside out. Everything in the room is vibrant and alive to my eyes, the tap water tastes like Evian, and my skin, from my forehead to the tips of my fingers, is buzzing with sensation. I have no doubt that the guilt will soon make an appearance, but at least I am getting a slight reprieve to bask in that long-forgotten glow of a transcendent first kiss. (Yes, kiss. The other doesn’t count because there were two layers of fabric between us.)

  I turn to face Ben as he walks back into the kitchen, pocketing his cell phone, an ambivalent look on his face.

  “Timing’s everything,” I say, trying for humor, remembering what happened at the marina yesterday when he merely unzipped my wet suit. God only knows what his reaction might be today. But as soon as he looks at me, he smiles, all ambivalence gone.

  “I’m so sorry. I have to go.”

  “I know,” I say, because I do. “I understand. It’s probably for the best anyway.”

  “Look, Ellen…I’m really sorry about that. I shouldn’t have.…I’m sorry.…”

  “Well, I’m not.” He looks surprised by my words. “I haven’t been kissed that way in over a decade, Ben. So, thanks.”

  He does not come over to me, and I am glad for it. If he were to move any closer, neither one of us would be able to resist a good-bye kiss, and that would be dangerous, would lead to more kissing and then to the same place we were before, only this time, he wouldn’t be able to leave, despite the consequences. So he stays where he is, safe from the magnetic pull.

  “I don’t want you to think that I do this—”

  “I don’t,” I reply, cutting him off. “I don’t.”

  I watch as he gathers his coat and tie from the kitchen chair and strides toward the foyer. At the archway, he stops and turns to me, but says nothing.

  “Thanks for the surprise,” I tell him and he smiles warmly before walking out of my kitchen and out of my house.

  • Twenty-one •

  The garage door is open, letting in the fresh air and morning sun on this glorious March day. It’s the kind of spring morning that makes you want to go Rollerblading along the coast, or take a bike ride down the river, or a hike through Buffalo Park. It is not the kind of day you want to spend holed up in your garage sifting through ten years’ worth of accumulated junk. But that is exactly what I am doing at this moment, and I actually welcome the job. It is mindless and meditative, and since I read somewhere that purging is good for the soul, I can only hope that I have enough crap within these walls to wipe my proverbial slate clean.

  The guilt finally claimed me last night as I was talking on the phone with my kids. I had been anticipating it for hours, like you do when you feel that first stomach rumble after eating something that doesn’t taste quite right. But it didn’t take hold of me until the middle of Matthew’s soliloquy about Meteor Crater, which he described as totally boss and way cool and completely awesome. My heart started pounding and my chest constricted to the point where I could barely draw breath and I realized I was about to have a full-blown anxiety attack. I struggled to calm myself, sucking in air slowly and rhythmically through my teeth as my oblivious son passed the phone to Jessie, who proceeded to repeat the exact same story, although with slightly different descriptive adjectives. By the time Connor got on the line, my heart rate had evened out, but I was drenched with sweat and could not hear a word he said because of the roaring in my ears.

  I managed to make the appropriate noises while Connor spoke, oohing and ahhing in all the right places, though I did make a giant faux pas when I said, “That’s great, honey,” in response to his telling me that one of his grandparents’ rabbits had mysteriously vanished. I quickly covered my mistake by murmuring that rabbits are very resourceful and at least Grandma and Grandpa had twelve more where that one came from.

  When Jonah took the phone, the roar in my ears had subsided,
but I was feeling nauseated. And I couldn’t help but second-guess everything I said to him. I worried that “It sounds like the kids had a great time today” would come out as “I sucked face with another man in our kitchen.” Jonah seemed vaguely suspicious, but I realized that this was because I was being nice to him, which, quite frankly, I felt was my duty as a floozy. However, I did force myself to become chillier toward him as the conversation progressed, just to maintain our status quo. Wouldn’t want him to suspect me of adulterous behavior just because I was being civil to him.

  After I hung up the phone, I paced around my bedroom for a full five minutes, waiting to see whether I would actually throw up (I didn’t). But as the night wore on, and the conversation with my family became more distant, and the bottle of wine I had opened magically emptied, my shame and regret dissipated into the air like ether. And when I fell into bed at ten thirty, the last thing that went through my mind was a replay of my five blissful minutes with Ben.

  This morning, I awoke before dawn and dragged my ass out of the house for an actual street run, taking a confused and utterly disinterested Sally with me. It was odd to be pounding the pavement, not listening to music or watching TV. The asphalt was hell on my joints, and my knees ached within the first ten minutes, but in an odd way, I felt like this was penance. My head was full of conflicting thoughts and emotions: the guilt, the pleasure, my children, Ben’s wife, Ben’s crotch, Jonah’s face, my name whispered on a sultry breath in my ear. Forty minutes later, when I returned to the safety of my kitchen, my clothes were drenched with sweat and my head was still full of noise.

  Knowing I could not possibly face my blog yet, I quickly showered, ate half of a whole-wheat bagel, and headed for the garage.