Something New (9781101612262) Read online

  I turn back to the cashier and give a curt shake of my head. “I forgot it.”

  The girl just shrugs and gives me a patient smile that seems to say, That’s okay. We get a lot of your kind, and forcefully snaps open a paper sack.

  Ben and I finish at the same time and push toward the sliding doors. As we head out into the sunlight, I glance over at his cart.

  “Nice bag,” I comment wryly.

  “My wife’s an environmental lawyer,” he says. “What can I say?”

  As we traverse the parking lot, I realize that my Flex is parked right next to his Volvo station wagon, and I let the coincidence roll right off my back. I glance at the bumper stickers adorning the rear end of the Volvo: Obama/Biden ’08, I Brake for Marsupials, Three-Mile-High Club/Sky’s the Limit.

  I narrow my eyes at him as he pops the hatch open. He catches the look.

  “What?”

  I should keep my mouth shut. I know I should. Delving too deeply into the personal life of a married man probably is not something a married woman should be doing, especially a married woman who wants to reinvent herself for the better. I am not Catholic. I cannot go to confession and be absolved of my lustful, covetous thoughts. But I absolutely have no filter when it comes to blurting out questions I just need to have answered.

  “Three-mile-high club?” I ask. “I didn’t know they had bumper stickers for that one.”

  He shakes his head and laughs. “No, no, no. You’re thinking of the mile-high club. It’s not that.” He gives a rueful smile. “Linda keeps telling me to scrape that one off, says I’m giving the wrong impression…which, obviously, I am. That’s from the skydiving place.” He says it casually, as if he got it at Jiffy Lube. “I won’t scrape it off. I’m too damn proud of it.”

  “You jumped out of a plane?” I ask, incredulous. I know people do it all the time. People with death wishes or people with nothing and no one to live for. People who are deranged.

  “Twice,” he says. “It was awesome. I posted the video on Facebook. You should friend me…Or I’ll friend you. You can check it out.”

  “I don’t do Facebook.” I feel like I am confessing a heinous sin, but Ben takes it in stride.

  “Well, it was awesome. I mean, I look like I’m about to throw up in the video, but…wow, your heart’s pounding, your mind, totally blank. It was the greatest. I highly recommend it.”

  “But…but…why?” I can’t wrap my mind around the “awesome” thing. I mean, how can hurtling toward earth at ninety miles an hour, wondering if your chute will open, knowing that if it doesn’t, you’re about to become a human pancake, be fun? “Why would you want to do that?” I ask again.

  He shrugs. “I guess, I don’t know, I’ve always felt it’s good to try new things, especially if they scare the shit out of you.” He loads his one super-sack into the back of the Volvo. “If you stop trying new things, you might as well just stop.”

  I stare at him for a long moment, thinking about his words. They are reverberating madly inside my brain. My synapses are firing at the recognition of important information, cathartic information, perhaps. Ben has no idea the impact his sentence is having on me. If you stop trying new things, you might as well just stop.

  He finger-waves as he climbs behind the wheel of his car. I continue to stare at him as he slowly pulls the Volvo out of the parking slot. Before he drives away, the passenger window rolls down and I see him lean over. I bend at the waist to face him.

  “This was fun,” he says. “I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed grocery shopping as much.”

  I am completely at a loss for words, so I just smile. And stare at him until the Volvo is completely out of sight.

  I am still pondering Ben’s words as I move through my kitchen, assembling and preparing all of the ingredients for the cheese balls. For some reason, my thoughts keep drifting back to the Ladies Living-Well Journal and the blog competition. Am I actually afraid of entering the competition, afraid of failing miserably and looking like a jerk? If that’s the case, then, according to Ben Campbell, I should just do it. It’s not like I’ve never made a complete ass out of myself before. And the fact is, the blog competition is anonymous. Nobody would have to know how badly I failed.

  If you stop trying new things, you might as well just stop.

  Wait, when did I give Ben Campbell such power? The first time he gazed at me with those liquid brown eyes, that’s when. I am not blind to the fact that I have developed a slight crush on my cousin’s neighbor. It feels only slightly different than the crush I have on Hugh Jackman, and I would say that the main difference is the fact that I have actually breathed the same air as Ben Campbell. Yet both crushes would be categorized together in the same subfolder of This could happen when pigs fly or when Republicans vote Jesse Jackson into the White House. But the thought of Hugh makes me warm and tickly all over, and I find that thinking about Ben is having a similar effect.

  I am almost forty-three. I think about the last time I tried something new that frightened me, and fitting into a new size of underwear doesn’t count. As I grate the English Cheddar, I remember that six months ago, I tried a mojito at the Lancaster wedding. I am not afraid of alcohol, obviously, but I do fear the aftereffects of rum, so I am going to count that one. In fact, now that I think of it, I was so pleased to overcome my fear of a rum hangover, I drank three more. Or four. Five? Well, I lost track at four, but the important thing is that I tried something new.

  Wow. Six months. Have I really tried nothing new in the last half year? I will not include laundry detergent or face cream because that would be downright pathetic, especially since I already counted the mojito. When was the last time I tried something new that actually inspired fear in me? I shake my head at the mound of grated Cheddar before me.

  On my honeymoon I went jet-skiing for the first time; having had a childhood friend who died while riding one, I was deathly afraid of them. I remember now the terror I felt as I swung my leg over the seat, gripped the handlebars, and idled away from the dock. I recall how the terror quickly morphed into exhilaration as I got a feel for the machine and accelerated to full speed, the wind whipping through my hair, the spray of water splashing my face as I bounced over a wake, my heart pumping wildly in my chest. It was almost better than the honeymoon sex, if you want to know the truth. That was thirteen years ago, I realize now with something akin to horror. And before that? Parasailing in Florida with my ex. I was, what? Twenty-five? Eighteen years ago.

  Jesus, I really need to get out and do something. As I grab the paprika from the spice rack and a mixing bowl from the cupboard, it hits me that this whole reinvention thing I have embarked upon is completely enmeshed with “trying something new.” Exercising on the treadmill and avoiding Pop-Tarts are only a superficial Band-Aid. What I really need is to branch out, open myself up to the unexpected, take risks, embrace my fears. Clearly, these forty-two-year-old bones are not meant for some of the things I am afraid to do, like skydiving or surfing or anything else that puts excess amounts of pressure on any of my aged joints. But blogging?

  I turn away from the mixing bowl and regard my computer. The monitor seems to be calling to me. I have the urge to drop what I’m doing and go over and plunk my fingers down on the keyboard. But alas, I must make the cheese balls. And there’s also that little thing about my not knowing what to write about.

  Before I gave up writing in favor of full-time subservience—I mean motherhood—I never lacked for subject matter. But I always gave myself a set amount of time to allow my brain to have a party. This was my preparation. I would do mindless tasks while my subconscious worked out the details of what would eventually end up on paper.

  As I gaze at my tattered, almost illegible recipe, which I no longer need, I decide that I will let my subconscious take over while I make the cheese balls. I will allow the cooking to be a meditative experience that will unlock all kinds of fresh and wonderful ideas. Okay, I’m hoping for just one idea, but I’m trying to be
positive. And I promise myself that when I am done with the cheese balls, I will sit down at the computer and enter the stupid fucking blog competition.

  Damn that Ben Campbell, anyway.

  Stay positive, I tell myself. You can do it, Ellen. You’re a writer. So, you’ve been on hiatus for a while. A long while. It’s like riding a bike, right? Just go with this.

  I empty out the contents of all the containers into the mixing bowl, feeling the quiet energy of my ruminations as my mind begins to swirl with a vast array of inspired thoughts, tapping into the mysterious reserves of my untapped gray matter…and then the phone rings.

  “It’s all settled,” Jill states adamantly, then proceeds to explain how she has made it possible for me to attend book club by pawning my children off on her husband.

  “Greg hates my kids,” I retort. “There’s no way he is willing to watch them for the entire evening.”

  “He doesn’t hate them,” she says sternly. “He just thinks they’re a challenge.”

  “Mentally challenged,” I say. “He called them that the last time we all got together.”

  “He was drunk!” she cries. “You can’t listen to him when he’s drunk! Trust me. Anyway, he offered to take them along with the Ds. Bowling. Burgers. Boomers. They’ll love it!”

  Greg offering to take my kids for the night is akin to the Dalai Lama unleashing a hailstorm of bullets from an AK-47. I know Jill put him up to it, and I wonder just what she offered him in return. A night of sex with his buxom receptionist is my guess.

  “He’ll lose them, Jill. On purpose. I know that man. He’d lose his own kids if he thought he could get away with it.”

  “That’s not fair. Greg’s a great dad.”

  “Yes, Jill, he is,” I say, acquiescing. Getting into an argument with Jill over Greg’s questionable parenting skills is not worth the stress it will cause her, especially when she’s already on the verge of a breakdown.

  “Look, it won’t just be Greg. Ralph Herman and Kevin Savant are going with their kids, too. Maybe Jonah can meet them at Boomers after his dinner.”

  I stare down at the stainless-steel bowl that is filled with Neufchatel, Romano, grated English Cheddar, eggs, and a plethora of spices. This is going to be a great batch of cheese balls; I can just feel it. The mother of all cheese balls. They will go perfectly with the organic red wine Jill always serves. A perfect compliment to the spanakopita and pastry puffs that always grace her buffet. Just the right precursor to the warm molten truffle bites that she buys from Bristol Farms but claims to have made herself.

  It looks like I am going to book club tonight, even if it means having my children abducted from right under Greg’s nose.

  “Okay. They can go with Greg.”

  Jill’s cacophonous sigh echoes over the phone line. “Thank you,” she says sincerely. “I just can’t do this without you.”

  “Yes you can,” I argue. “But I’ll be there.” I let a few seconds pass, then ask, “So, what’s Greg getting out of the deal?”

  She laughs without mirth. “I promised him oral.”

  Wow. Jill must really want me there tonight. She likes oral about as much as she likes natural childbirth. Have I mentioned that she screamed for an epidural as soon as her water broke during labor with her first child?

  I hang up, wash my hands, then plunge them into the cheese goop. I breathe in through my nose, blow out through my mouth, hoping to recapture the meditative state I was in before Jill called. A wisp of an idea threads its way through my brain. I don’t force it, just continue to mash the cheesy concoction with my fingers. I can almost grasp it…can almost touch it…

  The phone rings, again. I curse, then glance at the Caller ID and see that it’s Jonah. Perfect timing, as usual. I let the call go to voice mail, wash my hands thoroughly, again, being careful to scrape the cheese from under my nails, then call him back.

  “Hey,” he says. “You busy?”

  “I’m making cheese balls for book club.”

  “I love your cheese balls.”

  “They’re not for you,” I tell him, and he chuckles into the phone. “What’s so funny?” I ask.

  “You’re talking to me in full sentences. I guess you’re not that mad any more?”

  I am still mad, but my anger has lost its steam since the problem has been resolved. I explain to him what’s happened, outline the plan for the evening, and quash his objection to Greg’s being responsible for our children even for a short time.

  “He’s my cousin’s husband,” I say. “He’s not going to let anything happen to our kids. Grandma Phyllis would come back to haunt him, and you know how afraid he was of her.”

  “Bowling, burgers, and Boomers, huh?”

  “You only have to be there for the Boomers portion. Consider yourself lucky.”

  He sighs. I am receiving a lot of phone sighs today.

  “My dinner should be done by eight since the CEO is like a hundred,” he says. “I’ll meet them all at Boomers and bring the kids home.”

  “Thanks,” I say. It is only one word, but it’s full of gratitude, not venom. Jonah always comes through. “I appreciate it.”

  “I’m sorry for what I said about book club. I know it’s important to you.”

  “You weren’t wrong about the wine and gossip,” I acknowledge. “But there is a bit more to it than that.”

  “I know,” he says. But he doesn’t mean it. I can tell. And he isn’t really sorry. But at least he said it. When it comes to men, apologies are big even when insincere.

  “I love you,” he says, just as he always does before hanging up.

  “You, too,” I reply automatically. Then I hang up and head back to my cheese balls.

  Four dozen perfectly golden-brown and highly aromatic cheese balls line the kitchen counter behind me. I sit in front of my computer, staring at the Ladies Living-Well Journal registration page, racking my brain for a decent username. I have tried several: Forty-Something, Forty-Something-And-Fabulous, Forty-Something-And-Somewhat-Fabulous, but all of those have been used. The problem is that the username is also the domain name for the blog, so my username has to be completely original and not something that has been used by any other person on the Web. Like I understand any of this.

  I sigh and blow out a breath, determined not to be undermined by a lack of imagination. And suddenly, my fingers are flying over the keyboard, almost as if they have minds of their own. I glance at the flashing cursor and read the name I have typed into the rectangle. SomethingNewAt42. I like it. I send up a silent prayer as I hit the return key, then wait an interminable thirty seconds before I am rewarded with the legend: Congratulations, SomethingNewAt42. You have successfully registered for the Ladies Living-Well Journal blog competition!

  Great. I have a username. Now all I need is an idea for a blog.

  I browse through the blog templates and come to one that somehow speaks to me. I sift through the many background choices at my disposal and purposely pass over the ones I would ordinarily pick: the flowers, the smiley faces, the fruit bowls and wine. This blog is something new for me, after all, and I don’t want the look of it to represent the old me. Settling for a sunset image across the top and no background image at all, I click the Save button, then go to my preferences. Once I have selected them, I am directed to my blog’s home page, where I am instructed to write a brief description of the blog’s theme or purpose. I purse my lips, stand up quickly, stretch my neck, and hear an alarming number of cracks. Then I sit back down and stare at the flashing cursor.

  Okay. Here goes.

  SomethingNewAt42

  HOME PAGE

  I have just popped my blog-writing cherry, everyone, so please be gentle with me. I had no intention of entering this competition in the first place—it was thrust upon me by a meddling and overeager relative who shall remain nameless until exposing her serves my purpose. The $10,000 prize is a fairly good motivator, although money alone cannot inspire a person to do something compl
etely foreign, unnerving, and downright ridiculous. Actually, the catalyst for me dusting off my writing chops was a simple statement made to me earlier today that has been reverberating around in my brain:

  If you stop trying new things, you might as well just stop.

  Okay, so maybe it is a little clichéd, but the underlying truth of those words continues to haunt me hours later. Perhaps because of my current state of mind.

  I am a forty-two-year-old wife and mother who has become trapped in a constant state of complacency. When I took on the roles of wife and mother so many years ago, it seems I stopped allowing myself to play any other part. I stopped playing me. I used to be spontaneous. I used to belt out “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road” at the top of my lungs in the middle of a crowded shopping mall for no apparent reason. I used to do cartwheels, albeit bad ones, on my front lawn, right in front of the postman. I used to jog to the beach and jump into the ocean in the middle of winter, the cold water stinging every inch of my body, just to feel the wonder of being alive on the planet. I don’t do any of those things any more. And today, for the first time in a long time, I actually recognized that fact and asked myself why.

  That’s not to say that I haven’t enjoyed motherhood and wifedom. I am fairly confident that I have done an okay job in both categories; that is to say, my children won’t need too much therapy and my husband hasn’t left me yet for a young blond bimbo. But I don’t necessarily want “wife” and “mother” to be the only two things that define me. If that sounds selfish, then so be it. After being a wife and mother for more than thirteen years, a little selfishness would definitely be something new.

  What I guess I’m trying to say is that I’m writing this blog for me. I may suck at it. I’m not even exactly sure what I’m going to write. More than likely, my posts will be decidedly non-earth-shattering. I may not end up being defined by my blogging efforts, but at least it will be something new. And for a woman of my age and circumstances, something new sounds pretty fucking great.