Something New (14 page)

Of course, there’s always the possibility he was looking at some hot babe standing right behind me. Come to think of it, that actually makes a lot more sense.

Just as the game officially starts, Dave nudges Jonah and holds up his iPhone for Jonah to inspect. At the sight of modern technology, it’s as if Jonah has been sucked into the Matrix. The boys might as well be playing soccer on the moon.

“Nice.” Jonah’s voice is a reverent whisper.

“The resolution is outstanding,” Dave says, bobbing his head up and down. He runs his index finger along the screen, then displays it once more. “My new LinkedIn profile picture.”

Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes, but no one is paying any attention so I don’t bother.

“Hey, Ellen, are you on Facebook yet?” Gary asks, punching something into his own phone.

“I’m trying to get her on,” Jonah says. “She’s stuck in the year 2000.”

Not a bad year, I think. It was before the twin towers fell and before my boobs reached my navel when I went braless.

Dave shakes his head in dismay. “You have to join, Ellen. Maddy reconnected with all her high school friends. She even meets up with them once a month.”

“Oh, man, you gotta see what Ken Frankel just posted on his wall!” Gary sputters, drawing Jonah’s attention away from Dave. Geez. Facebook.

“I’m going back,” I say to Jonah. Without even looking in my direction, he gives me an absentminded wave. I take a step away from the dads and am heading toward Jessie when
I see Rita Halpern climbing down onto the asphalt from the second bleacher. I shake my head and purse my lips at her.

“Thanks for pointing out the stain, Rita.”

She puts her arm around me and draws me to her. “There’s a lot worse things than grass stains, Ellen. Believe me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go to the can.”

Y
ou
have two thousand hits!”

It’s Jill and she’s shrieking into the phone and hyperventilating and I have absolutely no idea what she’s talking about.

“Just since last night!”

I pull my cell phone away from my ear as Jonah jerks his head in my direction. I answer his questioning look with a shrug.

“There are a lot of comments, too! Wait till you see them! Some of them hate you, but most of them are totally positive. Here’s one. It says ‘You f-u-c-k-i-n-g rock!’”

“Jill!” I yell over her. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Mom said
hell
,” Jessie says on a giggle.

“Jessie.” Jonah’s voice is as threatening as the glare he gives me. The back of the minivan is instantly silent.

“
Heck
,” I say, then stick my tongue out at Jonah. “What the
heck
are you talking about?”

“Your blog, Ellen! Wait, here’s another one. ‘Can’t wait to read your next post!’ This is so cool!”

My blog. Oh s-h-i-t. I haven’t thought about it all day, haven’t had a chance, really, since all my thought processes were otherwise engaged in dissecting the split-second eye lock with Ben Campbell, which may or may not have been transcendent. I glance at the clock on the dashboard. Four eighteen. I have exactly seven hours and forty-two minutes to come up with a post.

“So, what’s next?” Jill asks.

“I have no idea,” I admit. “I’ll talk to you later.”

I disconnect the call and stare straight ahead. If Jonah is curious about the conversation, he keeps it to himself. Jill and I talk four times a day, at least, and if he asked about the subject of our phone calls every time, we would spend the whole of our marriage discussing my cousin. He likes Jill, loves her even, but finds it easier to do so from a distance.

We reach our driveway, and I hear myself making the requisite proclamations about the soccer game. (“You played terrific!” and “Great game!” and “Well done!”) In fact, Matthew did have a banner game, which translates to: he did not fall on his face once. He even managed an assist, kicking the ball to Liam, who effortlessly sent it into the goal. I’m pretty sure that I am the only one who knows Matthew was really aiming for Peter Halpern, but I’ll never breathe a word.

Jessie is heading over to McKenna’s house and Connor is going to hang with his friend Jason, whose parents have recently separated. According to Connor, Jason is caught in the middle and having a rough time with it. For all of Connor’s twelve-year-old bravado and false antipathy, he is a compassionate
kid with a really good heart. If we can judge our parenting by whether we would want to be friends with our children, Connor would do me proud. (Although the jury is still out on Jessie and Matthew.) Is it possible that the whole “Jason not dealing with his parents’ imminent divorce” thing is a cover for the fact that my son and his friend are going to smoke pot for the first time? Sure, it’s possible. But until I detect that telltale whiff of weed on his sweatshirt, I am choosing to think positively.

Matthew is stuck at home with the ’rents and Jonah has challenged him to a rousing game of Wii bowling before dinner, most likely to take his mind off the fact that he is stuck at home with the ’rents. I briefly consider calling up Ben to see what Liam is up to and if he’d like to come over and hang out with Matthew for a while. The first problem is that I don’t have the Campbells’ phone number since they joined the team late and are not listed on the soccer registry. The second problem is that it is a completely boneheaded idea.

By now, after having mulled it over all afternoon, ad nauseam, I am convinced that I was hallucinating at the soccer field. Ben Campbell and I were
not
having a moment. It was all in my mind. And I fear I made a fool of myself, standing there wide-eyed and slack-jawed, gaping at him like a stroke victim because I actually thought he was looking
into
me. Like it was
Some Enchanted Fucking Evening at the Soccer Game
.

So now, if I were to ascertain his phone number by whatever means are at my disposal—like, for example, the phone book or the online white pages, or my cousin Jill (which I would never do), or even a private detective—and then actually call him, he would take one look at the Caller ID, which of course would say
Ivers
, and let the call go straight to voice mail. He would then turn to his wetlands-loving wife and
explain that it was
that Ellen woman
from soccer. He would shake his head with dismay.
She comes across as normal at times
, he’d say,
but after the game today, and the way she looked at me, I don’t know, I really think there’s something
wrong
with her
. To which stain-fighting aficionado wifey would reply,
You know, I got that feeling, too, honey; let’s go have sex!

“Oh, for God’s sake!” I explode at the frozen lasagna on the kitchen counter in front of me. “Get a grip!”

I toss the entrée into the preheated oven and stomp over to my computer; yank out the chair, which scrapes across the tile floor; and sit down with a
harrumph
. Jonah’s laughter and cries of protest and Matthew’s delighted yelps float into the kitchen from the living room. Apparently, their Wii bowling battle has begun. The lasagna cooks for approximately sixty minutes. Okay, an uninterrupted hour in front of my computer. I take a deep breath and log on to my blog.

The tracking number at the bottom of the screen tells me there have been exactly 2,649 hits on my blog. My heart does a sudden
thump-thwack
in my chest as I consider that almost three
thousand
people have read my blog. Jill was right; most of the comments are positive. I scan them quickly, stopping to read a few. Clairabelle49 writes:
I sure wish I had checked all the ingredients before I got married! Maybe my cheese balls will turn out better!
And GotUpAndWent1 says:
You are SO right! Except cheese balls actually taste GOOD!
And Hihohiho17 comments:
Thought ur blog would be cheesy ;) but u really make a good comparison. Looking forward to ur next post.

Excitement builds within me, and I feel laughter bubbling up from my stomach. How crazy is this? Yesterday I was a mere housewife hiding from her family on the toilet, and today I am a full-fledged blogger with the hits and comments
to prove it. I look down at Sally, who has parked at my feet, and say to her, “How cool am I?” Her reaction is a less than enthusiastic chuff, followed by a snort and a heavy sigh, but I know she is elated on the inside.

My own elation and self-aggrandizing last only about ten seconds, however, before panic sets in. What now? What am I supposed to follow the Cheeseballs with?
Women are Cream Puffs?
Might not win me too many fans from the
Ladies Living-Well Journal
. Some other food/people comparison? Perhaps I should think outside my own box and write about inanimate objects. Like my mother-in-law. Or my hatred of cell phones, or how I secretly play the Wii when the house is empty.

I feel my stomach muscles tighten, and I consider shutting down my computer and logging a couple of miles on the treadmill, just to clear my mind. But I quickly reject that course of action, because I know that if I don’t come up with some idea, any idea, I’ll be out of the competition. It’s not as if I am harboring any delusions about winning, but this blog contest is my “something new,” the foundation on which my entire reinvention has come to rest. I have been on a roll, feeling good about myself (except for the whole Ben Campbell/soccer debacle) and if I don’t work something up in the next, oh, six hours and fifty-two minutes, my momentum will come screeching to a halt. My treadmill time will dwindle, my cosmetics will go untouched for so long they’ll start to get that funky smell, and I’ll be back to eating Pop-Tarts by Monday.

Wait!
I desperately try to corral my thoughts before they crash through the barn.
Inhale. Good. Exhale. Better.
I have always been aware that my inner monologue is like an express train in the New York City subway system, but at this moment I am forced to acknowledge that the mental masturbation
has gotten completely out of control. Just this afternoon alone I must have jerked off at least a million brain cells. And I cannot afford to lose them, especially when I’m looking at thirteen blog posts in thirteen days.

Okay. I did it yesterday. I can do it again.
Just relax, Ellen, and write. Just put your fingers on the keys, like you did yesterday. Remember how good it felt? Yes. Just like that.

My fingers are poised above the keyboard and just as I am about to type my first word into the text box, Jonah pokes his head through the doorway.

“Hey,” he says.

I do my best to mask my annoyance at the interruption. Jonah has no idea what I’m doing, and I have no intention of telling him. It would open up another one of those marital cans of worms that are better left sealed. He would want to know why I am blogging for the first time, and I would have to explain the whole reinvention thing to him, and he would then pepper me with questions about why I feel the need to reinvent myself and what could possibly be missing from my life that I need to fill with such drivel, and I would have to lie and say “Nothing’s missing, Jonah,” and he would be somewhat mollified but would still want to read my blog, just to be “supportive,” and I would have to let him, and then when he actually got around to reading it, he wouldn’t get past the title before all hell would break loose.

“Dinner’ll be ready in about an hour,” I answer before he can ask.

“Great.” He peers at the computer, but fortunately, with his forty-five-year-old eyes, he cannot make out what is on the screen. “Are you finally doing your Facebook profile?”

A synapse fires inside my brain.

“Hello?” he says, since I haven’t answered him.

“Yeah. That’s it. My Facebook profile. Doing it right now.”

“Excellent!” he beams. “Friend me when you finish.”

“Can husbands and wives be friends?” I ask innocently. Jonah is about to reply when he realizes I’m kidding.

“Dad!” Matthew calls. “I’m gonna unpause the game!”

“Coming!” he replies, loudly. Then to me, he says, “I was going to let him win to boost his confidence, but I think it’s better for his development if I teach him how to accept being completely slaughtered.” He winks.

“
OC Parenting
just called. They’re giving you a medal for father of the year.”

He laughs heartily, a familiar and comforting sound to my ears. He blows me a kiss, then disappears. A moment later, the muted sound of the Wii resumes.

I turn back to the computer and within seconds I am swept away.