Something New

Acknowledgments

Writing a book is a solitary process, but publishing a book, like raising a child, takes a village. Thank you to Wendy Sherman, my fantastic agent, for your belief in my work and your many talents, and to the staff at Wendy Sherman Associates. Thanks to Jackie Cantor at Berkley for taking a chance on me, for your keen eye, and your love of laughter. To Amanda Ng for your patience in answering my many questions, and to Berkley Books for welcoming me into your fold.

I have been blessed with an amazing family, too many members to name here, but you are all special to me. Thanks, Dad, for your unfailing generosity and support and your writer’s empathy. I love our debates, even though I know I drive you crazy! Thanks to my brothers, Mark and Craig, and to my niece Jacqueline for donating your time and energy and paper and ink. Thanks to my sister Sharilyn for the music, for your infectious enthusiasm, and for lovingly taking care of my kids whenever I needed some quiet time to write. And, of course, Mom, thank you for everything.

To Linda Coler-Fields, you are as essential to my life as the nose on my face. Thank you for your constancy and counsel. Thanks to Super-Penny Thiedemann, for your love, your Virgoan attention to detail, and your brainstorming techniques
(read: martinis). A big Thank-You to my Aunt Hilary, my cousins, and the Friends of Fiction (and Sometimes Non) Book Club who so generously read
Something New
fresh from my computer, and who gave me the confidence to send it out into the world. You guys are my lucky charm! Thanks to Michael Steven Gregory and the Southern California Writers Conference for providing a safe haven for us lunatics—uh—writers. You work tirelessly to support us and help us achieve success. Thanks, also, to Monique High, for setting this all in motion.

Finally, thanks to my husband, Alex, for your love and for your patience during those times when I was so consumed with my work, I was only
pretending
to listen to you. And to my kids, A.J. and Elle. You won’t be able to read my books for decades, but you inspire me every single day, and I love you both more than words can say.

Something New

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Epilogue

I
am not a desperate housewife.
Desperate
is far too dramatic a word for someone who lives in a twenty-three-hundred-square-foot house in a bucolic suburb like Garden Hills.
Malcontent
is also an overly strident description, better suited to furtive, angry rebels meeting in the basement of some dilapidated tenement, putting the finishing touches on their blueprints for how they are going to overthrow “the Man.” So, it is fair to say that I am neither desperate nor malcontent. I am bored.

Boredom is a common occurrence in matrimonial suburbia, insidious in the way it can masquerade as complacency. A lot of my peers suffer from it, and the ways in which they deal with it are as varied as their cars. (A myriad of styles, colors, and makes, but each of them worth enough to feed a third-world country.) Bridget Lowell joined a modern-day EST group that provides her with numerous opportunities to “live with dignity,” one of which is to compile a list of all the
things she’s done wrong in her life and attempt to make them right. Given what I know about Bridget, she’ll be at it till hell freezes over. Jim Lampert bought a Harley Davidson and has taken to zipping off on weekends sans wife, children, and minivan. Laurie Hanson has had every line between her neck and her hairline injected with Botox. She may no longer
be
bored, but she sure as hell
looks
bored, since she can’t muster up a single expression of emotion on her placid face.

I thought I was immune to the midlife boredom routine. After all, I am married to a great guy who makes a great living selling office supplies, have three point five children (the point five is our dog, Sally), live in a great neighborhood in Southern California, and have all the creature comforts I desire. Sure, I gave up my career, but I manage to keep busy with the whole motherhood thing and find it quite rewarding—most of the time. I throw dinner parties, wowing my friends with my culinary skills (learned from the Food Network), and throw parties for my kids, wowing their friends with cool, completely off-the-wall cakes (also learned from the Food Network). I race here and there in my silver Ford Flex, dropping the kids at school, sports, ballet, junior guards. I make the appropriate noises when one of them gets the Principal’s Award, or when my husband wins a new account. I do all the shopping and cooking, and most of the cleaning (except twice a month when Delmy shows up with her SUV of a vacuum). I help with homework and belong to a book club with six of my friends. (I try not to make pretentious selections like a few of the other members seem to do. I mean,
Atlas Shrugged
?) I volunteer at the school. I am an avid recycler. I give the occasional blow job to my husband when he’s feeling stressed out. So, all in all, my days are pretty full.