Something New (6 page)

“That is so easy!” he balks. “I could do that.”

“Oh really?” Jonah fires back. “Let’s see it, Baryshnikov.”

“What? Now?” Connor’s preteen cockiness wavers.

“Right now,” Jonah replies with a knowing grin. As a father, Jonah is aces. He has the uncanny ability to reprimand without anger, to call our children on their transgressions without browbeating them. He uses humor to defuse situations like this rather than choosing humiliation techniques. He taps into their thought processes, inspiring them to really understand the implications and consequences of their behavior. I envy him. Even on my best day, I am more likely to yell and scream than sit them down for a soul-searching heart to heart. But as a mom, I don’t have this luxury. Who has time for a behavioral postmortem when dinner needs to be cooked or homework reviewed or baseball/soccer/
karate/ballet/tennis uniforms laundered/stitched/patched/purchased? Screaming and yelling are quick and to the point, however fruitless they may be.

“Okay, fine.” Connor has risen to the challenge, even though we all know what is about to happen. He takes one step, then another.

“Wrong,” chirps Jessie.

“I don’t know where the music starts,” he says defensively.

“That’s all right,” Jonah says with a smile. “Jessie will sing while you dance. Go ahead, Jessie.”

Jessie begins a rousing, if painfully out-of-tune, rendition of the Oompa-Loompa song. Connor executes the first few steps correctly.

“Oompa-Loompa Loompa di doo, I have another puzzle for you. Oompa-Loompa Loompa di di. If you are wise you’ll listen to me.”

By the end of the stanza, Connor begins to lose his place, fumbling around the dining room with no apparent direction while Jessie and Matthew giggle. He throws his hands in the air and smiles good-naturedly, then completes his performance with a combination moonwalk/robot move. Then he falls into his chair, defeated.

“Okay, it’s not that easy,” he concedes as his siblings and dad applaud his effort.

“I did like that last move,” says Jonah. “They ought to think about using it in the play.”

“Daddy, that’s silly,” Jessie says solemnly. “Oompa-Loompas don’t
moonwalk
!”

“That would be cool, though,” Matthew offers.

I arrive at the table with four dishes of Breyer’s ice cream, and the conversation screeches to a halt as Jonah and the kids dig in. I walk away from the table and Jonah calls to me.

“You’re not having dessert?”

I turn back to him and see that he is wearing a speculative look. I shake my head.

“Maybe later,” I tell him. “When I’m not so full.”

I manage to plod through two miles on the treadmill during the allotted hour of television my kids enjoy nightly. Jonah wanders in and out of the upstairs bonus room at regular intervals, tossing banal questions at me like, “Have you seen my gray-and-turquoise tie?” or “Were you able to pick up more deodorant soap?” or “Where is that copy of
Business Weekly
I brought home from the office?” I huff and puff and breathlessly sputter my answers. (“No.” Gasp. “Yes.” Gasp. “On the coffee table next to the coasters…” Gasp, gasp.)

When, thankfully, I finish, I guzzle down a glass of water and throw a towel over my shoulder, then walk downstairs on rubbery legs to the family room, where I find Matthew and Jessie playing tug-of-war with the remote. Jessie is like the TV police. When the kids’ hour is up and the show is over, she feels that it is her obligation to officially bring the session to a close by turning off the television and the cable box. Her brothers always take issue with this, claiming that the hour isn’t really over until the TiVo kicks back to live TV.

“I was watching that commercial!” shrieks Matthew. He has fifteen pounds on Jessie, and his hands are bigger, but I’m betting on my daughter for this round.

“Commercials are bad for your brain,” she tells him righteously.

“But I wanted to
see
it!”

“That’s enough.”

Three sets of eyes turn to me and three mouths instantly start to laugh.

“Yo, Mom,” Connor says around his smile. “Nice look.”

“Are you okay, Mom?” Jessie asks, her concern smothered by her laughter.

“You look like you’re gonna keel over,” Matthew chimes in.

I catch sight of myself in the mirror over the piano and almost shriek myself. My hair is a sweaty, tangled mass, my face is as red as a lobster, and my eyes look as though they are about to pop out of my head. I break into a grin and regard my children.

“Well,” I say. “We can’t all be naturally beautiful, can we?”

They laugh some more, but their laughter turns to grumbling when I tell them it’s time for bed. Connor gives me the least resistance, knowing that, as the eldest, he gets an extra half hour to read quietly in his room. He has recently discovered the J.R.R. Tolkien
Lord of the Rings
series and can’t wait to get back to Frodo and his cronies. Matthew stamps his foot and informs me that he won’t go to his room until he gets to watch the commercial that Jessie’s remote-hoarding has deprived him of. I shake my head firmly and point to the stairs. Jessie looks up at me with her big blue doe eyes and insists that she needs a glass of milk to help her sleep. I shake my head again and jab a finger at the stairs. Reluctantly, she and Matthew trudge to the second floor, where they and their older brother hurry through their nightly ablutions while I supervise.

When at last all three are safely ensconced in their beds, I drag myself to the master bathroom to shower. I crank the water to hot and step beneath the spray, then stand unmoving for a full minute, allowing the hot stream to wash the profusion of sweat from my body. I reach for the soap and begin to lather myself, moving my hands over this body that has been mine, for better and for worse, for the past forty-two years.

I have always had a little extra meat on my bones. Frankly, after the births of each of my kids, a little extra meat turned into a couple of porterhouse steaks. But I do have occasional moments of appreciation for what nature has given me. I may never have been rail thin, but I have always been strong and healthy. I don’t get winded easily, I have never been struck with serious illness, and I never need to ask my husband to lift heavy items. (Although I often do ask for his help in order to stroke his inner caveman.)

Perhaps it is my imagination, or just wishful thinking, but as I run the soap across my torso, I can feel the definition of my rib cage more clearly than I did a few days ago. And my stomach seems to be a little less shelflike in its protuberance. I am secretly pleased, although I know I still have a long way to go to reach my goal, which is to fit into my wedding dress (I have no idea where the damn thing is, probably stuffed in a bag, tucked away in the attic next to my unfinished novel). But it’s a start, and I resolve to complete three miles on the treadmill tomorrow and promise myself that ne’er another Pop-Tart shall cross my lips.

I feel a cool waft of air swirl through the bathroom, and a moment later, the shower door slides open. Jonah stands on the other side of the stall, naked as the day he was born, smiling at me.

“Showering at night?” he asks slyly. “Want some company?”

He might as well have asked if I want to get laid. I can tell by the low, lascivious tone of his voice, his nakedness, and the fact that the head of his penis is pointing directly at me.

“Always,” I say. Although, in truth, sex in the shower is not one of my favorite pastimes. Unless your partner is six-five and can support all of your weight during the act, the sheer logistics are next to impossible to work out. And forget
about oral, unless you have an affinity for drowning. But, in the interests of pretending to be spontaneous and carefree, I take his hand and lead him under the hot spray.

He immediately palms my breast, a move I anticipate since it is always his first. His thumb slides over my areola, and I am surprised by the sudden heat that courses through me. This is the man I have been making love to for the past fourteen years, without exception, and it is difficult to believe that such a small, overused action can still arouse me. His hand slides down to my waist, coming to rest for just a moment on the spot where my torso begins to curve outward toward my hips. Then it continues its journey, around my hips and down to the top of my ass. Jonah grasps my left cheek and pulls me into him. I can feel his penis against my belly, hard and ready and twitching impatiently.

Sex with Jonah has always been satisfying. We met in our late twenties, so our coupling was never the animalistic, firework-inspiring romp that postpubescents boast about and that I myself have never had the occasion to experience. But from the beginning, he and I fit together well, physically and emotionally. He is not selfish but is concerned with my pleasure. No matter how turned on he is, or how close to the brink he gets, he dutifully holds himself back until I have climaxed before he allows himself to come, shuddering spasmodically and making that low, guttural noise that brings to mind the onset of food poisoning.

As in most relationships, the frequency of lovemaking in ours has lessened. During our courtship and our early married years, four or five times a week was the rule, and we enjoyed lazy sessions that stretched on for hours, occasionally requiring snack breaks to refuel our spent energy. Now, we carve out fifteen-minute tête-à-têtes when we can manage it, after the kids are down. I know this is merely the natural
progression of a married person’s sex life. And yet, for some reason, perhaps the fact that menopause is looming in my not-so-distant future and wreaking havoc on my hormone balance, I am suddenly overcome with a sense of loss. Even as my husband pushes himself inside me with his usual sharp intake of breath, I feel a quiet desperation, an anger at all of the unfulfilled promises and shattered illusions that saturate the lives of the middle-aged.

I
am middle-aged. I know they say that forty is the new twenty-five. But
they
are full of shit. Forty is forty, and forty-two suddenly seems fucking
old
.

“Are you okay?” Jonah’s voice is a hushed whisper. I look up to find him staring intently at me, his rhythmic thrusts temporarily suspended.

I nod and smile reassuringly, hoping that the hot water from the showerhead is camouflaging my tears. I reach my hands around his waist, noting that his has not expanded much over the past few years—well, at least not as much as mine has. Grabbing his ass, I pull him against me, forcing him deeper inside me, and the sudden pressure in my loins causes a grunt to escape my lips. That’s all it takes. Jonah immediately returns to his task, the task of giving me pleasure. Eyes at half mast, his breath comes in ragged gasps as he presses me against the tile. Pumping into me, speaking into my ear about how much he loves me and how good I feel and how well we fit together.

I make all the right noises, but I just can’t seem to give myself completely over to the act. It is as though my mind is detached from my body. My limbs are responding to the commands I give them: lift right leg and intertwine it with Jonah’s (carefully, so as not to catch any of his hair in my ragged toenails); squeeze Jonah’s buttocks with both hands (trying not to think about Charmin toilet paper); undulate
like a belly dancer on PCP (does the local rec park offer classes?); moan lasciviously and say “Give it to me” and “Oh baby oh baby” and “Oh my god oh my god ohmygod” over and over again.

But I am merely an actor in a play, a bad actor at that, waiting for that blessed moment when I can exit stage left. I know that Jonah won’t finish until I am sated, and I also know that a comet will crash into earth and wipe out mankind before I actually
will
come, so I pretend increasing fervor, forcefully hitching my breathing and sinking my fingernails into the soft flesh of Jonah’s ass, gasping urgently as I nearly tear a chunk out of his earlobe with my teeth. I clench my thighs tightly around him and shudder spasmodically, crying out, “Yes yes YES!” All the while thinking that Meg Ryan deserved a fucking Oscar for the deli scene in
When Harry Met Sally
. I know it’s pathetic that my thoughts are centered on a romantic comedy from 1989 while my husband is about to explode inside me. Yet I am relieved that this will all be over in about eight and a half seconds. And although I can’t help but feel slightly guilty, I am well aware of one of the most basic truths known to wives the world over: A fake orgasm can be a woman’s best friend.

I
have found that the only peace and quiet and absolute privacy I can get while my husband and children are awake and at home is when I’m in the bathroom. My kids learned early on that when Mommy is “making number two,” she is not to be disturbed. And over the years since then, I have milked this edict for everything it’s worth. Which is why I am on the toilet for the fourth time this morning, clutching the
Ladies Living-Well Journal
in my hands and pretending to go, yet again.

In the beginning, Jonah got so concerned about my colon that he insisted I see an internist.

“It’s not normal,” he said, looking at me like he’d just been sent over from the local hospice. “You know, to make…well, you know…to have a…you know…to
poop
so much.”

I laughed so hard I almost
pooped
my pants. I assured him
that I was fine, but he remained unconvinced. I had to suffer through a week of his sidelong glances, which ranged from wistful to tremulous to downright panicked. It was then I realized that Jonah was terrified of losing me. Actually, he probably was less concerned about losing me than about being left alone with three kids under five whose greatest influences at the time were an annoying six-foot-tall purple dinosaur and an annoying two-foot-tall furry red Muppet named Elmo. (
La la la la, la la la la,
Jonah’s
World!
) That would scare the
poop
out of anyone.

So I finally let him off the hook and explained to him that
le toilette
offered me a moment’s reprieve from the demands of motherhood. To which he replied, “Why do you need a reprieve?” (At which I may have considered kicking him in the balls.)