Free Something New by Janis Thomas

down three Chardonnays in two minutes flat in order to catch up with the rest of us.
    “Okay,” Jill says breathlessly, and I can tell she is starting to hyperventilate. “I’ll call Karin.”
    “No, Jill. No. I am not having that girl watch my kids again. She’s a Wiccan, for God’s sake. She drew a pentagram on my kitchen floor with my one Chanel lip liner, made an altar out of my stepladder, and sacrificed a package of boneless chicken breasts on it! Do you have any idea how much boneless chicken breasts cost?”
    “This is an emergency, Ellen. I
need
you here. So, she’s a witch. So she wastes poultry. It’s not like she’s an axe murderer.”
    “No way, Jill. No.” I hate putting my foot down, especially when I know Jill is in distress, but I hadn’t mentioned to my cousin the seventeen piercings on Karin’s various body parts and the gleam in Jessie’s eyes when she saw them. I spent three hours the next day explaining to my daughter that when she was eighteen and not living at home she was welcome to pierce any part of her anatomy she so desired, to which she responded that I was nothing more than a warden in the prison of her life. Where do eight-year-olds come up with this stuff, anyway?
    Jill is silent for so long that I think she has hung up on me. A moment later she says, “I’m going to call you back.”
    “Don’t do anything rash,” I tell her, “like putting your head in the oven.”
    “It’s electric.” Click.

•   Six   •
    T rader Joe’s is quiet on this Friday morning; only a handful of shoppers grace its aisles. Right now, I am gazing at fourteen thousand kinds of cheese, wondering if I should branch out and try a crazy variety for the cheese balls I will not be able to eat since I cannot attend book club tonight. Jill still hasn’t called me back. At least, I think she hasn’t called me back. I can’t really be sure since I left my cell phone on the kitchen counter. It’s a bad habit, and it drives Jonah crazy. Every time I “forget” to bring the little evil device with me, or, God forbid, I haven’t charged it and the battery is dead, my husband decides that he absolutely must get ahold of me
right this minute
. And when I finally do find the phone and see that I have thirteen messages from him and call him back, he rants and raves about how irresponsible it is of me, a mother of three and wife of one, to leave the cell phone, which he spent a fortune on by the way, at home/in the car/on the floor of my closet/in my discarded purse. “What ifthere’s an earthquake or a tsunami? What will you do then?” he shrieks. Most of the time, I just fake static and hang up. That’s the kind of gal I am. I fake static
and
orgasms.
    “Hi.”
    I look up. It must be coincidence that just as the word
orgasms
flashes through my brain, I am greeted by none other than Ben Campbell. What this man is doing in the cheese aisle of Trader Joe’s at ten thirty on a Friday morning is a complete mystery to me. I should probably feel panicked, since panic is my go-to emotion when confronted with an attractive man. But the endorphins from my time on the treadmill are doing glorious things for my self-esteem, I am freshly showered, and I am fairly confident that the black capris I am wearing do not have a hole in the ass. Also, there is no Pop-Tart goo on my shirt since I am currently abstaining from Pop-Tarts.
    “Lotta cheese,” he says with a grin, turning his attention to the refrigerated case.
    “I was just thinking the same thing,” I say. It’s a lie. I was thinking
orgasms
, but I can’t really say that to my cousin’s sexy next-door neighbor, now, can I?
    “You weren’t at soccer practice yesterday.”
    He noticed I wasn’t there. This inconsequential tidbit gives me a tingle of pleasure. “Yesterday was Connor’s day. I was at his baseball practice. Miss me?” Did I really just say that? I mentally slap my forehead.
    “Like you can’t believe,” he says, not