Something New by Janis Thomas Read Free Book Online Page A

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