How Stella Got Her Groove Back (22 page)

“Stella, don’t be too peeved at me but I accidentally slipped and told Angela about what you did on your summer vacation. It just sort of rolled off my tongue but to be honest I think the hussy needed to hear something to liven up her dead-ass world and I just really wanted to fuck with her cause I knew she couldn’t handle this so let me know if any of your animals are dead and when can I like come over and pick up me and Chantel’s gifts and souvenirs and I hope you didn’t just send us a stupid postcard. I also have something to tell you. Byee. And by the way: welcome home.”

Nothing like sisters, I think as I begin to unpack, and as I hold up different articles of clothing I wore when I was with Winston I feel myself getting woozy and it is then that I realize for the umpteenth time that he was not is not a dream a mere fantasy, that he really did generate something pure and deep inside me that is still circulating now that I’m home, and even though I am in my very own bedroom and there are no waves outside my window and no rocks and no banana plants or hibiscus, I can smell the flowers hear the waves feel the sand between my toes and I sort of have to shake my head back and forth to stop myself from hearing his knock on my door from seeing him standing there in the rain from feeling his lips against mine and as I pull more clothes from the suitcase, separating soiled laundry from things that need to go to the dry cleaners, I know for a fact that this longing this yearning I’m feeling is because I am missing him.

• • • •

“Yes, Isaac, this is Stella calling. What’s going on?”

“Well, first of all, how was Jamaica?”

“It was great. Negril is a beautiful part of the island.”

“When’d you get back?”

“Late last night.”

“That’s good,” he says. “Glad to hear you had a great time. I’ve always wanted to see Jamaica. Been to Aruba, but haven’t had a chance to get to Jamaica yet. Ah, look, Stella, there’s a reason I called you at home.”

“What’s this all about, Isaac?”

“Well, I could have waited till you came back to the office and we could talk face-to-face, but I thought I’d forewarn you. A lot has happened since you’ve been away.”

“Would you get to the point, Isaac, and stop beating around the bush?”

“Well, Stella, you know there’s been talk for some time about downsizing and reorganizing your department, right?”

“Of course. Everybody knows that. It’s no secret.”

“Well, Fred has been replaced by Michael Javitz—”

“Javitz from our Los Angeles office?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“He’s set on starting his department with a new team.”

“Wait a minute, Isaac—are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“I didn’t want to do it like this, Stella. I mean you and I go way back. . . .”

“So are you saying I’m out of a job?”

“Well, I guess that’s what I’m trying to say.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Javitz feels that he really can’t justify your salary.”

“Oh, really! As much revenue as I bring into the firm, he can’t justify
my
salary?”

“Stella, you’ve had the same accounts now for some time and we’re trying to grow. New clients are just as valuable as long-standing ones.”

“I don’t believe this.”

“You know how things can get at this level.”

“And what level is that, Isaac? What level is that?”

“We’re offering you a great severance package. A year’s salary plus a bonus and most of your benefits. You can even keep your profit sharing.”

“So are you saying I have to accept this?”

“Well, it’s what we’re offering.”

“I’ll think about it,” I say. “And Isaac, thanks for sharing.” I hang up and stand there looking out the window for so long that the tears I didn’t want to fall finally condense. I do not have a job. I am unemployed. I have no income. After all these years of making what I thought was an investment, it turns out there is no return.
Poof.
Just like that. The ride is over. Do not pass Go. But I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. How I’m supposed to feel. And who can I ask? And even if I did, what difference would it make? I am going to have to start over. Somewhere else. Start over. Start all over. Again.

I drop the portable phone right there on my office floor and wander out of the house without realizing that I don’t know where I’m going but the mailbox is waiting there so I open it and it’s obvious that Vanessa hasn’t been here in a few days because it’s packed tight with white and brown envelopes magazines and as I begin to tug and yank to get all this stuff out and some of it lands by the curb I gradually begin to move slower and slower because for some reason I do not cannot even begin to understand or explain, right this minute I feel lighter and my head is clearing up like clouds that evaporate on those special-effect commercials and I realize that what I am feeling is relief and as I pile up all the mail and head back toward the house I am weightless and my legs are light and I can hardly feel the concrete steps under my feet and after I close the door I am on the verge of giggling because somehow and for some reason it feels like a gigantic burden has been lifted from my shoulders. In fact as I go through the mail most of which is junk and then dash upstairs to the laundry room and begin to throw all my running outfits into the washer I cannot wipe the smirk off my face because I am now rather ecstatic that I no longer have a job because all I know is that shit happens for a reason and maybe I’m being given another chance maybe this is really an opportunity to venture out in a different direction which is why I am going to pay attention this time out because what I am certain of is that for the first time in like seventeen years I am totally and unequivocally free!

• • • •

“Come home,” I say to Quincy.

“Mom! Where are you?” he asks.

“I’m home.”

“You are? How was it?”

“Beautiful. And how about your vacation? Are you still having fun? Did you catch any fish?”

“Well, first of all I’ve been sorta having fun but Dad goes to bed kind of early and he took me to the arcade a few times so I could play Mortal Kombat Three and it was pretty cool and I caught six fish but they were too little so we had to throw them back.”

“Oh, that was nice. So your plane gets in next Saturday at noon, right?”

“Yep.”

“I’ll be standing at the gate with open arms.”

“Please don’t, Mom. It’s not necessary to have your arms open.”

“Goodbye, Quincy, and tell your daddy I said hello and I’ll call him after you get home.”

“Wait!”

“What?”

“Mom, did you bring me anything from Jamaica?”

“Yes, I brought you lots of things.”

“Like what?”

“Surprise surprise surprise,” I say and hang up.

• • • •

I am really home. I have just been fired from my job. And Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care! If it wouldn’t make me look so stupid I would call Winston right now. But I’m not going to. What would I say anyway? I just got home and I’m still thinking about you? I dreamed about you all the way home on the plane? I am already trying to figure out how I’m going to teach myself to forget about you? Because what this really was—according to an article I read on the plane—is called a “fling.” A fling is when you go on vacation and get wild and crazy with someone you don’t know and have the best sex and everything is so euphoric that you wish you could feel this way forever but because there are usually geographical problems and maybe language barriers and major cultural differences and say a vast disparity in age do not—repeat: do not—take this shit seriously because when you get home it’s like over goodbye hastalavista baby no I probably won’t see you next year but it was like steaming hot and I had a fabulous time and I hope I get as lucky when I go to Brazil next year, you know? However, on some rare occasions when you get home and days go by and you can’t seem to get this person out of your mind and then you actually like find yourself calling him or her on the phone and writing little notes weeks later, then maybe just maybe this could like turn into a real relationship. For the most part, however, play it safe and forget about him.

Which is what I basically decide to do.

• • • •

I go to Home Depot specifically to buy some long-bed boxes of zinnias and petunias and chrysanthemums and some bigger pots for my ficus and schefflera and some huge bags of potting soil vermiculite and peat moss, a few pairs of those gardening gloves and then I’m like out of there with my cart, which I push out to and get everything easily into the back of my truck.

I am in the backyard on my knees digging holes in the ground and poking little flowers inside each one and the soil is soft and cool even through these gloves and deciding which flowers to put where and how to group them becomes important to me and I get up from time to time to stand back and look at the pattern or lack of pattern these tiny bouquets are beginning to make and I enjoy how much livelier the yard is looking already. I don’t even realize that I have been out here now for more than two hours until I hear what sounds like the engine of my car pulling into the driveway and the phone ringing at the same time. I walk over to the outdoor table and pick up the portable.

“Yes yes yes,” I say.

“Your lovely sister and favorite niece are in your driveway and we are here to collect our gifts and I hope a check too and I’ve got some good news and I’ve got some bad news so come out to the garage and tell me which you want to hear first.”

I hang up and walk through the garage and the two of them are in the front of my black BMW which is an M-5 racing car which I did not need but I bought anyway because I could afford it and liked it and it goes fast.

Vanessa is standing next to the car. She walks over and gives me a hug. She could be Pepa’s sister of Salt-N-Pepa, at least that’s what Quincy’s friend Dexter thought the first time he was over and Vanessa walked in the door and his eyes got big and he said, “Pepa?” and she said, “Who, sweetheart?” and that’s how he knew it wasn’t her.
“What up, cradle-robber?”
she yells.

“Don’t even start, Vanessa.”

Chantel finally gets out of the car because apparently she was listening to something on the radio, probably some nasty sex-oriented gangsta rap song because she likes just about all of them. She and Quincy are the same age and often when I take him somewhere I take her too. She’s sort of like the daughter I wish I could have had but never had and never will have.

“What are you doing?” Vanessa asks, putting her hands on her big hips.

“I’m planting flowers.”

“Since when did you start planting flowers?”

“I’ve been meaning to do this for the past couple of years, so I’m doing it like now. Got a problem with that?”

“You look cute,” she says. “Different. Like you kind of got like this little . . . I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it.”

“Well, I am four or five shades darker, Vanessa.”

“Hi, Auntie Stel,” Chantel says. She is my blossoming little cookie dough niece. Last year she was as thin as paper and this year she’s actually got curves.

“Hi, honeybunny,” I say and she runs inside the house, as if she’s trying to get away from something. “Okay, cut the bullshit. Your bad news can’t be any worse than what I’ve just gotten.”

“What?”

“I am no longer employed.”

“Get the hell out of here?” she says, looking around the truck to make sure Chantel is inside the house.

“Yep. They pulled this shit on me while I was gone.”

“Can you sue ’em?”

“Everybody always wants to sue somebody. I don’t have the time or the energy but I’ll be getting what’s mine. I’m not even worried about it.”

“Wow, this is like totally fucked up, Stella. What a way to come home from vacation.”

“I’m not really all that upset about it if you want to know the truth.”

“I’m checking you out. You seem too calm, at least that’s what I think I’m hearing in your voice. Are you on something?”

“No, I’m not on anything. Spare me. Now tell me what your bad news is.”

“Promise you won’t be too mad at me?”

“What is it, Vanessa?”

“Wait up. Did you write the check already?”

“I said I’d lend it to you. Now what is it?”

“I had a little accident.”

I look over at the car. “Where?”

“The rear end. Left side. Taillight.”

I walk back and look at it and sure enough it’s cracked and there is a little dent on the side. “What happened?”

“This stupid son-of-a-bitch wasn’t even looking where he was going when I was trying to back out of this parking space and like
pow!
I tapped him.”

“No problem.”

“You mean you’re not pissed?”

“It’s just a stupid little accident. Did anybody get hurt?”

She looks as if she doesn’t quite believe this because I do have a reputation for being high-strung, for “going off,” but only if I’m provoked, and occasionally for not being the most understanding when it comes to sensitive emotional issues. Or at least that’s the word out on the street.

“No. Nobody got hurt,” she says very slowly. “Girl, what has gotten into you? You ain’t tripping and I know you’re crazy about this car.”

“It’s just a stupid car. It can be fixed. What’s the big deal?”

Then she starts laughing. “That young boy musta really done something to you. Look at me, Stella.”

After she says this I can’t because I feel myself blushing and I can’t hide it with these dirty gloves on so I drop my face and then Vanessa runs over to me and lifts my chin up and says, “What has happened to you?”

I try my damnedest to wipe the smirk off my face and I say, “Nothing. And your check’s on the kitchen counter. Go get it.”

“You didn’t go down there and fall in love with a twenty-one-year-old, did you, Stella?”

“Are you crazy?”

“No.
I’m
not crazy. Are you?” And she is staring at me like she hasn’t seen me in twenty years or like I’ve just cut off all my hair or dyed it some outrageous color and she is giving me a serious once-over. “Something is different about you, Stella, and I’ma tell you something. You look better now than I’ve seen you look in a long time. I’m not kidding, you actually have like a twinkle or something in your damn eyes.”