How Stella Got Her Groove Back (23 page)

“I do not have any twinkle in my eyes. I’m just darker. I went on vacation and apparently it worked.”

“That’s not even what I’m talking about and you know it, Stella. You did fall in love with him, didn’t you? Tell the truth.”

“Would you stop it, Vanessa. You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“Well, answer me this. How do you feel?”

“I feel good, as James Brown would say,” and I start laughing.

“Cut the bullshit, Stella. Tell me.”

“Okay, I feel something. I don’t know what it is, but all I know is that I feel good inside, lighter, better than I have in years. I feel like, like I could plant every flower in the world in my backyard today.”

She is smiling at me. “Whew.” She sighs. “Well, just keep this to yourself. Let it be your business.”

“I am,” I say. “Now what’s the good news?”

“Oh. The good news is that when I had the accident you know I was on my way to Reno with my girl Cassandra who I work with and to be totally honest I had my mind on my money and my money on my mind but I won three hundred and sixty bucks playing the slots!”

“That’s your good news. Where’s mine?”

“What’s mine is yours, isn’t it, Sis?”

“No. And we’re not even going that far,” and I turn to head toward the backyard.

“Wait a minute, girl! Take those stupid gloves off. We came over here to collect,” she says and pushes me in the other direction. “And you better not hadda bought us no cheap shit and I hope you’ve got some champagne in here cause it’s hot as hell out here and not only that but it’s summertime and the living is easy and I want you to tell me all about Jamaica and this young man of yours. I’m serious. I want to know what a twenty-one-year-old boy can do for a forty-two-year-old woman that would make her look five years younger in a single week and she comes home and not be pissed after hearing that her sister has wrecked her sixty-thousand-dollar car and she still lends her a thousand big ones and she finds out that she is fired from her megabucks job that I certainly wish I had and yet she is still as cool as a cucumber. I want to hear it all,” she says and puts her hands on her hips. “Blow—by—blow.”

So I tell her.

“I
T AIN
’
T NOTHING
but a meatballL,” I say to myself as I begin to pack up three of those stupid computers that have taken up so much room in my home office which while I’m at it I decide to redecorate repaint in fact I should like move altogether and just build a-whole-nother house! This notion flies right out the window of course because now I have no job and thank the Lord my mother taught me how to save my allowance for a rainy day which has been reincarnated and come back as tax-free municipal bonds and it was one of the few things Mama told me to do that I actually did and I am also grateful that years ago I made some solid investments in a now-famous coffee company and a very popular consumer shopping establishment that I frequent myself but do not get any special discounts at and thanks to Leroy who despite whatever shortcomings he may have physically emotionally and spiritually does have mucho business savvy and didn’t mind sharing some of it with me. In fact he urged me implored me to become partners with him which against my better judgment I went ahead and did but only after he promised me that even if I stopped sleeping with him that shouldn’t stop us from making money together which made perfect sense to me and he kept his word so I am like a major shareholder and part owner of a number of thriving fast-food soft-drink enterprises which I prefer not to name.

Plus I’m also not stupid. One of the primary and most important lessons you learn in securities is how to cover your own ass first. Why would I spend all my time and energy showing other folks how to make money if I didn’t myself? My mentors always stressed the fact that as soon as you make more than enough to earn a living, start making a living. Put a small percentage of your income somewhere it’ll grow faster than the speed of light and just like playing in Vegas take a risk but never risk more than you can afford to lose and then take some of that hard-won money and put it in a safer sure but slower-paced place so you don’t have to stress over how it’s performing but the goal is to have all of your investments spread out over into everything from umbrella insurance policies to stocks so that if you ever lose your job or even die your bills are covered your ass is covered your children are taken care of and so I took their advice and if I were to say die today or something my portfolio is set up so that after everything is paid off whoever inherits my property and possessions won’t even have to pay any inheritance tax. So unlike some of these hotsy-totsy movie stars athletes rappers and rock and roll stars who spend all their money on expensive cars clothes mansions and go bankrupt from excessing, I will not. Over the past five years or so I followed my own tips which basically means that I can afford not to work for the next two and a half to three years without freaking out. I will however verify and confirm this with my accountant my broker and by reviewing my own portfolio.

I don’t know why this never occurred to me before, that I have actually been in a position not to work, but I guess it’s because I’ve just always worked and besides I always thought what I was doing meant something to somebody, that I provided a valuable and unique service of some kind, but apparently what they say is true: you can always be replaced. But you know what? Fuck ’em.

I am also very much aware that I don’t have a clue as to what I’m going to do to take the place of my job. What I do know for certain is that I am not walking through any more revolving doors with a suit on, gripping an attaché case. To hell with corporate America where people don’t count but revenue has a pulse and all they do is watch it on an EKG. I give. So the search is on to find a place where I can be me and still make a living even though the truth is I don’t have very many if any “marketable” skills except for designing and since I no longer have a job to distract me perhaps I’ll pay closer attention to what used to give me pleasure in a major way.

My back and front yards are full of flowers and the roots of my indoor plants now have more than enough room to breathe. I feel like I’m coming down with something, like a cold or maybe even an ulcer, so I take an Advil and sit around and wait for it to kick in but when it does I still feel the same way: like I’m getting sick. I am folding the rest of my vacation laundry and beginning to put the last of the shorts and T-shirts into their respective drawers when I find myself dropping them on the bed and calling long distance information and getting the number of the hotel and for fifty cents they connect me and when I hear a Jamaican accent say, “Good afternoon thank you for calling Windswept this is operator Jasmine speaking how may I direct your call?” and I ask to speak to Winston Shakespeare and I’m thinking what a name what a man to have such a name and what a fool I am to be calling him and just as I come to my senses and am considering hanging up I hear his voice say, “Winston Shakespeare here,” and I say, “Hello, Win-ston,” and let out a sigh.

“Is that you there, Stella?”

“Yes, it’s me,” I say, feeling and probably looking pretty much like Jim Carrey in
Dumb and Dumber.
Da. Da. Da.

“How are yoooou?” he sings.

“I’m fine. I’m home.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I just called to say hello, Winston.”

“Can you hold on a minute while I change to a private phone because I’m having a hard time hearing you in here. I’ll only be a second. Don’t go anywhere please.”

“Okay,” I say and stare out my kitchen window and all of a sudden I really feel stupid because what am I going to say to him: Winston I can’t seem to stop thinking about you and I am one step away from buying my very own bottle of Escape for Men and spraying it all over my pillows and sheets so that I can just inhale you at night and I miss you so much it is driving me crazy and I’m just wondering if you’re feeling anything close to what I’m feeling I mean were you like as affected as I was I mean are you like having trouble thinking and connecting the dots unless you are the dots and what am I what are we going to do about this because you and I both know this is ridiculous I am too old for you and you are too young for me and it would never work how would could we do this to make it work oh it would never work so let’s just forget it?

“Stella, are you still there?”

“Yes, I’m still here.”

“I sent you a postcard just today.”

I am touched. “For real?”

“Yes, and you know I’ve been feeling very strange lately and I seem not to have any pep in my step if you know my meaning and everybody has been saying to me, ‘Winston, man, what’s wrong with you?’ and I didn’t know at first what they were talking about but then it dawned on me that I am feeling very depressed and it hit me that I didn’t start feeling like this until after you left. Sooo, I’m telling you that I miss you, Stella.”

My heart hurts. It is sinking and burning and dropping fast into the cave of my stomach and then all of a sudden I simply feel hot. I am coming down with something for sure and it’s on the other end of this phone. That much I have figured out. “I miss you too, Winston,” I say. “More than you will ever know.”

“And how much could that be?”

“A lot. It’s rather ridiculous really.”

“It’s not so ridiculous, Stella.”

And then there is like this silence and then some more silence and then he says, “Stella?”

And I say, “Yes?”

“I want you to know that I had the best time of my whole life when I was with you.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Winston. But we didn’t really spend that much time together when you really think about it.”

“Precisely.”

I hear him breathing and I believe I can smell him through this telephone and for certain I can see his lips move when he says, “I really hope I can see you again, Stella.”

My shoulders drop my chest collapses my whole torso falls forward until my face is dangling close to the floor, and I hear myself whimpering, “I feel the same way, Winston.” This is like too pathetic and I’m glad nobody can see me hear me in here behaving like I’m seventeen.

“Mine feels rather urgent, though.”

“Mine too,” I say. Dork. Dork.

“And I was thinking.”

“What?”

“I was thinking that maybe in three months’ time I can take a sick leave and come to California to visit you for a week or two. How does that sound?”

Here? He wants to come here? I like this idea a lot. I like it a whole lot but three months is a very long time and a woman could shrivel up in three months when she is like craving something and can’t have it but then again I am trying to learn to be a more patient person and what a way to test myself and besides the most important thing right now is that I am not in this alone. It is not just me who has been bitten thank the Lord it’s not just me.

“I’d really like that, Winston,” I say. “You don’t know how much I’d like that.”

“I’m going to look into it,” he says.

“Well, do you like your job?”

“It’s good. I’m learning more and more each day. I could become a head chef after perhaps a year of apprenticing although it would do me good to get more training, but this is fine for right now as I’m gaining experience.”

“What about your living quarters?”

“Well, it’s okay. I sleep on a twin-sized bed and I have a roommate. He’s okay but it’s kind of cramped, you know, but it’ll have to do as this is the way it is at every resort when you come on board like this.”

“Do you have a TV?”

“No.”

“Stereo?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Refrigerator?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“I told you,” he says, laughing. “A twin-sized bed and a place to keep your personal belongings and that’s it.”

“So it’s sort of like living in a college dormitory.”

“Exactly,” he says. “And your son, how is he?”

“He’s still visiting his dad.”

“And where is he again?”

“Colorado.”

“In the Rockies, is he?”

I giggle. “Yes, sort of. He comes home Saturday morning and I can’t wait to see him.”

“It’s nice having a son, hey?”

“Very. At least I like the one I have.”

He laughs. “I hope to meet him soon.”

Wow. The thought of Winston meeting Quincy kind of wigs me out for a minute because what would I say to my child: “Quincy I want you to meet Mom’s new boyfriend who cannot vote or buy liquor in America and no he’s not going to be your stepdad but how about thinking of him as say more like a big brother and please don’t ask me about his age but yes he will probably be willing to play Sega and Super NES with you, no problem, mon!

“You’d like Quincy,” I say for lack of anything better.

“So what have you been doing since you’ve been home?”

I want to say getting fired and constantly thinking about you, but of course I don’t, and instead I say, “Well, I’ve been planting flowers and making some career decisions.”

“What’s that again?”

“I’ll write and tell you all about it.”

“Will you?”

“I will.”

“It feels good to hear your voice, Stella. You just don’t know. Can you tell I’m smiling?”

What is so weird is that I actually
can
tell but what’s even weirder is how much I know I must sound like some teenybopper. I have to cover my mouth and yank on my cheek to get that humming electricity out of it and then and only then am I able to say, “I’m smiling too, Winston.”

“So you will write?”

“I promise,” I say, and when I hang up the phone I am like ga-ga-ga-ga and I think about that stupid article I read on the plane and I guess we are sort of passing by the fling stage because we are speaking to each other on the phone and he has already written me a postcard and he has just said he wants to see me again and Lord what I wouldn’t pay to feel those lips see those eyes stand within a foot of him and smell him again and it hasn’t even been a week and that article claimed the so-called cut-off period to determine if your fling was turning into something serious was two. I feel like I should drop the author an I-beg-to-differ-with-you note.