How Stella Got Her Groove Back (30 page)

We sit at the table looking out at the beach for a few minutes and then Winston wraps his hand around mine and squeezes it. “I wish I could stay.” He sighs.

“I wish you could too,” I say.

“I enjoy your company.”

“Why?” I say.

“Because I feel comfortable around you. I don’t have to pretend to be something that I’m not. I’m not used to it. But I could get used to it.”

“It?”

“You. . . . My dad never talked to me about those birds and bees, you know. And my mom left it up to my dad. Sooo, this is all kind of new to me and I’m not sure what I’m doing or if I’m doing it right.”

“You’re doing it right, Winston, don’t worry. And plus there is no right or wrong way. It’s what makes you feel good inside.”

“Oh, I’m feeling good inside, I’d say.”

“You’re going to make a great chef,” I say then.

“We’ll see. My dad always wanted me to go to medical school and he’s a bit disappointed in me since I didn’t.”

“But this is
your
life.”

“Exactly. But he doesn’t understand that.”

“Does he know you want to be a chef?”

“Not really. I’m not completely sure myself. It’s what I’ve been given a chance to do and it seems okay.”

“It’s okay to be uncertain, Winston. I’m not sure how many people your age know exactly how they want to spend the rest of their life so don’t worry about it. You should talk to your dad about how you feel.”

He shakes his head no.

“Why not?”

“We don’t talk.”

“Then talk.”

“He doesn’t have much to say to me.”

“Then talk to him so he has to.”

“I’ll think about it,” he says and turns his attention to the waves. We sit there for a few more minutes not saying a word. He squeezes my hand, then lets it go and stands. His shorts have slid down to his hips. “I would like to gain about twenty pounds,” he says, pulling them up.

“I think you look fine, Winston.”

“I’m too skinny. People tell me all the time.”

“Don’t listen to them. I like how lean and tall you are.”

“Really?”

“I kid you not,” I say, standing too.

He smiles a satisfied smile and takes his long fingers and grazes them softly over my braids. He looks like he wants to kiss me but then he bends down and puts his arms around me and just holds me for the longest time. I belong in his arms, I’m thinking, when we hear the children running up the steps and then they appear.

“Winston, you missed Rick’s!” Quincy says.

“I know, and I’m sorry about that, Quincy. I had to work, mon.”

“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” Quincy says, and of course this throws Winston for a loop.

“Hi, Winston,” Chantel says. She is flirting, I see.

“Say, I brought you guys some lunch. Some of it’s a bit on the spicy side, so be careful.”

“Are you leaving again?” Quincy asks.

“I have to go back to work.”

“Why do you work so much?” Chantel asks.

“I have to make a living.”

“Good point,” she says.

“So when are you coming back?” Quincy asks.

“I’m afraid my next big break won’t be until tomorrow evening.”

“Really,” I say. “Well, I’ll probably be packing.”

“Tomorrow’s only Tuesday,” Winston says.

“We leave on Wednesday morning.”

“Nooo. I thought you didn’t leave until Thursday.”

“That was last time.”

He sighs. “If I’d known that I would have tried harder to get tomorrow off—they won’t give it to me, Stella.”

“It’s okay.” But it wasn’t okay. Why do people always say that when they don’t mean it?

“I’ll have two hours for dinner tomorrow at eight. And I’ll be here to say goodbye. Is that okay?”

“It’s what you have to give. It’s what we’ll take.”

He gives me a light kiss. Chantel, pretending to eat, is actually taking notes. I roll my eyes at her to let her know that she is busted. Quincy of course is busy eating, only the plantains—he says he loves fried bananas.

• • • •

I am sitting out at the poolside restaurant, sipping on my virgin piña colada. It is eight-fifteen. Winston called at six to tell me he would be here for sure. I keep looking out into the lobby hoping to see him appear like he did the first night we got here but over the next half hour I get zingy watching the same empty spot hoping that he will walk into it. He does not.

At five to nine I say fuck him again. I don’t need this. This is so tacky and inconsiderate. I put something in my mouth and cannot taste it. My heart is aching. Who the fuck does he think he is, standing me up? And what kind of sick little game is he playing? I didn’t come here to get my fucking heart broken by some boy. I wonder if he’s in a racket and I’ve been set up. But why me? He doesn’t know anything about me. I didn’t make him come here. I didn’t beg him to. He volunteered. I feel as if every single tourist at this hotel knows I’m sitting here waiting for a man who isn’t going to show up. This is what I get. For not playing it safe. For taking a risk. This is how and why you wind up feeling like a fool, because men—and I don’t care how old or young they are—coerce you, get you to trust them, and then you start acting like a fool.

I’m glad the kids are having dinner with their New Orleans friends, whose mother was also kind enough to “babysit” while I have dinner with a friend and say my farewells. It is now five after nine and I can’t take this much more. Fuck you, Winston, and thanks a lot for everything! I get up from the table and storm back to the villa, where I see the flashing red light on the telephone. I am afraid to pick it up but I do anyway and the operator tells me to call the front gate which I do and the guard tells me that he has Winston Shakespeare out front to see me.

I march through the parking lot right to the front gate and I am so pissed I can’t wait to tell him I don’t know who you think you are showing up an hour and ten minutes late and am I supposed to be grateful to get fifty minutes of your precious time well don’t do me any fucking favors fella and just who do you think you are anyway? Am I supposed to beg for some goodbye nuggies, or are you showing up late because you don’t want any more of this old tired pussy, is that it? If that’s it then why don’t you just come right out and say so!

There he is, standing by the guard. He looks a little perturbed and distraught himself I think as I walk up to him stand on my tiptoes give him a peck on the cheek and say, “Thanks for coming. Goodbye. It’s been nice meeting you.”

“Stella,” he groans and looks down. “I’ve been waiting out here since five minutes to eight but this time they wouldn’t let me inside the gate and we’ve been calling your room and there’s been no answer and so I said she’s probably sitting in the dining area and if they could ring you there and they said they did but you weren’t there and finally I had them try your room again.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. What did you think happened?”

“I thought you were standing me up.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I thought you had come to your senses.”

“I’ve never lost them,” he says.

We are standing in the driveway entrance and the headlights from an incoming car force us to move over to the grassy area. Winston looks down at me and gives me a kiss. “I am really disappointed that we weren’t able to spend more time together.”

“So am I,” I say.

He looks down the road at cars that seem to be drag racing. “Well,” he sighs, and then just puts his arms around me and begins to hug me. “I’m going to miss you, Stella.”

“I’m going to miss you too, Winston.”

“You know,” he says and kisses me on my forehead, “I am afraid I have become too attached to you.”

“What does too attached mean?”

“It means that I am finding myself thinking about you all the time and wishing I could see you.”

“Join the club.”

“Remember when you asked me if I’ve ever been in love and I said I didn’t think so?”

“Yes.”

“And remember when I asked you what it felt like and you said you sort of crave being around a person and how they make your adrenaline move fast and you can’t get enough of them?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m kind of feeling like that,” he says and I slide my hands in his back pockets, where I feel a condom in the left one.

I am totally touched by his honesty. “Well, Winston, let me tell you a little secret.”

“What kind of secret?”

“I do believe that I have like fallen in love with your young behind and it doesn’t make an ounce of sense and I’ll be on a plane in the morning and five thousand miles away so I’ll just have to like get over it.”

“What?”

“You heard me right.”

“Why do you have to get over it?”

“You know why, Winston.”

He hugs me and kisses me and cars begin honking as they pass but it doesn’t cause him to stop and I think my feet are sinking into the moist soil below this grass and as our lips show that they are not in the least afraid to love each other it occurs to me that I wish I could keep him. Tonight tomorrow and for a long time because I like the way he makes me feel and I’m wondering, as I take my hands out of his pockets and hold him as close as he is holding me, why can’t we keep doing this? I mean is there a law against this somewhere? Are the love police out here scoping the area, hoping to bust us?

Winston breaks away from me and then puts his lips on my neck and presses down his warmth and we are making love with our clothes on out here on the side of this road with all this rushing traffic flashing by and I am racing too, so much that I know I can’t take much more of this, I can’t.

“So I hope to be seeing you real soon,” he says.

“You’re just saying that now, Winston,” I say.

“Oh, so you think I’ll say something different tomorrow or next week or next month, is that it?”

“Winston, I’m forty-two years old.”

“I know how old you are.”

“And next year I’ll be forty-three and then I’ll be forty-four.”

“So?”

“So this doesn’t really make any sense.”

I can tell he is as tired of hearing me say this as I am of saying it, but it is the truth, any way you slice it. He squeezes me a little closer as if he’s trying to reassure me that he is rejecting this whole idea and I can feel his heartbeat and then he lets out a long sigh. “Someone
your age
ought to know that anything that’s good hardly ever makes sense,” he says and then his weight drops and he takes two steps backward and looks down at me. “And if there’s a law written somewhere that says it has to, then let’s just break it.”

“Y
OU JUST DON
’
T
know when to stop, do you, Stella?”

“Angela, would you do me a favor. Please call my house before you come over here.” I wish I could tell her how beautiful she looks right now but I can’t. Her skin is a copperish color and she is all aglow. Her hair has grown out and she’s wearing it in those thick dangling Shirley Temple curls. Her belly looks like a beach ball under her pink dress and she finally has some boobs.

“I haven’t
been
calling before I come over. Why now all of a sudden? You’re losing your mind, Stella. My God, he’s a child and you went back to Jamaica to sleep with him again—what is it with you?”

If she weren’t five months pregnant and my sister I would kick her ass and then throw her in the swimming pool. “Would you like some iced tea?”

“No, I . . . what kind?”

“Raspberry.”

“Yes, I’ll have a glass. So what possessed you to go back down there, Stella?”

“I wanted to swim with the baby fish and I wanted Quincy and Chantel to jump off a cliff,” I say, getting up and going into the kitchen. I look out at her through the blinds and she is a spitting image of our mother, and for the past year or so she’s even been acting like her, which is where all this reprimanding must be coming from, I guess. But deep down inside, I know she’s only interested in protecting me because maybe if I were in her shoes—and Lord knows I’m glad I’m not—if I were looking at this from her perspective, it does look a little foolish. But then again, Angela has always played it safe. She applied to twelve universities even though her GPA was so high she could easily have gone to her first choice, and when she was accepted at all of them her next dilemma was how close to home to be, but Ma told her to go on and go far, be independent. If the truth be known, even then Angela got on everybody’s last nerve.

“Are the babies moving around a lot?” I ask.

“Yep,” she says and starts that business of trying to get comfortable even though she’s not all that huge yet. “So is this thing over now, I hope?”

“Why are you so concerned about it?”

“Because I think you’re taking it too far and I want to know when are you going to forget about him and start thinking about what’s real: like for instance your next job. Have you had any free time to devote to that minor issue?”

“Yes, I have.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Have you sent your résumé to any of those headhunters?”

“No.”

“And why not, Stella?”

“Because I don’t want to go back into securities.”

“Oh, so now—don’t tell me—you’ve had an epiphany and you’ve decided that the corporate world is empty and offers no spiritual mental or emotional gratification so you’re going to take this time to search deep within yourself until you find something say a little more creative and fulfilling, do I have this right?”

“Exactly.”

“I do believe you are either having a nervous breakdown or you are going through a midlife crisis. Stella, you just don’t throw away a career because you’re dick-whipped over some boy who the only thing he
can
do for you is fuck you.”

“You don’t get it, Angela.”

“Don’t get what?”

“Something has happened to me. Winston is only partially responsible for it. I’m not rejecting the corporate world because I got laid real good. And for your information I’ve only slept with him twice.”

“See, that says a lot right there. You’re really screwed up if that’s all it took.”