How Stella Got Her Groove Back (18 page)

“I
’M REALLY BEGINNING
to wonder if maybe I’m under some kind of spell or something,” I say to Tonya and Patrice. We are lying on our stomachs oiled down and glowing on our chaise longues on the beach and of course I am drinking my third virgin piña colada of the afternoon and they’re on their fourth real piña coladas.

“Girl, you sound like you’re lovesick,” Patrice says.

“That’s impossible,” I say.

“Why is it impossible?” she asks.

“Because he’s a child,” I hear myself say. Stella, come off it, girl, you know deep down inside you are totally smitten with this young man and you are the one who keeps tripping on his age when in fact is it really just his age that’s causing you so much discomfort or are you uncomfortable because of your discomfort, which is basically a reaction to the high-yield comfort level he generated inside you, and because he happens to be young you have made that a negative and as usual chosen the negative as your focal point instead of the good stuff? I mean isn’t it a much cooler cop-out to trip on the fact that he is young and therefore somehow unacceptable, but what if he were like white or Jewish or Asian or even a woman—I mean if you keep saying too young you can like use this defense for the benefit of who, Stella? If he were thirty-one or forty-one, what would the issue be then?

“Winston doesn’t sound like any child I’ve ever met,” Patrice says. “He’s six foot four, living on his own, working full time, and he certainly approached you like a grown-up and he sounds
very
much like a man to my mind.”

“Seriously,” I say, “they
do
do that kind of stuff down here, don’t they? Don’t they have like conjure women who work their mojos on you for a nominal fee?”

“I’ve heard of them,” Patrice says, nodding.

“He probably had this all planned from the beginning. He chose me. Or she probably chose me
for
him and he just went along for the ride. Maybe he’s under the spell too.”

“Girl, you’re tripping too hard.” Patrice rolls over on her side.

I sit up and look down at my thighs and legs and realize I am now totally bronzed and boy I wish I could keep this color. I stand, about to walk into the water, when running down the beach heading straight toward us looking like one of those men in a Calvin Klein ad is a very real bronzed statue and it is moving faster and as he gets closer I/we see that he is absolutely gorgeous!

I look over at Patrice and Tonya and they both pull their sunglasses down over their noses and we simply watch him as he approaches us and he is not wearing any shoes or shirt just dark nylon running shorts and he looks like a wide receiver because he is tall and muscular but his neck is not enormous his body is not puffed up and bulky like most football players’ but his thighs legs shoulders triceps biceps are perfectly formed and now that I can see him closer he is the color of espresso and his mustache is thick and flourishing and his hair is cut close and look at those cheekbones and the hair on that chest and those pectorals pushing out from under it and when he looks directly into my face and smiles showing off those pearly whites and in a British accent says, “Hello,” and then he turns to Patrice and Tonya and says, “Hello,” and we are totally awestruck, can just barely manage a weak “Hi” but the three of us say it pretty much in unison.

He runs over to the outside shower which is close to the grassy area and I don’t realize it but I’m like staring at him as he pulls that silver chain down and the water forms a silver waterfall over his body and the now-chocolate water bounces off his shoulder blades in little droplets that splash against the concrete and he turns his face up to the spray and I’m thinking as I notice that his waistline is probably smaller than mine that he should do some ads for Calvin (I might call Calvin when I get home to tell him that I’ve found his man for real) and then I hear Patrice say, “Go on over there and get him, girl.”

Then Tonya sits up and says, “Something that looks that good should be illegal. Dang. Where did
he
come from?”

“I don’t know but God must’ve sent him here for a reason,” I say and finally I push my feet into the white sand and then into the water. I walk out until I’m up to my shoulders and when I turn around I am positive that that man is looking at me and if he’s not he is looking in my direction and then when he waves and smiles I dunk my head under the water. This is unreal. I mean damn, here I am suffering from an enormous all-encompassing sense of heartache and now this black knight comes out of nowhere and where is his horse is what I’m thinking as I try to focus my eyes to adjust to the thick wetness to see if I can spot any fish families but I can’t seem to see clearly today and when I come up for air he is gone.

I walk run through the water back to the shore where Tonya is now reading some medical journal and Patrice is reading
In Search of Satisfaction
by J. California Cooper but when they see me they drop their respective books in their laps and this time they take their sunglasses off.

“Girl, did you get a good look at him?” Patrice asks.

“I did,” I say. “But where’d he go?”

“Up there,” Tonya says, pointing to the second floor of the beachfront rooms that’re right behind the volleyball area.

I pick up my towel and dry off. “If I knew it was gonna be raining men I’d’ve come down here a long time ago,” I say.

“Well, it must just be in the stars for you, girlfriend, because we’ve been here two days now and the most play we’ve gotten is from little short guys or really old guys and all they say is, ‘Hey, mon.’ These wedding rings scare folks off, which is just fine with us. I
love
my husband,” Tonya says.

“And I think I’ll keep mine around a little longer,” Patrice says. “But you, girlfriend, you ought to have as much fun as you can while you’re here. You are single. And Winston is gone.”

“Byeee, Winston.” Tonya sighs, waving to the air. “When you snooze you lose, baby.”

“How many days do you have left?” Patrice asks.

“Three,” I say.

“We leave in two. But three days is plenty of time to do some damage,” Tonya says.

• • • •

Later, Tonya asks me, “What are you doing for dinner tonight?”

“Eating,” I say.

“Funny. You want to go to Rick’s Café with us?”

“I’ve heard of that—it’s in one of my brochures or something.”

“It’s fabulous. It’s about fifteen minutes from here near the tip of the island and some white guy named Rick owns it and it’s outside and there are these cliffs adjacent to it and you can sit outside and eat lobster and watch these fools dive off.”

“You’re kidding,” I say.

“I kid you not, but it’s also known for the best sunsets you’ll ever see anywhere, so you wanna come with us?”

“Sure, why not,” I say.

• • • •

When our taxi driver picks us up, he looks like he has just been told a good joke. I sit in the front seat because there is no room in the back after Tonya and Patrice get in his little Subaru. We pay him forty American dollars and he will wait for us outside Rick’s Café until we are ready to leave. He is blasting this reggae station so loud that the bass actually hurts our ears.

“Can you give us a break on the bass, brother?” Tonya asks.

“No problem, mon,” he says, still grinning his ass off. “So are you married?” he asks me and puts his left arm across the back of my seat and his right hand is on the steering wheel, which is also on the right.

“No,” I say.

“No? What a pity.”

“Are you?” I ask.

“Yes, but you are no less beautiful because of it.”

“You better keep your eye on the road.”

I can hear Patrice and Tonya cracking up in the back.

“I’m keeping my eye on you,” he says.

“Do you have children?”

“Yes, two.”

Without thinking I take my hand and whop him upside the head. “Then think about them and stop flirting with strange women or I’ll get your name and number and call your wife!”

He immediately puts both hands on that steering wheel and begins to laugh and we all laugh as the car continues rocking because this narrow road is bumpy as hell and it seems as if everything and everybody are out this evening. Lining the road are hundreds of what look like workers leaving hotels. They are gathered in and breaking up from large groups and all are dressed in the same brown purple or green uniforms and many of their arms are outstretched hoping to catch a ride and our driver is honking and waving at lots of them although he doesn’t stop because he has a fare. Then there are these anorexic-looking dogs and the spookiest-looking cats I’ve ever seen, standing in the middle of the road as if they’re waiting for us to go around them which the driver does and then there are goats and cows tied to trees with rope that doesn’t look strong enough and they walk right to the edge of the road and simply stop.

I can tell we are going uphill but I don’t know how high we are until we get out and walk out onto the patio of Rick’s and we are up high all right. There are two or three hundred people here already but we are able to get a table and when I glance over at the rocky cliffs it kind of looks like a small section of Rome even though I’ve never been to Rome but I’ve seen enough pictures to know what a small section of Rome looks like and this could be a small section of Rome. This is really an inlet, a cove with jagged rocks leading to the top, where there is a herd of trees just standing there and a sign that says big and bold: “Beware of the Dog.” These young Jamaican boys whose little chests almost look caved in jump like a hundred feet into the air like seagulls with their arms spread out and they really look like they’re soaring as they cut through the dark turquoise water with hardly a splash.

I am like totally amazed as we sit there and watch the sun beginning to set and at first it is as yellow as a yolk and then it turns tangerine and then burnt orange and then ruby red and then a deep purple and at least five hundred tourists have their cameras and camcorders out and I’m wondering how do you videotape a sunset? These are the type of home videos people show when they come back from vacation that make their friends and relatives want to go outside to smoke a cigarette or a joint. These kind of people stand there and reload the VCR and pretty much forget your ass is even there because they are like reliving that moment remembering exactly what they were eating, like I am about to do with this lobster right now because my mouth is watering and it is so beautiful here and I am glad I’m not thinking about Winston and yet I’m curious I wonder if he’s ever been here and jumped off this cliff he had to because he said he was on the swim team but when I look back out to the highest edge I see a grown man jump off backwards and do a double flip and my heart almost flies out of my chest and hundreds of people are applauding and yet what he wants are American dollars and preferably not ones from what I gather and then I notice that right down below us is a crowded lower platform from which tourists with common sense are jumping off and this is where I can picture myself plunging off too. Next time, I think. Next time.

• • • •

I wear my peach jogging shorts and matching sports bra with matching socks and I’m beginning to think I look too much like those girls on those exercise videos and I vow to mix and match tomorrow. It is only seven o’clock and the beach is mine again until after I finish my run. I am doing my stretches against one of the sailboats when I hear, “Hello again,” in the sexiest voice I have heard in ages with the exception of James Earl Jones and Wesley Snipes and when I turn around it is Mr. Espresso himself in those short shorts again but now he is wearing one of those muscle shirts with a trillion little holes in it and I realize how rare it is that I hear a black man speak with a British accent.

“Good morning,” I say and am glad that I wore this little Jane Fonda outfit after all. I do however wish that my legs were not so thin and short and that God could also have made them more shapely and that my inside thighs could be firmer since I’ve been doing that inner-thigh exercise now for about a year and maybe I should’ve gone ahead and got those silicone implants before they took the shits off the market because then all I’d need to complete this look is a peach sweatband to go around my forehead. Even though I don’t want to lift my other leg and rock forward I feel like I have to in order to not feel imposed upon by his presence so I lean over which is supposed to stretch out my quads and I can feel my glutes pulling which is apparently what he is looking at because I bust him when I turn and say, “Are you about to go on your run?”

He smiles at me like he is already imagining making love to me and for some reason I can picture myself doing it with him and I sort of have to shake this image off by pushing back on my hamstrings because I am worried that maybe I am turning into a real slut down here and he says, “Yes. And you just came back, I see.”

“Yes.”

“We should run together,” he says.

“That sounds good.”

“Could you run again now?”

“No way,” I say. “I wish I could, but I’m not in that great shape.”

“You look like you’re in pretty good shape,” he says, giving my body a once-over. Now if I was at home in America I might be tempted to cuss his ass out for looking at me this way but why I am flattered and not offended one iota is escaping me and I decide not to question it any further so I simply say, “Thank you.”

He holds out his arm to shake my hand and says, “I’m Judas Germaine Rozelle,” and all I’m thinking is who? but I extend my hand and say, “I’m Stella.”

“Stella what?”

I cannot fucking remember my last name for the life of me. But then I suddenly do but I decide I don’t know this man and I didn’t tell Winston my last name and this guy’s like a complete stranger and he might not even be a registered guest at this hotel and he could like actually be a rapist or a serial killer who jogs and also happens to be fine as hell so I just say, “Stella’ll have to do for now.” You are a slut, I think, because I say it like I’m flirting with him which I guess I kind of am.