How Stella Got Her Groove Back (40 page)

“I know,” I say.

“Meeting him makes him more real and not this apparition. I just thought of how immature Evan is and I assumed Winston would be the same, but talking to him. . .I guess when you’re not from here . . . I don’t know. Anyway he just seems to be more mature and worldly, to be honest.”

“I’m glad you can see that,” I say.

She lets out a sigh. “And you look good, Stella. You’ve got a glow I haven’t seen in a long long time.”

“You can see it too?”

She nods. “Who else has seen it?”

I blush. “Everybody.”

“You know I’m the skeptic in this family,” she laments, and I nod, and she says, “I just don’t want you to be careless. Just try to take this slowly, that’s all.” She tosses a bag into the back seat of the station wagon. Then she turns and gives me a hug and her stomach is warm against mine. “But after all is said and done, you do what makes Stella happy.”

“Thanks, Angela.”

And as she gets into the car she rolls her window down. “I think Evan will like him too. See you later, Sis.”

“Bye, Angela,” I say and watch her drive off.

• • • •

During the first week we act like honeymooners. We brush our teeth together we shower together we make love two and three times a day (well, actually we only pulled that marathon off once) and then there are those three evenings when we just snuggle up all night long in front of the fireplace which we believe has some real emotional value and we decide that we will do this more over the next two weeks. I have been nice and let him sleep on the left side and on top of course and it is working out.

He has taken Quincy to school instead of dropping him at the bus stop and insists on picking him up and I suppose they’ve been bonding in the car. Winston’s been helping him with his math problems and listening to some of Quincy’s existential essays; all of this happens right before dinner, which he has been cooking for us—Jamaican style—and we’ve been enjoying spicy meals and dishes and I have particularly loved watching him move around my kitchen touching pots and pans that I have touched and when we stand next to each other at the kitchen sink and put our hands in the same sudsy dishwater and our fingers find each other under that water and squeeze I realize just how much I like his being here.

At first I was really worried about what it would be like having another person invade my space, because no one has been in my space in a long time. But I like walking past him in the house, I like waking up and seeing him feeling him smelling him, I like taking baths and showers with him and drinking the weak coffee he makes for me. I like doing laps in the pool next to him and watching him clean and hose down the garage and turn the love shack back into my work space and fix Quincy’s go-cart and put a new head on the sprinkler valve and stack an entire cord of firewood that was left all over the driveway. I like soaking in the Jacuzzi with him and he has actually asked me out on “dates,” like tonight we are having a midnight picnic by the pool.

I think he is growing on me.

During week two we drive up to Lake Tahoe. He has never been in cold mountains before. It is fall up here and it is nippy, very nippy. We are sitting in the hot tub on the deck. It is ten o’clock at night.

“Have you ever read the Bible, Winston?”

“Not the whole thing. Have you?”

“Bits and pieces. It’s too long, the language is so archaic, there’s so many folks to keep track of and I think it’s overwritten, to be honest. But I really appreciate the story. Do you believe in God?”

“Yes, lots of them.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. You call on the kind you need.”

“For instance?”

“Well, I called on the Love God when I was hoping that you would fall in love with me.”

“And?”

“He came through, didn’t he?”

“He did.”

“And I called on the Courage God to give me enough courage to leave everything I care about behind to come here to be with you.”

“Really? Any others?”

“Well, now that I’m here I’m soliciting a few of them, yes.”

“I’m listening.”

“Well, I’m asking the Perpetual God to help me maintain what we’ve started and I’m asking the Love God again to just visit us on a regular basis and I’m asking the Patience God and the Understanding God and the Perfection God and the Direction God to show me how to be more patient and understanding and not strive for perfection and to guide me in the right direction.”

“You amaze me,” I say.

“Then that means the Amazement God has come through as well.”

He smiles at me and reaches out his hand. I take it in mine. It feels warm. It is a man’s hand. It is big. He is rubbing my fingers and they are tingling so much that I move against him and look into his face and just smile. “I think we’re both crazy,” I say.

“Those would be the Crazy Gods that apparently we’ve both called upon, hey?”

“Afraid not. I didn’t ask for them or this.”

“But you got it, didn’t you. You got me, didn’t you. So now what do you want to do about it?”

“I wish you could stay.”

“I wish I could too,” he says.

“How long would you stay if you could?”

“As long as possible,” he says. “As long as possible.”

• • • •

Winston has a cold one morning so I drive Quincy to school.

“So how is everything going?” I ask.

“Fine.”

“You haven’t been showing me your homework like I’ve asked.”

“I will, Mom. And guess what?”

“What?”

“You remember when I told you I was signing up for computer animation for my flex class?”

“Yes.”

“Well, remember when I told you there were too many kids who signed up and they put our names in a hat and I wasn’t one who got picked?”

“Yes.”

“Well, guess what?”

“What?”

“Yesterday the instructor told me that one of the kids dropped the class and guess who got picked?”

“Who?”

“Me!”

“But how?”

“Well, they put all the names in the hat again but this time they used
my
hat.”

“You sly little rabbit,” I say.

“Winston’s got a bad cold, huh?”

“I think so.”

“You should make him some hot tea, Mom. And take his temperature and make him put on his jammies and stay under the covers, just like you do me when I’m sick.”

“I think I will,” I say. “Quincy, are you enjoying him? You know, his being here.”

“Very much. Aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Glad to hear it, Mom, because we’re going Rollerblading when he gets better and he said he likes to fish too and I certainly like it when he drives me to school. He’s a good driver.”

“He stays in his lane?”

“Oh, all the time! Sometimes he wants to turn the wrong way but I just yell and say, ‘No! Not that way, Winston!’ but other than that, he’s a great driver. Awww, Mom, I promised I wouldn’t tell about those close calls, so please don’t tell him I told, okay?”

“No problem, mon,” I say when we pull up to the bus stop. “Now get out.” He gives me a kiss and I give him one back.

• • • •

It is nearing the end of week three. I feel like I’m PMSing because everything is getting on my nerves. Winston is getting on my nerves. He is leaving in a few days and I’ll be glad when he’s gone. I’ll be glad to have my space back, to get my life back the way it was before he got here. I mean, everything has totally changed. He takes up so much room and even though I know my son is going to miss him, I told Quincy he can write to Winston and maybe we’ll go back to Jamaica during the Christmas holidays or something, I don’t know for sure, because when I think about it, Jamaica really wasn’t all that exciting, I mean maybe there are some other islands we should consider.

Oh stop it, Stella. You are on your way back to that place you said you weren’t visiting anymore. Admit it. You love this man fiercely and you are just afraid of what you’re feeling you’re afraid that you will miss him too much when he is gone and you don’t even want to think about his not being here so you are trying to figure out what it is about him that you will not miss that you could absolutely not live with if he were to, say, stay. For example, at night when he pulls all the covers over to his side of the bed and you wake up freezing your buns off. I mean how long do you think you could tolerate that? And he snores like a goat and he has those sinus problems and he is forever blowing his nose honk honk honk every morning and I mean how many boxes of tissues would this add up to on a weekly, monthly basis? And how about the music issue? I mean let’s face it, Stella, you like a little hip-hop and rap as much as the next black person but does he have to play the same song over and over again and do he and Quincy have to have a volume control contest? And then there’s the bread problem. He does not like the crust and he eats the middle doughy part and leaves crumbs all over his plate, which really is unnerving. And he slurps. Everything gets slurped up with something else. Maybe this is a Jamaican thing, but it doesn’t work here in America. And how about the way he gets things done. He is one slow-moving cookie and yes he does get things done but it’s just that he never seems to be in much of a hurry to do anything. You are like a speed demon and he is constantly asking you what’s the big rush and you get pissed because it is a difficult question to answer as you do not know why you are in a hurry sometimes. And then last but not least are the wet towels. Why does he have to put them in the hamper where they begin to mildew and mold and you have a hard time figuring out where that smell is coming from. And even though he is rather persistent in his dream of achieving excellence in domesticity he doesn’t understand that one should measure detergent and it is not safe to put bleach in dark clothing and what else can you think of? Think harder because you haven’t even left the tip of the iceberg yet and you know it. There is more. There is always more that you will not be able to tolerate, just watch. He’s still got a few days left. You’ll see. You’ll be so glad when he’s gone, I’m here to tell you.

I’ll be so very glad when he leaves because that way I can get my drawers back (even though I can’t remember what I did with the stuff that was in them) and I’ll be glad to have the counter space back on that other sink so I can put all my nail polish and lotions and perfumes back where they were in the first place. And all my blouses and jackets that I moved for him, hey, I need that space because I haven’t even done my fall shopping yet and I will need as much hanging room as possible. And the bed. Who needs to feel his warm body next to mine every single day of the week? I mean it has really become rather cumbersome rolling over in the middle of the night and early in the morning and feeling him, and plus making love on a regular basis is so time-consuming and my hair keeps getting all messed up and I am becoming tired of eating a plum or some kind of fruit to make sure my palate is clean when I wake up and I don’t even want to think about all I’ve been going through to keep myself smelling shower fresh everywhere not to mention keeping the stubble off my legs and from under my arms and plucking my eyebrows and brushing three times a day instead of two. I mean I have really been going out of my way to make this man feel good and what have I gotten in return, what have I really gotten in return?

“Stella?” I hear him call. He is outside. It is too cold to be out there, maybe I shouldn’t go out. I’ll just stand in the doorway and answer whatever question he has. And he has certainly become Mr. Talkative since he’s been here, I mean really. Downright nosy. Now he wants to know when am I ever going to come out to my new work space and I told him after he leaves when I can focus and he told me to stop focusing on him and I might be able to focus on my work and I flicked him off because I’m a very talented person this much I know and all I’m doing is waiting for the muse to strike because it’s hard getting your groove back once you’ve lost it but he wasn’t really buying this and neither was I but it was all I could think of and so I told him I was thinking about taking some design classes and if he were living here he could maybe take one too just for fun. He told me he’d already looked in our yellow pages and saw quite a few schools and the California Culinary Institute caught his eye and just for the heck of it he called and they mailed him their brochure and he said he basically wanted to compare what they had to offer here in the States to what was available to him in Jamaica and he said it should be here today or tomorrow but he wanted to save it to read on the plane ride home.

The phone starts ringing. “What is it that you want, Mr. Shakespeare?”

“After you answer that, come on out,” he says. He is lying in the green and white striped hammock I bought from Hammacher Schlemmer’s mail order catalog right before I went to Jamaica. I’ve been afraid to lie in it because it makes me feel like I’m about to fall out.

“Why do you want me to come out there?”

“I want to talk to you, Stel-la.”

“About what, Win-ston?”

“Come out and see.”

I get the phone. “Yes?”

“Stella, how are you? This is Ralston.”

“Who?”

“Remember I met you in San Diego at Maisha’s gallery?”

“Oh yes. How are you?”

“Fine. Look. Wanted to know if we could get together and have dinner this weekend.”

“Wish I could, but I’m kind of busy this weekend.”

“Well, what’s your schedule looking like?”

“Full.”

“As in
full
full?”

“Yep.”

“I hear you, baby. But you can still have a friendly dinner, can’t you?”

“I guess I could.”

“Cause I’d like to talk more about your work, my work, what we’re doing and where we’re trying to go with it, you know?”

“I’d like that.”

“And hey, I’m still interested in doing some trading and I’d like to see more of your stuff. Think we can do that?”

“I think we could. Yes.”

“Then cool. Don’t be a stranger. Write my number down. And bring
him
too. Cause hey. This is a black thang, sister, I thought you knew that.”