Read How Stella Got Her Groove Back Online
Authors: Terry McMillan
Tags: #cookie429, #Contemporary, #General, #Romance, #Extratorrents, #Kat, #Fiction, #streetlit3, #UFS2
How Stella Got Her Groove Back (41 page)
“I do,” I say, and write his number down and right after I say goodbye there is a click. “Hello?”
“Is this Stella?”
“Yes it is. And may I ask who’s calling?”
“This is Judge Spencer Boyle. Rodney Wolinski, your insurance broker, gave me your number and said it was all right to call. Is this a good time?” he asks, sounding like a senior citizen.
“Actually it isn’t, Judge Boyle. I was just about to give my husband a bath.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry. Did I say husband? I meant to say baby.”
“You’ve got a baby? Rodney didn’t tell me you had a baby.”
“Oh yes, I’ve got a baby all right. And boy, what a big baby he is,” I exclaim, and then I thank the judge for calling and wish I could’ve told him that his best bet would be to stop by the Rossmoor Retirement Condominium recreation center and maybe he’d have a better shot at finding himself a hot little number in there. I place the phone in the cradle and saunter on outside into the stinging night air and I stand over my baby. He stretches out the canvas of the hammock to make room for me and I just look at it. “I can’t get in there,” I say.
“Why not?”
“There’s not enough room.”
“I’m making room.”
“I’ll fall out.”
“I’ve been in here for over an hour and I haven’t fallen out. It feels like you might, but you don’t.”
“I don’t like that feeling.”
“You don’t like the feeling of falling?”
“No.”
“You mean you don’t like feeling out of control.”
I give him a how-did-you-know-that look and then switch to a you-think-you-know-so-much look.
“Come on. Get in,” he says. “I won’t let you fall.”
And see, this is what I mean. This is what he can do that kind of bothers me. He makes me comfortable and I’m not used to feeling this comfortable with a man and the thing is I know it’s stupid to resist but oh, Stella, get in the fucking hammock and so I listen to the woman in me and I get in and Stella knows what’s best for me because once I feel my body drop down into against Winston’s I know he’s not going to let me fall anywhere but here.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“I’m okay,” I say as my nose brushes against the hair on his chest. “I’m just cold.”
“How’s this?” he asks and puts his arms around me.
“Better, but it’s freezing out here.”
“Okay okay okay. Don’t move,” he says and gets up and I feel like I’m falling for real as I roll to the center of the hammock and the sides roll up so that I feel like a piece of corn on the cob inside some husks but before I know it he’s back with the down comforter from the bed and he slides in next to me and turns on his side so that his heart is against my back and God he feels good these goose feathers feel good and I am so warm I could sleep out here like this. “Now,” he says.
“Now,” I sigh.
“How are you feeling, Stella?”
“I’m feeling just fine. And you?”
“Not so good.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m having a hard time accepting the fact that I am leaving in a few days.”
“I am too, actually.”
“Well, you haven’t said anything.”
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“You could’ve said something like, ‘Winston, I’m having a hard time dealing with the fact that you are leaving.’ You could’ve said that.”
“And how would you have responded?”
“Well, I would’ve said, ‘Stella, you know I love you, I love being with you, I love what we are doing and how I feel, how you make me feel, and I don’t want to leave. Ever.’ ”
“You would’ve said that?”
“Yes. And how would you have answered?”
“I would’ve said you don’t really have to leave except that I don’t want you to lose your job because of me.”
“And I would’ve said but I would be happy to quit that job as it means nothing to me, not even one tenth as much as you do, and Stella, I can always get another job.”
“You would’ve said that?”
“Absolutely.”
“And what is it you would do in America if you had stayed?”
“Well, I would apply to school and work on becoming a certified chef with a specialization so that it would be easier for me to get work in this country and I would work doing anything until such time, as I am not the type of man who could tolerate being taken in by a woman, you know, I mean I would have to earn my own way and help out in the household, you know?”
“Yes, I think I do.”
“And then if this woman that I loved would allow herself to not feel the need to be in control of
everything
all the
time
and just admit that she feels what she feels and if she is scared she should know that this guy named Winston loves her enough, that she doesn’t have to worry, and she should tell him what she’s afraid of and he will comfort her because even though he is not rich and probably never will be he cares about her so much and he hopes it will be enough and he would really like to be her most trusted friend and once she accepts this then maybe they could perhaps even get married.”
“Married?” I ask and twist my body over so that I am now facing him.
“Yes, married,” he says. “If she loves him as much as she claims and even half as much as he loves her.”
“She does,” I say. “She tells me all the time. It’s kind of getting on my nerves if you want the truth, listening to her go on and on about how she can’t believe she’s fallen in love with this young man from Jamaica that she met on vacation, but her problem is that she is afraid of marriage because of what she’s seen it do to love, how much you actually lose, for instance, like spontaneity: everything seems to have to be planned out in advance, and she does not always want to know what is going to happen next; and then how about passion: it gets pushed out of the way or maybe even shoved over and down to the bottom of the list of
needs
to that list of
wants
and is now considered superfluous, and where there used to be joy and laughter and warm smiles all of a sudden they cross over the picket line and everybody’s pissed about something stressed out every day and so she feels that marriage is just so misrepresented, so overrated and not at all redeeming and plus it changes people and she does not want to be changed.”
“But she would be marrying a different
kind
of man than she has grown accustomed to in the past. She would be marrying someone who shares her lust for life her enthusiasm her sense of wonder and he is excited by her independence. She would be marrying someone who appreciates the differences between them, who loves to disagree with her because he enjoys watching her get worked up because he gets a charge listening to her rant and rave and he is grateful that he has met a woman who is already a grown-up, one who thinks, who has opinions and does not go along with the program, but he also likes the fact that she is made of good stuff and she is smart enough to know that happiness is here for the asking and this could be their very own adventure.”
“She appreciates hearing all this but she knows that even though Winston loves her right
now
he is too young to be thinking about marriage.”
“He disagrees.”
“That’s too bad, because she believes from the bottom of her heart that if he were to marry her, in a year when she is forty-three and then when she is forty-four—if it lasted that long—he would regret ever doing this because her hair will be getting gray and she will begin to get those wrinkles.”
“He knows that wrinkles and gray hair do not make her any less attractive and besides she will have earned them and plus she already has some gray hair in a luxurious place and she should know by now that he fell in love with what he saw inside her, not simply what he was able to see with his eyes.”
“But he will look at younger girls.”
“Of course he will
look,
but he will
love
the older one,” he says and puts his face closer, right in front of mine, so that our nostrils are touching. “Are we finished?” he asks.
“I guess so.”
“I’m serious, Stella.”
“Winston. Okay. Let’s say hypothetically speaking that we were to like get married. I mean really: how long could it possibly last?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s a good answer,” I say.
“But who
does
know, Stella?”
“You’re right. Who does ever know?”
“So,” he says and wraps his arms snugly around me.
“So,” I say and slide mine under his.
And then suddenly he just lets me go and it feels like I’m going to tumble out of this hammock but for some reason I really don’t care, because I mean how far down could I really fall? I mean there’s grass under this thing and then there’s this moist soil beneath the grass because the sprinkler system comes on every morning and . . . “Stella?”
“Yes, Winston?”
“So will you marry me?”
I look at him for a few seconds and then I give him a deep juicy succulent kiss and then I take an even closer look into those sincere eyes and I say, “Are you sure you know what you just asked me?”
“Yes, I know what I just asked you.”
“What?”
“I just asked you to marry me.”
“Ask me again.”
“Stella, will you marry me?”
I turn away to look over at the swimming pool for no particular reason except to maybe catch my breath and then I look up at the black sky that has absolutely no stars which is like totally perfect because they are not necessary and so I ponder this thought this notion this gesture this whole idea for a few more seconds and then I smile at Winston and press my lips softly into his and I do love this man I do I do but I look at him one more time to make sure he’s like for real and when I see that he is I take a deep breath to make sure I am real and Stella girl accept the fact that you finally got something you wanted, that it’s okay to enjoy him this moment go on and make this move feel this groove fool go ahead jump dive in deep fly swirl girl you have earned this you deserve this you can take this to the bank, so when I like hear all this advice and stuff being given to me by this mature in-the-middle-of-her-life woman who knows what day it is what time it is and whose name happens to be the same as mine I am like totally sold swayed convinced so I just go ahead and drape my arms around this beautiful man named Winston Shakespeare and I say, “Okay!”
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is
http://www.penguinputnam.com
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