“Are you cooking up a storm?”
“Not really,” he says. “Mostly chopping and cutting, slicing and dicing. You know?”
“I think I know.”
And we walk up that path for what is going to be the last time and it is weird and the fuchsia hibiscuses look sad, his banana trees look as if they are drooping today, and when I look up at him he looks as if he has many things on his mind, is suffering in some way from something, and I wish I knew what it was so I could help him out but by the time we reach my doorway and walk inside with all the things strewn all over the bed he leans against the wall and just looks at it all.
“So you’re really leaving, huh?”
“Yep.”
Maxi Priest is singing something lovely and mellow about keeping promises or breaking them, one of the two, but all I know is that I can’t believe Winston is really standing here in my room until he comes toward me and stops and looks down and says, “Stella, I want you to know how sad I am to see you leave,” with the utmost sincerity and I am afraid to look into his eyes because I might actually cry and I am too old to be crying over some young guy I just met on some island and I am feeling all mushy inside because I may never see him again and the mere thought of that is making me ache but I gather my composure and try to act like a real grown-up.
“Well, I’m certainly going to miss you, Winston.”
“Really?”
“Why are you so surprised?”
“Why would you miss me, Stella?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes, really.”
“Because I like you, Winston.”
“In what manner do you like me?”
He is serious about this. I can see it all over his face. “I like you the way a woman likes a man.”
He seems satisfied with this answer and then he sighs and stands up real tall and says, “I’m here because I had to come, not because I wanted to. Because I had to.”
“And what does that mean?”
He looks down at the floor and then over at a blank wall and then through the curtains out at the waves and then back at me and says, “It means I have these feelings and I don’t know what to call them but I do know that they are unusually strong and I’ve never felt this way before.”
“Join the club,” I say.
“You feel it too?”
“Do I ever.”
And then we both sort of sigh a sigh of relief and he bends down and rubs his cheekbone against my cheekbone and sort of just holds me for the longest time and I hold him and we merge again for the second time and then he kisses me deeply and slowly so slowly and his lips are so warm and my lips are so warm that they become sympathetic toward each other until this moment begins to feel sacred and no way can I leave this man on this island, and I drop my face down and press it into his chest and I say, “Win-ston, I wish I could fold you up and put you in my suitcase,” and he rubs his big hands up and down my back and he says, “I wish I could fold myself up and jump inside your suitcase.”
And then we just sort of stand there and rock back and forth for what apparently is more than a few minutes because I notice my clock says it is five forty-five even though he just got here.
We break away from each other and I say, “So, Win-ston, what do you want to do?”
“I hope to be able to see you again.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I say.
“Why? You can come back, can’t you?”
“I could, one day, but I have a job, Winston, and a son.”
“I know. I could come visit you and your son.”
“You just started a new job, Winston.”
“That is right, isn’t it.”
“Yes, it is. But we can write to each other for starters,” I say.
“You can write to me in care of Windswept.”
“Windswept.” I sigh.
“May I have your address?”
He is so polite I think as I walk over to get my checkbook out of my purse and tear off a deposit slip with my address on it and hand it to him. “Feel free to make as many deposits as you wish.”
He is blushing again and I’m not so sure he knows what he’s saying when he blurts out, “I want to make as many deposits as I can with you,” and then he starts laughing and says, “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
I am laughing too and I want to keep on laughing but we stop. We stop basically to hug each other again and I say something really stupid like, “Winston, I wish you were, say, at least thirty. This would make so much more sense.”
He lets me go and looks as if I’ve wounded him with some blunt instrument. “Well,” he says, “I’m not thirty and I won’t be thirty for nine whole years, so what exactly am I supposed to do about that, Stella?”
“You know what I’m saying, Winston.”
“No, what are you saying, Stella?”
“I’m saying that even though I feel like I’m totally smitten by you and everything, and if this were a perfect world we could do this, even take this to another level for real, but the world is not perfect and Winston you are too young for me and I’m too old for you and that’s the reality of the situation.”
He sucks on his lips. I would like to kiss them one more time for the road but that would make things even more hazardous than they already are. “Well, we can still be friends, right? Does that fit into your imperfect world or what?” he asks.
He is still weighing my answer the way I am weighing his question and I wish it weren’t like this but it is and what would I, how would we, how could we, we couldn’t, and so I say, “Winston, I’ll walk you out to the gate if you want me to.”
“You don’t have to,” he says at first and goes over to the door and then he turns toward me and he looks dejected and remorseful and I realize that truly I am not the only one who has fallen over the edge I am not the only one who has got it bad and so I say, “I know I don’t have to.”
“You look kind of busy. Packing and everything,” he says.
“Would you like me to?” I ask.
He looks me dead in the eye and says, “I’d love you to,” and I kiss him lightly and say, “Okay, but I want you to know that I’m not good at goodbyes so after we say it, when I say ‘run’ let’s both just run, okay?”
“Are you serious?” he says, laughing.
“I’m serious,” I say.
“That’s one of the things I like about you, Stella.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re always serious but you still make me laugh.”
So we walk down that path again and Winston has his arm around me like I’m his woman and not his mother and we walk out toward the front gate but on the way we pass his friend Norris who looks like he is in shock to see us as if his scheme not only failed but actually backfired and like a lady I do not throw this in his face I simply smile and Winston and I both say hello and then we pass old man Nate coming out of the gift shop and he pretends he doesn’t see us even though we almost bump into him and then we seem to run into every-fucking-body else who’s staying at the Castle Beach Negril and Winston doesn’t seem to mind and when we walk out that front gate when we cross that invisible wire fence I do not feel like I am being electrocuted until I kiss him and turn to run back across it.
I CANNOT BEAR the thought of that two-hour van ride on that bumpy road back to the airport, which is why I am up here in the sky with twenty-seven-year-old Nigel, the pilot, who doesn’t look old enough to drive a car. This four-passenger airplane that will take approximately fifteen minutes to get me to Montego Bay International is giving me a panoramic view of this part of the island. Now I know why they call them the Blue Mountains, because they are so green they do actually look blue, and in some places the water is emerald green and right next to it like turquoise. It looks unreal but I have swum in that water. I feel as though I could actually come here every summer. As we descend and the tires screech down the runway, I decide that if thing
s continue the way they have been for me at work I might just buy some beach property here, and as I get off the little plane and wait to get my boarding pass and pay my departure tax and sit and wait sit and wait sit and wait to get on that 727, I think I will.
• • • •
Someone up here is wearing Escape. I look around. I can’t tell who it might be. I close my eyes and remember that Quincy will be home in a few days and think how much I’m looking forward to seeing my son. I like being away from him but I sure love it when he’s there. If I had to be anybody’s mother I’m grateful to be his. I’m hoping I feel this way when he’s like fourteen which I’ve been told is the age that you begin to want not only to disown them but to kill them as well. One of my girlfriends told me that they should just dig a gigantic hole somewhere at the end of the earth and bury every single teenager in the world until they’re at least twenty and then let them out to get on with their lives.
We land in Miami in less than an hour. I really despise this airport. It is like a zoo. People from all over the world look like they’re not of this world and no one seems to be able to speak English and everybody looks confused and you simply cannot find a free telephone and they are well hidden anyway. Customs is a total drag and I lie and say I spent two hundred dollars when in fact I spent more like two thousand but who can remember everything and filling out that form takes forever and as I’m walking through the airport I notice on the counter of the duty-free shop bottles of cologne and I walk in and ask the East Indian guy if they have Escape by Calvin Klein and he says yes but you are American so you cannot buy it and I say I just want to smell it because someone told me about it so he gets the bottle from a glass case and looks at me suspiciously as I take one long whiff and yes it smells just like Winston and I say May I? pointing it toward my wrist, and he nods Go ahead, and I press the top down and the mist lands on a big patch of my arm and I tell the man thank you and on the flight from Miami to San Francisco I sleep for three hours with my wrist placed close to my nose.
• • • •
Even though it’s ten o’clock at night, my house looks bigger and better. I don’t get it. It’s the same house. Phoenix can’t seem to stop wagging that big brown tail, he’s so happy to see me. I rub his ears briskly and pet him. Dr. Dre is blocking the doorway so that I have to pick her up before I can even think about walking inside. Our cat is a she but we didn’t find that out until three weeks after Quincy had named her.
The very same driver who took me to the airport last week picked me up and is now carrying all three of my bags, which are even heavier than they were. I give him a forty-dollar tip because he will probably need the money to pay for the pulled whatever he’ll get thanks to my Jamaican shopping spree.
I open all the windows in my bedroom and turn on the ceiling fan. It is pretty in here. I painted it a pale salmon because I wanted it to feel warm especially when it’s cold outside. I have twenty-six messages so I sit on the bed and fast-forward through all of them, jotting down a few names and numbers and erasing all but five which I save and am now listening to as I unpack. One of them is from my so-called boss. “Stella, you need to call me at home as soon as you get back from vacation. There’s a bit of a problem and it needs to be resolved right away.” He leaves his number. What kind of fucking problem? And why is he calling me at home? I haven’t even unpacked and already the bullshit is starting.
“Hey, Stella, this is Maisha calling. Girl, I hope you haven’t forgotten about my gallery opening. Remember you promised me, Tiger and Rudy that you’d be here. Tiger’s expecting Quincy. So be there or be square.”
“We’ll be there,” I say to the machine. I love Maisha. I love Rudy and I love Tiger. They are a family and a happy one. Maisha and Rudy are one of the few couples I know who’ve been married for like a trillion years and are still very much in love. They still make each other smile and they each brag about how smart and talented and wise and tender the other one is and how lucky each is to have met the other and they actually look happy and if it’s a front then I say both of them deserve Academy Awards for their splendid performances. Whenever I’m around them or couples like them—which is not very often—I watch their spirits their amiability their genuine affection and respect for each other emanate from them and permeate the entire room and my faith is kind of restored for a little while until, say, I come home and hear a message like the next one.
Leroy was the person I used to call when I needed sex. We had this understanding. We tried to be there for each other in times of need. Leroy had forgotten how to love and show affection and wanted me to teach him. He was a slow learner in this area though in fact he is a genuine genius and has an IQ of like a thousand or something. He knows a lot about everything, which is sort of his problem. He’s too smart and has no real outlets in which to channel his energy. I was one of the recipients of this energy for a while and Leroy fascinated me because for a change I’d met a man who could talk about something besides himself. I haven’t called him in centuries because he stopped satisfying me quite a while back when I discovered by accident that he was an alcoholic, which explained why it took forever for him to get off and when he did, Look out, Stella! He had me chafed and raw, running to the doctor with a bladder infection from being banged and jabbed; he behaved as if he hated me instead of wanting me and finally I decided why even bother?
On my machine, he is slurring, and I guess when you’re drunk you don’t know you’re slurring and you don’t even suspect that other people know you’re drunk. He manages to get out: “Stella, this is Leroy. Where are you? Why haven’t you called? I’ve been thinking about you so much these past couple of nights, Beverly, and I’m in the car going over the bridge and, Debs, can I stop by just for a few minutes? Are you going to be home in say the next half hour? Oh, shucks, you have no way of telling me that, do you? Oh well. It’s been nice talking to your machine anyway. Call me at the office. Bye.”
And I yell to the machine, “Take your drunk ass home to your wife!” I feel sorry for her, to be honest, but then again I don’t. She knows he fools around and yet she tolerates it because they are—or he is—filthy rich since he owns every kind of franchise you can think of and he thinks because he’s rich and handsome he is totally irresistible which is not true because he does not know when to stop. Doesn’t know that life is not one big rush. It should be peaceful sometimes. Should be a whisper and not always a scream. Leroy believes that love can be purchased if you can afford to pay. He buys his wife anything and everything she wants and has for the last twenty years and it is so sad to me that in this day and age women still depend on a man to determine the quality of their lives and are still subjecting themselves to humiliation just to keep driving those fancy cars living in those humongous houses with rooms no one ever enters and is it really worth it? It is downright pathetic if you ask me but nobody has asked me and I am like talking to myself so get a grip, Stella.
“I know you must’ve lost your mind or something, Stella, because Vanessa told me that you slept with a teenager in Jamaica and that you actually like him. You must be going through some kind of midlife crisis; that’s what you’re probably going through. Well, shoot, I know a lady you can talk to about this, so call me.”
Fuck you, Angela! I’m going to kill Vanessa!
“Stella, don’t be too peeved at me but I accidentally slipped and told Angela about what you did on your summer vacation. It just sort of rolled off my tongue but to be honest I think the hussy needed to hear something to liven up her dead-ass world and I just really wanted to fuck with her cause I knew she couldn’t handle this so let me know if any of your animals are dead and when can I like come over and pick up me and Chantel’s gifts and souvenirs and I hope you didn’t just send us a stupid postcard. I also have something to tell you. Byee. And by the way: welcome home.”
Nothing like sisters, I think as I begin to unpack, and as I hold up different articles of clothing I wore when I was with Winston I feel myse
lf getting woozy and it is then that I realize for the umpteenth time that he was not is not a dream a mere fantasy, that he really did generate something pure and deep inside me that is still circulating now that I’m home, and even though I am in my very own bedroom and there are no waves outside my window and no rocks and no banana plants or hibiscus, I can smell the flowers hear the waves feel the sand between my toes and I sort of have to shake my head back and forth to stop myself from hearing his knock on my door from seeing him standing there in the rain from feeling his lips against mine and as I pull more clothes from the suitcase, separating soiled laundry from things that need to go to the dry cleaners, I know for a fact that this longing this yearning I’m feeling is because I am missing him.
• • • •
“Yes, Isaac, this is Stella calling. What’s going on?”
“Well, first of all, how was Jamaica?”
“It was great. Negril is a beautiful part of the island.”
“When’d you get back?”
“Late last night.”
“That’s good,” he says. “Glad to hear you had a great time. I’ve always wanted to see Jamaica. Been to Aruba, but haven’t had a chance to get to Jamaica yet. Ah, look, Stella, there’s a reason I called you at home.”
“What’s this all about, Isaac?”
“Well, I could have waited till you came back to the office and we could talk face-to-face, but I thought I’d forewarn you. A lot has happened since you’ve been away.”
“Would you get to the point, Isaac, and stop beating around the bush?”
“Well, Stella, you know there’s been talk for some time about downsizing and reorganizing your department, right?”
“Of course. Everybody knows that. It’s no secret.”
“Well, Fred has been replaced by Michael Javitz—”
“Javitz from our Los Angeles office?”
How Stella Got Her Groove Back Page 17
