How Stella Got Her Groove Back (38 page)

It takes me forever to get dressed. I don’t know for sure what to wear. What do you wear to the airport to pick up someone you love? I mean really. I stand in my closet for the next twenty minutes trying on skirts slacks suits shorts and T-shirts and put them all back on their respective hangers and decide on jeans and a lavender cotton and Spandex top that fits snug but I choose a mint green linen blazer I bought from a men’s store to wear over it. Simple silver hoop earrings. No makeup except a little lipstick and eye pencil to highlight the corner of my eyes. I stand at the mirror to see if I look okay and I look okay, pleasant, like I might actually be a nice person, but I’m not so sure if I’d want to like run into my arms and kiss me. Maybe I should put on some more makeup, but no, I don’t want to look too embellished. Besides, I am a woman, not an ornament.

I’m just about to take a step in the direction of Quincy’s room but I remember that he’s spending the night with Vanessa and Chantel, at Vanessa’s insistence of course. “Girl, you don’t need your son pressing his ears against your bedroom door or coming down with some ailment so he could get your attention. Anyway you need to enjoy the first night of this honeymoon alone. So I’ll be over at six to pick the boy up.” I am grateful to her and I’m also scared; Quincy is a great buffer, a great silence breaker, a great whatever.

I have done everything I could to spruce up this place. I went to Home Depot and bought two new large plants. I have bought new colorful thick thirsty towels and I have stacked them neatly right next to his plaid toothbrush. I have moved some of my clothes over in my closet to make room for his. Same goes for the shoes. My exercise drawer. Cleaned out. Empty. And in the medicine cabinet I have given him the whole bottom shelf for his toiletries. I am now hyperventilating, but it’s okay. I know I’m just excited and scared and anxious and in a way I wish I could actually catch a plane to the airport and swoop him up from the runway and jet on home so that I could avoid that hour’s drive over the freeway and over that long bridge and then parking the car and walking all the way to the gate where my heart will pound pound pound until he walks through.

• • • •

I am surprised at how calm I am standing at Gate 83, waiting. The ride was totally smooth and I only did eighty. I feel like I floated here. In fact I feel pretty much the same way I did when I went snorkeling. I don’t understand why I’m not bouncing off the walls. Why I’m not a nervous wreck. Why I don’t hear any buzzing or hissing in my ears. I mean this man is about to walk off an airplane and into my life and even though it may only be for three weeks my whole life could very easily change in the next few minutes hours but as I stand here I realize that my life has
already
changed and regardless of how long he stays, no matter what does or doesn’t happen, I have already discovered that there
is
another side you can go to, which is pure and good, that it is always there waiting for you to notice, that it is free but costly to find yet once you arrive, once you get there, you find you can bounce again skip again gallop again that you can recover from loss and pain and heartache that you can be repaired renewed restored without even comprehending what or how it has happened and you can simply blink and accept the fact that you are absolutely and unequivocally a new and improved version of your old self and no matter what happens from here on out you will not misplace yourself again you will not get so lost you can’t get yourself back you will not let the dust pile up collect settle all over your heart, no siree, not ever again.

I blot my lips, glad that I wore a matte lipstick instead of the shiny kind. I’m still not sure what I’m going to say to him though I’ve rehearsed this greeting in my sleep a thousand times and there are only so many different ways to say Hi Winston or Hello Winston or You finally made it, Winston! or I’m so glad to see you, Winston! or Welcome Winston or How was your trip?

I wonder will he kiss me out here in the open but I know for a fact that I won’t kiss him because it would be rather tacky and I don’t really want to embarrass him so maybe if I like stand on my toes and give him a friendly peck people will think he is my son and we can do our real kissing once we get in the car. I sure hope he looks like he did in Jamaica but right now I have no image of him whatsoever in my head, it has just sort of gone blank and is now full of this gray space and I don’t understand this so I turn away to look out the window and I hear his voice say, “Hello there, Stella,” and when I turn around he is standing there so tall and beautiful and as he walks over toward me I smell his Escape and I feel my shoulders drop and when he puts his arms around me I feel so relieved so grateful that he is live and not Memorex anymore and I put my arms around him and clutch him tight because I want him to know how happy I am to feel him see him smell him and then he looks down and says, “I made it,” and he presses those Easy-Bake oven lips against mine and I absorb them as long as I can stand it and then I back away and say, “Welcome to America, Winston,” and he exhales and puts his arm over my shoulder and as we walk through the airport people are looking at us and we wave to them and once we get to baggage claim we are so busy laughing smooching hugging holding hands looking at each other, making sure we are really here, that it is not until we are the only two people standing here that we realize we are at the wrong carousel, but we don’t care. We do not move except to hold on tighter. And all I know for sure is that he is here. That I am here. That I am happy. And we are going home.

“Y
OU WANT TO
drive?” I ask.

“Don’t start on me already, Stella, all right?”

He is blushing. I am grinning. “I’m just teasing,” I say, and of course he knows this. He puts both suitcases into the trunk. “Nice car,” he says. “And black is my favorite color. What kind of BMW is this?”

“An M-5.”

“Isn’t this a race car?”

“Yep.”

He is shaking his head back and forth as he gets in. His legs are longer than I remember but then again I’ve never been in a car with him before and I sit and watch him search for the button that slides the seat back. “Sooo,” he says. “You didn’t tell me you were also a drag racer.”

“You mean I left that little detail out?”

“I don’t recall your mentioning it, no.”

“Well, I like to go fast,” I say.

“This I know already.”

“You got a problem with that?”

“Not at all.”

I put the car in reverse.

“So is this sarcasm what I have to look forward to over the next three weeks?” I ask.

“Afraid so,” he says. “You got a problem with
that?
”

“Not at all,” I say, trying to wipe the smirk off my face. “Not even a teensy bit.”

• • • •

Winston is full of excitement as we zoom along the freeway and I tell him where we are what he’s looking at and how much longer it’ll be. I point out Candlestick Park, the Pacific Ocean, the fog, downtown San Francisco (particularly the pyramid building). I tell him how long the Bay Bridge is and why we have to pay a toll, and then we go on past Oakland. I tell him that I’m his happy tour guide and I’ll answer any questions he may have but all he says is, “I’m just taking it all in,” and “Pay no attention to me,” and I say, “Ha!” and he says, “Ha!” and leans back in his seat until I turn off the freeway. When I finally get to my neighborhood I point out the grocery store. “That’s where you’ll be spending most of your free time, doing all the shopping for the next three weeks, and seeing as how you’re going to be cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner, you’ll need to remember how to get here, so pay very close attention.”

It looks like he’s actually making a mental note.

“And that’s the gas station and McDonald’s and the movies are right down there and across the street is a car wash which you won’t be needing because I have some very nice rags for you to use and there’s the cleaners and video store though you won’t have much time on your hands to watch any home movies unless we’re starring in them of course and that’s the pizza place and then there’s the hardware store that you will also undoubtedly be frequenting. Possibly we’ll let you off on Fridays for good behavior.”

Steadily shaking his head back and forth, he is still beaming.

I turn onto my street and he says, “You can’t be serious, Stella.”

“About what?”

“You can’t live in a neighborhood like this.”

“It’s just a bunch of houses.”

“But look at them. They’re mansions.”

“You want mansions? I can
show
you mansions. These are hardly close. Anyway not to worry—if I don’t figure out what I’m going to do with the rest of my life in like the next twelve months, mine’ll be up for sale and Quincy and I will be moving to the projects.”

“What are the projects?”

“You never heard of the projects?”

“No.”

“It’s where you live when your money is tight or you don’t have any and it’s not the most comfortable or luxurious place to dwell and you don’t necessarily want to raise children there if you can help it and they’re usually right in the middle of the hood.”

“I take it
this
isn’t the hood?”

“Afraid not, but I can certainly take you there.”

“I think I like it here,” he says. “I believe I know what the hood is like. It’s the ghetto. And we’ve got lots of them in Kingston.”

I pull up to my house, which is sort of a contemporary white Mediterranean with a dark teal clay tile roof, and Winston is shaking his head again. My white Land Cruiser is parked in the driveway. “Is that
yours?
”

“Every woman needs her own truck,” I say. “Now come on, darling. Let me show you to your suite.”

Once inside, it’s apparent that he’s a tad overwhelmed by everything, I guess, and I’m trying to keep in mind that Winston is from Jamaica and even though he comes from a nice home and all maybe he’s not used to seeing one like this even though the house itself really isn’t that big a deal if you ask me. We are standing in the kitchen but he is looking into the family room at a table that is bleached bird’s-eye maple and copper and stainless steel and it curves and slants and dips and I admit it is shaped rather oddly.

“Wow,” he says. “Where’d you find a table like this?”

“I designed that about ten years ago.”

“You mean you thought this up,” he says, not really asking me.

“Yep. And had someone build it.”

“And you’re serious?”

“Of course I’m serious.”

“But Stella, you said you made a few pieces of furniture here and there, that’s all you said.”

“And it’s the truth.”

“Yeah, but Stella, this isn’t just furniture, not in the furniture sense of the word. It’s like sculpture, art or something, don’t you think?”

“Well, I see furniture as functional sculpture if it does what it’s supposed to which is perform but if it can also add something beautiful or funky to a room, why not? Most furniture is boring when it should be more like music, you know. Anyway that’s how I used to feel when I did this.”

He walks over to a little bench that is made of strips of suede burlap linen and leather. “It looks like it’s alive,” he says, and we both laugh.

“That’s one of the pieces I actually made, but a lot of it I just designed and had built. You’ll see.”

“Stella. You never let on that you had
this
kind of talent. Why’ve you been so modest? Why didn’t you tell me more about this?”

“What’s to tell?”

He moans and gives me a look but it is obvious that this isn’t the last we’ll talk about it and I am pleased that he likes what I have done and I am pleased that I am finally paying attention to what pleases
me,
what has made me take a step back long enough to look carefully at things. I have chosen metal and wood and paint and fabric as my medium because I am interested in the texture of things, in creating harmony where there was none before, in making the impossible possible, reversing the irrevocable. It is in surrendering to this process that I can give in give it up and be who I am what I am where I am and when I blink hard and open my eyes, take it all in and
see
what I dreamed,
feel
what I dreamed and I have some evidence.

Winston has been walking around inside my dream and has just stepped out of it. “This house. It’s rather amazing,” he says, looking down. “What’s this floor made of?”

“Concrete.”

“Concrete. Inside a house. And it doesn’t even look like a sidewalk.”

I give him a tour and explain whatever needs to be explained and when I show him my bedroom he kind of freaks a little because it is one of the coolest rooms in the house (I wonder why). “We’re sleeping in here?”

“Well, you could have the guest room down the hall with the day bed or you can sleep out there in the love shack next to the garage. See it? Wherever you’ll feel more comfortable, sweetheart.”

“I’ll stay here. With you. What’s the love shack?”

“It used to be a guesthouse.”

“And what is it now?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean by ‘nothing’?”

“It’s a mess. I keep junk in there.”

“Do you mind?” he asks, and heads outside. I follow him. We stick our heads inside the little stucco building and it’s not really in such bad shape, it’s just got a wheelbarrow and hoes and gardening tools and tents and Christmas ornaments and more junk on top of more junk and it’s dusty. My drafting table sits among the tallest of items and of course Winston notices it.

“So looks like I’ll need to get some special cleanser from the hardware store in the morning to get this place fixed up and since you’ll be using this,” he says, pointing to the drafting table, “I should start with this, don’t you think?”

I’m pretty close to crying and I don’t remember the last time anybody made me feel this good inside, I don’t remember the last time somebody “came through” for me. I’m just hoping I can give him half as much as he’s already given me. “I guess it wouldn’t kill me to put some rubber gloves on, but then I’ll need to go to San Francisco to pick up some supplies at my favorite art store and do you think you’d like to go with me?”