It's Not All Downhill From Here

by Terry McMillan

  I hate to admit it, but lately, instead of church I’ve been going to movie matinees, mostly for the senior citizen discount. Carl usually relaxes and watches sports. It’s not that we’re not religious. I grew up going every Sunday, so I just feel like I’ve heard it all before. And even though I know I can sometimes be opinionated, every once in a while prone to harmless gossip, and occasionally a flat-out bitch, I do believe in God and I try to live a Christian life. For tune-ups, I watch church on TV, which I can attend in my pj’s. Or, sometimes I record it to watch while having dinner with my husband.

  As I sit watching my party onscreen, I realize that all of my friends are retired except me. That’s probably why most of them are bored. It’s like they’re sitting around just waiting to die. But I do not subscribe to the belief that it’s all downhill from here. Life isn’t over at sixty-five. I feel like a car. As long as I change the oil and rotate the tires, I can get plenty more mileage out of it. Easier said than done.

  I think Sadie’s just lonely. She’s never been married and never seemed to care. “Do you think you might be a lesbian?” I asked her about thirty years ago, when she was more attractive. She got mad for my even asking. I told her not to get so worked up. Even back then every lesbian I’d ever met was happy to be a lesbian. What’s sad is I don’t believe Sadie’s ever even had sex. She has no idea how much pleasure she’s missed, and she strikes me as the type who would be too scared to even consider pleasuring herself. Not that I ever have.

  I push the coffee table a few inches away with my feet, then cross my legs, and lean forward when I see Korynthia’s tall, slender frame appear on the TV.

  “Here’s hoping you’ll consider hiring a seasoned woman for your Pasadena shop,” she says pointing to herself. “And not the one in L.A. because I am not getting on that 10 freeway for no amount of money: period. Actually, I think you should sell the L.A. store because you’re too old to be this busy, and plus you don’t need the money. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, you should be willing to hire me to work part-time for a few dollars over minimum wage. Because I’m bored, mind you, not because I need the money, unlike those young hoochies who spend more time primping in the countertop mirrors than they do helping a loyal customer find a decent mixed-gray synthetic ponytail or the best scalp treatment for thinning hair. I don’t want to waste any more time, but if I did, I’d also add that they don’t have a clue about what kind of makeup covers puffiness under your eyes. And that’s all I have to say.”

  Okay. Korynthia can and will talk you to death if you don’t cut her off. She is also a beautiful, slender giant. She’s six-one and the only one out of all of us who still has her college weight, not that she went to college. She was too impatient. “Four years is too damn long not to make any money.” For most of her adult life, Korynthia bartended at clubs and waitressed at twenty-four-hour restaurants. She’d brag, “I get paid in cash and get to keep every dime I make.” But Korynthia, who didn’t marry any of the three men who fathered her three children, never thought that one day she would get old and need social security and Medicare. And now she wants me to hire her, but her people skills are rough since her customers were almost always drunk or high. I will give her this: she insisted that her kids go to college. They all live in San Diego now. When her parents died, she inherited a few funeral parlors, and unlike Sadie, Korynthia is afraid of the dead so she sold the business. To this day, she has yet to figure out what to do with her free time. Except exercise. She looks so good she pisses us all off.

  B. B. King lets out a stinky fart. I start fanning the air with both hands, but it doesn’t cut it, so I open the front door and shoo him out so I can go back to the video. Next up is Lucky, whose real name is Elizabeth Taylor. Lucky said her mama was tripping after seeing National Velvet, which was why Lucky changed her name to one she liked. Not legally, of course.

  “Here’s praying you trade in that ugly Volvo station wagon.”

  Lucky has always been a confused elitist. She thinks the kind of car you drive defines you, along with your zip code. She used to be a costumer for game shows and some TV commercials but now spends her time shopping and cooking—and eating. Lucky, who never had kids because she never wanted any, lives above the Rose Bowl but has never bothered to walk the 3.1 miles around it. When she wakes up she looks straight ahead at the San Gabriel Mountains. I can also see those mountains from my bedroom window, but I have to look up. She drives a nine-year-old gold Lexus that she’s had at least six accidents in because Lucky can’t navigate turns. Yes, I drive a twelve-year-old white Volvo. It’s a safe car and I’m a paranoid driver and have a bad habit of tapping the brakes. Besides, people feel sorry for you driving a Volvo station wagon, especially with an old dog in the back seat who looks like he’s being kidnapped. But I know for a fact B. B. King loves it, because once when the Volvo was in the shop and I had a rental car, he refused to get in it.

  “Hold on a minute! I forgot! Here’s hoping you finally hit your healthy weight goal by this time next year!”

  Lucky has a lot of nerve bringing this up. She who still pretends she’s a size sixteen. But Lucky takes pills for high cholesterol because she’s addicted to fried everything, rocky road ice cream, and any kind of pie. I’m not too far behind her on a scale but I’m not on any diet. I like my curves and so does Carl. Anyway, after forty-five years, Lucky is still happily married to Joe, who is white and a retired architect who now builds miniature houses but rarely comes out of the big one they live in. Us girls all like him but we do think he’s a little odd.

  I won’t lie. The last time I saw Dr. Alexopolous she had the nerve to tell me that I’m heavier than I should be. She also claims I’m borderline diabetic, and that it would be in my best interest if I lost about twenty-five—but preferably thirty-five—pounds, which I think is ridiculous. “I’m big-boned,” I’ve told her. “And I’m black. We have big hips and it’s genetic.” She doesn’t buy it. To be honest, it’s hard to change old and especially bad habits. “If you want to prevent future health problems, Mrs. Curry, you need to cut back on fat, carbohydrates, and sugar, and perhaps consider exercising. It’s never too late.” I don’t like anybody telling me what to do. I told her I try to eat light (which was a lie) and that I walk my dog every day (which wasn’t). She said at my age walking my dog didn’t really qualify as a cardiovascular workout. I’ve been trying to get up the nerve to fire her, if you can fire a doctor.

  I haven’t been back to see her since last year and I’ve been so busy running the House of Beauty and Glamour that I haven’t had time to incorporate exercise into my daily routine, although I’ve been thinking about it. No, I haven’t. It hasn’t even crossed my mind. I admit it. I don’t like gyms because most of the people in them are either young or already in good shape. They make me feel plump. And old. Even if technically I’m both. My doctor told me to consider giving spinning a try and I wanted to tell her she should consider getting a makeover. She looks like Grandpa from The Munsters with that dirty-blond, see-through hair. But even though I wouldn’t admit it to her, I went ahead and pled guilty to being lazy to myself and decided I would start cutting back, one by one, on Twizzlers, Baskin-Robbins Quarterback Crunch ice cream, Roscoe’s fried chicken, cheeseburgers, French fries and French bread, gravy, all muffins, and during the holidays I can only have one of either peach cobbler, sweet potato pie, or bread pudding. I even tried saying “eenie meenie miney mo,” but have not had as much success as I had hoped for. I have no willpower. My newly revised plan, however, is to try harder. I’m going to think hard about dieting, and make some changes. Starting New Year’s. Which is still the day after my birthday.

  “Here’s hoping you start carrying Vivica Fox’s wigs so I don’t have to order them online.”

  Awww. That’s my girl Faye, who passed away six months ago from lung cancer. A few weeks after my birthday I had driven out to see her in San Bernardino. She was sitting on her su
nporch, behind the screens, smoking a cigarette. She was down to about a hundred pounds and her brown skin was dull, as if someone had sprayed her with dust. I got the first shipment of wigs a week after she died. I miss her something fierce.

  I hit Pause, wipe my eyes, and just stare at her face. She was so pretty. Her cheekbones made her face look like a brown heart. She looked like Lena Horne’s clone. She tried the patch. Hypnosis. Gum. But she said cigarettes relaxed her and she was willing to take her chances.

  “That is the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard,” I’d told her.

  “You act like you’ve never had any bad habits, Lo.”

  “None that will kill me,” was what I remember saying, wanting to believe nothing would ever happen to her, even though she already had that cough.

  For the longest time I would dial her number hoping she would answer, but then immediately press End when I realized what I’d done. It takes longer than I ever imagined to accept that someone you’ve known all your life is not alive anymore. I have not been able to delete her number from my cellphone. I want her to know she still exists for me. Since Faye has been gone, I have often thought about how I’m going to die. But I don’t tell anybody. Not even Carl. What I do know is I don’t want it to be because of something I did to myself or because of what I neglected to do.

  When I hear B. B. King whining, I press Pause before Poochie can start talking and get up to let him in.

  “Here’s hoping you give our Cruise to Nowhere another chance, Loretha. It’s been three years and we want you back, right, ladies?” And the other ladies screamed out a loud “Yes!”

  Poochie has been old longer than the rest of us. She could not have kids, which is probably why she became a special-needs nurse, and she mothers anybody who needs mothering. If you’re hurt, she will rub your back, rock you back and forth, and squeeze you until you fall asleep. Dennis, her husband of thirty years, died of renal failure almost ten years ago. He was a smart stockbroker and left her sloppy rich, but Poochie just gave up on ever finding love again. “You just make yourself forget how good it felt,” she said. But what she does still love is water and big boats, which is why after Dennis’s death she became our resident cruise organizer. I don’t like floating, and I’m not crazy about the ocean because I almost drowned when I was nine. Poochie begged me to try “just one cruise” and promised I wouldn’t even get wet, and since everybody in our “posse” was going, I huffed and puffed and I gave in.

  It was one cruise too many. I did not have fun. I didn’t understand what there was to like about the entertainment. It was always singers you never heard of who sparkled in sequined evening gowns or shimmied in white fringe or did the Temptation Walk in tight tuxedos with buttons that looked like they were begging for another two inches. And I never heard anybody in the casino shrieking with joy because they’d hit a jackpot. The shrieking was mostly from folks pounding on the slot machines because they hadn’t won, including me. What gave me the heebie-jeebies more than anything was that you could only get off the damn ship in Ensenada, Mexico, and I was too scared to eat or drink anything ashore so I stayed onboard. My friends abandoned me for eight long hours and I vowed not to ever cruise anywhere again.

  I hate to say it, but I secretly thanked God when Poochie moved to Las Vegas to take care of her ailing mother. So, once every few months we take the midnight casino bus up to visit, and Poochie meets us at the tables or the slots. Each time I’ve crossed my fingers and prayed she wouldn’t bring up a plan for me to try another damn cruise. So far, so good.

  After the toasts, which seem less uplifting today than they did at the time, we all lined up at the buffet of fried chicken, BBQ ribs, baked beans, au gratin potatoes, some kind of salad, collard greens, and cornbread. We stuffed ourselves. Carl tied the cluster of yellow balloons to the back of a chair so they wouldn’t pop when I blew out the wicks on the thick yellow 6 and 7 candles. I remember how, after the cake, I found a quiet spot to observe all the people I cared about and who cared about me. I know I judge them harshly sometimes and I judge myself, too. I lie to myself about myself. I made a promise that night to be kinder to myself and to my friends because none of us is perfect. I have not been as successful as I had hoped.

  As Sadie sliced pieces of the chocolate cake and put them in aluminum foil she had already measured for everybody to take home, I turned to my guests and said, with the utmost sincerity, “Thank you, everybody, for your thoughtfulness and love; now go on back to the senior facility before they send the geriatric police to come get all of your behinds!”

  Some laughed. Some didn’t. I didn’t care because it was my birthday.

  Carl gave me pearls and his X-rated toast in private.

  * * *

  —

  When I click off the DVD, B. B. King goes to stand, but he slips on the hardwood floor. I help him up and make a mental note to buy some bigger throw rugs, which is when I feel my cellphone shivering in my jacket pocket. I pull it out and see that I have a text from Cinnamon, my oh-so-cool granddaughter. I hope like hell she isn’t about to tell me their rent is going to be late again.

  Grandma, I’m so sorry that Jonas and I won’t be able to make it to your birthday party tomorrow. We both have to work, but have fun! Oh FYI, I doubt if my mom is going to be there because I know she’s still not ready to surrender, but I trust God will bring you two back together when it’s time. But happy birthday! Made you something totally groovy!

  I text my space cadet granddaughter back: Not to worry. And thanks for sharing. Don’t work too hard. And I hit Send.

  I knew it! I just knew it! When I told Carl I would prefer not to have any more birthday parties until I was in a wheelchair or something, he must’ve just thought I was joking. But I wasn’t. I know he means well, but I’m pissed. I don’t feel like celebrating my birthday at the same old restaurant with my same old friends, and it looks like this will be an exact repeat of last year down to the no-shows. Odessa owes me money for two mortgage payments I helped her out with and liquor will of course be served, so she’s probably a no. And Cinnamon? She must think I’m already senile or stuck on stupid because the last time I checked, she doesn’t have a legitimate job to skip my party for, not one that pays her on top of or under any table, at least not on a regular basis. Her live-in boyfriend, Jonas, also has an ongoing struggle with employment, which is why they are always late with the minor rent we do charge them for their one-bedroom-too-many apartment in a building we own.

  No, the real reason they’re bowing out is because Carl and I are old, which to them means dull. I don’t really blame them, because when I was young, my sister and I dreaded visiting relatives, too, especially the old ones who were at least fifty and the really old ones who were over sixty. I didn’t like the way their houses smelled, and I dreaded having to hug them because they were soft and squishy and their eyes looked like they were full of bad memories. They wanted us to do all the talking and I would just watch how slow the hands on the big brown clock moved because I was just waiting to see how much longer it was going to be before we could leave.

  So I know why Cinnamon and Jonas are always in a hurry when they stop by to drop off the rent, why they leave their 2006 used-to-be-black-but-is-now-many-different-shades-of-gray Prius running in front of the house, even though it’s hard to rush in those Crocs they both wear. It is because they have nothing to say to us. And yet they try.

  “B. B. King is looking healthy.”

  “What a groovy nail color, Grandma.”

  “It sure smells good in here.”

  “It’s been so hot out, hasn’t it?”

  Sometimes after they leave, Carl and I just sit there counting how many questions these two didn’t ask, and how many times they said groovy. I’ve never known any black people who use this word groovy, not even when stoned. These two would’ve fit right in at Woodstock.

  But what I�
��m really wondering is just how long Jalecia plans on holding a grudge for everything she thinks I owe her. Kids can be cruel and ungrateful, but I’m not going to beg my daughter to forgive me for something I didn’t do. And now I’m going to have to pretend I don’t know Carl is having another birthday party for me and then act surprised when we get there.

  The truth is, I’d much rather spend a quiet night alone with Carl. Maybe find a good movie to watch on television, call one of those new delivery services to order angel hair pasta with prawns, some garlic bread, and a good salad from our favorite Italian restaurant. We could have some raspberry sorbet and not too many glasses of wine so that we still have energy to rendezvous, something we do at least once or twice—and if we’re lucky, three times—a month, but definitely on our birthdays and major holidays.

  * * *

  —

  Carl doesn’t get home until almost six, tired as a dog. He leaves his dirty work boots by the side door, gives me my regular peck on the cheek since his face is dusty, then takes his usual shower and comes back looking like an old basketball star in one of five or six gray Under Armour sweat suits. He sits down at his end of the maple table.

  “You said you didn’t want another party so I honored your wishes, but just do me a favor and keep your calendar clear tomorrow evening. Could you do that for me?”

  “Yes, I can. What should I wear?”

  “Something pretty.”

  “Any special perfume?”