How Stella Got Her Groove Back

by Terry McMillan

  “I am trying to! I’ve only been home a few days and you’re making it seem as if I’m about to elope!”

  “I’m worried about you. You’re acting too giddy.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Vanessa said all you’ve been doing is giggling.”

  “So?”

  “We’re not used to seeing you like this.”

  “Like what?”

  She’s searching for the germane word but I decide to help her: “Happy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, so is there a law out there somewhere that says Stella can’t be happy if a young man is partially responsible?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You and Vanessa have just gotten so used to seeing me feeling and acting beige instead of yellow, lonely and blue instead of excited and red hot, that now just because I’m acting like I’m alive or being a little daring and not just content being Lois Lane you can’t handle it. Go on. Admit it!”

  “Well, you don’t have to say it like that because it’s not true.”

  “It is true.”

  “You’re the oldest, Stella. The one whose feet should be firmly planted on the ground.”

  “They are. I’m just kicking up some soil. I have a right to, you know.”

  “Stella.” She groans as if she’s losing her patience.

  “What?”

  “You know every young man’s fantasy is to sleep with an older woman. Did you know that?”

  “Not really.”

  “Yep. Evan slept with a woman thirty-five.”

  “He told you?”

  “Of course he told me.”

  “And? Your point?”

  “He slept with her quite a number of times. It was good for his ego, knowing he was able to satisfy a grown woman.”

  “And?”

  “That’s all it was. An ego booster.”

  “Look. You don’t even know Winston, so don’t compare my experience with Evan’s little brush with lust.”

  “Like there’s a difference?”

  “I’d say so.”

  “Have you thought about the fact that this Winston is the same age as your nephew?”

  That was low. “He’s not my nephew.”

  “Well, just keep in mind that you are old enough to be his mother and think how embarrassing this whole thing could be for Quincy. I mean you do care about your child, don’t you?”

  “You can stop anytime now, Angela.”

  “Wait. Let me just ask you one last question.”

  “I’m listening,” I say, exasperated.

  “You did practice safe sex, I hope?” and she gives me this look.

  “Fuck you, Angela,” I say, but what I want to say is: Go home. Take a nap. Go put on an apron or something, go look for more emergency exits, since you seem to know where they all are, or go home and study your earthquake kit, because I’ve got tons of shit I need to do around here before Quincy gets home.

  Now she’s rubbing her hands over her mixing bowl belly more for effect than anything and she knows she has gotten on my nerves but she loves getting on people’s nerves because it seems to be what confirms that she is indeed doing something, that she is in fact an active member of a real family and that she can do something that will make you actually respond. I feel like putting her in a high chair or a playpen and sticking a pacifier in her mouth. “Vanessa told me about your job.”

  “It’s no biggie.”

  “I’d say it’s a very big biggie and I hope you seek legal counsel so that you can get some kind of redress and you know Kennedy has all kinds of friends with expertise in this kind of situation.”

  “I doubt if it’ll come to a lawsuit.”

  “You never know,” she says, heading for the door hallelujah. “You can never be too prepared.”

  Oh yes you can, I think. And you’re living proof of what can happen when you are.

  MY ARMS ARE stretched out as far as they will go when Quincy comes walking through the airport gate grinning his little buns off and runs into my arms like he’s my baby which he is and one day I hope my sense of color and style will rub off on him and he’ll choose his attire so that one thing coincides with or at least complements the other because right now he is decked out in a pair of brown plaid baggy shorts and an orange and green Phoenix Suns T-shirt and I’m not even going to mention the red Cardinals baseball hat which thank the Lord is on backwards. He is nevertheless still my chocolate chip.

  “Hi there, bud!” I say as I squeeze him and can’t help but notice that he has that same old skunkish smell that I thought we had like mastered. “Quincy!” I say and push him away. “Where have you been?”

  “Oh Mom, don’t start that skunk stuff again. So I smell a little bit. Everybody does. What’s the big deal? I’m your son. Take me as I am.”

  I run. He takes off behind me and people are staring at us like what a shame, can’t take them anywhere. But do we care? He rushes past me and I meet him in baggage claim because he is familiar with Oakland airport, having actually earned enough miles on a number of different airlines for a few free trips. As a result his name is circulating and has landed on some pretty impressive mailing lists and he has even been offered an American Express card a Diner’s and a Hertz gold card. He begged and pleaded with me could he fill out the applications and I said, “Of course you can,” and off he went with his pen in hand and the first question he asked me was who was his employer and I told him I was and the next one was what was his salary and I said you don’t have one and he said come on Mom I have to put something in the blank so I said okay put five dollars in there and he said but they asked how much per month and I said you’ve learned multiplication this year figure it out and so he yells that’s only twenty dollars a month who can live off that and I told him to get a life and leave me alone and then he asks how long has he been employed and I said ten and a half years, because that’s how old he was when he filled the last ones out, signed and mailed two of them and I had to be the bearer of bad news that his income and his credit history weren’t substantial enough and that he should try back when he’s like thirteen or something. He has both denial letters in a special drawer in his desk and plans to send his new applications directly to the persons whose names are at the bottom on his thirteenth birthday because he is sure they will remember him. They have to, he says.

  On the drive home he turns to me and says, “Mom, you look different.”

  “I’m darker,” I say for the third time in the last few days as if no one really noticed.

  “I can see that. I know what it is! You’ve got braids in your hair!”

  “It took you thirty-five minutes to notice?”

  “Not really. It’s just that I’m telling you right now.”

  “So what do you think?”

  “I like them. There are so many of them,” he says. “Can I touch them?”

  “Sure,” I say and when his fingers touch the hair I growl and really freak him out.

  “Mom!” and he is laughing.

  “I’m happy to see you, Quincy.”

  “And I’m happy to see you too, Mom. Can we stop at McDonald’s? My dad never took me to McDonald’s because he’s on a diet and he says it’s too tempting so I like ate this weird food with him. Do I look skinnier?”

  “No. But you look a little darker yourself, homie.”

  “Sitting out there doing all that fishing is what did it.”

  “And you enjoyed being with your dad?”

  “Yeah, he’s a pretty cool guy.”

  I nod, thinking I felt that way about him once too.

  • • • •

  The dog and the cat block the driveway so that I have to honk to get them to move. Tails are wagging and Quincy gets out of the car and runs over to bond with them and I am like touched and this picture is like something straight off Nickelodeon for which I am grateful.

  He runs straight upstairs to his room and then back down. “Mom, these a
re so cool!” he says, holding up a pair of red black green and yellow long muslin shorts I bought him that have a drawstring waist and which will probably not stay up anyway because my child is still going through that baby orangutan stage. “Thank you!” he says and disappears and then runs back out and says, “Wow! Mom! Look at this!” as if I too should be surprised at this stuff as if I am not the person who purchased it, but I say, “Wow! That’s pretty nice, huh?” and we go through this, from the peace necklace I got at Macy’s but he thinks it’s from Jamaica and I don’t bother to correct him, straight on down to the purple and black suede airwalks which of course he is now wearing with white socks pulled up to his knobby knees which also touch the bottom of his red black green and yellow shorts and he has somehow found a clammy cocoa brown Mossimo T-shirt which is supposed to be for school but does noticeably bring out the white etching on the peace sign dangling against that coral necklace and all of this together causes me to cover my eyes when he stands in front of me and says, “Thanks, Mom. You are so nice to me.”

  But this is not necessarily true, so I don’t even get into it. I just let him run outside to show all the neighbors what I brought him back from Jamaica.

  • • • •

  Quincy’s been home now for three days and we’re pretty much getting back into our routine although during the summer we don’t actually have what would normally be considered a routine. What is becoming routine is that I hardly see Quincy because he lives outside with his friends and as soon as it gets dark and everybody is bored or tired I wait for the Big Question which is can Jeremy or Justin or Jason sleep over and then when I say yes they all come with sleeping bags and new Sega games. Though when his friends are here he has no real use for me except to ask permission to eat or drink something, and as soon as they are gone he is of course ready to bond. Even so the one thing I am grateful for is that no matter who’s here or not here he always makes sure he gets his good night kiss and hug from me, except for maybe like one or two or three times lately.

  He has finally told me all about his visit with his dad which sounded rather dull to me but I sat there and grinned the entire time trying to figure out when I’m going to tell him that I am no longer employed but he just got home he doesn’t need to deal with any losses right now because after all it is summer vacation. While he rearranges his drawers I see him take three pairs of grungy dirty caked-with-hard-mud sneakers and a few pairs of straggly rough-and-had-their-day sandals and one pair of good church shoes that he’s only worn once in six months and that no longer fit of course and he carefully and meticulously turns all of them on their sides so they are stacked neatly inside the bottom drawer of his chest and I watch in horror in pure amazement really but I decide once again just to keep my mouth shut because this is the child’s room his private space and I do not want to impose my own mores and standards on him with the exception of personal cleanliness.

  I have just barbecued some rib eyes and baked a couple of those microwave twice-baked Ore-Ida baked potatoes with cheddar cheese for him and chive and onions for me and I have made like this uplifting romaine salad with Japanese gourmet rice vinegar which has absolutely no fat and we are now sitting together bonding at the dinner table.

  “So, Mom, tell me all about your trip.”

  “What trip?”

  “Mom . . . Did you have fun in Jamaica?”

  “I did indeed.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Well,” I say and I am grinning. “I spent a lot of time at the beach and you won’t believe the water, Quincy, it’s bluer and warmer than it is in Maui and do you know that when I got in the water schools of baby fish would swim around my feet?”

  “No kidding? Right there at the beach, Mom?”

  “Right there at the beach. And I went parasailing and snorkeling and the snorkeling was better than Hawaii too because the water is only ten feet deep and you don’t need a life vest and I went Jet Skiing and it was just great and . . .” I get up and dash over to the kitchen counter and get a few extra postcards I failed to send or ran out of people I felt would appreciate receiving a postcard from me and I show them to Quincy who flips through them all with a vengeance until he comes to a duplicate of the cliff divers at Rick’s Café that I’d sent him.

  “Did you do this?” His eyes are open so wide he looks like a fool. But he is one handsome-looking little fool and I am so glad his looks are finally coming to the fore so to speak because I was having my doubts there for a while—a number of years actually—when everything on his face looked too big for his head or his head looked too big for those small features on his face except for those horse teeth that pretty much knocked those baby teeth right out of the way but over the past six months everything seems to be blending and jelling pretty nicely if I do say so myself.

  “Did you, Mom? Please don’t tell me you did this.”

  “No, but I sure wanted to. Next time.”

  “Next time? When are you going back?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe next year.”

  “Gee, Mom, you always get to go to the best places and everywhere that’s really fun and this looks so cool and you and I haven’t even had our vacation together thos summer and where are we going anyway, oh yeah, I forgot you said we’re going to that dumb Martha’s Vineyard wherever that is and you know I really wanted to go to Africa since I was like seven years old and you promised me we could go to the Ivory Coast and Nigeria but then you said not Nigeria because of all that political stuff going on there and some wars and stuff inside the city limits so then didn’t you say we could go to like Senegal and if we had enough time and money we could maybe like hop over to Kenya and I know we’re not going to Africa because you haven’t brought it up once and so I’m begging you pleading with you: your poor deprived never-gets-to-leave-the-United-States-of-America-except-in-his-dreams-or-when-he’s-Online-America son is on his knees”—and he gets on his knees—“please Mom please can we go to Jamaica for our vacation instead of Martha’s Vineyard?”

  I sit there and stare at him and I am cracking up and he gets this phony pleading puppy-dog look on his face and then he exaggerates it even more so that he actually begins to look like a dog and then we both start cracking up and I hear myself say, “Okay.”

  He jumps up from the floor and says, “Really?”

  “Sure. Why not.”

  “You’re not kidding me, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  He gives me a sloppy kiss on the cheek. “I love you, Mom,” he yells. “You are the best mom in the whole world and as a matter of fact you’re the best mom I’ve ever had!” And he runs to the telephone and dials a number before I can ask who he’s calling and I hear him say, “Guess what, Chantel, we’re going to Jamaica!”

  He turns to me and says, “When, Mom? How soon can we leave?”

  And I say, “I don’t know. Soon.”

  “Soon,” he says. “Probably like in the next couple of weeks if we can get a flight out.” And just when did he become Mr. Jet-Setter? He then turns to me and says, “Mom, Chantel wants to know if she can go too.”

  “Why?”

  “My mom wants to know why,” and he is laughing because we always tease her like this.

  “She says because she’s never been to Jamaica.”

  “Tell her to watch more of the Discovery Channel instead of Living Single and maybe she’ll travel all over the world.”

  “Mom, come on.”

  “Ask her why hasn’t she ever been to Jamaica in all eleven years of her life.”

  “Come on, Mom. She heard you and she said she does watch the Discovery Channel, so can she, Mom?”

  “Okay,” I say. “Okay. Now get your butt back over here and finish eating.”

  “Mom, do I have to eat the asparagus?” he pleads after he hangs up.

  “It is my duty as your loving caring considerate mother to make sure you chew swallow and digest something from the five food groups on a daily basis. Now sit down.” />
  “There are only three food groups.”

  “Are not.”

  “Yes there are,” he says. “Sugar, sugar and more sugar.”

  “Sit your little narrow behind down and eat everything that’s green on this plate or you won’t be going anywhere near Jamaica.”

  “Whatever you say, Little Woman,” he says, winking at me. “And I love you too!” But in less time than it takes me to get a glass of water all five of those green stems are gone.

  • • • •

  I can’t believe I’ve agreed to do this but now that I’ve already opened my big mouth I feel as if I can’t back out but then again I could lie and say we can’t get any flights to Jamaica but the more I think about it the more I know not only that I want to go back but I feel like I need to because I need to see Winston one more time. To sort of finish this. Stop it or something. Get some kind of closure. Or if this is like a crush or an infatuation or even a fantasy or delusion, I can like register him once and for all in my brain and in one fell swoop erase him and then just get over it. He’s probably going to freak out when I tell him I’m coming back to Jamaica and what if he doesn’t want to see me this time, what if he was just faking over the telephone pretending he missed me and what if it was all just a front because he knew the chances of us ever reconnecting were slim to zero? Shit. Me and my big mouth.

  • • • •

  The travel agent cracks up when I tell her that I’m thinking about going back but since I will have these children with me is there a nice hotel in Negril where I might be able to take them? She shows me a picture of the Frangipani Hotel which is pretty and peach and right next to the Paradise Grand Resort which is for couples only and where supposedly love is all you need because some friends of mine sent me a postcard from there once that said that and right now I am beginning to think that there is some truth to it. She makes a tentative reservation for the three of us in coach which I am already dreading because I am spoiled and don’t do coach very well since my job always flew me first class and even when I travel on my own I usually upgrade to business or first but I am not spending that kind of money now because I am after all unemployed. I tell her I’ll think about this and let her know for sure tomorrow, which will be Friday and which marks my two-week anniversary of being both home from vacation and jobless.