Vanessa is giving me the eye of approval behind his back and then she does a thumbs-up and now she’s making her lips pantomime, “You go, girl!” and I simply smirk. “Take her, keep her,” Vanessa says. “I’ve got about six loads of clothes in here and I’m barbecuing some steaks later. Do you like barbecue steaks, Winston?”
“Sure I do.”
“Then would you guys like to come back later for dinner?”
“Sounds good,” I say. “We’ll see you around fiveish.”
• • • •
First we go to the art store, where I don’t even want to think about how much money I spend on supplies: times change, prices go up, is one thing I know for sure. But it’s all good is what I’m thinking after we fill up the back of the truck, and I smile for a long time because it feels like Christmas and I can’t wait to open these gifts.
We spend all day on Pier 39 and take the ferry to Sausalito and skip Alcatraz and then we drive up and down San Francisco streets and after a couple of hours of this Winston says, “Stella, I don’t have to see the entire city today. Aren’t you tired?”
“Not really. I thought you wanted to see San Francisco.”
“I do, but not all in one day. I can always come back,” he says.
“I know. I just wanted to show you as much as I can while you’re here.”
“I want to see as much of you as I can while I’m here,” he says, and Ms. Nosy is all ears and eyes, but Quincy is staring out the window counting Volkswagen Bugs and yelling “Punchbuggy!” each time he sees one so he hasn’t heard a word we’ve said.
“I want you to see what’s available,” I say to Winston.
“I’ve already seen what’s available. Why do you think I’m here?”
“You certainly are fresh in America, Winston Shakespeare.”
“What?” he sings.
“Mom, can we stop at McDonald’s?”
“No. Your aunt Vanessa is barbecuing, remember?”
“Oh yeah. But McDonald’s would be much better—right, Chantel?”
“If I could get a filet of fish with extra tartar sauce, sure, but I like my Mom’s barbecue. She makes the best sauce.”
“Look. We are not going to McDonald’s and that’s the end of it.”
“You tell them, Mom,” Winston teases.
As we go over the Bay Bridge, Winston is looking around again. “It really is pretty here,” he says. “I like the feeling I get from this place.”
“And what feeling is that?”
“Peaceful,” he says. “It feels really peaceful here.”
• • • •
Angela’s station wagon is parked in Vanessa’s driveway. I am almost ready to throw up, but she came and we’re here and she asked for it but I make myself a promise not to act ugly in front of Winston because I would surely scare the man off and he hasn’t even been here twenty-four hours yet. Then I kind of panic. What if she gives him the cold shoulder? Or what if she embarrasses me? Interrogates him, makes him feel uncomfortable? We’ll just leave. That’s exactly what we’ll do if she gets out of line.
When we get in the house Angela is the first person I see because Vanessa is outside on the patio taking the steaks off the grill. Angela does not like to smell smoke.
“Hello,” she says ever so nicely.
“Angela, this is my friend Winston. Winston, my sister Angela.”
“Hello,” he says, and walks over to shake her hand but of course I’d like to yell, “Don’t touch her! She’s got evil mean cooties and they might rub off!” “It’s so nice to meet you,” he says and gives her a warm smile.
Angela smiles back, which makes me very suspicious, but she’s wearing her favorite navy blue Laura Ashley–type dress with the white Peter Pan collar which makes her look sweet and innocent but of course this is the reason why women wear these dresses in the first place and let’s face it, you turn your back and close the door tight enough and you would be surprised to learn that many of them are the biggest sluts in town, but today Angela does look pretty even though I hate to admit it. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Winston, and I’ve really been looking forward to meeting you. Glad you finally made it here safely.” She almost sounds sincere even though Vanessa is standing at the window making a Howdy Doody face.
He points to her big belly. “So I understand you’ve got two of them in there, hey?”
“That’s right,” she says. “Both boys.”
“You know that already?”
“Yep.”
“And when are they scheduled to arrive?”
“That’s cute,” she says, as if she is really capable of being touched, and looking at her she is rather convincing right this second. “Around the tenth of December.”
“That’s soon,” Winston says.
“Barbecue’s up!” Vanessa yells in the doorway, holding a platter of glistening rib eyes. We walk into the kitchen in single file and reach for paper plates, which Vanessa has stacked inside those straw holders.
Winston piles up his plate with a steak, baked beans, sour dough bread and a salad. “Would you have any Thousand Island dressing, Vanessa?” he asks.
“Who eats that mess?” Vanessa asks, frowning.
“I like it too,” Angela says.
“Well, sorrreee. Ranch is as close as I can get. Come on, Winston, try something new. Get used to it, bud!”
Winston blushes and Angela walks over to him. “She’s a little crude, so don’t pay too much attention to her. She’s known for having bad hair days.”
He laughs. Pours some ranch dressing over his salad and offers to do the same for Angela. She nods a thanks. “Can I get you something to drink?” he asks her.
“Thanks, Winston. I’ll just have some of that lemonade,” she says and walks out on the patio. Winston pours her a glass as Quincy and Chantel run downstairs, to eat in front of the television, I suppose.
Vanessa comes over to me with her plate of burgundy meat. “He’s nice,” she says as we watch Winston and Angela, seated side by side at the picnic table. “And fine as hell, I might add.” We see Winston laughing about something. “Don’t worry, girl. I don’t think she’s going to do anything stupid.”
“I hope not,” I say. “But I’m going out there just to make sure.”
“Knock yourselves out,” Vanessa says. “I can’t take that hot-ass sun. I’m staying right here in my kitchen thankyouverymuch.”
I go on out and sit down to face them and the sun is indeed blazing against my back. “Hi,” I say for lack of anything better.
“Stella. Angela tells me she has a son in college.”
I peer over at her. She has an affable look on her face.
“Winston was telling me he was a pretty good swimmer and volleyball player in high school and I was telling him that in America you don’t see very many black swimmers or volleyball players and that Evan’s one of the few black hockey players. Right, Winston?” she says as if she’s trying to convince me that she has no ulterior motives. “As a matter of fact, he’ll be here next week. How long will you be here?” she asks him.
“Three weeks,” he says, looking at me as if to verify this.
“Three weeks is the plan,” I say.
“Well, Stella, would you bring Winston over to meet Evan, have dinner and meet Kennedy?” she asks, giving me the warmest grin. I do not understand this.
“Sure,” I say.
“So, Winston. What part of Jamaica are you from?”
And he tells her and then she asks him a number of questions about his family, his job, and he tells her about his aspirations for maybe becoming a chef, and it looks and sounds as if she’s trying to or has actually bonded with him and if I’m not mistaken she also appears to be impressed for some reason I can’t quite discern.
Finally, we all come inside and Angela says she has to get home. “Winston,” she offers, “you know they have some very good culinary schools in San Francisco. Would you ever consider coming here to get your edu
cation?”
I am shocked to hear this, and Winston is sort of taken aback, and Vanessa, who is clearing the table, actually misses her palm and wipes crumbs right onto the floor.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I haven’t given it much thought.”
“You should,” she says, and says goodbye to him and yells down to the kids. I walk her to the door and she asks me to help her carry a bag of something or other to the car and I do and once outside she says, “Look, Stella. I know I’ve been a little hard and everything and I don’t mean to be. I just have had a difficult time accepting the whole idea of this and I just want what’s best for you. I want to see you happy. See you get the love you deserve.”
“I know, Angela.”
“He’s sweet. Nice. Very poised and gracious. And quite handsome. Doesn’t carry himself like he’s as young as he is.”
“I know,” I say.
“Meeting him makes him more real and not this apparition. I just thought of how immature Evan is and I assumed Winston would be the same, but talking to him. . .I guess when you’re not from here . . . I don’t know. Anyway he just seems to be more mature and worldly, to be honest.”
“I’m glad you can see that,” I say.
She lets out a sigh. “And you look good, Stella. You’ve got a glow I haven’t seen in a long long time.”
“You can see it too?”
She nods. “Who else has seen it?”
I blush. “Everybody.”
“You know I’m the skeptic in this family,” she laments, and I nod, and she says, “I just don’t want you to be careless. Just try to take this slowly, that’s all.” She tosses a bag into the back seat of the station wagon. Then she turns and gives me a hug and her stomach is warm against mine. “But after all is said and done, you do what makes Stella happy.”
“Thanks, Angela.”
And as she gets into the car she rolls her window down. “I think Evan will like him too. See you later, Sis.”
“Bye, Angela,” I say and watch her drive off.
• • • •
During the first week we act like honeymooners. We brush our teeth together we shower together we make love two and three times a day (well, actually we only pulled that marathon off once) and then there are those three evenings when we just snuggle up all night long in front of the fireplace which we believe has some real emotional value and we decide that we will do this more over the next two weeks. I have been nice and let him sleep on the left side and on top of course and it is working out.
He has taken Quincy to school instead of dropping him at the bus stop and insists on picking him up and I suppose they’ve been bonding in the car. Winston’s been helping him with his math problems and listening to some of Quincy’s existential essays; all of this happens right before dinner, which he has been cooking for us—Jamaican style—and we’ve been enjoying spicy meals and dishes and I have particularly loved watching him move around my kitchen touching pots and pans that I have touched and when we stand next to each other at the kitchen sink and put our hands in the same sudsy dishwater and our fingers find each other under that water and squeeze I realize just how much I like his being here.
At first I was really worried about what it would be like having another person invade my space, because no one has been in my space in a long time. But I like walking past him in the house, I like waking up and seeing him feeling him smelling him, I like taking baths and showers with him and drinking the weak coffee he makes for me. I like doing laps in the pool next to him and watching him clean and hose down the garage and turn the love shack back into my work space and fix Quincy’s go-cart and put a new head on the sprinkler valve and stack an entire cord of firewood that was left all over the driveway. I like soaking in the Jacuzzi with him and he has actually asked me out on “dates,” like tonight we are having a midnight picnic by the pool.
I think he is growing on me.
During week two we drive up to Lake Tahoe. He has never been in cold mountains before. It is fall up here and it is nippy, very nippy. We are sitting in the hot tub on the deck. It is ten o’clock at night.
“Have you ever read the Bible, Winston?”
“Not the whole thing. Have you?”
“Bits and pieces. It’s too long, the language is so archaic, there’s so many folks to keep track of and I think it’s overwritten, to be honest. But I really appreciate the story. Do you believe in God?”
“Yes, lots of them.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know. You call on the kind you need.”
“For instance?”
“Well, I called on the Love God when I was hoping that you would fall in love with me.”
“And?”
“He came through, didn’t he?”
“He did.”
“And I called on the Courage God to give me enough courage to leave everything I care about behind to come here to be with you.”
“Really? Any others?”
“Well, now that I’m here I’m soliciting a few of them, yes.”
“I’m listening.”
“Well, I’m asking the Perpetual God to help me maintain what we’ve started and I’m asking the Love God again to just visit us on a regular basis and I’m asking the Patience God and the Understanding God and the Perfection God and the Direction God to show me how to be more patient and understanding and not strive for perfection and to guide me in the right direction.”
“You amaze me,” I say.
“Then that means the Amazement God has come through as well.”
He smiles at me and reaches out his hand. I take it in mine. It feels warm. It is a man’s hand. It is big. He is rubbing my fingers and they are tingling so much that I move against him and look into his face and just smile. “I think we’re both crazy,” I say.
“Those would be the Crazy Gods that apparently we’ve both called upon, hey?”
“Afraid not. I didn’t ask for them or this.”
“But you got it, didn’t you. You got me, didn’t you. So now what do you want to do about it?”
“I wish you could stay.”
“I wish I could too,” he says.
“How long would you stay if you could?”
“As long as possible,” he says. “As long as possible.”
• • • •
Winston has a cold one morning so I drive Quincy to school.
“So how is everything going?” I ask.
“Fine.”
“You haven’t been showing me your homework like I’ve asked.”
“I will, Mom. And guess what?”
“What?”
“You remember when I told you I was signing up for computer animation for my flex class?”
“Yes.”
“Well, remember when I told you there were too many kids who signed up and they put our names in a hat and I wasn’t one who got picked?”
“Yes.”
“Well, guess what?”
“What?”
“Yesterday the instructor told me that one of the kids dropped the class and guess who got picked?”
“Who?”
“Me!”
“But how?”
“Well, they put all the names in the hat again but this time they used my hat.”
“You sly little rabbit,” I say.
“Winston’s got a bad cold, huh?”
“I think so.”
“You should make him some hot tea, Mom. And take his temperature and make him put on his jammies and stay under the covers, just like you do me when I’m sick.”
“I think I will,” I say. “Quincy, are you enjoying him? You know, his being here.”
“Very much. Aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Glad to hear it, Mom, because we’re going Rollerblading when he gets better and he said he likes to fish too and I certainly like it when he drives me to school. He’s a good driver.”
“He stays in his lane?”
“Oh, all the time! Sometimes he wants to turn the wrong way but I just yell and say, ‘No! Not that way, Winston!’ but other than that, he’s a great driver. Awww, Mom, I promised I wouldn’t tell about those close calls, so please don’t tell him I told, okay?”
“No problem, mon,” I say when we pull up to the bus stop. “Now get out.” He gives me a kiss and I give him one back.
• • • •
It is nearing the end of week three. I feel like I’m PMSing because everything is getting on my nerves. Winston is getting on my nerves. He is leaving in a few days and I’ll be glad when he’s gone. I’ll be glad to have my space back, to get my life back the way it was before he got here. I mean, everything has totally changed. He takes up so much room and even though I know my son is going to miss him, I told Quincy he can write to Winston and maybe we’ll go back to Jamaica during the Christmas holidays or something, I don’t know for sure, because when I think about it, Jamaica really wasn’t all that exciting, I mean maybe there are some other islands we should consider.
Oh stop it, Stella. You are on your way back to that place you said you weren’t visiting anymore. Admit it. You love this man fiercely and you are just afraid of what you’re feeling you’re afraid that you will miss him too much when he is gone and you don’t even want to think about his not being here so you are trying to figure out what it is about him that you will not miss that you could absolutely not live with if he were to, say, stay. For example, at night when he pulls all the covers over to his side of the bed and you wake up freezing your buns off. I mean how long do you think you could tolerate that? And he snores like a goat and he has those sinus problems and he is forever blowing his nose honk honk honk every morning and I mean how many boxes of tissues would this add up to on a weekly, monthly basis? And how about the music issue? I mean let’s face it, Stella, you like a little hip-hop and rap as much as the next black person but does he have to play the same song over and over again and do he and Quincy have to have a volume control contest? And then there’s the bread problem. He does not like the crust and he eats the middle doughy part and leaves crumbs all over his plate, which really is unnerving. And he slurps. Everything gets slurped up with something else. Maybe this is a Jamaican thing, but it doesn’t work here in America. And how about the way he gets things done. He is one slow-moving cookie and yes he does get things done but it’s just that he never seems to be in much of a hurry to do anything. You are like a speed demon and he is constantly asking you what’s the big rush and you get pissed because it is a difficult question to answer as you do not know why you are in a hurry sometimes. And then last but not least are the wet towels. Why does he have to put them in the hamper where they begin to mildew and mold and you have a hard time figuring out where that smell is coming from. And even though he is rather persistent in his dream of achieving excellence in domesticity he doesn’t understand that one should measure detergent and it is not safe to put bleach in dark clothing and what else can you think of? Think harder because you haven’t even left the tip of the iceberg yet and you know it. There is more. There is always more that you will not be able to tolerate, just watch. He’s still got a few days left. You’ll see. You’ll be so glad when he’s gone, I’m here to tell you.
How Stella Got Her Groove Back Page 32