How Stella Got Her Groove Back (15 page)

I want to say, Are you crazy? Satisfied is putting it mildly. How about ecstatic? How about jubilant? How about calling me Ms. Fucking Enchantment? But instead I say, “Yes, I was thoroughly satisfied last night. What about you, Winston?”

He puts his fork down and looks at me all serious and says, “I have never had such a good time with a woman before in my life.”

“And what does that mean?”

“It means I had a splendid time with you, Stella. You made me feel something deep and rich inside. Spicy.” He is looking at me from the corners of those black slits he has for eyes and nodding his head up and down as if he is agreeing with himself.

All I can think is, Spicy? I guess I like spicy as long as he doesn’t mean like jerk chicken spicy. “I’m glad to hear that, Winston, but . . .”

“But what?”

“Well, I was thinking. I mean I know we had a good time and everything last night and I know I surely did but it’s daylight now and I just wanted you to know if you have like come to your senses and don’t really want to do this again tonight you can just tell me and it’ll be okay.”

“Are you serious?”

“Very.”

“I can’t wait to see you again tonight. I couldn’t wait to see you this morning. Do you know how long I’ve been sitting here waiting for you?”

I am like totally fucking touched. This kind of honesty is exactly what a woman wants needs to hear from a man. But why couldn’t he be at least thirty-five? Shoot, thirty. I mean really. “Really, Winston?”

“Really.”

“Well, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“What’s your father like?”

“What do you mean exactly?”

“I mean does he look anything like you and is he happy with your mom or what?”

He looks offended and I can’t believe I even said this. “My parents are very happy. Why do you ask?”

“I didn’t mean it the way you think I meant it.”

“Yes you did.”

“No I didn’t.”

“I just don’t want you to think I’m like taking this too seriously.”

He looks even more offended now.

“What do you mean by ‘this’?”

“You know.”

“No, I don’t know. Do you mean the sex or do you mean me?”

I can see that I’m not saying the right thing and what I am saying is being misconstrued but then again it isn’t but all I’m doing once again in my life is protecting myself from what? A twenty-one-year-old or my own feelings? Which one is it, Stella? “Winston, I’m sorry. I’m just a little nervous because I really enjoyed being with you last night. I enjoy being with you period and it’s just that I’m—let’s face it—I’m so much older than you are and I’m on vacation and you really made me feel totally beautiful and sensuous and like a floating lily pad last night and I could kiss you right now and hug you which is why I’m feeling totally ridiculous and can you understand my position?”

He is smiling. “Not to worry, Stella. You should relax and not make everything so hard for yourself. I’m feeling very good about you and this day can’t go by fast enough, you know?”

I believe him.

“So are you about to go parasailing?”

“Yep. What about you? How are you spending your afternoon?”

“Oh.” He sighs. “I’ll probably watch TV all day.”

“
All
day?”

“Yes. I don’t have any special plans, so why not?” He hunches and then drops his shoulders.

If I’m not mistaken it looks as if he was hoping I’d join him and he also seems a little disappointed that I’m going parasailing or that I didn’t invite him but if he liked the beach I would love him to come with me but I’m not about to ask him if what he really wants to do is watch TV all day because it could very well be that he does in fact have other plans and he just doesn’t want to tell me about them so I’ll just go on about my business like I planned.

I stand up and readjust my tote on my shoulder. For some reason he suddenly looks lonely sitting there.

“So what time is good for you?” he asks.

“I don’t care,” I say.

“Stella, I don’t want you to feel obligated.”

“Winston, I don’t . . . Look, I think we’re both just tripping about this whole thing, and let’s just have some fun, okay?”

He nods in agreement.

“Can I tell you something else?” I say.

“Sure,” he says.

“Last night I made love to you without forgetting that you were a twenty-one-year-old boy.”

“Really,” he says.

“Yep. But tonight I’ll make love to you as if you’re a thirty-five-year-old man.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I’m going to ignore our age difference and treat you like a real man.”

“I wasn’t aware you thought of me any other way,” he says.

I just give him a look.

“Okay, I get it. So what time?”

“You pick the time,” I say.

“Now,” he says and starts laughing. “Forget about that silly parasailing. But if you must . . . I liked six o’clock yesterday. Would that be all right with you today? We would have lots of time.”

“Six is fine, Winston. But I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“What is it you want to do with me that will require lots of time?”

He begins to blush. He is so cute. He is so sweet. God, I could just eat him up right now. I could I could. “You’ll see,” he says. “Let me surprise you.”

At that I push the chair all the way under the table and we give each other these glowing smiles. I walk away headed in the wrong direction and feel as if I’m on one of those magic carpets and that I’m like iridescent or something and when I get back out onto the beach I drift down to where the parasailing boats are and I notice that there are thick gray clouds forming in the sky and I hear this rumbling noise above my head and then I feel these little drops of water fall from the sky and I say, “Shit,” and as they begin to gather up momentum I head toward rush back to my room.

By the time I fall across the bed to catch my breath it is pouring so hard I can hardly see the ocean at all and I hear this crackling noise and this is really beautiful I think as I open the doors to my balcony and lie across the bed, where I can no longer smell Winston because the maids have changed the linen which kind of pisses me off but when I close my eyes and go back to last night he is right here next to me with his arms around me and I can smell him oh yes I can and I inhale him over and over again and it is so peaceful in here and it feels like the kind of afternoon when you turn on the TV and watch
On the Waterfront
or
Casablanca
or something with Jimmy Cagney or Sidney Poitier in it and you curl up between crisp white sheets and forget the TV is even on and if he were here we could pretend we are in love and that we are made for each other and regardless of what is and what isn’t I’m so glad I came here to this island to vacation and nobody has to know that I am already secretly craving this young man but I can like keep this to myself which is why I close my eyes tighter because I wish he were really here on top of or underneath or beside me but pretending is not quite the same that’s for sure which is why I want the real man not the dream and in a perfect world he would be here and it would be fine and we wouldn’t have to worry about anything except how we feel no age no whatevers.

I hear a knock on the door. I sit up and I look at my watch and it is three o’clock. It must be the housekeeper but they’ve been here already and I am naked for no particular reason and I grab my bathrobe and walk to the door and say, “Who is it?” and I hear his voice and I sort of fall against the built-in dresser because I cannot believe that I have willed him here and when I open the door he is standing there so brown and wet and handsome and those lush green banana plants and fuchsia flowers are framing his tall body and through his T-shirt I can see his skin the curve of those shoulders. The hair on his legs is smooth and slick. His toes glisten inside those blue Birkenstocks and I am like turning into a believer again but all I can think of to say is, “Hello, Winston,” and he says, “I’m sorry for coming by without phoning but I left my watch here last night and I just realized it and I didn’t know your last name because you never told me and Stella, I’ve got some bad news.”

I don’t like the sound of those last words.

“Well, it’s not really
bad
bad news but I have to leave Castle Beach today in an hour’s time.”

I feel like I am being harpooned or something but I can handle this I knew he was full of doo-doo and I say, “Come on in, Winston.”

Coming in the door he ducks and he shouldn’t be what he is who he is whatever he is and I shouldn’t care what he is who he is but I do and I wish I didn’t and I wish I could stop this just turn everything to the Off position. He sits down on the edge of the bed and I walk over to the television and spot his watch on the table right next to it. I hand it to him. He is looking at me very strangely. As if he thinks he knows me from somewhere else and he’s trying to place me or something.

“Were you napping?” he asks.

“Sort of.”

“It’s raining pretty hard,” he says nervously.

I change my voice to a no-nonsense let’s-cut-to-the-chase tone. “So what’s going on, Winston? Talk to me.”

He is trying to get his watch on and having trouble so I help him and he looks at me and says, “I got hired at Windswept you know the resort right down the road a ways and they want me to start on Monday and I have to go home right away to gather up all my things because I’ll be living there and I’m going to be assistant to the head chef and it’s only until September but it’s a start and sooo,” he says as his voice drops two octaves, “I have to leave today, Stella, and I was really looking forward to our time together tonight but I have to go home.”

Fuck you, Winston, I’m thinking. This is the best one I’ve heard yet but I am a grown-up a big girl a woman actually and I didn’t come to Negril Jamaica to play any silly childish games with a boy so I say, “No problem, Winston. You do what you have to do.”

He can tell I’m upset I guess because when he puts his hand on my shoulder I jerk away as if he’s poisonous.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Me too, Winston. Look,” I say and move away from him until the wall prevents me from going any farther. “I hope this isn’t a game you’re playing because you’re having second thoughts or you got cold feet about being with me tonight because I told you earlier that I was trying to let you off the hook if you didn’t have the guts to come right out and tell me.”

“Stella, I don’t have cold feet and I’m telling you the truth. Believe me. I’m probably more disappointed than you are but this position is hard to come by and it is important and I’m sorry that I have to leave even though I wish I could be in both places at once but my parents have sent a car for me and it’ll be here in less than an hour. Can’t you understand my dilemma?”

He looks like he’s pleading with me to understand, like he is in fact telling the truth, so I take a deep breath and decide that maybe he is, but still, where does that leave me? “Good luck in your new job, Win-ston. It’s been very nice meeting you. And I’ll look you up if I ever come back to Jamaica,” and I head toward the door.

He sits there on the edge of the bed for a few more seconds and then stands up. The rain is really coming down now. This is feeling like I’m in the middle of a Saturday matinee movie and my man is about to go off to war and I’m about ready to say, “Be careful sweetheart,” and “Please come back to me,” and then I’d like break down which is why I am not enjoying this silly role and I wish I could like turn this channel to like Nick at Nite or something maybe even Annette Funicello when she was a little girl a Mouseketeer on the Mickey Mouse Club or how about Barney whom I have hated from day one but that’s what I could use right now Barney singing I love you You love me We’re a happy famil . . . no, to hell with Barney too, because all of you, you are all into ranting and raving about so much love all the fucking time and it is enough to get on anybody’s nerves when there is no love in your world so just fuck you Barney just fuck you Annette and fuck you too, Winston!

He is standing in front of me now and he is so lanky and he has that Escape on of course just to bother me and I am not inhaling it right now period and I wish he would like hurry up and leave and stand outside to say whatever it is he has left to say, so I sort of put all my weight on one leg like I’m about to kick his butt or like I’m not even worried or concerned about what he has to say if he has anything else to say that is. So I’m like waiting for him to move. “I want very much to see you before you leave, Stella.”

“Oh, really.”

“Yes, really.”

“And just how are we supposed to do that? Am I supposed to like run down to Windswept and wait around in the kitchen for you?”

I am hurting his feelings I can see that but this is not fair but life has never been fair has it Stella stop acting like a spoiled rotten little brat when you are in fact forty-two years old and you are simply on vacation and you have slept with a twenty-one-year-old boy who has—tell the truth—turned you completely out and now he is leaving and you like cannot deal with this.

“I’ll have some time off during the day and I’m serious, I would like very much to see you before you leave.”

“But why?” He’s getting somewhat agitated, I can see that, so I try to clean it up before he has a chance to answer. “I mean look, Winston, you’re just starting the job. How do you know you’ll be able to get away?”

“Because we get two hours of free time each evening.”

“Wow. Two whole hours.”

“It’s all I’ll have,” he says.

“I leave on Thursday,” I say.

“Well, I’ll be working twelve to fourteen hours and my first day is Monday but I’ll make every effort to be here then, but definitely before Wednesday.”

“And what if you can’t?”

“I will,” he says. “I will.”

He bends down and kisses me puts his arms around me and holds me like he loves me or something and I kiss him and squeeze him run my hand up and down the small of his back like I love him or something and then he smiles at me and I see him walk out into the rain and in that split second as he vanishes from my eyesight and I close the door I realize that I am right this very moment already yearning craving longing for him and it also dawns on me that the last time I felt like this I
was
in love and I wonder could I do I love Winston but I couldn’t because I don’t really even know him and he is entirely and unquestionably unequivocally irrevocably too young and I am simply on this exotic island and maybe this is an oasis or something or maybe I’m under some kind of Jamaican spell because I am already aching at the thought of not seeing him again which is what feels like is going to be the case because I can’t count how many times I’ve wanted something so much and didn’t get it and I can easily count how many times I’ve loved a man and couldn’t have him couldn’t keep him for one reason or another and I can’t count how many wishes fantasies dreams desires hopes I’ve had that have never come true because if I have learned anything in my forty-two years it’s this: whenever things feel too good to be true it’s usually because they are.