How Stella Got Her Groove Back (19 page)

“So,” he says with a smiling sigh, “what brings you to Jamaica?”

“The sun the beach the island air,” I say.

He’s nodding in agreement. “And you are from . . . ?”

I want to say guess, but I don’t feel like playing games and besides I have to go to the bathroom really bad. “California.”

“I see,” he says. “Los Angeles?”

“No way,” I say. “Northern. The Bay Area. Forty minutes outside of San Francisco.”

“It’s very nice there,” he says.

Now I’m nodding like a total idiot. “And you’re from. . . ?”

“Born in Senegal, grew up in London, but live in Atlanta.”

“Atlanta?”

“Yes,” he says and God certainly knew what He was doing when He was passing out sexy smiles. Judas must’ve been second in line, right after Winston, but of course it had to be by quite a few years. . . . But stop it, Stella. This man certainly looks like he’s of legal age although I can’t tell really how old he is but at least I know he can buy liquor. “I’ve been in America since I was twenty-two.”

My eyebrows go up. “And you’re how old now?” I ask and then realize it is a totally stupid and inappropriate question but I know precisely why I’m asking it.

“I’m thirty-four. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know, really, I didn’t even mean to ask. What brought you to America?”

“Well, years ago I played rugby while at Oxford and then I came to America to finish my studies in civil and structural engineering at Emory University, which is in Atlanta, of course, and I basically never left.”

“Why Atlanta?”

“Why not? I love Atlanta. There are so many black people there and it is a great place from which to operate.”

“What do you mean by operate?”

“Well, I’m a developer and I plan and design business parks—you know those kinds of complexes: office buildings, shopping centers and others—both in America and abroad.”

“Really?” I say.

“Yes, really. And you? What do you do for a living and before you even answer I know it is something probably very fascinating.”

“Actually it isn’t. I’m a securities analyst,” I say and leave it at that. He should know what it means.

“Fascinating,” he says and seems to mean it. “So are you here with someone?” He is stroking his chin and smiling at me and appears to be looking right through this jogging outfit like he can picture what I look like without it and if it weren’t obvious and if he weren’t so good at it and if I were like at home or say in Oakland I’d probably ask him what the fuck he is staring at.

“Well, actually I came alone.”

“I love it,” he says, gleaming. “You are my kind of lady. All the way from America without a companion, hey?”

“Yep.”

“Marvelous. You are very independent and high-spirited. I can tell.”

“How can you tell all this?”

“A man knows. I knew it when I saw you playing volleyball yesterday.”

“You saw me playing volleyball?”

“Indeed I did. You couldn’t see me because I didn’t want you to see me staring, but you are very athletic and you gave those guys a run for the money.”

“I played volleyball all through high school.”

“Well, a lot of people did but they are not necessarily good at it and you are so strong, I love it,” he says and actually giggles.

At home this kind of talk would almost certainly be on the verge of getting on my nerves and I can’t understand why it’s not now. “What about you, Judas? Are you here with your wife?”

“Me? Nooo, I have no wife. I brought a dear friend and she is only a friend,” he says significantly. “She has recently been in a bad automobile accident and had to have her left arm amputated and she has been very depressed about that, so I brought her here to cheer her up. As a matter of fact, there she is,” and he points to this huge woman in a muumuu whom I had to look at twice because from here she looked like she could be his mother, but I should talk! Instead I just say, “That’s very nice.”

I have long since finished my stretches and can’t even fake another one and I am about to cross my legs, so I say, “Look, Judas, it was very nice meeting you and maybe I’ll see you later but I have to go to the bathroom something terrible,” and he laughs and says, “Go go go, but what time do you anticipate having lunch?” and I say, “About one o’clock,” and he says, “I’ll see you then,” and I say, “Okay,” and run toward the hotel.

I go into the ladies’ room which smells like raspberry Bubblicious bubble gum for which I am totally grateful and after I am relieved I go over to wash my hands and I look at myself in the mirror and all I’m thinking is: What in the world are you doing down here in Jamaica, girl, except getting yourself in nothing but trouble?

• • • •

I see Judas at lunch with that woman and when he comes over to me she doesn’t look happy about it. “She’s not feeling very well. I’m going to take her to her room so she can rest and I’ll be right back,” he says.

I say something like okay but I am not about to sit here and wait for this African hunk. I mean African men scare me because I’ve heard how like if you kiss them once and do the nasty besides they want to marry you and then expect you to stay in the kitchen and cook and clean and to be a passive obedient child like all those Japanese and Chinese and Muslim women and they want you to have baby after baby (except for in China of course) but a lot of the women in Africa don’t even have a clitoris thanks to the men who are the ones who get to enjoy sex with as many women as they can squeeze in and I’ll be glad when these women get hip and just say no you are not cutting off my daughter’s clitoris and if you touch her I’ll cut your penis off how about that for a change of pace or they should go get their bachelor’s and master’s and get a job—no, a career—and have a nanny and a housekeeper to clean the house and then they should rip off all those garments and those hot-ass veils and just let their hair down because what does all this really have to do with religion when you think about it? How do the clothes you wear limit or prohibit your ability to express your spirituality, your beliefs and love for a Higher Power anyway and hey, who was it that decided that women should hide their bodies their faces their hair? Shall we take a wild guess? Let’s try men! Why don’t
they
hide? Why don’t
they
wear wigs and veils? And when I think about it why isn’t the mother of Jesus ever really mentioned all that much except for at Christmas? I mean why doesn’t Mary get more play, because Jesus is always simply referred to as like the son of God, well, what about Mom and I mean let’s get real even though I have heard recently how they are rewriting the Bible again to make it politically correct which is a crying shame when I think about it but these women should get a room of their own a life of their own like Virginia Woolf did because times have like totally changed and it is like the fucking nineties all over the world. Then again I think that African men only try to capture and lure you into matrimony when they want to become American citizens. Well, don’t they all? But this Judas here already told me that he is an American and proud of it but it doesn’t matter right now because I’ve had it with waiting for guys this week and so since I have not only gotten my groove back but also gotten my nerve up I decide that today is the day I will finally go parasailing for real which is exactly what I do.

• • • •

I see Judas with his friend again at dinner time and he comes over to me and says, “You disappeared this afternoon, but why?”

“I wasn’t feeling so good,” I say.

“Are you feeling better now?”

“Yes. Much.”

“Good,” he says. “Are you running in the morning?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like to run with me?”

Would I? I think. “What time?”

“Whatever is convenient for you,” he says.

“Won’t your friend be upset?” I ask.

He turns to look at her and then back at me. “No. She’s fine. Don’t worry.”

“How about seven?”

“Seven is fine,” he says, smiling. “I’ll see you then.”

Right now it is Tuesday evening and even though the hotel is quieter than it’s been since I’ve gotten here, Tonya, Patrice and I eat at the fancy-smancy French restaurant here on the premises and it was well worth the wait and then we dance by ourselves in the empty disco as if it’s full of people and I tell them all about Judas and how I need to get my rest so that I can get up and run and when I walk into my room I am hoping that my message light will be blinking, that Winston will have called, that somehow he will have gotten my last name and he will tell me that his job is working out but he certainly misses me and he can’t stand it and even though he doesn’t get off until like twelve midnight would it be possible, would I mind and not take it the wrong way, but could I just come over and like kiss you good night or something.

My phone light is dead red. It looks as if it has never blinked, it will never blink. At least not as long as I’m in this room under the influence because I am truly acting like some lovesick cheerleader who has fallen hard for the quarterback and fucked him in the back seat of his Mustang and he was really just testing the water because his
real
girlfriend is at another college and he has never even tried to fuck her because he respects her, loves her too much and she is the girl he wants to marry.

I slide under the sheets and inhale as many times as I can until I can finally smell Escape and that is what allows me to sleep.

• • • •

This Judas is exactly what I need, I think, as I put on a pair of white shorts and a No Fear T-shirt that says “If You’re Not Living Close to the Edge You’re Taking Up Too Much Space” on the back, and I pick out a pair of ugly white ankle socks, leave my Walkman on the built-in dresser that’s right by the door along with my stack of tapes, because as I close the door and head out toward the beach I have a strong feeling that I’ll be doing quite a bit of listening and talking.

He
could
turn out to be a very good distraction. I’m just hoping he can keep me distracted for the next two days when I’ll be like outta here because I’m really getting tired of this hurry up and stop waiting shit.

Judas is standing near a boat that’s parked at the shore. He looks as good today as he did yesterday. (You blew it, Winston.) When he smiles at me I’m thinking he could be one of those African gods or something who was sent here to bring me back to reality. Maybe he is the one I was supposed to meet here if I was in fact supposed to meet anybody here and maybe that’s why God saved the best for last. I’m feeling lucky to be alive as we say our good mornings and begin to run down the deserted beach.

“How often do you run?” I ask him.

“Well, when you’ve been an athlete all your life you sort of get used to training so I’ve just never stopped. I run an average of five miles a day, depending on my schedule,” and he says it like “shedjule.”

By the time we reach the end where I usually turn around he has pretty much told me his life story which is very interesting but not as interesting as say looking at his body and I guess you could say we’ve bonded but we are both also sweating up a storm. I am feeling like Bo Fucking Derek in that movie
10
even though like most black women in America I hated Bo’s guts for stealing our braids and having the nerve to put extensions and beads in and for thinking she was all that. We were like, Can’t we have
anything
to ourselves? and of course when white women imitate us they are considered ultrabeautiful and can get on TV and sell cars but since we are just being our black selves, what do we get? Anyway when Judas walks into or on top of the water I find myself following him as if I’m sleepwalking and I walk right up to him and press my breasts against his chest and then I turn my head to the side and stare at his beautiful chocolate lips and then I lay my lips across his because I can tell he is hoping for a kiss and he kisses me tenderly and strongly and I’m like shocked because until very recently the only man who has kissed me like this has been Winston and I am like, Damn, maybe there are more of them out here than I ever imagined and so when he puts his arms around me and I feel everything on him rising and pretty much pushing me out of the way I am like amazed and my breasts are throbbing and I want to know how it is possible to throb for one man on say a Friday and then throb for another on what day is it now?

I am sinking low. I am losing my morals down here on this island and yet I am enjoying every single minute of it. But then I suddenly feel weird about this whole ordeal and when I open my eyes and realize that he is not Winston I say, “We should stop,” because I think maybe I’m just doing this on-the-rebound stuff to appease my achy breaky little heart. I feel stupid for thinking about Winston out here in this ocean with this fine-ass man but I also feel as if I’m misleading him and once again misrepresenting myself but then again he does feel good and I am on vacation and I am single and he is single and we are here and Winston is gone so as we head back toward the hotel I relax a little bit and agree to go dancing with him tonight after dinner.

• • • •

It is not the same. He has no rhythm and as someone from Africa he really should be ashamed of himself. I am actually embarrassed for him and embarrassed to be out here on this dance floor watching him move like some white boy. It occurs to me that I am not so old that I don’t care if a man isn’t a good dancer. Win-ston is smooth and sort of glides whereas old Judas here is doing some kind of quivering and jerking number and he’s looking at me as if I’m like edible and when they play “Shy Guy” I look at him and he is not Winston and then I feel overwhelmed all over again and I say to Judas, “Would you mind if we leave?” and of course he’s all game and everything and we go outside and sit on a bench and he talks some more and I simply am unable to hear him and yet I respond like I’m checking off answers in a box.

He is not a very good substitute. In fact he is rather boring. He represents all that I am trying to get away from. Despite his sexy accent he reminds me of my ex-husband because he is so impressed by how much he appears to be impressing me with his impressive credentials, and it is dawning on me as I sit out here next to these banana trees that belong to Winston that one of the things I like about Winston is that he has no skills and told me so and he did not try to impress me or pretend he could do more than what he does which is basically cook. He is who he is and I like who he is. I realize this as I look over at Judas who should really think about changing his fucking name which at first I was trying to overlook but now I realize that perhaps it’s appropriate because obviously he merely wants to fuck me and for that reason and that reason alone I find myself taking him by the hand and leading him to my hotel room just to see for sure and sure enough he thinks he’s a real Don Juan or somebody because he pulls me close to him immediately and he is like as hard as a cannon and before I know it he is kissing me and snatching my clothes off like in some porno movie instead of like in a romance novel which is what I prefer if I have to make the choice, and then I simply hand him one of my condoms and he is banging me very hard and he thinks he is really rocking my world but it’s only the bed he’s rocking. When he says, “Say fuck me Judas!” and then starts slapping me on my ass like I’m some stallion and he’s trying to get me to giddy up I look at this motherfucker like he’s losing his mind and I get up and grab my bathrobe and stand in front of the door and fling it open and say, “Please leave,” and he says, “I only wanted to please you, Stella, and if I was too rough I can do it softer slower because I can see that you are the type who likes it softer and slower,” and he sits there smiling and not budging and I say, “Judas, this was a mistake. I’m not really this loose.”