How Stella Got Her Groove Back (27 page)

• • • •

The kids love the first hour of the van ride and how they manage to sleep through the second one fails me. When we pass the Castle Beach Negril my heart jumps. Those low lights are lining the driveway, illuminating the hibiscuses so that they look as if they are actually dancing, and in less than a minute we arrive at the Frangipani Hotel. It is peach and pretty even at night. Although it is only eight o’clock it has been dark since about seven. When we get to the check-in desk the kids are already heading toward the swimming pool which is lit up bright blue. A Jamaican woman dressed in a colorful African print dress with a tall gelé wrapped snugly around her head is singing a beautiful ballad and swaying her hardy hips back and forth on a big stage behind the pool and I can see that this is a lovely hotel and watching the long line of guests in front of the massive buffet suggests that the food is going to be good too.

“Good evening, Ms. Payne, welcome to the Frangipani,” says a Jamaican girl with big black eyes who looks like she should be on one of those velvet paintings.

“How did you know my name?”

“We were expecting you,” she says, making her lips form a little circle. She is so cute. “And by the way, we have a message for you that came in just moments ago. I’ll get it for you.”

The way my cheeks are tickling, I feel I have dimples. She comes back and hands me the yellow message slip and sure enough at 7:52
P
.
M
. Winston Shakespeare called and “Please call me back asap” is checked off.

The bellman takes us down a winding sidewalk where we can feel and hear the ocean to our right but we can’t see it and Chantel says, “Thank you for bringing me to Jamaica, Auntie Stell,” and I squeeze her tight and then she takes off ahead where Quincy is already checking out the Ping-Pong. Our villa is right above another swimming pool and is pretty snazzy. The ceiling is made of whitewashed wood and A-framed and a white fan spins so fast you can’t see the blades, but it is necessary in here and especially right now because the air is thick and hot. I see a little kitchen area with a refrigerator which I open immediately and there is a green bottle of Ting waiting for me. Stairs lead to where the children will be sequestered and it has twin beds and its own bathroom, thank goodness. My room, on the main level, is the same pale salmon color as my bedroom at home and twice the size of the children’s room hallelujah and the bathroom is bigger and I can tell that we will like it here for the next week. The bellman puts our bags in their respective rooms and I hand him a ten-dollar bill but he refuses and then I give him a look that says, I’d take it if I were you and if you don’t tell I won’t tell, and he nods and smiles at me because he knows this is a black thang and goes ahead and slips it inside his back pocket.

I hear the kids running up the stairs.

“Mom, can we go swimming?”

“Yes, please, Auntie Stel, please?”

“But you just got here,” I say.

“But we’re on vacation!” Quincy says. “Isn’t this what we’re supposed to be doing?”

Good point. “Fine. Go.” They run upstairs and I hear them squeal and then argue over who gets what bed and then to my surprise it appears as though they actually come to terms on their own without any intervention or threats and I believe that this could be a sign that they are maturing and just as I am getting deeply in touch with the beauty of what has transpired between these two they are charging down the steps with towels over their arms. “Slow down before you break your necks!” I yell. “Okay,” Quincy says, and as he reaches for the doorknob I say, “Winston might come over to have a late dinner with us.”

“That’s nice,” Quincy says. “But can we go now?”

“Who’s Winston?” Chantel asks.

“He’s my mom’s friend who might be her boyfriend but he’s much younger then she is so you shouldn’t say he’s her boyfriend.”

“How young is he?” she asks, looking at him. Chantel is on her way to becoming a serious chocolate fox and it should be only a matter of hours days months a year at most before she actually stops traffic. Vanessa and I are grateful that she doesn’t know this yet, and as soon as she does, off to the convent she goes.

“About twenty-nine,” he says matter-of-factly.

“Quincy, be quiet. You talk too much.”

“That’s not so young, Auntie Stella. Ready, Q-zart?”

She’s just as ignorant as he is, I think, and I am grateful that they really don’t know how to tell the difference between twenty-one and twenty-nine years old.

I want to call but I’m afraid to call but I call anyway. He is not there. The operator puts me on hold. Transfers me. Today is his off day. Puts me on hold. Comes back. We are looking for him. Hold. He’s finishing dinner. He’s coming now. Here he is.

“Yes?”

“Winston?”

“You made it.”

“We made it.”

“Good.”

“Why are you eating dinner?”

“Because I was hungry.”

“Don’t have dessert. I brought you Oreos, potato chips and some candy.”

“You didn’t forget!”

“No, I didn’t forget.”

“I’ve been waiting for your call. Is this evening still good for you? You’re not too tired for company?”

“No, I’m not that tired and yes, this evening is still good for me.”

“When should I come?”

“How about right now?”

“Is fifteen minutes okay?”

“Take more time if you need it.”

“No, I don’t need more time.”

“Okay. We’ll probably be eating dinner at poolside so I’ll look for you by the front desk.”

“Looking forward,” he says.

I hang up, feeling like a wind-up toy. I run into the bathroom and floss deodorize brush spray the works the usual. I change into a sleeveless denim dress and tie a bandanna around my head so that the counterfeit braids hang to the top of my shoulders and I push them behind my ears as I yell for the kids to come up now we must eat and yes you can go back in after we’ve finished.

These are obedient children because they know the price of all this so we are now choosing from a vast array of Jamaican dishes. Quincy picks mostly fruit and vegetables because he claims if he can’t identify it he won’t eat it. Chantel will eat anything and her plate reflects this and I get mostly pasta and fresh fruit, whatever won’t cause me to have to floss in the next few minutes, something that will actually facilitate the cleaning of my palate as I’m expecting anticipating hoping praying for some version of a kiss.

I see him.

It looks as though he is the only living thing standing in that lobby that is beautiful and should be noticed. He is looking around with his hands in his pockets as if he is about to start whistling and I put my hands over my belly to stop myself from cracking up because he is wearing one of the T-shirts I sent him, a peace necklace similar to the ones I gave Quincy and Chantel, the sunglasses even though it’s night, and he’s got the sneakers on too! This is so cute, I think as I feel my body lift from the chair and glide over to where he’s standing and as I rise on my tiptoes and say, “Hello there,” I can smell him of course and he turns and looks down at me smiles and I let out a sigh of relief as he bends over and gives me a soft really soft peck on the lips. His feel as if they just came out of the oven and I am pretty sentimental all of a sudden, like I could do a little whistling myself.

“Hello.” He smiles. “Glad to see you.” And I sort of just blush and squeeze his hand, go over to the front desk and ask for the evening pass which costs me sixty bucks and there is a different girl working here now and I can tell right off the bat that she’s a bitch by the way her eyes are piercing mine and I can also see that she really thinks she’s Ms. Thang because of the way her hair is greased back slick in a long flowing ponytail that hangs down to the middle of her back and she only has lipstick on her bottom lip which is really weird looking and she thinks she’s really fine but her mannerisms are ugly. How she got this job I will never know but she hands me the form as if it is causing her some extreme level of discomfort and tells me to sign right there and drops a pen on the counter while she ogles Winston apparently vying for his attention but he isn’t giving her any which seems to be pissing her off and I can see that she’s taking it out on me and I hope she like gets over it soon.

We walk to the table where the children are and I introduce them to Winston. Quincy is polite and shakes his hand and tells him how nice it is to meet him and Chantel simply says hello and then they go put their feet in the pool and pretty much ignore us.

“So you made it,” Winston says.

“Yep.”

“Your son looks a lot like you.”

“If that’s a compliment, I’ll take it.”

“Yes, he’s very handsome and tall for his age, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is. Wears a size ten shoe.”

“Really?” he says as he looks over at him.

“You’re not hungry, I take it?”

“No. But you go ahead,” he says.

“I’m finished.”

“So what do you want to do?” he asks.

“I don’t know. Not much. The kids want to swim some more.”

“That’ll be fine with me,” he says.

“They’ll be in bed by eleven.”

“Are you sure this is all right, Stella? I mean my spending the night? I don’t want to cause any problems.”

“I’ve told them that you’re going to watch a little TV with me this evening and if they want to go snorkeling in the morning, they have to be in bed by no later than eleven.”

“What time is it now?” he asks even though he’s wearing a watch.

“Nine-thirty.”

He nods his head up and down and leans back on his chair.

“I like your shirt,” I say and now I am ogling him.

He blushes.

“And where did you get that fancy necklace?”

“A very good friend sent it to me from America.”

“She must be a good friend.”

“Very. Although I’m hoping to get closer to her.”

“How close?”

“As close as one can get.”

I grin at him with my eyes and check my watch. It is still only nine-thirty.

He looks me in the eye and then leans forward, pressing his elbow then his forearm against the tabletop, and with his heated lips against my right ear he whispers, “Welcome back to Jamaica.”

• • • •

We are watching the kids swim and race and play games with six other children whom they apparently met here in the pool. It is now ten after ten. Winston shows them how they can improve their stroke, get more momentum and propel themselves forward better, demonstrating with his long hairy arms arching and cutting through the sticky night air. We can hear the reggae band all the way from here, which is a good five-minute walk from where they’re playing. Couples and families sit out on their balconies and we can hear televisions on different stations as well as radio stations playing some jamming music that does not sound at all like reggae to me.

Since the pool is only five feet deep and there are quite a few adults sitting around it watching their own children, I ask a couple if they plan on being out here much longer and they say at least an hour so I ask if they could keep an eye on my two and they say sure since “ours” are playing with theirs. I tell the children we are going to get a drink and will be back in ten or fifteen minutes. We walk slowly to the outside bar which is down the winding sidewalk and adjacent to the poolside restaurant where we ate earlier and I hop up on a barstool next to Winston and we order our usual beach drinks and even though the band is rocking nobody’s dancing and then I see the woman with the Mister Ed ponytail sit down three seats away from us.

“Your son favors you a lot,” she says, looking at Winston.

“No he doesn’t,” I say. “He really takes after his father.”

“But he has many of your features.” She stares at Winston, who turns to look at me as if to say: What are you saying and why are you saying it?

I pretend I don’t see him.

“Well, maybe he does—I can’t tell very much in this light. It’s been a while since I’ve seen my oldest son.”

“How long has it been?”

“Well, since his dad’s Jamaican, he lives here with him and I see him mostly during the summers. We’re divorced, you see.”

“A lot of that going around these days,” she says. “It’s a pity.”

“Yes, but it’s worked out for the best because it’s been, what, ten years now and I wanted my son to spend his blossoming-into-manhood years with his dad and he likes living down here with the Rastas, but I’m so happy to see him! Are you happy to see Mom, son?” And Winston bends his head completely to the side and says, “Yes. This is how happy I am to see you, Mom,” and he gives me a juicy kiss right on my lips and it looks like someone has flashed a camera at Ms. Thang’s eyes and she jumps up from her barstool and stalks off while Winston and I sit there and put our arms around each other and crack up. “That was cruel,” he says.

“It’s what she deserves,” and we take our drinks and head back to the pool, where the kids grab their towels and say good night see you in the morning to the other children.

Back at the villa, the kids take their showers and put their pajamas on and come to the top of the stairs and Quincy says, “Mom, we’re tired so would you mind if we went to sleep now?”

“What’s wrong with you, Quincy?”

“Nothing,” he says. “I’m a kid suffering from jet lag and it’s been a long day and Chantel and I want to give you and Winston some space.”

“Some what?”

“Space. You know. Privacy?”

Chantel comes out from behind him, nodding her head in agreement.

“Well, maybe I’ll see you guys again tomorrow,” Winston says and then catches himself. “I heard you want to go to Rick’s Café and jump. Is that right, Quincy?”

“Yes! Will you jump too, Winston? Huh?”

“I’ll jump if you jump,” he says.

“It’s a deal. See you tomorrow. Good night,” he says, and it appears as if these two have now bonded.

We are now sitting down here like two teenagers waiting for their parents to walk in the door any minute and bust them even though they’re not doing anything. Winston is at one end of the couch and I’m at the other. “I don’t bite,” I say.