Chapter One
I hadn't planned on going anywhere. All Iknew was that as much as I loved my son, I was glad tosee him disappear after those doors to Gate 3 closed thismorning. Quincy's on his way to Colorado Springs to visithis daddy and now I have the house all to myself. Finally,some peace and quiet. And three whole weeks of it. Ofcourse there are a million things I want to do and now I cando them without being distracted. Without hearing "Mom,can I ... ?!" every fifteen seconds.
Thank God it's Saturday. And thank God it's summertime.School's out. No more three-day-a-week Little Leaguepractice (rain or shine) or those long-ass games. No week-on/week-offrevolving carpooling and forgetting it's myweek and being afraid to call the parents of the abandonedchildren who are all standing in the rain for an hour after Iforgot them because they are all--including my own son--toodumb to call somebody else. And thank the Lord there'snowhere I have to be: no can't-wait portfolios to review andI don't have to pay attention to any of the four computers inmy office, I mean I can actually be off-line for a change andI have no meetings no planes to catch, nada.
I've got about a hundred books I've been meaning to readsince last year and I figure now I can probably read them all.I've got a house full of trees and straggly vines that need tobe transplanted which is what I'm planning to do today butof course when I go out to the garage I have no big pots andjust a drop of potting soil and not a single pair of thosegloves with the little rubber dots on the fingertips, all ofwhich means I have to go to Home Depot. I hate going toHome Depot because I always end up going down the plantrug toilet or sink aisles when I have enough plants rugs toiletsand sinks already. But by the time I get to the checkoutI usually have to exchange my cart for one of those flatbednumbers and then I realize I didn't drive the truck so I haveto have them put my stuff to the side until I come back andas I'm driving home it occurs to me that they're probablygoing to switch some of my merchandise and not think I'llnotice but by the time I pull the truck up to their automaticdoors I'm usually totally pissed at myself for buying all thisshit I don't need because despite the fact that I am not alandscaper handywoman or carpenter I have all these usefulnew tools with which to express my fantasies of do-it-yourselfnessand what is really bothering me is that I havemost likely spent somewhere in the neighborhood of athousand bucks which seems to be my going rate here and atCostco and which is also why I am right this minute changingmy mind about going today. I'll go tomorrow. With a listand the promise to buy only what's on it.
I look around the house and realize that the housekeeperdoes a pretty good job--for a sixty-one-year-old Peruvianman--of keeping it clean. He fixes everything that breaksaround here, and since he is ultrareligious and I think maybeeven a participating Buddhist, out of respect I sort of watchmy mouth in my own home. He cleans under and behindeverything which is the main reason I have no Saturdaymorning cleaning to do. I believe from the bottom of myheart that dusting polishing and vacuuming are entirely tootedious never-ending and boring tasks and there are so manyother things I would rather be doing which is why I hiredPaco in the first place. He is worth the money.
I open all the blinds and notice that the windows arepretty grungy-looking from all the rain we've had here thispast spring. Flooding and mud slides wiped out hundreds ofhomes all over northern California and I felt lucky to beway out here in this boring little valley. I don't do windowswhich is why I make a mental note to call Of Course We DoWindows first thing on Monday. Paco tried doing them oncebut he couldn't get up high outside and if he fell and hurthimself I would feel terrible.
I go into the kitchen and make myself a latte and as I stareout into the backyard the first thing I see is Phoenix, ourfree-from-the-pound chocolate Lab, swimming in ourblack-bottom pool as if it's his. Then I look over at what isnow a storage shed that I was told was once a guesthouseand then I turned it into a studio but of course that waswhen I used to be this creative person and I had energyand a thriving spirit and I would design and conceive andsometimes actually manufacture what I used to call functionalsculpture aka handcrafted furniture that people in factsolicited and paid me real money to make for them out ofeverything from aluminum copper steel wood whatever, butthen it became so hard to like pay the rent and then this husbandI ended up saying yes to when I should've just said noconvinced me that I could use that MBA I got and like combineit with that MFA I also had which of course all by itselfwas worthless and who could afford this eccentric one-of-a-kindso-called furniture when a normal person could likejust go to Thomasville or Levitz or Ikea and of course Ididn't know how to mix commerce with art and so I failedat working with my hands. I went with the brain and forgedfigures inside my economic head and did the total businessbeat. I have been doing this now for like hell I don't evenknow how many years but it is another reason why rightthis minute, looking out at the dog at that clear black waterat the little salmon-colored bungalow where I used to prayand dream and invent, I am getting a sudden overwhelmingurge to run the vacuum through my mental house and chillout, sit down long enough to smell the cosmos the zinniasthe coral bells hell the fucking coffee (which I actually cansmell right now), so when Quincy comes home I'll be morepoised balanced composed than I've been in years. The genericterm for it is relaxed. Maybe I can even acquire someof that stuff commonly known as patience that I haven't hadin a long time. I'd like to be able to sit down next to my sonand watch one of those moronic TV shows that he's alwaysbegging me to watch but after a few minutes I always findmyself jumping up to do something during the commercialsand I repeat this up-and-down business at least five timesduring a mere half-hour show which means I'm not exactlysetting a good example for someone who's always telling herchild how he needs to learn to sit still long enough to givesomething his undivided attention. All I do when I get up ismove things. Dishes go in the dishwasher. Or they comeout. Never-read magazines newspapers and last week's mailare tossed into the compactor for crushing. Clothes pulledout of the washer get pushed into the dryer. Now let's fold.Make stacks. Everything has to be in its place. Because if Idon't do it, it won't get done.
But I'm tired of jumping up. Tired of running. I wouldlike to be able to just sit there with my son without movingwithout wishing I were somewhere else doing somethingelse without thinking about something else and I'd like tojust hold his hand or put my arm around his narrow shouldersbecause I know in a few more years he won't want meto sit on the couch with him and watch anything and heprobably won't want me to touch him.
I walk from the kitchen into the family room and sit onthe red leather love seat and I look around and see all thiscolor all these different textures--those golden maple floorsthose celery concrete floors these purple plastered walls thatteal suede sofa that black oak pool table that eggplant leatherfloor in my office and this silver slate under my feet--and Iam proud that over the years I have made my funky littleCalifornia castle suitable to my needs my tastes and I haverigged equipped and outfitted it in such an unorthodox waythat it might actually be impossible to sell even though I amnot even thinking of moving anywhere but for some reasontoday like right this minute I am feeling imposed upon by allof it as if I went too far and now all this color all thesejuxtaposing textures are backfiring instead of soothing asthey always have even until just yesterday but not today andas I sit here and watch Phoenix shaking himself dry, I decidethat today maybe I should shake myself up a little too.
But how? And where do you start? I look down at thecoffee table and notice Quincy forgot the stationery Ibought him so he could write to me and his homies whilehe's away. Maybe I should write a few long-overdue lettersor something to some folks. That's it! Yeah, I'll write to afew long-lost relatives and to some folks I haven't seen ortalked to in ages. Just little notes. Some maybe-you-think-I've-forgotten-you-but-here's-a-gesture-to-let-you-know-I-haven'tnotes. Hell, I remember when I used to write tonsof letters. Now who has time to even call anymore? A lot oftimes when I do call I'm secretly hoping the person won't behome and that I'll get the answering machine because Iknow there's something else I could or should be doingthat's a helluva lot more productive like washing clothes ordoing something in the kitchen but the portable phone is toostaticky in the laundry room and kitchen which means Ihave to stand in one place and talk which is why it's so mucheasier to leave a two-minute message (if they've got a decentmachine) than it is to talk for a half hour or longer, dependingon where they fall in your chart of closeness, trying tocover what has happened to you both over the last weekmonth year or two.
I know I'm not alone because I'm forever getting messagesfrom estranged friends and relatives who are pissed becauseI haven't returned their phone calls from wheneverand they say things like, "Girl, I could be dead and youwouldn't know it what kind of fucking friend are you Stellawe used to be close did I do something that I don't knowabout" and I shake my head no or they say we just had ababy or I finally got my divorce and I just wanted you toknow that I don't live in Atlanta or Memphis or Los Angelesanymore, and oh by the way, I've got a brand-newgrandbaby and did you get the pictures if you did you didn'tsay nothing about how cute he is and hell, he's got threeteeth now or he's walking or in kindergarten and this is theMCI operator with a collect call from BENNIE please pressone if you accept and two if you decline and sir the party'snot at home and he says okay but can I leave a message anywayand then there is a click and he is just one of my manyrelatives who call from the penitentiary but then there's heyyeah Stella this is your cousin Rafiki As-Salaam-Alaikummy sister peace be unto you all praises are due to Allah andhey I know you surprised I ain't calling collect but my ladylet me use her calling card for a month and you still ain't sentme no pictures of you and I'm still working on my own defenseand I was wondering if you could send me fity dollarsfor some toiletries and such cause my mama ain't been up tosee me in over six months she mad at me and my lady ain'tgot no mo transpo to get way out here and I been in the holefor the past month for something I ain't even did but it's allgood and anyway let me know if you can do that and baby,this is your aunt Junie calling and I don't know if you knowit or not but Miss Willamae's in the hospital and I know youremember her cause she used to baby-sit you when you wasa baby and you know she got cataracts and she had to havethat operation finally that she been putting off because ofher having all them insurance problems and everythang butyou remember her she's Miss Bessie's cousin's sister fromher first marriage to Silbert what used to live on the cornerof Moak and Fortieth Street, right down the street from Ms.Lucy when she was living and anyway you went to schoolwith her granddaughter but I can't remember her name rightnow but pray for her even though she's doing much betternow and I just wanted to touch base don't get to talk to youmuch no more and how is Quincy these days? I bet he's tallas you and how old is he now (there is a long pause becauseshe's waiting for an answer) and like a fool I say, "He'seleven and a half, Aunt Junie," but even though you don'tstay in touch I want you to know that you both are in myprayers and the Lord is watching over you and I'm gon' callyour sisters as soon as I hang up since the rates is low. Loveyou, baby. I wonder if her machine is gon' get all this andStella? Did you get this whole message, sugar?
I also don't get very many letters either--maybe five orsix a year and that's counting the preaddressed prestampedenvelopes I give Quincy when he's away at camp--andshoot, I know at least a thousand people and at least fivehundred of them live more than five hundred miles away.Far enough away to write.
It just feels like nothing is the way it used to be anymoreand it's not that I'm on some nostalgic trip or anything butI just wonder if I'm feeling like this because I can't believeI'm really forty-fucking-two years old because people tellme all the time I don't look forty-two and to be honest Idon't have any immediate plans of really acquiring the lookif there is a way to look when you're forty-two and I certainlydon't feel forty-two even though I don't know howI'm supposed to feel being forty-two and what I do know isthat I'm not angry about being forty-two but it feels like I'mslowly but surely catching up to my mama because she wasonly forty-two when she died and I'm thinking how is thispossible that I could ever be the same age as mama? I wonderif I could secretly be having a midlife crisis?
Ever since Walter and I split up I guess I have been a littlenumb. I don't dislike him or hate him for being who he isbut I certainly stopped loving him because of it. He boredme to death. Living with him was like living in a museum. Itwas drafty, full of vast open spaces and slippery floors. Hewasn't a bad person, but I just didn't care for his attitudesand later on his principles turned out to be on the oppositeend of the spectrum from mine. He wanted me to be justlike him. I wanted him to respect our differences. I ended uptelling him that he should've married himself, and later thathe should try fucking himself. And this is what we basicallyargued about. Who we were. We never seemed to come toany neutral turf where both of our feelings and positionswere acceptable or at least tolerable. We sort of kept this demeritscoreboard for the last eight years, until we ran out ofspace. He and I both knew that our time was up, so wedidn't make a big tadoo about it, we just agreed to stop thisbefore we ended up hating each other.
We were both running on high octane and barely had timefor sex anymore and when we did we were both so exhaustedthe thought of actually being tender and sensuousand playful was not something that even crossed our minds.Or hearts. We just did it to get off, to relieve some of thetension. Some of the stresses and strains of the day that webrought home with us. At times I felt like his prostitute andI'm sure on occasion he probably felt that way too. It gotold. And after a few years of this, I started wondering if I'dever feel any excitement or passion toward him or any managain, and now that it's been a few years since our divorce,I'm pretty much feeling the same way.
Nobody has rocked my world, as the saying goes. Nobodyhas made my heart flutter like it did when I first metWalter, or even when I fell in love with Chad, and I don'tdare go all the way back to high school or college when theworld stopped spinning when Nathaniel kissed me. AllDennis did was smile at me and I was like Elvis: all shookup. I didn't know the power of love was so powerful. But Iliked it. Liked feeling like I was full of clouds. Like I couldprobably run a marathon without ever training for it. Like Iwas "on" something that was causing me to have a continuousflow of energy, making me feel excited about and seebeauty in just about everything. I could walk down thestreet and feel myself grinning and people would look at meand simply grin too. This is when I thought I understoodwhat God intended for us to feel.
But then the bullshit always had to enter the picture andcontaminate everything that had been so beautiful. Likewhere were you and why do you have to do that all the timeand how come and when are you and I don't really give aflying fuck if you do but because I felt like it and if you can'thandle it tough shit but as much as I wish I could I can'teven begin to imagine but just the thought of you don't nonot anymore but we could if you weren't so damn stubbornbecause hell I can't help it if I was and yes you are trying tochange me into something that I'm not and want to see howlong I can resist this shit want to watch me repel and don'tremind me how much we used to have that's the past and it'sgone baby live in the here and now and check it out this isgetting too thick for me and I'm like sinking somewhere lowand my heart weighs a ton here lately and as a matter of factthe mere sight of you being in your presence for any lengthof time depresses the hell out of me and I don't need this shitwho needs this shit so I'm like out of here.
All I know is that I was sort of already using my reservetank when he left and afterwards being alone took some gettingused to. A person can get on your last nerve, drive youto drink, but you still kind of miss their sorry ass afterthey're gone is what I found out. That empty space he leftsort of turned into an ache for a minute, or I should say afew months, maybe even a year. It was like this secret longingI felt to replace the void he left with something or someoneelse. Only I didn't have the energy. Quincy took up adifferent kind of space, required a different kind of love. Itwasn't until a year and a half ago that I realized I had not feltthe warmth of a man's body next to mine, that my lipshadn't trembled, that my breasts hadn't throbbed or betweenmy legs hadn't been wet from anybody's hands exceptmy own, and it made me sad, but I didn't know what to doabout it. I was waiting for him to knock on the front door,I guess, and just say, Here I am. Your worries are over, baby.I'm here. But there has been no knock. I haven't evenbumped into him. Haven't seen him. Haven't walked pasthim in an airport and felt any current radiate from his bodyto mine. Not at all. Not anything close.
But it's okay. Because all I know is that marriage wearsyou out and I'm not sure if I have the energy left for it. Allmy married friends are mostly miserable. They're just in itbecause. They started it. Those kids. The money would beall fucked up. Lifestyles would change. Alimony. Child support.And that fucking mortgage and all those cars and visitationand fuck it, let's just stick it out. Some of them don'teven sleep together. Some of the men--a lot of the men--areinto serious affairs but unfortunately the chicks on the sidedon't have a clue that most of them have no intention ofleaving. The men just need a reprieve. Want to break up themonotony. Smell somebody new. In some cases it's the onlyway their dicks can get hard and blast off anymore and hellto them it's worth it.
Which is why I have pretty much come to the conclusionthat marriage itself is a dead-end institution. I'm not doing itagain. All I want is a little companionship. No ring. No "Ido till death do us part," because I said that once and we'reboth still very much alive. Folks expect too much from oneanother and when you don't won't or can't deliver you fallshort and eventually begin to piss the other person off andyears go by and the two of you simply tolerate each other. Iwasn't born to live like this, and especially with a man. Iknow God didn't have some master plan where we weresupposed to fall in love and then work our asses off to makeit work and then it doesn't and then we end up feeling worselonger than we felt good. There's something inherentlywrong with this whole notion. It seems like everybody isstriving for perfection. The perfect fucking spouse who willmake you feel perfect. But I know for a fact that no suchperson exists. I know for a fact that I am far from perfect,but there have been many instances where I didn't believethat. I fought hard for the right to be right. All I was doingwas trying to preserve my right to my own self-image, butI'm here to be whoever I am and if I happen to be a littlefucked up then accept me fucked up as I am or leave me thefuck alone. Because if there's ever going to be a change in mybehavior or my personality I will do it myself and I don'tneed you nagging me telling me how fucked up I am becauseyou know what? you're pretty fucked up too.
I don't know how long it's going to take for me not onlyto fill back up again but to get my engine started. I've beendivorced now for almost three years and haven't been on alegitimate date in almost a year even though I have a numberto call when I just have to have some even though it's notpassionate but purely maintenance-oriented sex and I thankGod he's married because I wouldn't want him any otherway and these last few months have been tough because he'sturned into such a lazy fuck and he's pissed at me for not returninghis calls and hiding from him really but I'm tired ofhaving sex with him for the sake of getting off because I haveto work too hard and he's started banging me the way heprobably bangs his wife, like he's a slug, and I don't likekissing him one bit and I'm at the point now where I justcan't do it anymore. Sex should not be cumbersome. And Idon't like the idea of searching for love or trying to conjureup passion. Which is probably one reason why it feels likeI've lost a lot over these last few years. I know things cannever be the way they were (and I wouldn't dare want itback) but there are a few relatively simple things I'vestopped doing that I want to put back in my life.
I wish I could call Delilah. But I can't. She'd only beenmy best friend since college and we only talked on thephone every other day and she was the most brilliant personI ever met and we could talk about anything and she lived allthe way in Philly and then last year she decides to surpriseme and die suddenly from some stupid liver cancer that shedidn't even tell me she had until she was in the fucking hospitaland then she was gone the next week and there was alot of shit we still needed to talk about. A whole lot of stuff.Years and years' worth of stuff. She knew I was going tomiss her ass and I do miss her black ass and the only way Ican make the hurt go away is to do one of two things: pretendthat she's still alive and that we're just not on speakingterms, which we went through from time to time, or pretendthat she never existed. Trying to do both has required a greatdeal of effort and imagination and whenever I'm not lookingmy heart plummets down real low and I can hardly toleratethe longing.
So over these next two weeks I want to try to do somemake-Stella-feel-good stuff. Which is why I'm planning todo some things I've been meaning to do but haven't for onereason or another. Mostly because I'm always too busy. Alwaysdoing something. Work alone has been kicking my ass.It's been said before, but I'm here to give new meaning tothe phrase "I hate my job."
I might actually call up a few old friends and sit in a chairand not roam around the house while I talk but give themmy undivided attention, listen to what they have to say,what they've been going through, how they've been feeling.These are people I do care about but now they're just on theB list. My life has gotten too busy. And it's time for me toslow it down.
I will also cook. I used to cook all kinds of interesting andexotic meals, but after Walter left, if Quincy couldn't identifyit he didn't even want to try it. A double Big Mac andsupersize fries and a nine-piece Chicken McNugget with amedium Sprite and apple pie is his meal of choice. I misscooking. I miss smelling new smells and stirring new saucesand being surprised by the taste of something different. Iwill cook. I will make it a habit. I will even make some ofthose low-fat meals from a few of the fifty or sixty cookbooksI've purchased over the years and have yet to everopen.
For the last two or three years I've been meaning to makea computerized printout of all my relatives' and friends'birthdays and even their kids' and have it printed on a speciallymade calendar so that each day when I walk into myoffice all I have to do is look up and see whose birthday iscoming up, and their card and maybe even a gift dependingon their age and who they were would be a surprise and ontime.
I'll also plant some flowers in the front and back yardssince I've been reading about the Zen of gardening and howgratifying it can be, and since it's been a while since I've hadsex I'll take whatever form pleasure comes in. At any rate,I've heard that this gardening stuff can relax you and evengive you some of those endorphins like people get whenthey exercise.
This too is something I'd like to improve upon while myson is off to the Rockies with his how-did-I-ever-love-his-lifelessdaddy. As it stands now, I am almost ashamed to tellpeople that I hired a personal trainer who comes to myhouse three days a week to make me pump and grind andsweat because the bottom line is that I'm lazy and have nowillpower and have woken up too many mornings fromdreams in which I worked out so strenuously and was trulytoo beautiful for a woman who'd just turned forty and I putstars like Cher and Tina Turner and Diana Ross to shamebut it wasn't until a year later after having a series of suchdreams that I realized I had never broken a sweat let alonepanted. It has taken me another year to get into the rhythmof working out and there are many mornings when I'd justas soon call in sick, but as a result of my desire to improvemy health with the real motive being pure vanity I now amalmost in shape although I still have my unfair share of cellulite,but it's not as much as I used to have thank the Lordand I actually do have a number of muscles and my butt ishigher and firmer than I ever recall it being but since I'dbeen paying the health club $105 a month for two years andhad actually only been inside to give tours to visiting friendsand relatives and inform them that whenever I had the timethis is where I usually worked out though the truth was I'donly gone in there to sit in the steam room but since I nowhave two steam rooms--here and in my cabin at LakeTahoe--there was really no need to waste my gas drivingthere so why bother, so last year I admitted to myself that Iwas bullshitting myself and since I have had a difficult timevisualizing myself fat and slovenly and just plain old Idecided--like they do in any twelve-step program--to turnmyself over to a higher power. Her name is Krystal andshe makes Cindy Crawford look like a zero and she onlycharges fifty dollars an hour. I used to use drugs that cost memore per minute. Which is one reason I could never run forpublic office. If anyone ever did a background check on methey'd be in for a big shock. But then again, they are alwaysshocked at everybody else's background when they're runningfor public office, aren't they? No one who has reallylived should have a sterling background, in my opinion. Mysister Angela is the only baby boomer I know who's nevertried any drugs at all. She's missed out on a lot of good shitif you ask me.
But those were the good old days. Times have changed.Twenty years have passed. I am a grown-up. In every senseof the word. I have responsibilities. I am responsible. I am agood mother. I am raising a black male child by myself andtrying to be a mother and father and do my very best so thathe'll grow up to be a strong proud and confident black manwho knows his own worth and value and is not afraid tolove and show his feelings and yet he'll be strong as steel onthe outside and as soft and sensuous as a cashmere sweaterinside. I spend a lot of time being a mother.
I am also a fancy-smancy analyst for one of the world'slargest investment banking institutions and I make a shitloadof money and my family is proud of me because I'm theonly one who has actually made it to the top but all I knowis that it is lonely as hell up here and I don't particularly likeit. At this point in my life, I'd settle for being in the middle.My job is dull and boring. I just always assumed that a personcould have more than one talent, more than one skill,and you could display as many of them as you had available,but I've learned that this is not necessarily true. It is difficultto be taken seriously if you are an artist, but playing withnumbers gets quite a bit of attention. I've also come to realizethat the price I'm paying to get paid a lot is a little on thehigh side. It seems to me that once you get past thetwo-hundred-thousand-a-year mark you are constantly beingappraised and as a result always trying to prove your worth.It wears you out and at the same time no matter what youdo or how good you think you are at it, as long as someoneranks higher on that hierarchy than you it makes you expendable.It's too hectic up here and the race is alwayson. It's always rush hour but I haven't figured out when toput on my blinker because it's safe to change lanes and I'malso not sure which exit I should take to get off this trackaltogether.
I know there's still room in my life for steel and suede forcopper and leather for brass and wood for marble slate glassand material in general, but I just don't know how when orwhere to put it back in. Mostly because I'm scared. I've alwaysbeen good at making things that serve a purpose, thatperform, that function, but art is so iffy and then there's themortgage and I'm not sure if I could recapture regain or pickup where I left off, if I'll ever have the guts the chutzpah hellthe balls to leave my job.
My divorce and starting all over has taken most of the biteout of me for right now and I don't know exactly how longit's going to take me to get my groove back on as the youngkids say. All I know is this: Loss is hard. Starting over ishard. Which is why I'm just trying to get from one day tothe next, why I'm on the straight and narrow, and it's probablythe reason why most of the time my life is not fun.
Right now I'm tired of thinking about how uneventfulmy life has been lately and I wish I knew what I could do toput the fizz back into it. How to resurrect myself. How toshoot some vitality into my heart, my mind, this house ofsoul I live in. I haven't always been dead. I used to live asomewhat exciting life. I used to take chances. I used to dosome crazy shit and didn't give a damn because I wasn'thurting anybody. Fifteen years ago my life was interestingbecause I didn't know where I was going I just knew I wasgoing somewhere. It was exciting because I hadn't arrivedanywhere yet. And the journey itself was exhilarating. Thedetours. The uncertainty. I used to change my mind aboutthings right in the middle of doing the shit. Made mistakesand was woman enough to admit I made them but didn'tslay myself for it. It was usually some bullshit that was reversibleanyway. Back then I did whatever I felt like doingthat gave me pleasure. When did I stop? And why? After orduring marriage? Motherhood? My so-called career?
I walk outside for a minute to think about this and whenthe dog runs up to me with his wet dog-smelling self I pathim on the head and go back into the house. My latte is coldand I step inside my office to pick out a book but out of thethousand or so I have it doesn't seem as if any of them suitmy mood. I don't want to read anything too lighthearted ortoo deep either. I close the door and head back toward thefamily room because I'm not so sure that I really want to escapemy own world. That I want to be engaged.
Part of my problem is that I'm always doing somethingand if I'm not then I'm looking for something to do. I decideto lie down and take a nap. To simply stop moving. For achange. So I sink into the thick cushions on the red love seatand I close my eyes but the leather is cold against my skinand I'm not exactly exhausted because I haven't exactly exertedany real energy today except what it took to decide onwhat I was and wasn't going to do.
Without even trying I find myself springing up and decidethat I'll watch a little television, something mindless, and it'sthe one thing I rarely do except maybe by accident like theaccident I'm causing right now. I don't even know if I haveHBO or Showtime and I'm hoping I do and even thoughmy watch says it's now twenty to one in the afternoon Idon't care if I tune in to the middle of a movie because I'mlike an intelligent enough woman who should be able to figureout how something started but I guess all I really wantis to hear some noise since Quincy's not here making any ormaybe I'm just so used to being distracted I need somethingto stop me from thinking so hard about my own mundaneredundant predictable but good little life.
I try three remotes before one works. And as soon as theTV comes on of course there's a commercial and withoutlooking up I hear this melodic baritone voice almost singing"Come to Jamaica" and I swear it seems as if he's talking tome and when I look at the fifty-five-inch screen it is filledwith turquoise water and hot white sand and a blazing yellowsun and then a bronzed white man in a flapping whitecotton shirt and baggy white linen trousers strolls along theshore and a tanned white woman in a straw hat and sunglassesis stretched out on a chaise longue with a book restingacross her chest and they are both holding tall frothyglasses filled with something melon-colored and I think Ican smell the papaya juice the pineapple juice and coconutoil and that tropical breeze is whispering in my ear andwhen I look closer that white woman's legs begin to turnbrown and she is wearing my chartreuse bathing suit and mygood straw hat and that's my Swatch watch on her wrist andmy Revo sunglasses and when I look closer at this womanwho now looks like she could be my twin sister I realize itis me lying on that chaise on that beach and when that liltingvoice once again says "Come to Jamaica," I sit up then standup and I say to that man, "Why the fuck not?"
Continues...
Excerpted from How Stella Got Her Groove Backby Terry McMillan Copyright © 2004 by Terry McMillan. Excerpted by permission.
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