Free How Stella Got Her Groove Back by Terry McMillan

of his fingers and begins to spin it. He is looking at me the way Quincy does when he’s trying to sweet-talk me so he can get his way.
    “Oh why not,” I say.
    “Oh what the hell,” Ben says and struggles to get up. He’s gotta be at least six five or six. “But when you see me tonight, Stella, please punch me as hard as you can if I tell you I’ve had more than two or three or four Beach Bomb Boombas, okay?”
    “Why don’t you ask your wife to do that, Ben?”
    “Are you kidding me? Sasha’s worse than I am. Look at her,” he says, laughing. When I look down at her she is grinning but it is clear that she doesn’t have a clue as to what we’re talking about. “Play big fun,” she says and drops her head back on top of her rolled-up towels.
    We play for over an hour and it is big fun and I feel like I’ve lost at least five pounds of water. I’m also starving but can’t help running back into the ocean to cool off. I dry myself, gather up the book I have not opened and my yellow tote bag with the monkey dangling from the zipper, and head to the dining room for lunch.
    I set my stuff down on a table and go over to the buffet line, which is pretty long. I find myself looking around the place pretending that I’m not really searching for anyone in particular but I’m a little disappointed when I don’t see him. I look at my watch. It’s one o’clock. What time does he eat lunch? I wonder. Stella, stop it. Just what exactly is going on here? Well, I say to myself, he certainly is a pleasure to look at, what’s wrong with looking with drooling a little bit for a change of pace I mean I don’t want to touch just look but I would like for my heart to thump again which would make twice in one day and to be honest I just want to see if what I felt this morning was a fluke. Who the fuck cares? Where could he possibly be?
    “Would you like to join us for lunch?” I hear Ben say.
    “Sure,” I say to him and his grinning wife.
    I get some kind of seafood and a Caesar salad which they make for you right there and rice and beans and pasta and I’ll never eat all this food I just get it because it feels free which of course it isn’t it’s just already paid for.
    Ben interprets for Sasha during lunch and tells me how he has his own tile company in Quebec and how this is the first time in years that he has taken any time off. Even though it is his honeymoon and not a vacation it was really hard pulling this off trying to get away for two whole weeks because the tile business is tricky and you have to be there for your customers and when I’m not there things fall apart and since this used to be my dad’s business and business has increased tenfold since I took over it is important for me to maintain my position because things are getting pretty competitive out there and if you lose your edge you have lost your edge. It occurs to me as I watch Sasha nodding in agreement that I haven’t once thought about my job or the pile of work I left and how tall the stack will be when I get home. I don’t care. It can all wait. My boss makes everything seem so urgent, as if the world will stop turning because we may miss an opportunity to make another dollar. I could sit out here and give myself heart palpitations if I think about my job for longer than three seconds but I am right now refusing to entertain the thought which is why I divert all my attention over to Sasha who is smiling at Ben and it is clear she is in love with this man. It is nice to witness. They are going to the pajama party. We agree to see each other there tonight.
    • • • •
    The sun wipes you out—my afternoon nap lasts almost two hours. I decide to sit out on my balcony and read a little of The Grace of Great Things by Robert Grudin which sounded good when I read the book jacket in the store but it turns out to be too academic and deep and not exactly beach reading so I put it down after a half hour and pick up Black Betty by Walter