Free How Stella Got Her Groove Back by Terry McMillan Page B

that’s true then why do women’s bathrooms always smell like old fish? I’ll be glad when somebody invents a twenty-five-cent douche or feminine wipes dispenser and puts them in all women’s public rest rooms and an automatic Lysol atomizer wouldn’t hurt. I also have my little disposable cleansing wipes which I keep in my purse so that when I’m out and using the ladies’ room I won’t have to worry about adding to the smell. I mean, can you really smell too clean?
    I let some of my braids or whoever’s braids they are hang down in back and in that ponytail action back on the top. I slip on some low-heeled white pumps and don’t dare put on any makeup since this suntan has given me my base and I just embellish it with some dark pink lipstick and a little eye pencil so I won’t look like I’ve been embalmed. I lotion my arms and shoulders and then mist myself with some Calyx Prescriptives which I’m getting totally sick of because even though I discovered it almost two years ago and for the longest time it was my own little secret scent, now every other woman in America who shops at Macy’s Neiman’s and Nordstrom’s seems to have discovered it, but I’m not in America am I?
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    There is no buffet tonight so I walk through the dining room to one of the three restaurants we have to choose from and I can feel people looking at me, especially some of those old white men with their fat wives who are wearing white pantsuits with silver and gold lamé and big wide shoulder pads and little gold sandals with miniature clusters of fruit overflowing on their big toes. Most of the black men here look like linebackers and as it turns out most of them are in the NFL and this must be the spot because there are at least twelve of them with their fine young girlfriends or wives, each more beautiful than the next, and some of them are really working it and I don’t blame them—when you’ve got it like that do it like that and hell I give credit where credit is due. I am not envious of these young women with perfect bodies because I used to have one too and all I know is that after they’ve had a baby or two and they turn forty-two they better pray they look as good as I do.
    I hope none of the people I met on the beach or that I played volleyball with and none of those social directors sit down at my table this evening because right now I just want to eat and listen to the band and decide if I really want to go to some stupid disco in a nightgown. The more I think about it the stupider it sounds. But in fact there is no band right now because all four of them are sitting at a table outside the restaurant where I’m headed and the drummer, whom I remember seeing last night, smiles and says, “Hello,” and I say hello back and he says, “Having dinner with someone?” and I say, “No,” and he motions with his hand at the empty chair and says, “Won’t you join us?” and I say, “Sure,” and sit down before realizing this is the third time in a single day that I have had companions and to think that my sister was worried about my eating alone! Maybe they were brought up to be extra polite in Jamaica I think as I sit down and listen to each of the young and not so young men introduce themselves. The drummer of course is the one who has his eye on me and the drummer of course is the least cutest of them all. I am tempted to give him some animal traits but I won’t because I will probably be struck by lightning for thinking ugly thoughts about someone who is only trying to be nice. I tell them my name is Stella and they all first discuss then concur that they don’t know anyone named Stella. The youngest of the bunch says, “You remind me a lot of a girl I know whose name is Zoleta.”
    “Really,” I say and he is giving me the eye. I am almost ready to burst out laughing because I’m wondering if these young guys here have a thing for older women or is it that they’re just all very friendly