It's Not All Downhill From Here Read online

  It’s Not All Downhill From Here is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Terry McMillan

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: McMillan, Terry, author.

  Title: It’s not all downhill from here: a novel / Terry McMillan.

  Description: New York: Ballantine Books, [2020]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019038586 (print) | LCCN 2019038587 (ebook) | ISBN 9781984823748 (hardcover: acid-free paper) | ISBN 9781984823762 (ebook)

  Classification: LCC PS3563.C3868 187 2020 (print) | LCC PS3563.C3868 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2019038586

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2019038587

  Ebook ISBN 9781984823762

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Andrea Lau, adapted for ebook

  Cover design: Elena Giavaldi

  ep_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Terry McMillan

  About the Author

  “You cannot go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”

  I don’t want another surprise party.

  Which is just one reason why a few weeks ago, when my husband, Carl, called while I was walking our dog, B. B. King, to the dog park and asked what I wanted to do for my birthday this year, I politely said, “Baby, let’s try to figure out how to get our second wind.”

  At first Carl high-pitch chuckled like he was a soprano or something, then he said, “Will we need a boat?”

  I chuckled right back, even though I was serious as a heart attack.

  “Don’t you worry, Miss Lo. I’ve got you covered,” he said as he hung up.

  I knew he didn’t really get my drift. What I meant was, since we both had more days behind us than we have ahead of us, how about we try to figure out what more we can do to pump up the volume? It’s not that our life is boring. Well, maybe it is, a little. But even though we don’t do very many things that generate excitement, I still love him more than my Twizzlers! Carl is a retired contractor who refuses to retire, and after thirty years of all work and no play selling hair and beauty products in two stores too many, I don’t exactly qualify as a thrill a minute either.

  I released B. B. King’s leash inside the dog park, but he just stood there shivering, as if he were waiting to be invited to participate in some activity that didn’t require him to run or jump. In human years, he and I will soon be the same age: sixty-eight. His whiskers and eyebrows are peppered with gray, but unlike me, B.B. doesn’t dye his hair. He is our third German shepherd and I don’t want to think about how long it will be until he doesn’t want to, or can’t, hop in the back seat of my Volvo station wagon, which I will drive until, like me, it stops running.

  I sat on the green metal bench and watched him sniff a friendly chocolate poodle. I realized I was hoping and praying I wasn’t going to have to sit through yet another lackluster party where nobody even thinks about dancing until they hear a song you have to be damn near seventy to remember, which I suppose now includes me. And that’s if you call doing the cha-cha-cha in flats or espadrilles or two-inch wedges with rubber soles to a beat they all hear differently, dancing. I don’t. I watch music videos on YouTube. I find myself rocking my future-size-twelve hips, swinging and swaying my shoulders and popping my fingers to the likes of “Single Ladies” or “Uptown Funk” by that little cutie Bruno Mars until I have to wipe my forehead. I have not forgotten how to dance. In fact, sometimes, Carl will sit in his leather recliner, lean way back, and just watch me swirl around in my three-inch heels, which I wear to work every day because I like to appear glamorous. In those moments I feel pretty and sexy and forty. Carl just nods his head like he’s agreeing and pops his fingers until the smile on his luscious lips begins to disappear. Then he might hold up his index finger, suggesting that I give him a minute but don’t stop dancing, slowly push himself up to a standing position, and limp down the hallway to take one of his little blue pills.

  Oh, hell. Here I go again. Meandering. I’m just going to have to stop apologizing for it, because from what I’ve learned reading my AARP newsletter, this is only the beginning. Though, truth be told, forgetting what I was talking about and going off on tangents isn’t completely new to me. Back in my twenties, I smoked a lot of reefer with my friends. We’d all sit in a circle on the floor on giant pillows and have deep conversations about the purpose of life or something having to do with God or how we were going to change the world, but then we’d all stop talking because we were suddenly mesmerized by the lava lamp. Then somebody would realize they were one step away from freaking out and would jump to a standing position in order to snap out of it, and then they’d ask: “What the fuck were we just talking about again?” And since not one of us had a clue, we’d just start passing the joint until the next philosophical inquiry overtook our minds.

  Thank God I got tired of thinking about things that didn’t matter and realized I liked the way I felt when I wasn’t under the influence of anything. And when I didn’t like how I felt, it was a hell of a lot easier to figure out how to deal with it when my head was clear.

  Anyway, now I’m a certified senior citizen, and my mind has earned the right to go wherever it wants, so I decided that when I can’t remember something, it must not have been that important anyway. But sometimes, when I do remember, it feels like an accomplishment.

  Like right now, I’m remembering last year’s dull party. My feelings were hurt because both my twin sister, Odessa, and my one and only daughter, Jalecia, had been no-shows. Now, Odessa is a bitch and proves it on a weekly basis. Like I said, she’s my twin. But there are two things about us that make us special. First of all, we were born in different years. I’m December 31 and she’s January 1. We are also technically only half sisters, even though w
e’re fraternal twins. Apparently Ma was a hot number back in the day and slept with two different fellas only days apart. This probably explains why we are nothing alike and why we’re not as chummy as most twins. Ma didn’t bother to tell us this until we were in junior high, but by then we weren’t interested in who our daddies were.

  It’s a fact that Odessa has been jealous of me for years. Jealous I was crowned the first black homecoming queen at our predominantly white high school fifty years ago, even though I wasn’t pretty then and I’m not pretty now. Jealous I know how to make myself appear to be more attractive than I am, and occasionally still get honked at. Jealous of my being a successful entrepreneur. She has never once come into my Pasadena store. Never once given me a compliment, no matter how nice I might look. I didn’t know our lives were a contest. I love her, but in all honesty, I don’t really like her, and if she wasn’t my sister I probably wouldn’t have anything to do with her.

  Right before Odessa took early retirement at fifty from her job as a policewoman for the City of Pasadena, her husband left her for a forty-three-year-old ex–Lakers cheerleader who could still do the splits. Odessa wiped him out and bought a house that seemed purposely much bigger than mine up in the hills of Altadena. Then she started going to church like some people go to AA. Her personality changed after the Holy Ghost struck her, but she doesn’t seem to see how unhappy she still is or acknowledge that maybe God intentionally leaves some gaps for us to fill in. She started acting like she would get electrocuted from a mere whiff of alcohol. Before she retired, she lived in bars and just sat around waiting to arrest somebody, but now she won’t go inside any establishment where liquor is poured.

  My daughter, on the other hand, has the opposite relationship to alcohol. She’s had an on-again, off-again love affair with alcohol and lately with some of those designer pain pills for people who aren’t in pain. I fired her from my store for stealing from me. Me, her own mother, who gave her a job because she hasn’t figured out what to do with her life after forty years. That is apparently my fault because I had a job and then a business and then a divorce, so her failure to launch is payback for my not having been present enough or generous enough. But I couldn’t be everywhere at once, and I’m tired of being punished for it. She didn’t come to my party and hasn’t spoken to me in more than a year.

  All I can say is thank God for sons, or I should say son, since I only have one. Jackson is Jalecia’s younger brother and the product of my second marriage. He wasn’t at my party last year either, but he had a good reason. He lives in Tokyo with his wife, Aiko, who had just given birth to premature twin daughters. They still needed a few more months to grow and they needed their daddy there.

  My BFFs were there, though. Lucky. Sadie. Korynthia. Even Poochie made the trip from Vegas. I grew up with all of them. Occasionally we all get on one another’s nerves. Sometimes to the point that our friendships get temporarily annulled. But we always come running back because we have loved one another longer than some of us have loved the men in our lives.

  * * *

  —

  This morning, right after I felt Carl kissing me on the forehead—and he knew I was awake even though my eyes were closed—he said, “So, we’re good then, cutie?”

  I smiled, looked up at him, then tugged at the metal button on his coverall pocket and said, “I suppose I’m just going to have to trust you, mister.”

  “Good. Just wait until you see how much fun you’re going to have for finally taking a direct order from your husband!”

  I gave him an aww-shucks-but-get-out-of-here-before-I-change-my-mind shove. He stood inside the doorway. His silver Afro almost touched the top of the frame and those broad shoulders reminded me that he was once a wide receiver. I wish I had known him when he was still catching footballs. But all things considered, he caught me at the right time—when my kids were well on their way to being grown and gone. Carl came into the shop one day to buy some horsetail shampoo for himself, and I laughed and he laughed and he told me I smelled like ginger. I couldn’t help but notice there was no gold band on his left finger. He told me he owned a construction company and handed me his black business card with smooth white letters and said if I ever needed any improvements I should feel free to call him. And I did. But it was me who got renovated.

  “Hold on,” he said. “What did you want for your birthday again?”

  I let out a long sigh. “Some skinny jeans!”

  “You got it, girlie! Now stay put. And I’ll see you when I see you.”

  He limped out the door backward.

  Carl had pleaded with me to take the weekend off, which was why I’d given in and closed the Pasadena store by putting a sign on the door that said: WATER DAMAGE: WILL REOPEN MONDAY, because you have to have a legitimate-sounding reason to close a beauty supply store. And since I can’t really trust the two young ladies who work for me (their days are numbered), I paid them for the missed shifts and told them I was having some plumbing work done. They pretended to care.

  I don’t like to close except when I get sick, which is not often. I make most of my money on weekends and holidays, which folks use as an excuse to buy more beauty products than they need. It used to be mostly young women who spent a ton of money at the House of Beauty and Glamour, but now it’s seasoned women and a lot of men. My goal is to help them look and feel beautiful.

  This is precisely why whenever I leave the house (except when I’m walking B. B. King), I try to make sure I look like I’m headed somewhere important. My mother raised me this way. “The only place you should look bad is at home. And if you look good, you will feel good.” Folks are always asking me what I used to do for a living (since it’s obvious I look like I get social security). I tell them I “sell beauty” (I leave off “products,” since it’s the truth). Even though I have my share of new wrinkles, which I prefer to call beauty marks, they’re hard to see since I’m dark brown, and I use a good concealer to smooth them out. I know they’re there, though, and that I’ve earned them. My real hair color is a boring mixed gray, but I dye it what I like to call sexy silver. And for the record: I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing anything but red lipstick. I make exceptions to this rule depending on my outfit, which might require a hot pink or burnt orange. But that’s as far as I go.

  * * *

  —

  The reason Carl left early was to oversee the installation of new cabinets and a kitchen sink in one of our rental apartments. I’m almost ready to give this one away. Rental property is hardly worth the income. All you do is put it back into the property. But Carl likes to stay busy. He will spend most of the day zigzagging back and forth between there and Ma’s empty house, the house Carl and I bought her. He is supervising its renovation after she caused it to catch fire. Fortunately, we moved Ma into Valley View, a lovely assisted living residence, but she still thinks she’s moving back into the house, which she is not. She has lost her red Corolla in too many parking garages and had one too many fender benders because she was confusing the brake with the gas pedal. She is safe now.

  Unlike Ma, Carl has refused to accept the fact that at seventy-three, with both knees full of arthritis, he is handicapped. He won’t use his cane, but I know when he’s in pain he limps harder, even if he rarely complains.

  I feed B. B. King, then pour myself a bowl of granola that tastes like straw and drown it in a cup of tasteless almond milk. I got them both at Whole Foods, where I have recently started shopping sometimes to impress my doctor. After my life-changing breakfast, B. B. King brings me his leash and I decide I can only take him on a short walk because I have a lot of things to do today. As soon as he realizes we’re not heading toward the dog park, he tries to pull me in that direction. I suppose he wants to see his new girlfriend, but I don’t give in.

  When I see a mother coming toward us, taking a video of her little girl in a stroller tugging the strings on a clus
ter of yellow and white balloons, it dawns on me that Carl filmed my last birthday party. After B.B. and I get home, I sift through a stack of DVDs until I see the one that says: LORETHA’S 67TH BIRTHDAY BASH. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten how to work the DVD player because we’ve hardly used it since we started streaming Netflix. They’ve become pretty much obsolete—much the way I’ve started to feel sometimes. As quiet as it’s kept, I have finally realized that I will never look like I did last year or the year before that. I’ll never be able to do some of the things I once did and I’m still not sure what I was supposed to learn that I haven’t.

  When I see the title card for my party appear on the TV, I’m grateful I was able to get it to work. I gulp down the rest of my bottled water, kick off my sneakers, flop down on the sofa, and press Play. It starts with the senior citizen version of “Soul Train Revisited.” When I hear B.B. snoring, I fast-forward to the touching toasts my girlfriends made, and remember they’d sounded more like testimonials from old Oprah Winfrey shows.

  “Here’s hoping you don’t have any reason to be admitted to the hospital or to visit anybody else!”

  This is not the kind of shit you say to someone at their sixty-seventh birthday party. But Sadie meant well. She is a semi-attractive spinster who loves visiting sick people, especially if they’re still in the hospital. And she doesn’t miss a funeral. Even when she doesn’t know the deceased! She’s a retired librarian, but I think Sadie missed her calling because she acts like she’s onstage the way she presses a palm against her flat chest when she reads the names of the “Sick and Shut-In,” along with those who recently passed, in the church bulletin. “Why didn’t you cry?” she asked me once. I told her, “Because it’s hard to cry for a stranger.” I have not been back since she went and joined the choir and brags about her solos; I heard they’re always off-key and that it’s mostly relatives who yell out, “Praise the Lord, Sister Sadie!”