Miss Independent, Volumes 1 - 4

by Kiki Leach

  “Ok great, thanks,” he said as she left. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and thrust his elbow forward to catch Nathan’s attention. “So do you love her? Sheila, I mean.”

  He had to think before finally responding. “Yeah.”

  “Took you too long to answer that question. You don’t love her like you still love Vanessa.”

  He ran a hand down his face and to his throat and adjusted his stance. “God himself could give me the ability to love another woman like I love Vanessa, Eddie, and I still don’t think it could be possible. What we have is different.”

  “A better different than what you have with Sheila,” said Eddie. Nathan nodded. “Have you tried talking to V about it?”

  “She’s not really much into talking to me right now. Everything got complicated after the reunion and they’ve just been staying that way.”

  “As it is, if you plan on staying in town for the duration, my advice is to simplify those things as quickly and as quietly as you can. You see how unhappy my dad was about V being on the cover of all the gossip magazines, especially when according to him, it looked like she wasn’t wearing underwear in a few pictures. I wouldn’t know because I haven’t seen them out of respect for her. But he’d shit a brick if what happened with you and Mo landed on the cover too. There’s no way he would’ve allowed me the chance to even let you in the front door.”

  “I appreciate this,” said Nathan. “I really do.” They grabbed one another’s hand and leaned in, patting each other on the back.

  “It’s no problem. Just do me a favor and try to fix the shit that’s wrong with your life so that it doesn’t make its way up here every day. I got you the job, but it’s up to you to keep it, alright? I gotta head out and call my wife. My dad wants you here bright and early in the morning, so get some rest.”

  Nathan stayed behind a minute to think about things. He went over to Mr. Gallagher’s window, looking out at the city, and thought of how he could end it all with Sheila if things with Vanessa actually managed to take off again at some point. He knew that Vanessa didn’t think he would ever leave Sheila and he started to wonder if that was more of an obstacle for her in going back to him, than it was for him in trying to win her back.

  Part Twenty-Two

  Ten minutes had actually turned to fifteen and finally thirty slipping into forty-five. Vanessa sat behind her desk with a pen in her hand, forcing herself to work on the articles and make more notes for the meeting while staring down at her clock. Since Sheila was running late as usual, she asked her mother to move the meeting back by at least an hour, which didn’t please Alexis even more than hearing that Sheila would be arriving to her office. But Vanessa assured her that it would be fine, even if she didn’t half believe that herself.

  When she finally arrived, she went straight to the front desk in the lobby and asked one of the two receptionists sitting behind the counter for Vanessa’s floor. They looked at each other and sort of snickered.

  “Is she expecting you?” one of them asked.

  “Yes. It’s Sheila Harris.”

  “I’ll call up there for you.” She dialed Samantha’s desk, but Vanesa transferred the call to her office since Samantha was down at Alexander’s restaurant making sure everything was in place for the dinner later that night.

  “Vanessa Rae Brown?” she said, exasperated.

  “Hi, V, Sheila Harris is down here to see you? She said she--”

  “I can imagine what she said after leaving me waiting for nearly an hour. Send her on up, thanks.”

  “Alright.” She hung up and smiled. “She’s on the tenth floor. Once you step off the elevator, there will be a set of glass doors across from you. Just go inside, make a left around the first corner and her office is a few feet down from where her employees sit. She has windows everywhere, so you can’t miss her.”

  Sheila headed for the elevator. The receptionist sitting beside the one she spoke to leaned over and pulled out a copy of Page Six from that morning. “Is THAT her?” she asked, pointing down at the picture that had been used for the accompanying quote.

  She looked over and lifted her brows. “That’s her.”

  “What do you think Vanessa will say to her?”

  “I don’t know. But if I were her, I would’ve brought in a protective suit or a body double to take the bullets for me once they were through.”

  “Mm-hmm. Mm.”

  They returned to their work as more people entered the building.

  The elevator doors dinged after reaching the tenth floor. Sheila recalled instructions and went straight through the glass double doors, looking around at all of the busying employees panicking over the latest issue, pacing up and down the way as they tried to meet last minute deadlines. A few of them slightly pushed her out of the way as she stood in the middle of the room, not realizing or caring who she was.

  As she turned, she saw Vanessa through one of her windows, sitting behind her desk. Sheila thought she appeared perplexed, or angry; she couldn’t tell which. When Vanessa finally saw her walking up and inside, she looked down at her clock again.

  “I was wondering when you would finally decide to fly in on your broomstick,” she said, dropping her pen. She entangled her fingers and rested her elbows on either sides of her chair.

  “Aha. Funny.”

  “But if only I had meant it as a joke.”

  Sheila stepped all the way in and placed her purse in the seat in front of Vanessa’s desk. She hid her growing aggravation behind a grin and nodded. “Did you just invite me here to insult me, V? We could’ve done this over the phone.”

  “I didn’t invite you here for that. It’s just that sometimes when I see you and you do things like this with acting as if your time is more precious than mine or anyone else’s, I say things that I probably shouldn’t be thinking much less spewing out loud.”

  “Probably?”

  “Sorry.”

  “And I told you that I wasn’t in the city – I didn’t think my time was more precious than yours. You called me at the last minute expecting me to drop everything to meet you here.”

  “Well…” She looked aside and opened her hands wide.

  “What do you want, Vanessa? I’ve got a lot of things to get done today.”

  “Like what, a mani/pedi before a facial and bikini waxing?”

  “I’m leaving.” She yanked her purse from the chair and raced toward the door.

  “Wait!” she hollered out. “I’m sorry.” Sheila stopped and turned around, glaring at her. “I can’t ask you here for the reason I did and then treat you like that. I might be pissed at what you did, but it doesn’t mean that you necessarily deserve my wrath.”

  Sheila looked to the corner of her eye and lowered her head. “Did hell just freeze over?”

  “Maybe we’re skating on top of it. You can sit down.”

  She made her way back inside and eased down in the chair. Vanessa got up to close her door. “I told my assistant that I would never let you darken these hallways, but under the circumstances, I don’t really have much of a choice in allowing it.”

  “I didn’t mean to talk to Page Six, but that woman--”

  “I don’t care about that.” She leaned against the edge of her desk and crossed her arms. “I mean, I care because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut. But I don’t care so much about what you said. Well, not anymore now that I’ve had time to think about it. My mother came in this morning and verbally ripped my head off of my neck after learning what happened. She said that I need to find a way to make this right and the only way I know to do that is through you. She didn’t like the idea of you coming up here after our altercation, but I told her that I didn’t have much of a choice, especially once she threatened to give my job to my sister or eliminate it altogether, which would really be worse.”

  “Isn’t Felicia on an island?”

  “She’s isolated on a beach with Rodney and the kids out in California, but that’s close enough. Anyway
, I called you in because I wanted to apologize for everything and try to start over in the best way that we can. Hating you is putting in a hell of a lot more work than I can physically handle and frankly, I just don’t want to do it anymore. It isn’t worth it, especially when it leads to things like this. Not to mention it feels like the more hate I give to you, the more bad shit seems to happen to me in return. As if the universe has made me karma’s bitch and I still can’t seem to figure out why.” Sheila immediately thought of Adrian and recoiled in her chair. She couldn’t have felt more like shit if she tried. “So, I’m willing to try being civil for the sake of both of our reputations. If we can at least learn to get along in public, it will minimize the talking and the tabloid press. Now, none of this means that I like you or anything. I don’t even want us to be friends. I just think that it would be for the best if we--”

  “Acted civil. Something I suggested all along.”

  “Whatever, I wasn’t ready to do that with you anytime it was brought up.”

  “Not until after you ended up on the cover of another tabloid.”

  “You see this?” Vanessa said, pointing. “Shit like this is exactly why I can’t get along with you.”

  “Okay,” said Sheila. “I’m willing to give it a chance if you’re really willing to try. That means no more insulting me whenever you see me.”

  “I can’t make any promises.”

  “You could at least try not to do it so often, V.”

  Vanessa raised her hands up in defense. “Fine.”

  “Thank you. Maybe we won’t be friends again, but this might be a start of something better between us.”

  “Right. Anyway.” She leaned back on her desk and reached for an envelope from beneath her notepad. “To show you how civil I’m trying to be, this is an invitation to a restaurant opening around the corner from Eleven Madison. It’s this Thursday. I’m required to attend and you are more than welcome to come if you want. The press will be there, which is a perfect opportunity to prove just how civil we can be in the same room with one another.”

  “Sounds like fun.” She twirled the invitation between her fingers and looked up into Vanessa’s generous eyes. “Can I bring Nathan?”

  Vanessa lowered her chin to her chest and became tense, breathing out through her nose and in through her mouth. “That’s really up to you, I guess. It says a plus one and since I know you don’t have anyone else…”

  “V--”

  “It wasn’t a dig, I was just stating the obvious.”

  “No you weren’t.”

  “I was. But listen, if you want to bring him, fine. I can’t stop it, I can only encourage you both to stay the hell away from me the entire time.”

  “Not even to say ‘hello’?”

  “Not even then.”

  “That doesn’t make us look very civil.”

  “Baby steps, Sheila. We’re talking baby steps here. It shows that we can be in the same room with the same people and not want to kill each other. If we start taking press pics all over the place, everyone will know we’re setting them up and will jump all over it more than the fight Saturday night. We’re trying to minimize the publicity, not add to it.” Vanessa got up and went back around to sit down in her chair.

  Sheila leaned forward and saw the picture of Vanessa, Maurice and Nikki sitting at the corner of her desk. She reached out and ran her fingers down the side of the frame. “Wasn’t I in this picture too?” she asked.

  Vanessa narrowed her eyes. “Yeah. But after you slept with Nathan, I took you both out.”

  She dropped her head and stood up from her chair. She held the invitation tight in her hand, clutching the sincerity behind it. “I really hope we can manage to move past this at some point.”

  “I don’t know, maybe. Time heals all wounds and all that. Maybe in another five years, I’ll finally be over it.”

  “Maybe he will too,” said Sheila before leaving.

  Vanessa picked the picture up and looked at how happy they were then. It always made her smile looking at them together. Unfortunately, she didn’t have much time to reminisce, as Alexis began buzzing her phone, reminding her that she was due in the conference room downstairs for the meeting.

  She grabbed her notes and headed down, hoping along the way that with things somewhat improving with Sheila, it would help her overall karma improve. If not for the remainder of her life or the year, at least for the remainder of the week.

  Part Twenty-Three

  Later that night at Eleven Madison Park, champagne flowed in abundance with music and dancing as Vanessa found herself surrounded by her peers. The room was filled from one side to the other with everyone within and around the fashion industry, from Donatella to Karl Lagerfeld (who flew in from Paris especially for this event at Alexis’ request), Michael Kors to Bee Shaffer, the latter of who made sure to personally congratulate Vanessa on landing such a pivotal woman in the industry for their latest cover.

  She gave her a gift from her mother, Anna, a 14k gold necklace with Vanessa’s name spelled in cursive lettering as the charm; a tiny diamond was attached to the ‘a’ at the end. It was one of the most beautiful gifts she had ever been given by anyone, but she couldn’t showcase that to Bee, especially since she wasn’t sure if it was genuine or being used as some sort of bribery.

  Vanessa politely thanked her, but also kept a close eye on her as she mingled throughout the room and searched for Melanie to congratulate her as well, though she was apparently too busy being swept off her feet by almost every man in a suit who complimented that she looked as good as a supermodel, giving the likes of Cindy Crawford and Elle Macpherson a run for their money in the beauty department.

  Had they managed to see the inside pictures of she and her family, as she was makeup free while casually dressed in baggy jeans and an old t-shirt to showcase her style at home, instead of the low cut red Dior gown she had been placed in on the cover as it perfectly showcased every curve in her body, they might not have had the same reactions.

  While Vanessa downed glasses of champagne and devoured plate after plate of caviar in waiting for her mother to finally arrive, Samantha checked with the doorman on the guest list, making sure only those invited would be let inside, and helped position the food on every table so that it could be perfectly visible and easily accessible throughout the venue.

  When Alexander asked her to find his stepdaughter so that they could talk in private, she located Vanessa across the room, guzzling back her latest glass of liquor and gargling with it. That’s when she knew the mini mogul had had more than enough to drink.

  “V?” She tapped her shoulder. Vanessa turned and helped to remove her headpiece as the mic got stuck in her hair.

  She glanced at her from head to toe, admiring her choice of dress and shoes. “I meant to tell you earlier that you clean up pretty nice,” she said. “It’s too bad I can’t get you to dress like this for work every day. Maybe you should sneak in on the weekends and start raiding the closet downstairs.”

  “This is from the closet downstairs. Your mother helped to dress me for this event. She said if I showed up here in what I normally wore to work, she’d fire me and tell you about it later.”

  “Sounds like her. Even though she probably wouldn’t say that she fired you, but instead that you quit out of fear.”

  “I came over because Alexander’s in the back and wants to talk to you.”

  “Oh, great. I don’t need another lecture. As if hearing from my mother wasn’t enough, now it’s his turn to take a verbal swing at me. Maybe I should have another one of these before I go over there, just to calm my nerves.” She put down her empty glass and grabbed a full one from a table behind her. Samantha slipped her fingers around it and gently removed it from her hand, giving her a glass of water instead.

  “Maybe you should go back there without that and take this.”

  Vanessa stared down at Samantha’s hand. “Do you think I’m drunk?”

  She became ti
mid and gulped. “Not at all.” She cleared her throat. “Um… but you don’t want to give Alexander a reason to tell your mother anything she shouldn’t hear.”

  Knowing she was right and refusing to cause a scene, she quickly took the water and downed ever drop, then fixed her dress and looked around the room. “Where in the back is he?”

  “In the last booth near the kitchen. He’s waiting on his food because he doesn’t like what’s being served.”

  “I don’t blame him. Everything on the menu was designed for a WASP in training, something of which he is completely not. Keep an eye out for my mother and place this in my bag in the back” –she handed her the box containing the necklace– “will you?”

  “No problem.”

  “Thanks.”

  She made her way through the crowd, stopping to speak to those who complimented her on what might turn out to be the most successful issue of the year so far. She was disappointed that her mother wasn’t around to hear it being said by some of the most recognizable names in the industry. She tried sobering up as each person spoke to her along the way and laughed at jokes that weren’t remotely funny, if only to appease them and not appear checked out in conversation.

  When she finally managed to get away, she saw Alex sitting alone in the booth, leaning against the back in his crisp dark suit and as Samantha said, waiting for his food. He drank some of his tea and smiled when she approached with one hand resting on her hip and the other on the head of the booth opposite of him.

  “If it isn’t the most beautiful woman I’ve seen here tonight,” he said.

  “You flatter me.” She took a seat on the edge and crossed her legs. “But I know you’re only saying that because you haven’t seen my mother yet.”

  “She’ll be here soon. I had to get down here to make sure everything was in place before she even started getting dressed. And you know how she can get with events like this.”

  “I know it all too well, neurotic, crazy. She’s Alexis Brown times ten. That being said, I also know that you didn’t have me come back here just to talk about her.”