by Kiki Leach
“And I know that. But baby girl, nobody said loving was easy. If it were, so many people wouldn’t try to fall out of it so quickly, and others wouldn’t try so damn hard to make it work. Like I said, I’m not going to give you a timeframe, and I’m not going to tell you to forgive him. But if you ever find someone to accept you through the flaws and the pain and especially through the anger and during the times you both feel like walking out, you work like hell to hold onto it.”
Vanessa wanted to hold on like hell. God, did she want to hold on until that hold could no longer breathe.
The only problem was that she wasn’t sure if she knew how to anymore.
Alexander looked down at his watch.
“Your mother is going to start asking questions if she doesn’t hear from me soon,” he said. “I told her I was running an errand, I never told her where.”
“Sorry,” she told him. “I didn’t mean to drag you all the way out here. Hell, I didn’t want to be this far out myself, but I just had to get out of the city for a while. I couldn’t risk running into somebody that I knew personally. Thank you for coming as soon as I called.”
“When any of my girls are in trouble, I’m always right there no matter what.” He reached out his hand to pat the side of her face and took her chin between his fingers. “This is going to sound like it’s coming from your mother, but this too shall pass, baby girl. And it will.”
“Any way I can get my hands on a magic wand and speed that shit up?”
He smiled at her and took her hands in his again.
****
A few hours later, Vanessa returned home to a quiet house.
She dropped her keys on the table and removed her jacket, placing it in the chair beside the door.
“Mo?” she called out.
Seconds crept by as she continued to hear nothing, and she began to panic.
“Maurice?”
The only returning sound was the echo of her own shaky voice.
She thought he might have just been ignoring her and headed for the kitchen first. She stopped when she looked beneath the door and saw that the lights were off, and decided to head upstairs instead.
As she placed her hand at the top of the railing and reached the last step, it suddenly felt as if a large unbridled hand had reached out to smack her hard in the face. The feeling almost sent her tumbling right back down to where she began. And that’s when she knew.
That’s when she knew.
“Maurice?” she called out his name one last time, hopeful despite knowing the truth.
The tears started rushing her face before she even had a chance to stop them.
When she finally crossed over that last step and turned a corner, she found herself standing directly in the doorway of his room. His bed was made, all sides still tucked in, which meant he had no plans to sleep in it that night. Since their relationship began, he had spent very little time there as it was, but this time felt different. This time felt final in so many ways that before almost seemed like tests of the inevitable.
Her eyes searched every part of his room, from the walls to his dresser to his nightstand. And that’s when she noticed a white envelope sitting on his pillow at the top of the bed.
Moving inside, she yanked it up fast.
On the front it simply said ‘For V’.
What little was left of her heart began to sink like an anchor to the bottom of an ocean.
Slowly, she lifted the paper from inside the envelope and turned it to the side.
A key fell out and dropped to the floor. When she reached down to pick it up, she realized that it was the key to their house.
His key.
Maurice had returned his key to their house – their house.
Quickly, she opened all sides of the envelope and saw only one word scribbled at the center of it.
Always.
Almost immediately, she felt her body give out and dropped the paper as well as the key back to the floor. It clinked against the wood, but she had no reaction and collapsed onto the bed. Reaching out for his pillow, she wrapped her arms around every part of it as if it were him holding her and she sobbed until her entire body ached, quaked and rattled the bed.
She never wanted him gone for good. No matter what she said, no matter what she felt. No matter how angry she had gotten. She never wanted him gone.
And now he was.
And she wasn’t sure how she would ever manage to survive it.
One Month Later
Part Ten
As the alarm blared loudly in her ear, Vanessa threw a hand out from beneath her blanket and viciously shoved the clock to the floor. It was bad enough that for the last thirty days, she was stuck waking up in that same bed completely alone. That feeling was made even worse on this particular Wednesday morning thanks to her mother ordering her into the office two hours earlier than usual for a previously unplanned emergency meeting.
Over the last few weeks, sales for the magazine were starting to fall well below the normal rate and no one could understand why or pinpoint exactly when the problems first began. Many insisted that it was thanks to lackluster, less shiny and polished covers featuring unknown models and little known actors/actresses in and around New York, as well as what some called ‘insignificant’ and ‘irrelevant’ content within the pages.
At least one person attributed it to their missing editorial consultant, Harold Kramer, who had taken a month long vacation to the Bahamas just after leaving the Hamptons.
While the rest were convinced that it was due to the lack of enthusiasm around the office in general, which had in part been plagued by Vanessa’s carelessness and sudden ‘ho-hum’ attitude.
Since the night she got home from meeting with Alexander and found out that Maurice had officially moved out of the home they shared together, with not a single word shared between them since their fight, she had been in a pretty tight funk and unwilling to break out from it for any reason whatsoever. Aside from her sister, closest friends (and Sheila), as well as her assistant Samantha, no one else knew anything of their breakup, let alone the reason behind it.
And as miserable as she was becoming, to the point that she barely wanted to spend time alone with herself, she was perfectly fine with keeping it that way.
After brushing her teeth and getting dressed so fast that she hadn’t realized her shirt was on backwards, she flipped it around to the correct side, grabbed her coffee and headed out the door.
Arriving to the building thirty minutes later than planned, she knew exactly who and what to expect the moment she stepped inside her office.
And she was right.
“Girl, where in the HELL have you been?” Alexis shrieked as she jumped up from the chair sitting in front of Vanessa’s desk.
She had barely made it through the door before her mother’s voice slammed inside her ears, and removed her sunglasses, throwing them inside her purse.
“And good morning to you to,” she droned.
Alexis stared down at her watch and tapped the face of it. “We were supposed to start that damn meeting half an hour ago, and once again, you’re coming in late and appearing as unprofessional as ever. Put your things down and let’s go.”
Vanessa placed her cup of coffee on the table, then hastily flung her briefcase, purse and jacket onto her couch.
“There,” she said. She raised her arms high and opened her hands wide. “Happy?”
As she turned to walk back out the door, Alexis quickly slid up beside her and snatched her arm back, damn near pulling it from the socket.
She looked hard into Vanessa’s vacant brown eyes and shook her head. “The Devil is inside of you someplace,” she said. “As we speak, he’s right there deep inside of you and making himself at home. You better rebuke Satan before you walk your ass out of this door.”
Vanessa jerked her arm back and grimaced. “What the hell are you talking about? You sound like that crazy cat lady who lives in front of The Bean!”
<
br /> “You have been acting like a damn zombie for far too damn long now, Vanessa Rae. I can see that something is NOT right with you and hasn’t been since we all got back from the Hamptons. I have been trying to keep my peace about it thinking that you would snap the hell out of it, but I’ve had enough of. That Monday morning you first came back to work--”
“I was tired, Mother, just like I am right now. Other than being fatigued and swamped with the magazine as well as my life outside of it, I’m fine. And I don’t have the Devil inside of me. Let’s go.”
“Vanessa!”
“You know, you keep bitching at me about that meeting and yet you’re the one standing here making us even later than before I walked in.”
Vanessa headed for the door again, but Alexis once again yanked her back and tossed her across the room.
She slammed the door shut and placed her hand alongside her hips as Vanessa tried to find her balance.
“You are NOT leaving this office,” Alexis hollered, “until you tell me what the hell is going on with you! For the last few weeks your sister has been trying like hell to convince me that you and Maurice are fine. She did the exact same thing with Rodney, and we’ve seen how it’s turned out. Now it’s so bad that she’s got the girls coming out here to stay with her because he can’t be bothered anymore, spending all his free time with that other woman and their child. Humph.”
“Well, you sure as shit don’t have to worry about Mo getting me knocked up.” Vanessa paced in front of her desk. “We’re going through a rough patch right now and taking a break.”
She closed her eyes in disappointment. “Oh, damn it, girl. Does this have to do with Adrian? Did he find out from someone else before you told him -- ?”
“Mother, just…” She pressed her hands together and leaned back on her desk. “We’re taking a break from our relationship right now, okay? That’s really all you need to know.”
“I need to know a hell of a lot more than that if you’re going to keep walking up in here looking and acting like this until whatever rough patch you two are going through is flourishing again! This is worse than the five years you spent mopin’ over that sorry fool Nathan. Other people in the building are starting to send me emails asking what the hell is going on with you because it’s gotten so bad.”
“Tell them to just mind their own damn business. This is an office complex, not a sit down on the Jerry Springer Show!”
When they heard a knock on the door, Alexis and Vanessa turned to in unison and shouted, “WHAT?!”
Samantha pushed back on the door and clung to the side of it while pressing her legs together to keep them from wobbling in fear. “It’s Harold calling for you, Ms. Brown,” she directed to Alexis. “He says his flight is delayed which means he won’t be back to the office until tomorrow morning.”
“Great,” Alexis replied. “Just what we need, more problems. Tell him it’s fine, we’ll make do without him in the meantime.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Samantha closed the door and returned to her desk.
Alexis took a seat on Vanessa’s couch and sighed. “When exactly did you and Maurice decide to end things?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Mother, alright? Let’s just go to this meeting and get it over with.”
She looked up at her daughter, then nodded and went to the door. Vanessa followed but stopped when the phone at her desk began to ring. She went over to look at the caller ID, then turned back to her mother. “It’s Nikki. She never calls me this early because she’s usually in rehearsal, so it might be important. I’ll be in there as soon as we’re done.”
“You best be,” she said, pointing at her daughter before leaving the office.
Vanessa sat at the edge of her desk and reached around for the phone.
“Hey, Nik,” she said upon answering.
“V?”
“Yeah.” She made a face as she heard sharp whistling noises passing through the earpiece. “Are you outside?”
“In front of the Beatnick Café, you know that new place not far from Mo’s job?”
Vanessa hung her head the second she heard his name, but knowing she was in public, tried to keep herself in check. “Yeah, I’ve heard about it. What are you doing all the way over there? I thought you had rehearsal for ‘Wicked’ this morning?”
“I do, but William wanted to take a detour first. He said a friend owns this place and he wanted to give him well wishes.”
“Okay.” Vanessa crossed her legs and shrugged. “I guess that’s nice. Is that why you’re calling me?”
“No.” While standing to the left of the café, Nikki observed William through a giant window as he talked with his friend, then turned her attention to Maurice as he sat in a corner booth with Melanie. She exhaled sharply when she noticed them sitting a little too damn close for comfort, especially her. Just a few more inches and Nikki was certain the woman would’ve been in his lap. “I just had a quick question.”
“Well make it as quick as you can because Alexis is already on my ass this morning.”
“Sorry, I forgot you had a meeting. Um, does Melanie know that you and Mo are no longer together?”
“Melanie who?”
“Oscar’s soon to be ex-wife, Vanessa.”
“Oh.” For a short time, she had gladly forgotten that the woman even existed. “I don’t know, I haven’t seen or spoken to her in weeks, not since she came running and begging me to put her on another magazine cover featuring other future divorcees. I can only assume she would’ve learned it from Oscar, who would’ve only known about it if you told him.”
“I couldn’t have said anything because I haven’t seen Oscar since the Hamptons, Vanessa.”
She hated lying to her best friend, especially when it came to her ongoing yet increasingly complicated relationship with her soon to be-formerly married-ex/sort of current but not completely available flame. But it wasn’t the time or the place to start being upfront with the truth regarding their relationship – considering that after a month of the constant back and forth between them since reconnecting inside of William’s bedroom, she was once again starting to become unclear of it all herself.
As she raised to her toes and dipped her head, she saw Melanie leaning into Maurice suggestively while biting off the tip of a croissant. “Y ella me llama una puta.”
“What?” asked a confused Vanessa. “And why are you asking me about Melanie, anyway?”
“Because I can see her sitting here with Maurice in a corner booth inside of this café.”
A flabbergasted Vanessa immediately dropped her feet to the floor and leaned in. “Say what?”
“They’re sitting here inside this café drinking coffee and eating biscotti’s and croissants! She’s practically all over him, Vanessa. I’d get the puta a bib, but--”
“Are you sure it’s the two of them together? Hell, are you even sure that it’s not somebody that just looks like Mo? Because you know that they say, everyone has a twin in the world--”
“She just left for the bathroom.” Nikki took another peek and saw Maurice reaching for a coffee cup and taking a sip. “It’s Mo, I’m positive. Do you want me to go in there and ask him what the hell is going on?”
Vanessa thought about it long and hard. Would he really be stepping out on her like this? Even if they were no longer together, officially. She knew it was virtually impossible for men to go without pussy for too long, especially a man like Maurice who had become accustomed to getting it when and how he wanted from many women around the city, long before her on a regular basis. But now she was no longer a viable option. And Melanie, who she was certain had been waiting in the wings even while still with Oscar, was.
Slowly, she shook her head and exhaled. “No,” she told Nikki. “If he wants to hang with her, do whatever with her, it’s fine. I can’t keep him locked inside of a cage of celibacy when we’re not together anymore.”
“V--”
“Look, I gotta go, Nik, but Felic
ia’s birthday is this Friday. My mother is so damn afraid that her girls are going to mess up her furniture again, so she wants to have it at my place. Do you think that you’ll be able to stop by? I know that Felicia has never actually been your favorite person and vice/versa, but you and I haven’t actually seen each other in weeks.”
“I know,” she said. “With rehearsal’s being back to back now that the play is only a week away, I haven’t had time for much, let alone any for mi mejora amiga. But I’ll be there.”
“Thanks. Now I really have to go before she has my ass. Have a good time at rehearsal.”
Vanessa hung up before Nikki could even utter a quick goodbye and headed out of her office for the meeting. The last she needed was to have her mind on yet another thing regarding Maurice that she couldn’t control.
Part Eleven
After pulling the phone back, Nikki quickly stuffed it inside her purse and took a good look around that café.
“V may not think that anything should be said about this,” she muttered to herself. “But I sure as hell do.”
She dipped inside the building and waved to William, who was still talking with his friend, then turned her eyes to Maurice, who had just picked up a paper from his table and began to read.
Sneering and snarling, she headed over and plopped down in a chair in front of him.
He lifted his eyes, then arched his brows when she reached out to his plate and grabbed a fistful of steak fries.
“A little early for something like this, don’t you think?” she asked, chomping down on a few at the same time.
Maurice sat the paper down and smirked. “Long time no see, Nik. And the first time I do in what, 4 weeks? You’re stealing shit from my plate. Good to know that the more things change--”
“Like you?”
He chuckled softly. “What are you talking about?”
“What the hell are you doing here with Melanie?” She pointed her thumb toward the bathroom.
“Having breakfast, which is what normal people do.”
“I could tell from looking at her the kind of ‘breakfast’ she would rather be having.”