by Kiki Leach
Sheila slowly dropped back in her chair and gulped while looking up into her former friend’s destructive brown eyes. She could say so much without speaking which always seemed to scare Sheila a lot more than when Vanessa actually told her with words just how much she hated her.
“Why are you here?”
“Like I said at the door, I need to talk to you.”
“Like you said,” she repeated, squinting. She considered her body language and could see Sheila wiping her hands against her lap, which meant that her palms were sweating and she was scared as hell to say whatever it was that she felt needed to be said. Vanessa’s eyes shot up to her face and she noticed her jaw twitch. Leaning forward, she moved her face directly in front of Sheila’s and breathed out. “What exactly does that mean?”
Sheila’s eyes shifted around the room and she gulped. “It means that I need to talk to you--”
“About, what?!” When she didn’t receive an immediate answer, Vanessa rested a hand on her hip and shoved her face even closer. “About. What?”
Sheila frowned and shook her head, anxious that she would let more slip out of her mouth than initially intended. “I – I shouldn’t have come,” she said, her voice cracking. “It’s late and you’ve got work soon, right? This was a terrible night to show my face here, I shouldn’t have come.”
“It’s always a terrible night to show your face around here, but it never seems to stop you from doing it.”
“And that’s my cue to leave.”
She stood up to gather her things, but Vanessa shoved a hand into her shoulder and forced her back down in the chair. Sheila almost tipped back, but caught onto the edge of the table before she could split the back of her head open against the wall.
Her eyes enlarged and her bottom lip dropped. “Vanessa!” She straightened herself and readjusted her now wrinkled sweater. “What the hell was that?!”
“Me not allowing you to leave,” she replied.
“You just said you wanted me gone!”
“Don’t scream at me in my own house, and no I didn’t. You said it was a terrible night for you to show your face here, and I agreed. But you came here for a reason tonight, one that you’re certain will no doubt piss me off--”
“All the more reason for this news to wait.”
“Do you see my house? Do you see what the hell happened here tonight? Do you really think you can just come over here at almost two in the morning and waste my time with nonsense then skedaddle the hell out of here willy-nilly without telling me the truth of why you really showed up? I don’t think so. You are going to tell me what the hell you came over here for, and you’re going to tell me about it now. And after what I’ve been through tonight, trust and believe me when I tell you that I won’t have a single problem dragging it out of you by any means necessary, and I do mean that with complete sincerity. So Start. Talking.”
Sheila breathed in deep and swallowed hard. Vanessa crossed her arms over her chest, leaned on one foot and tilted her head. She was becoming more annoyed and fed up with Sheila’s lack of communication.
As Sheila prepared to drop the bomb about her time spent with Adrian, she looked across the room to focus on anything but Vanessa’s face and noticed something nestled in piles of glass against the base of the wall beneath the sink.
She peered and ducked her head. “What is that?”
Vanessa followed the direct line of her eyes but remained puzzled. “What is what?”
“That?” She slid out of the chair and paced to the other side of the kitchen, bending down and gently blowing away pieces of the glass from a large, black rectangular object. After realizing it was a wallet and recognizing the embroidered letters “NAT” on the leather covering, she held it up and waved it at Vanessa while simultaneously flashing her diamond engagement ring. “Was Nathan over here tonight?”
Vanessa, noticing the bling from the diamond as it sparkled in the light and realizing what Sheila was attempting to do in waving it in her face, stood back and smirked. “He was here, and now he’s not.”
“He must have been in a hurry to leave his money behind like this. And in a pile of glass.” Sheila dodged her eyes left to right and smacked wallet against the palm of her hand a few times. “Was he involved in what happened here tonight?”
Vanessa shifted her eyes upward and refused to answer.
“Okay,” Sheila said. “Where is he now?”
Vanessa made a face and took a step closer. “Not here.”
Sheila dropped her head and swiped the wallet back and forth between her hands. Her chest swelled and her stomach filled with knots. Wherever he was, she didn’t have a good feeling about it.
“When did he get back to the city, V?”
“He said a few hours before he dropped by, which was around eleven. By your reaction, I’m assuming that he didn’t even call to let you know that he was somewhere within the vicinity of Manhattan--”
“No.” She lifted her head and smiled, then tossed the wallet behind her on the counter and draped her hands on either side of herself. She cleared her throat. “Did he say where he had been?”
“He wasn’t with Adrian, that’s all I know and cared about. Anything else, you’ll have to ask him for yourself.”
She nodded and sucked in air. “Why was Nathan here” – she pointed to the floor – “V?”
“Why are you here, Sheila?”
A long thread of silence engulfed the room.
Sheila wrapped her arms around herself and wiggled her foot. “I’m going to need a little more of your cheap wine for that.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Bitch.”
Sheila hobbled around her and grabbed the bottle, pouring enough in her glass for a single swallow. She gulped it back, then poured herself another and sat back down in the chair. Vanessa sat down as well and stared, waiting for her to speak.
“I don’t have all night for this conversation,” she said.
“Okay.” Sheila drank back more wine and exhaled. She sat up in her chair and rested her hands on the table. “I don’t exactly know where to start.”
“How about at the beginning like every other shitty story you’ve ever told me before.”
Sheila sneered and refocused her eyes down on the table. “This might surprise you but coming back to town hasn’t been much of a picnic for me, just as much as it hasn’t been for you. To be honest, it doesn’t help that Nathan and I haven’t been in a very good place emotionally and were barely hanging onto just a fragment of this relationship long before we even left California.”
“Could’ve fooled me with that one.”
“V,” she scolded.
Vanessa raised her hands and sat back. “Sorry. You were saying?”
Sheila tucked her hand beneath her chin and continued to reflect. “I never wanted to move back here. I never wanted to take up residency again after what happened because I knew all of the problems that would come along with it. I just wanted you and me to make our peace and move on, but he insisted that we stay for good again, and I knew why. But I wanted him and I was determined to make this work and so I did what he asked of me and agreed to stay with the unspoken promise of a wedding. That altar was supposed to be the light at the end of our dark tunnel. But I’ve realized after tonight that it’s not enough for me to hang onto anymore and it was never enough for him to stick around for. No matter what I have tried to do, no matter how hard I have tried to make it work and make us seem like this great and happy couple that can’t wait to spend the rest of our lives together, I feel like such a fraud underneath it all.
“Everything between us,” Sheila continued, “is completely off and I know that most of it has to do with his feelings for you. But it also has to do with the fact that I don’t think he’s actually ready to get married. And not just to me, but to anyone. I don’t know if he’ll ever be. And deep down someplace inside of me, I knew it the minute he dropped down to one knee and proposed to me after we visited my grandparents
back in Athens. But I was so resolved with him being mine, officially. Mostly because I didn’t want there to be another chance for you.” She crinkled her brows and wiped a few fallen tears from the tip of her nose. “I knew when I first saw you two together again that he wanted you back and that you felt the same way. And I knew that if I gave you both a chance, it would happen.”
The words hit Vanessa like a ton of bricks. Suddenly, she found herself traveling back to a place in her mind that she never wanted to revisit again: the night of the reunion, with Nathan coming to see her at the office and the sex that almost took place on her desk.
He had caught her in a moment of anger and vulnerability, taking full advantage the very second her legs fell open in front of him. But there was no denying that she was just as into what was happening between them as he was. They drank in every bit of each other until the rush of feelings culminating and colliding with every kiss, touch and caress made them heady and drunk with the passion that had spilled over from child into adulthood.
Sheila’s unexpected phone call managed to stop things cold, but Vanessa started to wonder, what if she had never called? Would things be much different than they are now, between all of them? She hoped like hell that they wouldn’t be because after tonight, she was more positive than ever that there wasn’t a single part of her that would ever want Nathan like that again, and she was content with that.
“I didn’t want to believe that the bad things would progress into something worse,” said Sheila. She leaned back in her chair and pressed her fingers hard against her mouth. “I didn’t want to believe that all the hard work I had put into making this relationship legitimate in the eyes of the law would mean nothing. For so long, I had groomed myself into becoming Mrs. Nathaniel Taylor and after he told me that he was willing to move up the date, I was so sure that it would finally happen. Even if he wasn’t ready for it, I didn’t care because I thought that I was ready enough for the both of us. But something changed in him, almost the very next day, and it wasn’t cold feet. He still made the promise for us to get married, but he wasn’t as anxious about it anymore.
“It was as if after sleeping on it, he realized that the decision we were making was final and that I wasn’t going to accept him changing his mind on me again, ready or not. And then he went to see you at your office to talk about me writing for the magazine.” She laughed to herself and bobbed her head while reaching for her glass. “He was so hateful to me on the phone right after that…. I knew that seeing you could make him crazy, Vanessa, but it wasn’t until then that I realized just how much and why.” She drank back the rest of her wine and sat the glass down in front of the bottle. “I’ve never had a man love me like that before.”
“I don’t think what Nathan has for me is love anymore, Sheila,” Vanessa replied in a sincere tone. “I think it’s some sort of unhealthy obsession due to his severe attachment to what we had in the past. And I think he feels that way because it was the only time in his life when nothing else mattered. We had no real responsibilities, no outside commitments, just us. He doesn’t remember the hell he put me through by being a dick to me for one reason or another -- which in truth, hasn’t changed all that much – because he doesn’t want to, just like I didn’t.
“And as it stands today,” she continued, “I don’t think that he can deal with the fact that what I wanted from him back then and when he first came back to the city isn’t what I want from him or for myself anymore. His ego won’t let him believe it.” She sighed. “Being with someone like Mo is such a different and beautiful experience. The first time we were together, I thought my entire body was going to explode from how good he made it feel.
“I’ve had sex -- good sex, bad sex and even some unspeakable that I’ve forced my brain not to remember all that well. But sex with him… making love to him was the first time I felt like a man actually worshipped every part of my body and enjoyed doing it because he knew it’s what I needed and wanted, and it’s what he wanted too. His love for me is like living in the Promised Land and overindulging on milk and honey without the fear of ever gaining too much weight. Even with the bumps chartering every path along the way, it’s still worth it to experience.” She smiled and reached for her glass. “In comparison, Nathan is equivalent to being trapped within the snare of the devil.” She gulped back her wine. “You were right to be worried about us in the beginning, but…”
Sheila’s eyes darkened, the skin around them crinkled as she stared into Vanessa’s face.
“…as time went on,” said Vanessa, “there wasn’t any need to worry about us anymore, at least not from my end.”
She bent down on the table and dropped her chin. “Did something happen with you two?” she asked.
Vanessa raised her head and stared directly into her eyes. It wasn’t until that very second that she realized she might have said just a little too much. For once, she had been like Sheila and let her mouth run before her mind had time to catch up and stop it.
She could see both the fury and worry growing in Sheila’s expression as she waited for an answer, and as much fun as it might have been to throw the happenings of that night in her face a few months ago, this was the last conversation in the world she wanted to be having right now.
She slid back up in her chair, then thought about it for a few seconds and sank back down. “The night of the reunion, Nathan came to see me at my office. We talked for a little bit, and then he--”
“Nathan was with you? Was he in the office with you when I called?” she asked, her voice rattling after every forced word.
Vanessa nodded. “Yes, but nothing really happened--”
“It could’ve,” she shot back. “If I hadn’t have called, a whole lot could’ve happened in that time, V. A hell of a whole lot.”
“Yeah, sure, it’s all possible but none of it happened, so it no longer matters.”
“The hell it doesn’t, Vanessa!” She shot up from the chair like a rocket, her chest rising to meet the tip of her chin as the chair fell back against the wall and left a small dent in the paint.
“You’re gonna pay to have that shit fixed--”
“Shut up!” yelled Sheila, wildly waving her hands around either side of her face before slamming them down to the table.
Vanessa turned her eyes up to her, opening them so wide they nearly bugged out of her head. “Bitch, what?” It took every ounce of strength she had to keep from balling a fist and slugging her directly in the face.
“I said shut up, V.”
“I heard what you said,” she replied in a stern tone. “Which had nothing to do with my question.” She stood to match her face to face, and stared. “Who the hell do you think you are talking to me like that inside of my own damn house?”
Sheila exhaled and took a step back. She knew she had crossed a line, but hearing about Nathan and Vanessa in a compromising position was just more fuel added to her already blazing fire. “I just,” she started before stopping to clear her throat. “I just wanted you to hear what I have to say--”
“I can hear you just fine without you talking to me like you’ve lost your gotdamn mind. Try that shit with me again and see if you won’t find your ass in that glass over there too, huh? Or out in the street beneath a pile of traffic with ya teeth knocked in the back of ya throat.” She fell back down in her chair and wrapped her hands around the wine bottle. More and more, she was contemplating smashing it up the left side of Sheila’s head.
“Vanessa,” she stated in a low voice. “You have given me nothing but grief since I’ve been back, all because of what I did with Nathan in high school. To hear you just casually tell me that you almost fucked him in your office…” She shook her head. “You act like I’m just supposed to be okay with that!”
Vanessa slid the bottle across the table and carelessly opened her hands while leaning back in the chair. “What the hell choice do you have here, Sheila? You knew that the man screwed around. It’s not like it was some big secret
when you’re the one who turned him onto the art of doing it so ‘successfully’ in the first damn place. Did you really think your pussy was just that damn good that he wasn’t going to stray the moment you gave him that supposed chance?”
“No!” she hollered out. “Because if you couldn’t keep him in check, then no pussy was good enough to keep him around. I just thought that at least you knew better after all the anger and hatred you threw at me.”
“What I did with Nathan in that office is nothing compared to what you did with him in that shower and all the months leading up to it, so don’t get it twisted.”
“There’s nothing to twist about this, V, because a sin is a sin all the same.” Sheila fixed her chair beneath the table and sat back down. “One is no bigger than the other.”
“It is if the act of that sin causes the lives of everyone else around you to flip inside out and become a spectacle to the public. I didn’t actually go through with having sex with him that night and had the good sense to stop before someone actually got hurt in any capacity. I knew better, okay? I knew better. But my heart had yet to sync up with my mind at that point. I still wanted him. I wanted him like crazy, but you know what? The part that wanted him so badly died the moment I realized that no amount of love from me was going to fix just how broken he really is. I’m not some kind of healer. I can’t help him. I didn’t have the black magic for it then, and I sure as hell don’t have it now.”
Sheila outstretched her arm and wrapped her fingers around her glass. She looked at Vanessa from the corner of her eye and wrinkled her nose. “I saw you walking out of the hotel after we had brunch the day after the reunion. Are you saying that nothing happened then either?”
Vanessa cringed, remembering yet another incident with Nathan that she would’ve been more than glad to completely erase not only from her mind, but her history as well.
She leaned her head left to right and stared down at the table. “We kissed, which is as far as we went in both situations.”
“So much for being done with it, Vanessa.”