Miss Independent, Volumes 1 - 4

by Kiki Leach

  “I have been asking myself that very same question,” she said, her lip quivering as she tried her damnedest not to shed a single tear in front of him, “since the exact second that we met. And I still don’t know. What more is that I’m starting to believe that none of it was ever worth it.”

  Oscar didn’t want to admit that he was beginning to wonder, and fear the same.

  “What the hell is going on here?” a deep, guttural voice suddenly boomed from behind Nikki.

  Oscar lifted his eyes first. Nikki turned to the side, instantly recognizing the voice of the man who spoke.

  William stood just a few feet away with his daughter at his side. She was eating from a bag of candy as he stood glaring at the two of them, unsure of who to be angrier with or suspicious of more, until he turned his attention directly down to Oscar’s hand, which still seemed to have a tight as hell grip around Nikki’s arm.

  His feet shuffled across the concrete and as he moved closer, Oscar released Nikki’s arm and stepped back.

  After adjusting her blouse and running her hand across her face a few times to relieve it of the flushed expression she felt rising in her cheeks, Nikki spun around quick and smiled at William and Corrinne.

  “Hey, you guys,” she said.

  Corrinne sucked down on her candy and rolled her eyes at Nikki before muttering a quick ‘Hi’, but the young girl was the least of her concern.

  Timidly, she walked up to William and placed a loving hand on his shoulder. She could feel the heat rising from his skin as his anger grew second by second the longer Oscar stood across from him, guarded and unmoving.

  Gently shoving Nikki back and leaning down into Corrinne’s ear, William gave her the keys to the house and asked her to go inside and wait while the adults had a discussion he didn’t believe she needed to have any part of. She snatched his keys as fast as she could and dodged around Oscar to run up the stairs.

  William kept an eye on that door until it closed, then gradually moved around Nikki, who tried holding him back by wrapping her fingers around the edge of his shirt, and headed straight for Oscar. He looked him up and down a few good times and then smiled, though genuine isn’t exactly what Oscar would have described the very second he saw it.

  “Are you lost?” he asked. William waited a few seconds for Oscar to answer. When he didn’t, William bent over to his side and leaned his head, then quickly stood returned his body to normal. “I asked you a question.”

  “I’m not lost,” Oscar finally replied, glancing over at Nikki. William noticed, but refused to acknowledge it. “I just needed to talk to Nikki about something regarding The Bean, that’s all.”

  “Now see.” He dropped his hands in his pockets and laughed. “I don’t exactly buy that. Because she doesn’t work for you anymore.”

  “She’s still on the payroll--”

  “It won’t last,” William replied, purposely cutting him off. “Not with her being such a hot commodity now. So maybe you should look into hiring other people to work for you instead of one at a time. Or maybe that’s something you and your wife can decide together for your business. Because you’re still married right?”

  “In name,” said Oscar. He glanced back at Nikki again, hoping for a reaction to his words. “For now.”

  “Well for now you should probably go and see about her, right? And your kids. Two, right?” he asked. Oscar slowly nodded his head. “And when you’re on the way there, I want you to think real hard about showing up here again and then realize that if you do, I may not be as pleasant next time.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “I don’t…” William opened his hands and laughed. “I don’t threaten people, Oscar. I’m not a thug in a business suit. I can be if the time ever calls for it, but it’s not generally who I am. I just want to let you know that I don’t appreciate you coming to my house unannounced. It’s like the few times you’ve called here in the past. I’m just not feeling it as being appropriate. So why don’t you just do us both a favor and keep yourself away from here. Alright?”

  Oscar peeked over William’s shoulder to glance back at Nikki one last time. It was as if he was asking her with his eyes if that was what she wanted to. He couldn’t get a definitive answer.

  By now, William had had enough of the both of them.

  He waved his hand to capture Oscar’s attention and took another step closer. “Don’t look at her again, alright? I’m certain you got enough of that before I showed up. So just turn around and walk away.”

  They stood staring at one another for a few minutes like two cowboys ready for battle just outside the Ok Corral. Oscar broke away first, never looking at Nikki again as he turned on his heel and paced down the sidewalk.

  William followed for a few steps to make sure he had no intention of turning around, then turned to Nikki as she tried easing toward the steps.

  “What the hell was he doing here?” he asked.

  She raised her hand, then dropped it down to the railing. “Like he said, he came to ask me about work.”

  “You don’t work for him anymore,” he said. “When the hell is this shit going to stop?”

  As he whizzed past her and into the house to join his daughter, Nikki remained on the stoop, leaning over the railing and watching Oscar as he continued to move further and further down the street. Never once did he look back at her; even as she willed him to, he never budged.

  “When is it going to stop?” she asked herself. “His guess is as good as mine.”

  As soon as he was gone from sight, she turned to the door and prepared herself for whatever the hell William was sure to throw at her the moment she was inside.

  Part Twenty-Four

  “It must be your lucky day,” Officer Joe bellowed to Nathan as he reentered the room, jingling his keys with one hand while keeping a grip on that club with the other.

  Nathan stood by the window wiping the dried blood from beneath his nose and around his mouth and coughed. "And why the hell is that?"

  "Two people aching to see you in less than twenty-four hours and both paying good money to make it happen. That being said, the visitors who come after five are always more charming than those who show up before 10am."

  Nathan made a face, confused as to what the hell was even being said, and glanced over his shoulder. "What?"

  "What I'm saying is that you've got another visitor, kid," said Officer Joe. "And this is one I think you might actually want to see."

  Nathan turned as soon as Officer Joe stepped aside and allowed Vanessa to ease into the room in front of him.

  After getting a good look at Nathan, as much as she could see beneath the dim lighting, and realizing he was alert enough to talk and move, Vanessa give the officer a quick nod, indicating that she wished for them to be left alone. He eyed Nathan one last time before backing out of the room and closing the door.

  With her hands draping either side of her waist, Vanessa looked around the dingy grey room and coughed a few times as dust from the ceiling floated down in front of her face. “So this is where they keep you,” she said, her eyes roaming from one side of the cell to the other.

  Nathan’s eyes followed hers, but he had yet to take a single step forward. He wanted her to see his face, to see the amount of damage Maurice had caused earlier during his own 'visit'. At the same time, he wondered what the hell good it would do in letting her know. It wasn't as if she was going to do much about it. Hell, had she been there to see the whole thing, Nathan was convinced she would've cheered Maurice on -- which is what she was probably doing internally last night right before calling the cops -- and maybe even encouraged him to do a little further.

  He sighed heavily and wiped his face again, and spit on the floor as more dried blood from his nose started draining down the back of his throat.

  “It's like being an animal inside a cage," he told her. "I’m guessing from the wide eyes and the fact that you are so determined not to touch a damn thing inside of here that the ju
venile hall you were sent to back then looked nothing like this?”

  “That place was a five-star luxury hotel compared to this shit hole. On par with the Waldorf. Not to mention, we weren’t stuck in rooms by ourselves and locked in cages like walking infections or open wounds, which seemed to work out better for some than others. But I guess this is why you didn’t know Mo had already gotten out this morning.”

  Nathan thought about responding to that, but couldn’t bring himself to say something that wouldn’t piss her the hell off, and more than likely send her walking right out of that building with his wallet still somewhere deep inside one of those pockets. His eyes were like laser beams as he visually searched her pants and tried picking out where it sat.

  Vanessa didn't seem to notice his roaming eyes and moved closer to the cage. She rested her hands between the bars and kicked one leg behind her while using the other to balance forward.

  “I know that despite you wanting me down here to help and get you out, that you’re probably pissed at me just like he was. Even though neither one of you really have a right to be mad at me for any reason considering I’m the one who had shit to clean up as a result of your ongoing stupidity.”

  “Yeah." He gulped and looked to the floor. "I'm sorry for all of that shit, V. He pissed me the fuck off, but I didn't mean to fuck up your house as a result of that. And I’m willing to pay for my half of the damage."

  “Oh, I already know that. The few hundreds I found in your wallet that won’t be used for your bail are going to get me a new chair, a coatrack and maybe even a new couch for my office, just because I muthafuckin' can.”

  He scrunched his brows and took a few steps forward, standing directly beneath the only light in the cell.

  When Vanessa got a better look at his face, she gasped, horrified, and covered a hand over her mouth.

  A large bruise covered nearly the entire right half of his face, his nose was even more swollen than it was the night before and the left side of his mouth looked to have a variation of cuts and bruises.

  “What the fuck happened to your face?” she asked.

  “You were there last night, V. You saw what happened. It’s not as if Maurice’s looks any better.”

  “I’m not saying that it does. I just don’t remember your face looking like that last night. I mean it was bad, but your eye looks damn near swollen shut now.” She leaned even further into the cell and whispered. “Did something happen to you while you were in here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, who was it? What was it? Is it something I might need to highlight in the magazine?”

  “Nah. This one was all thanks to your boy, again.”

  He turned his head to the side to gather more spit in his mouth to wash away more dried blood.

  Vanessa puckered her brows and watched him spit on the floor. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about Mo, V. He might have been released this morning, but being out of lockup didn’t keep him from coming back to see me.”

  “Why would Mo have come back here to see you – what would’ve been the point?”

  “He had a hell of a lot of them to make, but the main one was telling me to stay away from you once I got out. Guess he wanted to make it damn clear again that you belong to him now.”

  “I don’t belong to anybody,” she said. “I barely even belong to my damn self anymore.”

  He stared at her for a few seconds before nodding. “Right. Well, we came to an understanding about a lot of things, even that. But the one thing I refused to budge on was staying away from you. I’m not doing that, V. If five years and two oceans couldn’t keep me away from you, then he’s damned to think that a jail cell and a few blocks might do the trick.”

  She jerked her entire body away from the cell and started pacing back and forth. Then she laughed to herself and turned her head up to the ceiling. “So he’s the reason why your face now looks like somebody repeatedly bashed it in with a cookie cutter.”

  “Yeah, and I’m the reason he’s no longer pretty,” said Nathan.

  Vanessa laughed even louder. “Oh, he’ll always be pretty, honey. His face could look like mud after it’s been run over a few times back and forth with the wheels of a tractor-trailer – that’s just the way it is.”

  “Is that why you fell for him?”

  “If I had, don’t you think this would’ve happened between us long before now?”

  “Maybe.”

  As they stared at one another, various thoughts of the past, present and even the future running through both of their minds, Vanessa became uncomfortable, much as she had with Sheila the night before, and threw her hand back and forth across her face.

  “You know what, there’s no way in hell I’m discussing anymore of this with you and you are crazy to even think that I would, or should.”

  “V--”

  She raised a hand to stop him. “I just came here to tell you that I’ve left your wallet with the clerk and you’ll be free to leave whenever you choose. Goodbye.” She zoomed straight for the door.

  “Hold up, Vanessa,” he called out. She twisted one hand around the knob and waited, hoping that what he had to say next wouldn’t make her want to go flying right through that cell to get to him herself. “I just want to know a single thing, and that’s it. Just one thing and then you can leave and that’ll be it.”

  She contemplated for a few seconds and then turned back around to look at his face. “What is it?”

  “You still love him after the shit he did in putting you out there like that?”

  She whirled around and leaned her head, puzzled. “Is that a trick question?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s a joke, right? Something meant to make the mood a little bit lighter up in here?”

  “It’s not that either. I’m not trying to be funny with you, Vanessa.”

  “And yet what you’re asking is making me want to start laughing until I can’t stop.” She walked back over to the cell and stood directly in front of him. “Even after I found you fucking my best friend in the shower, I still loved you, Nathan. Was it stupid? Sure. Do I regret it? Oh hell yeah. But what I felt for you was the truth back then -- my truth, anyway. When I look back on it now, I fully admit hand to heart, that it all went on for entirely too damn long. But I couldn’t just turn those feelings off like some light switch inside my house before bedtime. So yeah, I still love Mo in spite of the bullshit move he made in trying to keep you the hell out of my life.”

  “Are you even pissed at him for what he did?”

  “Of course I’m pissed, dummy. Like he told you last night, it’s the reason we’re not together.”

  “But it won’t stay that way for long," said Nathan. "Not with the way I saw you two almost going at it again, I know that it won’t. Shit, V, you knew I was there and still almost fucked him out in the open like that.”

  Vanessa slipped her hands inside her pockets and sighed. She lifted her shoulders and turned her head, moving it back and forth and burning holes into the wall across the room with the glare in her eyes. “My judgment gets cloudy at just the thought of him now. He has my heart, Nathan, and my soul all wrapped up in one untidy little bow. He has everything and no matter how angry I get or how pissed he makes me with the stupid things he does and says and will continue to do and say, he always will.”

  “I had your heart once too, V. I had your soul in the palm of my hands back then--”

  “You didn’t have anything, except for the girl that I was. The one who didn’t know any better, who was still trying to distinguish love from lust and couldn’t understand why your love always seemed to hurt so damn much as opposed to making me feel good and happy like it’s supposed to. He’s got the woman that I am now. The one who grew up to properly learn the difference between love and lust and rage and anger and resentment, and deep, deep sensuality, and understands that even if those things are all wrapped up in each other and twisted in ti
ght knots that hurt like hell when wrapped around your throat, they’re not supposed to cause pain to the point of suffocation throughout the entirety of a relationship. I’m okay with having all of that in one man as long as he doesn’t relish in making me miserable for the better part of it.”

  “I never relished in that shit, V.”

  “Oh yeah, you did. I just don’t think you ever opened your eyes wide enough to see it. And by the time you finally did, I was already gone.”

  “I know.” He turned toward the wall and dropped his head back to reflect on the better part of his life, the part with her. “I’m sorry,” he told her.

  She wrapped her hands around the bars and leaned in. “Thank you for that,” she said. “I know you’ve said it before, but that shit was a long time coming. Now having said that, it seems as if that’s all you’ve been doing lately, apologizing to people for having done shit to them that you shouldn’t have in the first place. Maybe it’s time to finally think about the reason behind that so that you can stop having so many damn things to be sorry about. By the way, Sheila knows that you’re here. I don’t know if you’ve tried to get in contact with her, but I talked to her last night and she knows everything that’s happened. Just a heads up, because I’m not sure how she’s going to react to you when you finally see her.”

  He nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Yeah.”

  As she exited the room for good this time, Nathan leaned back on the wall and folded his arms. Reflecting on his thoughts from earlier, he realized that Vanessa was right. He needed to stop being such an asshole, and now that his apology to her seemed to carry some weight, he was more positive than ever that Sheila was going to accept him again without a second thought.

  Part Twenty-Five

  After returning home from a day she would’ve been more than happy to forget, from the beginning with Maurice and Melanie, to the middle with her mother (who, just as she suspected, disapproved of every sketch she created) to end with Nathan in jail, Vanessa searched through the mail and dumped her keys in the bowl near the door. Once she closed and locked it shut, she carelessly tossed her purse in the chair and kicked off her shoes.