Live & Learn ~ A Miss Independent Novel

by Kiki Leach

  She made a face, agreeing. “I’m trying to stop that too.”

  “How’s it going for you so far?”

  “You know the saying, old habits die hard and all that.”

  “Not without a bullet they don’t.” He stood up straight and drank the remainder of the cognac before placing the glass down in his sink. His shoulders sank and he looked straight ahead at the cabinets. “I could tell you where I heard it from – about you and Maurice, but I don’t want to break confidentiality with the person who said it.”

  “Well, whoever it was sure as hell wasn’t being confidential with my information so why bother being confidential with theirs?”

  “She told me that I--”

  “She?” Vanessa rolled her eyes to the corner and closed them. She shook her head and grabbed her purse. “The only woman in my life that I know who can’t keep a muthafuckin’ thing like this to herself is Sheila. That bitch.” She headed for the door, but Adrian raced around and stopped her.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where are you going?”

  “To stick a FOOT up inside her ass and wiggle it around for a little bit to teach her something about herself. She had no business telling you anything!” She stopped to think and raised her hand to his face. He looked fearful, as if she were about to strike him dead. “As a matter of fact, why the hell would she tell you anything in the first damn place? How does she even know you well enough or at ALL, to spill that kind of information?”

  He began to stutter. “I--”

  “She kept asking me about you at brunch one day, but I didn’t think anything of it aside from her just being nosey as hell like she always is. Little did I know that she’s been in contact with you for God only knows how long and is informing you of personal information about me – that’s rich. How far back does this relationship go?”

  “There is no relationship.”

  “There may as well be if you two are practically passing notes to each other in class regarding my relationship. Did you tell her about us?” she asked. He didn’t say a word aloud, but his face read ‘guilt’. She grit her teeth and breathed out. “Why?”

  “Because she asked.”

  She flinched. “OH! So because she just asks you a question about us, you’re willing to tell her everything like some gossiping teenage girl?! That’s not a good enough answer for me.”

  “It’s all I’ve got.”

  “You don’t tell things like that to people who don’t matter to you. You just don’t.”

  “I barely know this woman.”

  “Then what the hell was she doing here in the first damn place?”

  “She wanted to talk about us.”

  “She must have been desperate as hell to talk to you if she was willing to leave her Manhattan bubble and come all the way out to Queens. And there is no US.”

  “She thinks there is. Or that there might have been prior to learning about you and Maurice being together. She told me about it a few days ago--”

  “A few days ago? Okay, so you don’t have a relationship, but you’re still keeping in contact with her? Sure.”

  “I didn’t initiate this, V,” he complained. “I never even knew this woman aside from anything you ever told me about her, or what I read in the paper after hearing about your brawl at the reunion. She called me up one night almost drunk out of her mind, but managed to tell me who she was before she started slurring. I called her back the next day and--”

  “Why? If you heard her name, why the hell didn’t you hang up and erase the message when you realized that the same Sheila calling you was the one who screwed me over?!”

  “Because I was interested in what she had to say. It sounds crazy but she had an idea to keep you away from Nathan for the time being and thought I might have been the only one to do it, as a distraction. I went along with it, because, well... I wanted to do the same.”

  She dropped her head back and chuckled in a dark manner as she focused her eyes on the ceiling. She thought if she looked at him for much longer, she’d want to attack him in the face. “I should’ve known that it would begin and end with him when it came to her, but you?” Vanessa crossed the room. “She managed to lure you into this by doing what, exactly? Promising that you could have me again?” She shook her head. “She knew about us when she talked to me at that table during brunch. She was hoping like hell that I would say something to confirm it, but she already knew and that’s why she came here. Do you know if she’s told anybody else or who told her? I know that she sure as hell didn’t figure it out on her own.”

  “I don’t have any idea where she learned it and as far as I know, she’s kept it all to herself.”

  “Yeah, so far.”

  “V…” He stepped up and placed his fingers across his lips, a bit perplexed. “I have to ask why it would matter if it got out now. After all this time has passed, who gives a damn anymore?”

  She spun around, widening her arms as shock crossed her face. “Are you joking?” She straightened herself and pulled back. “Do you know that your best friend Harold is now working for us at the magazine?” Adrian lifted his brows in surprise. “Yeah. He apparently got fired from the NYDN a few days ago because he learned about us from you. His boss found out, he wouldn’t spill, and so he fired him. Next thing I know, the man apparently goes crawling to my mother, begging for a job with one hand while holding a blackmail sticker in the other and slapping it across her forehead. If this gets out, it’ll just add to the public list of shameful things I’ve done over the years – like I need any more of THAT shit, and make all what she did to help me out for naught. She knows about us thanks to your ‘friend’, but is trying like hell to keep it from leaking out any more than what it already has. The last thing she or anyone else in this city needs to read about is my sexual escapades with my college professor and how he bent me over a desk once.”

  He raised his hand, waving his index and middle fingers. “Twice, V.”

  “Oh, you are disgusting.”

  “It was twice--”

  “I don’t care if it was three times and trapezes were involved,” she hollered. “It’s not something that needs to be brought up ever again! I was at a different place in my life then – I was angry, I was hurt, and I was desperate to be loved and touched by anyone. All you ever had to do was tell me that I was pretty and I was all over you like heat on a snake. But I’m not there anymore and I don’t want to keep reliving it just ‘cause you’re back. How long do you plan on staying here, anyway?”

  He raised and lowered his shoulders. “Don’t know. I’ve never put a stamp on it. Are you afraid that if I stay, this” – he pointed between them – “might happen again?”

  “I’m not afraid of anything when it comes to you.”

  “You’re afraid of the good times that we had, Vanessa. That’s clear.”

  “Yeah, sure, how few and far between they were.”

  “You’re blocking out the good in favor of the bad. And it wasn’t just about the sex, it was about the intellect shared between us. That was one thing you always said you appreciated about me.”

  “Maybe I was wrong, because you’re acting pretty much like a dumbass right now and have since I first walked through the damn door.”

  “Come on, V.” He wandered over like a dog in heat and made his way into her personal space. She backed up to give herself some breathing room. “You remember more times in my office. You remember being at my apartment – not in Queens, and reading my books and essays and thesis papers and being fascinated by the words I used in each one. That was the initial connection, but we both knew that there was always something more between us from the first moment you walked into my classroom, wearing those leather thigh high boots, that short skirt and white tank top with a kitten on the front.”

  She looked away, remembering. “I practically purred in that thing,” she mumbled. “But it was the worst year of my life, fashion sense wise.”

  “That outfit is what got me to notic
e you in the first place.”

  “That outfit is why I wore it.” She avoided looking into his eyes as he smiled at her. “I knew about you before that day and picked out everything down to my nail polish because it got me noticed in the past and I wanted to you see me first, and remember that I was there.”

  “I remembered, and never forgot.” He looked over her head and allowed his eyes to travel back down to her face. “My God, you are still so beautiful to look at. It was hard to tell with all of those pictures in the papers of your face being covered by your hair or Sheila’s hand.” She ran her tongue across her teeth and turned away to keep from slapping him. “Do you remember that winter when classes were cancelled for two days? You came to my place in the middle of a snow storm – took a cab all the way from the Upper West Side, never telling a soul. We stayed in bed reading to each other all day, then made love all night until the sun rose the next day to melt that snow away. You said that it was the heat and I said that it was us.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked down to the floor. The memories of them together were beginning to swallow her whole. “Your mother called hysterical, wondering where you were when she couldn’t get you at home.” He laughed. “You remember what this was like, right?”

  She slowly moved her head up and down. “You were the first man after Nathan that I was able to make somewhat of a genuine connection with – at least that’s how I saw it from my perspective. And you were probably some of the best sex I had ever had, which was why no snow storm was going to stop me from getting what I wanted and felt I needed during that time in my life. I was so angry at the entire world to the point that I could barely see straight. I thought that you could change all of that – make me see that there was so much more out there for me than whatever it was that Nathan had to offer. And for a certain amount of time, you did. But like everything else with us, it didn’t last.”

  “You wish we could go back?” He moved even closer to her and she cautiously raised her hand to him, sliding her fingers down the front of his shirt, entangling them around the buttons and stopping right at the zipper of his pants. “Because I wish for that every day.” He grinned roguishly, hoping she would stick her hand inside as she knew that was something which always excited him.

  “Three months of us seemed like forever back then.” She looked down between them. “I remember this and what it did to me. How it used to make me feel…”

  “Feel good, right?” He leaned in, attempting a kiss, but she jerked way, though managed to keep her hand directly at his pants.

  “It made me feel a lot of things, good sometimes being one of them, but not always. Because as much as you managed to show me that there was more to life than Nathan, you also showed me that there wasn’t. I seem to remember how you made me hurt, not by having sex with my best friend, but with the things you said, like calling me a ‘complete fool’ when I didn’t agree with your ‘philosophy’ on stupid shit like the weather. I also distinctly remember that instead of asking me how I felt about you leaving the city, you just thought it was best to slip a fucking letter inside my mailbox, because I obviously didn’t net enough respect from you to earn a face to face conversation about it. For so long, I thought that was all I deserved, to the point that I started to believe that you were possibly the best thing I was ever going to get. And my God, did that make me depressed as hell. Just thinking about those things again makes me…” She crawled her fingers around the outside of his crotch and clamped down hard on his dick, forcing him to yelp as he bent forward in pain.

  “Vanessa.” His voice was strained.

  “It wasn’t until I finally woke up and realized that what I wanted and needed and more than anything else, deserved, had been in front of me since day one. I was just too damn scared to see it so clearly and wasted five years of my life chasing after things I didn’t need because I already had them. Mentally and physically, Maurice is MUCH better than you in so many ways that I could have a list longer than those kids who still write to Santa Claus every year. And his dick?” She held him tighter and he flinched. “His dick does things to me that you could not even imagine, and that’s with his clothes on. I think I could lick that thing the way a lollipop should be licked for the rest of my life, and happily ride it off into the sunset once I was finished.” She released him from her grip and backed away. He placed his hand between his legs and felt like falling over from the pain, but tried keeping his cool as much as he could. “I could continue going about those three months I wasted my time with you, but sadly, I didn’t come over here to reminisce about them. I came here to ask a question and to tell you that I’m in a relationship now, a real one, where we talk and sometimes disagree but come together again--”

  “We used to have that too.” He remained hunched over. “And I never called you a fool. You might not want to remember it like I do because it keeps you from admitting that it was all real.” He went over to his freezer for a bag of peas and placed them on top of his crotch. He rested his hand on the counter and bent over a little, hoping to soon be relieved of the constant throbbing.

  “I remember everything and yes it was all real. At least before you decided to leave. The thing about it, Adrian, is that I never blamed you for feeling the need to go and save lives in another country. Hell, I thought it was probably one of the most admirable things you could’ve ever done – spread the genius around, use it for a good cause and all of that. What I blamed you for was not telling me first. I blamed you for not making me a priority in your life like you always claimed you would. I blamed you for making me believe in some fantasy that ultimately meant nothing in the end, and was apparently all inside my head. You made me feel like despite the intellect and what we supposedly shared, all that ever really mattered to you in our ‘relationship’ was how good I fucked you, and how often. You were practically obsessed with how adventurous and how willing I was to try new things, like being tied up with--”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It doesn’t matter, that’s how I felt. I trusted you, and that was a big damn deal for me after what Nathan did. Between him and my absentee father, my faith in men was as low as anything could possibly get back then, but you made me believe in something different – you forced it upon me. And when I finally chose to let go of my fears and give in, you shattered it completely without so much as a ‘thank you, Vanessa, for keeping me warm at night’.”

  He became flustered, his tanned skin turning a bright red color. “V, I didn’t--”

  “Don’t, alright? Because despite the way I’m saying all of this, I’m actually fine now. It took some time, a lot of therapy and a lot of ruined sand bags at the Equinox Gym, which I think I’m still paying for. But in seeing you again, there were just a few things that I needed to get off my chest, and that is probably the only positive thing I can manage to muster up in knowing that you’re back. And now that it’s all out there, I don’t ever want you to contact me again. Don’t contact any of my friends, hell, don’t contact any of my enemies. The latter of which will be getting an earful from me soon enough as well.”

  “V--”

  “Goodbye and good riddance.”

  After slamming the door behind her, Adrian went searching for his phone to dial Sheila and became frustrated when it went to voicemail. After the third or fourth time of dialing and receiving no response, he finally left a message, demanding that she call him back before the night was over. He pulled back to stare at the face of his phone, then forcefully tossed it across the room, onto the couch where it landed before bouncing to the floor. He grabbed his head, discouraged at everything that had happened since he was summoned out of the darkness. He was so damn angry at himself for getting his hopes up in believing that Vanessa still wanted him after all of this time. Despite her current relationship with Maurice, he knew there wasn’t a chance that she could forget all the good shared between them before the bad became worse and he finally left town.

  The other side of him wanted to t
hrottle Sheila – or at least pay someone to do it for him – for allowing the idea to even flourish in his mind. He ran with it and it blew up in his face in a way that he could never imagine it would. Now she was with Maurice and seemingly happy. He should’ve stayed away from it all. None of this should have mattered to him anymore. But he couldn’t help himself. He was brought back into the fold now, and there was no way in hell he was going to back out as quietly as he had before.

  Part Eleven

  Sheila was the first to arrive at the bar. She stood outside the doors trying to listen to her messages and paused when the first voice that she heard was Vanessa’s, asking about Nikki. She thought to call her back and tell her what she had seen at the spa earlier that day, but decided to wait for later when she saw Melanie finally rolling up to the curb in her tricked out black Continental. As soon as the car stopped, the driver hopped out and went to the other side, opening her door and offering his hand to help her out. She was wearing a dress so short, it looked more appropriate for someone at least half her age, and was covered in silver and gold glitter. Between that and the black open toed heels with lacey strings that crisscrossed up to her very toned and tanned thighs, Sheila thought she looked like a giant Christmas ornament, better placed on top of the tree. But she didn’t say anything, fearing that if she did, she would lose the only potential friend she had gained since returning to the city.

  “Thank you, Rafael,” she told her driver as she tossed her newly highlighted blond locks over her shoulder. She reached into her Chanel bag and handed him a twenty; he thanked her and got back inside the car, vowing to wait for her to return. When she spotted Sheila, she trotted over and reached out to kiss her on either side of the cheek. “You look great!”

  “Thanks! It’s vintage but I’ve never gotten to wear it. I thought tonight would be the best time. You wanna head inside?” Melanie looked down at herself, wondering why Sheila hadn’t complimented her attire as well. Then she eyed the line of people waiting behind a giant red rope leading up to the doors. Sheila caught her gaze and snickered. “Don’t worry about them. They’ll get in when the place thins out.”