by Kiki Leach
“And before that she worked at a clinic, which is where we met when I was shadowing a producer for a documentary film.” Melanie turned to her with a questioning glare. “You don’t still do…” She paused as she couldn’t bring herself to say the word ‘abortion’ and placed a hand on her stomach instead. “At the medical center now, do you?”
“No. Once I got pregnant, I couldn’t bear the thought of performing another one.” Melanie appeared relieved. “By the way, I saw you on the cover of Attitude. From the hair and makeup to the clothes, I have to say, you looked absolutely fantastic.”
“Thanks.”
“Are they planning to feature you on another one anytime soon? I loved reading about how your life with Oscar is now and the way you manage to balance it with running CBS Films in Los Angeles.”
“Right, well…” She bowed her head feeling a little self-conscious. “Oscar is opening up another coffee shop in Manhattan, within the same building as Attitude. And I’m staying in town with the girls until the development is finished, helping out at The Bean.”
“Oh.” She appeared shocked in hearing that, as she always believed Melanie to embody someone who would never stop her own flourishing career to cater to her husband’s; she smiled wide to cover the expression on her face. “Well that is just wonderful, really – spectacular. You’ll be spending more time together raising the kids and being like a family again – in the same household, I mean. I bet that’s been great?”
“It has.” Though in saying the words out loud, Melanie knew she didn’t believe them.
Awkward silence ensued as all three women looked at one another.
“I should probably get back over to my friends, but I still have the same number if you ever want to get together sometime.” Jill placed a hand on Sheila’s shoulder. “It was nice meeting you.” She waved them off and headed to the other side of the bar.
Melanie dropped back down in her chair like a sinking stone and drank the remainder of her martini. “That woman just reminded me of who I used to be before learning about all of this with Nikki and Oscar.”
“Maybe you should try getting to that place again. Starting with eliminating the problem at hand.” She dropped the plastic toothpick in Melanie’s empty glass and smiled. But her eyes had once again darted across the room. When Sheila followed her gaze, she saw Nikki strolling across and taking her seat at the bar beside William; neither ever noticed the two women sitting on the other side. Sheila smirked and reached for her drink. “Speaking of the devil herself. And look at that, bitch is wearing a blue dress to honor the occasion.” She rolled her eyes at the predictability.
Melanie tucked her hair behind her ears and folded her arms on the table. “I’m kind of surprised that those two have been going as strong as they have lately.”
“His dick is probably the same size as his bank account,” Sheila replied. They turned to each other and laughed while clinking shot glasses.
“That was a good one.”
“Thanks.” Then Sheila had an idea. “Hey, you know what would be fun? Buying the happy couple some celebratory drinks for making it this far into their relationship.”
“What’s fun about that?”
“You’ll see.” Sheila ripped into her purse and pulled out a few bills. “Oh, Cherry! Bomb.” She and Melanie cackled as the annoyed woman returned to their table. “We’d like to buy those two people over there” – she tossed her hand toward the bar – “the one wearing the suit and tie, and the other one with that blue dress hiked up, a few drinks. Um, get him something hard--”
“Like his dick at the moment?” Melanie yelled out.
The comment took Sheila by surprise. She reached up and gave Melanie a high-five, then fell back down to her seat and laughed so hard she had to hold her stomach. Cherry tried to ignore their juvenile behavior; she was used to it after people had had too much to drink after a certain time. “Yeah, yeah! Get him something hard like his dick and then get her something--”
Melanie jumped up and pointed. “Slutty!”
“AHHHH! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!” They slapped hands again and continued laughing to the point of tears. “You are on a ROLL! Get this one another Fireball.”
“And get this one another two shots of patron…” She drank back her shot and anxiously eyed her above the rim of the glass. “And a Pequeno Diablo.”
“Oooh, what’s that?” asked Sheila, intrigued.
“It’s a whiskey mix that I think you’ll like. In fact, make that two.”
The waitress obliged and headed off to put in the order. Melanie and Sheila moved their chairs around to the same side of the table and watched with eager anticipation as the drinks were being made. They took guesses on who would look back first and continued giggling and snickering to each other as the drinks were finally handed over to William and Nikki, one by one.
Sheila gently shoved Melanie in the arm and bounced around in her chair like an excited child. “She’s looking – she’s looking – she’s looking!” She laughed aloud, then covered her mouth. “She can’t figure out who it’s from!”
“William’s not too bright either,” said Melanie. “Maybe it really is the dick.”
Sheila snorted.
William and Nikki each leaned into the bartender and as he pointed behind them, a waitress moved to the side of their table, showing Melanie and Sheila holding their shots and cheering to them. “She looks pissed,” Sheila whispered through a giggle.
“Good,” Melanie snapped back. She leaned back and crossed her legs, waiting with baited breath for Nikki’s approach.
Nikki thought of ignoring them, but she was too enraged by the smug look on Sheila’s face to sit still and take what she had been given. She mumbled something to William before getting up with drink in hand and storming over despite his attempts at holding her back.
“What do we say to her when she comes over?”
“I’ll handle her,” said Melanie, gathering her hair in her hands and tossing it back. “You just...” She looked over at her. “Sit there.”
When Nikki finally reached their table, fumes could be seen exploding from her ears. She slammed the glass down in front of them and looked directly at Sheila, trying her best to keep from looking anywhere in Melanie’s direction. “What the hell is this?” she asked.
“I didn’t send that over,” Sheila anxiously replied, pressing her hands against her chest and shaking her head. She feigned being alarmed by Nikki’s anger, but her nemesis saw right through it.
“The bartender pointed back here, you moron.”
“Hey,” Melanie shot back in a sharp tone. “Why don’t you chill out, Nicole, okay? We were just trying to be nice.”
“She wasn’t trying to be nice, she did it to be a bitch like she always does. A drink called ‘slutty’? Maybe you should’ve ordered that for yourself.”
“Actually.” Melanie proudly threw her hand up in the air. “I ordered that drink for you. I ordered both drinks, as a matter of fact. Sheila just thought it was funny. And I thought that each drink suited you well. I’m sure his dick got hard when he saw you in that piece of cloth and, to be honest, you do look like a slut.”
“Says the rejected Go-Go dancer? Wasn’t Studio 54 in the seventies?” She replied without even thinking of what she was saying, or who she was saying it to; but even once she had, she didn’t have the strength or want to retract it.
Melanie leapt from her chair and got in Nikki’s face – so close, they were virtually rubbing noses. “You’ve messed with the wrong person, bitch. I know all about you and could destroy that piss poor career of yours before it even begins.”
“Ooh.” Sheila got excited at the thought of someone finally taking Nikki to task for all of her hypocritical ways. But the excitement soon faded when she saw a tabloid photographer that she was familiar with crossing to the other side of the room after entering the club. In a panic, she stood up and pulled Melanie back. “I think we need to pay up and go,” she suggested
though a slurred tongue.
“I’m not finished talking to her yet.”
“Yes you are.” She reached inside her purse for a few bills while keeping her eye on the photographer as he grabbed a drink at the bar and looked around the place for any potential stories. She called out for Cherry and pulled a pen from her purse. She wrote something down on one of the bills and tossed the money at her. “If that’s not enough, call the number at the bottom and they’ll take care of what wasn’t covered here tonight.” She turned to Melanie and grabbed her hand. “Let’s go.”
Just as they sprinted out the door, William walked over to comfort Nikki. “Are you alright?” he asked. “I tried to make it over here as fast as I could, but the bartender took too long to run my card. Where did those two go?”
“Off to ride their brooms back to hell. I don’t understand how they would’ve met or why they were even together! If they’ve become friends, it just makes everything much more complicated than it already was.”
“Why?”
“Because if Melanie knows about me and Oscar like I’ve always believed she does, there’s no way she’s going to keep that information from Sheila.”
He placed his hand on her back and slid his fingers down her spine. “You wanna leave?”
“Not yet. If they’re still out there, I want to give them time to go. I think if I see Sheila again, I’ll just want to punch her in the face. And I can’t afford to be embarrassed like that.”
They headed back to the bar and waited until they were certain the coast was clear.
Outside, Melanie ripped her hand from Sheila’s and swung her hair around as it blew in the wind. “What the hell was that?!” she hollered. “I almost had her, I almost had her.” She bent down, gritting her teeth and balling her fists as the few people still waiting in line stared at her like she was a crazy person. “Why didn’t you let me take that? Friends are supposed to let friends attack their enemies free and clear. If not stand by and let it happen, then jump in to help. I could’ve taken her out back and--”
“Been on the cover of Page Six next week for beating her in a dark alley. Not a good look for somebody who was just on the cover of an international magazine.” She shoved her hair behind her. “I’m not very good at being anyone’s friend, Vanessa can attest to that. But I don’t think being publicly humiliated by letting you beat her to a bloody pulp is the best way to start any kind of relationship between us.”
She turned her face away from the wind and grumbled. Knowing that Sheila was right didn’t help how she felt. “I really wanted to smack her around a little bit…”
“You don’t have to hurt her physically to get what you want. It would’ve been funny as hell to see, but like I said--”
“I know.” She waved her hand and looked back at her car. “Tonight was fun, before all of that, but I should probably get going before a headache sets in. Do you need a ride home?”
“Yeah – wait, no. I need to stop someplace else first.”
“Anywhere in particular that you need to go?”
“The Upper West Side. Can you take me there?”
“Sure. Get in.”
“Thanks.”
Part Twelve
Maurice was up in his bedroom working on his last project for the night when he heard someone banging on the front door downstairs. He looked at the clock sitting beside him on his desk and noticed it was almost 10pm, and that he hadn’t heard from Vanessa since their last conversation hours ago. He went over to his bed and reached in his jacket pocket for his phone, checking for any missed calls, believing he might’ve been too engrossed in the sketches for his ads to have heard it ring. When he realized he had none, he immediately called Vanessa up, but got her voicemail instead.
After leaving a quick message, he hustled downstairs to answer the door, as the person on the other side began to relentlessly ring the bell, pressing their finger against the button and leaving it there like a child. Once he reached the bottom and got to the door, he looked out of the peephole and saw Sheila staring back at him with one eye poking through. He jumped back, frightened at how the smeared mascara on her face made her look, and glanced to the side. He wondered what the hell she was doing there in the first place, and if in fact she had gotten lost on her way back to The Palace.
“I know you’re in there Maurice,” she said. “I can smell your disgusting cologne from out here.”
He tilted his head and mumbled something about her sense of smell being like a bloodhound, then unlocked the door and reached for the knob, pulling back to see her practically collapsing over the same railing that most likely had helped to break her fall as she made her way up the steps leading to the door. He looked down and saw that her knees had pieces of gravel stuck to them and that the tips of her shoes had been scuffed by the sidewalk. She saw him staring at her strangely and looked down at herself; when she saw the gravel, she bent down to dust her knees and crossed one leg behind the other to hide her shoes. If there was ever one thing Sheila hated more than anything else, it was not looking her best self in front of a good-looking man, even if she never had any plans of sleeping with him.
Maurice paid no attention to her ongoing insecurities and adjusted himself. He slid his hands in his pockets and smiled as Sheila kept opening her eyes wide to try and appear as if she hadn’t spent the last few hours drinking until they nearly crossed.
“What do you want, Sheila?” he asked her. “And how did you get here?”
“Someone gave me a ride.”
He looked out and didn’t see a car waiting for her. “There’s no one out here but you.”
“I asked her to leave because I need to talk to Vanessa, and I don’t know how long this will be.”
“If this is about Nikki--”
“It’s not.” She reached her arm out and shoved him to the side. “Move.” She stumbled into the foyer and started calling out Vanessa’s name as if they were in a back alley and Vanessa had disappeared behind one of the dumpsters.
Maurice walked up behind and grabbed her by the arm, furiously yanking her back. “HEY!” he called out. She snatched her arm away from him and tripped back, glaring at him as he got in her face and smelled her breath. “Vanessa’s out. If this isn’t about Nikki, then what the hell are you doing here --?”
“Where is she?” She lifted the strap of her dress as it fell down her arm and almost tipped over again. Her balance was becoming more and more of a problem. “I need to talk to her about something.”
“She’s not HERE,” he said again.
She raised her hand, pressing the back of it against her face and wagging her fingers at him. “You don’t need to yell at me.” She stuck her index finger in her ear and rattled it as if she had suddenly gone deaf or her ears had become clogged from the noise. “I can hear you just fine.”
“Doesn’t seem like you can, or else you wouldn’t have asked the same question twice in less than two seconds. What do you want with Vanessa?”
“Chill out,” she snapped back at his harsh tone of voice. She raised her hand again and spun away from him, this time almost smacking her face against the ground. Only the arm of a chair sitting against the wall kept her from completely tumbling over like a pile of dominoes. “I’m not here to take her from you, I don’t swing that way.” She stood up straight and pulled down on her dress.
“Whatever way you swing needs to be out the door, alright? Let’s go.” He took her by the arm again, but she struggled once again to release herself.
“I need to talk to her,” she said through her teeth while wiggling her arm and attempting to dig her heels into the floor as he dragged her. “This can’t wait.” She yanked away from him for the second time, but became even dizzier as she dropped back, and swallowed back the vomit that she felt coming up as a result. She placed a hand on her chest and soured.
“If you puke on these floors, Vanessa is going to have you taken out back and I’ll have to help her hide your body.”
&
nbsp; “Then show me to a bathroom.”
“It’s upstairs. Door’s wide open. You’ll see it as soon as you hit the top--” He stopped when he heard her stomach rumbling; she leaned away from his face and belched so loud, the noise rattled the paintings on the walls in the other room.
She immediately brought her hand up to her mouth, embarrassed and wanting to crawl inside of a deep hole. “I can’t believe I just did that in front of you.”
Maurice stepped back and covered his face; he glided his hand down, then waved it back and forth in the air. “What the hell did you have to drink tonight – gin and tar?”
“A combination of some things. Whiskey. Vodka. A raspberry/peach thing….” She hiccupped and bent forward, wincing as a sharp, acidic pain shot through her chest and straight into the back of her throat. “Mo, I don’t think I can make it up there by myself.”
“What the fuck do you want me to do – carry you?”
“That’d be nice.”
“Hell no.” He raised his hand to her and pointed. “Walk.” He reached out for her and guided her upstairs.
“I bet Vanessa didn’t have to walk all the times you picked her ass up off the floor in high school when she was drunk out of her mind.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not Vanessa.”
“No one is, right?! Noooooooooooo one is Vanessa Rae Brown!” She waved her arms in the air as Maurice tried to keep her steady. “Miss PERFECT PERFECT FUCKING PERFECT even though she NEVER WAS no matter what ANYONE ever said about her.”
“Yeah. We know the story, Sheil’s. Come on.” Once they reached the top step, he walked her to the bathroom. She stared up at him the entire way, shaking her head. He saw her from the corner of his eye and though he didn’t want to ask, his curiosity overpowered him. “What.”
“I was just wondering if you had ever been interested in me like that, in a sexual way.”
He laughed aloud. “Is that a serious question?”
“Yes.” She pulled herself away and moved to the other side of the hallway. “I just want to know why she gets everything. Why does she get a man who loves her unconditionally, while another one sits at home almost every night pining for her? Why does she get to have someone who hasn’t seen her in years still wanting to be with her? I don’t…” She stopped and turned her eyes to the floor. Tears suddenly fell from her eyes and stained her dress but she didn’t care. “I don’t understand what it has always been about her that makes men fall to their knees in declaration. Is it the hair? Is it the natural thing she has going for it sometimes? Because I could wash my hair and look the exact same way, maybe even better. Is it how her body fits in certain dresses or the way she says your name while you two are in bed? I just don’t understand it…” She chortled. “What is it that makes people so obsessed with her – what is it that makes them crave to do whatever it is that they can to please her?”