by Kiki Leach
“I think you’re looking at this from a jaded point of view.”
“I’m not,” she told him firmly. “I’m asking the honest, hard hitting questions that no one has ever dared to ask before.” Maurice thought she sounded as if she were a panelist on CNN.
He leaned back and pressed the base of his foot against the wall as he watched her struggle to physically stay afloat. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was growing concerned about her current state of mind. “Where is all of this coming from?”
“No place… No place in particular. There were just some things I thought I needed to know after all of these years.”
“One being about me, and if I ever thought of you in that way?”
“Yes.”
“You’re still curious to know?”
“I am.”
He thought long and hard about her question and raised his brows. “No. I didn’t.”
“Never?”
“Ever.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “You were my friend… sort of. And you’ve never really been my type of woman. The high maintenance thing has always been a turn off.”
“If I wasn’t your friend and high maintenance--”
“Not a chance in hell.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. What the hell does it matter?”
“It doesn’t… but it does. Vanessa was your friend, and your type but the thing is that she’s not just your type, she is EVERYONE’S type. She always has been, through high school and college…” She slowly breathed in and out to keep her head from exploding as the pain in her chest rose up through her neck and to her brain. “It’s just something that I never really understood. She’s beautiful and smart and sure, she wears clothes well and can be funny when she isn’t being an outright bitch for whatever reason. But I can be all of those things too.”
“I don’t understand why you’re acting like this and asking all of these questions,” he said. “You have Nathan.”
“I have Nathan.” She scoffed. “I have Nathan. I don’t even know what the hell that means anymore. We got into a fight before I left tonight. He went to see Vanessa this afternoon when I asked him not to. Did she tell you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well he didn’t tell me when it mattered. He knew I’d be upset but he went and saw her anyway; and anytime she turns him down for something, he gets pissed off at me, as if I’m the culprit.” She shook her head in disbelief. “It’s not her fault that he can’t stay away from her, but she makes it so much easier to hate her when I know that she feels the same way about me.”
“Is that why you got drunk?”
“No. I got drunk tonight because I’m stressed out and needed some method of relief, and this was the only way I knew how to get it.”
“What did you want to come here and see Vanessa about, Sheila?”
She looked straight into his eyes, attempting to think back on her initial reason for showing up, but forgetting entirely. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore…” She stopped to catch her breath. “And I think this moment of sickness has passed. Where did she go tonight, anyhow?”
“She said something about making a stop in Queens--”
Sheila pulled herself away from the wall as soon as the words had come from his mouth. She turned her head and stuck out her ear, making sure she had heard every single word correctly. “You said Queens?” she asked in a panic. “As in Jamaica Queens?”
“Yeah.”
“Why was she making a stop there, did she tell you?”
“She apparently had a meeting with someone, but I don’t know who it was. I didn’t think to ask but maybe I should’ve since it’s taken her so long to get back. Maybe I should call Alexis and ask her about it, see if she knows anything--”
“No!” she exclaimed. “No, I um…” She stalled to think and knit her brows. “I need to go.” She went back to the stairs and started running down each one. Before even reaching the middle, she became lightheaded and grabbed onto the railing.
Maurice raced up behind and held her up. “Are you okay?”
“No – I mean, yes. Yes, I’m fine.” She placed a hand on her head as it began pounding and she felt woozy. “I just need a cab to take me home.”
“You sure you don’t need to puke before heading out? I hear the drivers aren’t too fond of having to clean that shit up.”
She placed a hand on her stomach again and looked behind her. “Maybe. Look, can you do me a favor and not tell her that I was here?”
“I can’t do that, Sheila. I won’t lie to her.”
“She doesn’t need to know that I was here, Maurice. I made a mistake in coming over to begin with. I’m starting to remember a little bit and I just wanted to talk about my wedding and the magazine, that’s it. She doesn’t need to know any of that. I like you, but… don’t act like you’ve never kept something from her before that you didn’t think she needed to know. It’s bullshit if you say you haven’t.”
Hearing those words forced Maurice to instantly think back to their time in high school, when he opened his mouth to the first reporter he saw while waiting outside the offices of Page Six. It was a time in which he knew he should’ve kept his mouth shut, but didn’t because he thought it would get him the girl. Instead it turned into a time that almost destroyed Vanessa’s life.
“Just hurry up, alright?” he said to Sheila. “I’ll go and call you a cab.”
“Thank you,” she told him. He frowned at her before heading downstairs to the living room and grabbing the phone.
On the way back to her hotel, Sheila was practically shoved out of the cab by the driver, who had already been paid by Maurice. Her hangover was starting to kick in as she had fallen asleep on the way there and struggled to get through the front doors of The Palace. She hurried to the elevator to keep from being seen by anyone of importance and while inside, suddenly remembered what Maurice had told her regarding Vanessa’s whereabouts. Through a haze of fog clouding her brain, she quickly searched for her phone in her purse and pulled it out from beneath a pile of lipsticks and mascaras, along with Adrian’s number and address still written on that piece of paper. She saw that there was still one message on her phone that she had yet to listen to that night: his.
Once she stepped off the elevator and rounded the corner leading to her room, she saw Vanessa sitting on the floor right next to her door, bouncing her purse against her knees and staring up at the ceiling, whistling.
Sheila pulled the phone away from her ear and gulped as she threw it back into her purse. She tried straightening herself and walking in stride as she headed to her room. When Vanessa saw her coming, she jumped up from the floor and rested a hand on her waist. Sheila forced a smile and reached for her room key.
“Vanessa! What are you doing here?”
“Save it. I’ve been here for hours and could tell from where you stood back there that you weren’t the least bit surprised to see me sitting down here.”
Sheila dropped the act of politeness and tore her eyes away from her nemesis. “I guess it was expected that you would show up here eventually.”
“And why in the hell would that be?” She pressed her fingers to her lips. “Hmm, let me guess. Would it be that Adrian called you right up and told you that I was coming here ready to rip your face off for prying into my business yet again?”
“He left me a message about it but didn’t use those exact words.” She finally managed to wrangle her room key from her purse and unlocked the door. “He said he just wanted to give me a heads up.”
“Aww. Now, isn’t that sweet?” Her tone was acidic, her eyes shined with anger. “I guess that means he wanted to save you from tangling with the big bad bitter bitch in her state of colossal raging.”
“No, V.” She breathed out in her face and Vanessa jumped back as a burst of alcohol seemed to erupt right from between her lips.
She plugged her nose and suddenly felt like vomiting. “H
ow the hell much did you have to drink tonight?”
Sheila raised her shoulders, refusing to answer the question again. “Do you want to come in so that we can talk about this like adults?”
“I wasn’t exactly planning on it. I just wanted to tell you to stay the hell away from Adrian.”
“I’m not interested in him if that’s what you’re so concerned about.”
“My wanting you to stay away from him has nothing to do with that and everything to do with a past with him that I’d like to forget even happened. I don’t want any part of that in my current life, and considering you aren’t going away anytime soon, that includes you.”
Sheila threw her purse on the dresser behind her and lay her hands on either side of her hips, infuriated. “You can’t tell me who the hell I can and can’t see, Vanessa. It may work like that in your world, but it doesn’t work like that in mine.”
“You are so fuckin’ desperate to BE in my world, I would think you’d like to abide by the damn rules that apply while living in it! I don’t think that’s ever been more evident until now -- I mean, unless you think you’re Nancy fuckin’ Drew and your boredom while planning this wedding has gotten the best of your ass. When I asked you to stay out of my business where he was concerned, that wasn’t some gracious request that allowed you to do it anyway if you ever so pleased. It meant to stay the hell outta my business!”
“I can hear you just fine, V.” Her head began pounding again and she moved away from the door to reach for the aspirin in her purse.
“I don’t think you’ve been hearing a damn thing I’ve said since you’ve come back because it is so CLEAR that you want nothing more than to systematically ruin my life, AGAIN!”
She placed her hands over her ears for just a second before pulling them down. Her head rattled at the sound of Vanessa’s shrieking and she felt like nothing more than physically shutting her up. “I’m not trying to run anything for you – this is my life too.”
“If only, Sheila. If only it were, then maybe you wouldn’t keep trying to screw mine up so damn much. Stay away from Adrian. I’m not telling you this out of jealousy or spite. There is a reason why I have never wanted a damn thing to do with that man since the moment he left town. You contacting him just to keep me away from Nathan--”
“He told you about that?”
“Why the hell wouldn’t he tell me?” Vanessa questioned. “You seeking him out because of it was the only damn reason he started contacting me in the first place! Did you think you two had formed some kind of special relationship or something, to the point that it would keep him quiet?” Sheila crinkled her brows. Vanessa saw the despondency rising and faintly rolled her eyes. “Look, I don’t know what the hell is going on between you two. But what I DO know is that you need to back the fuck off when I ask you to, alright? This isn’t some game we’re playing here. You and Nathan may never go away, but I will be damned if you two continue to fuck up what I worked so damn hard to build.” She placed her hand on the door. “I don’t ever want to have to come back to this room again. Have a nice night.” She slammed it shut.
Sheila jumped at the noise, which felt like a sharp sting to her brain. She pressed her fingers against the side of her head and grabbed a bottle of water sitting beside her; she gargled with it before swallowing back the aspirin. All she wanted was to sleep the rest of the day away after having listened to Vanessa’s screeching, but instead she yanked out her phone and sat down on the bed to dial up Adrian. She heard his grunting on the other end when he finally answered.
“Are you there alone?” was the first thing he asked her.
She jerked her head back at the brisk sound of his voice and glowered. “Yes.”
“Good.” He bent forward on his counter in the kitchen and rested his hands on the edge. “What’s your room number at The Palace?”
She drank back more of her water and crossed her legs. “What do you need it for?”
“Because I need to see you in person. I don’t think that this is something that can be discussed over the phone.”
“I think a phone works just fine. Besides, I’m tired.”
“I’m tired too, but this can’t wait. I know Vanessa came to see you.”
“Yeah,” she complained. “How long will it take you to get here from Queens?”
“How long did it take you to get here from Manhattan?”
She looked over at her clock and ran her hand over her face. “I don’t know where Nathan went or when he’ll be back.”
“Then we can make this brief. If you give me the number, I can come, we can talk and I can be out of there in less than an hour. But the longer you stall--”
“Okay.” She proceeded to give him the information for the penthouse suite and he stood up straight where he stood.
“I’ll be there soon,” he said before hanging up.
She placed her phone beside her and went back over to the mirror to stare at herself, her smeared makeup and mussed hair. She grabbed a tissue and began wiping her face clean and snagged a comb from her purse to straighten out the kinks in her hair. When she realized what she was doing, she pulled back to question why. Adrian was good-looking, though not as good-looking to her as he was to most women, and not remotely the kind of man she ever saw as trying to fix herself up for.
When she came to her senses, she threw the tissue out and sat down her comb, then called Nathan and asked when he would be home, making sure that the two men wouldn’t clash into each other. From the other end, it sounded as if he was at Angelino’s; between the men in the background hollering about a basketball game on television to the music blaring right through, she could barely get in a single word to him. Not that he was listening much to her anyway; he was too busy gulping back courtesy drinks from a few women sitting at the bar who thought he was attractive, and high-fiving Eddie and their follow coworkers over a dunk made against one of the players on the opposing team. When she realized he had pretty much tuned her out, she hung up and slammed her phone down on the dresser, so hard the screen almost cracked in half.
She spun back around to the mirror and reached in her purse for the sexiest tube of lipstick that she could find, a deep purple color that she had kept for years but hadn’t worn in public since high school. If her future husband wasn’t going to appreciate her presence, she was hoping like hell that someone else finally would.
Part Thirteen
“In spite of what happened with those two back at the bar, I had a really nice time tonight,” said Nikki as she and William walked hand in hand up to the front door of his swanky Upper East Side home.
“I always have a good time when I’m out with you, no matter who or what tries to interfere.” He leaned in and kissed the side of her throat, then pulled back to whisper in her ear. “Might help that you are sexy as hell.” She grinned, feeling bashful. He laughed at her shyness and reached for his keys, but stopped as she released his other hand. He looked back at her face, uncertain and concerned by her sudden odd change in behavior. “You’re coming in, right?”
She bugged her eyes, afraid that she was giving off the wrong impression, which was opposite of what she so desperately wanted to show. “This is the first time I’ve been to your place and…” She fiddled with her hands and stared at the ground. “I just haven’t been with anybody since Oscar and I don’t want you to be disappointed if we decide to--”
“Listen.” He dropped his keys back into his pocket and turned to her, taking both of her hands in his and bringing them up to his face. He moved in close and smiled. “I like you, Nicole Sanger. But more than that, I respect you as a woman first and foremost, and as a person. I don’t know if I’ve ever said that to you before, and if I have, I don’t think it’s been said enough. We don’t have to have sex as soon as we walk through this door, alright? We can drink coffee, talk a little bit, hell, watch a movie and fall asleep in each other’s arms if that’s what it comes down to. And if you want, I can take you home as soon as you d
ecide to wake up… or you can stay the night and we can wake up together. The choice is really up to you, there’s no pressure for you to do anything you don’t want to either way.”
It seemed as if all she needed was to hear those words of reassurance, because soon after, she melted like putty in his hands. “Okay.”
He faintly curved his lips. “Okay.” He released one of her hands, but held the other tight and grabbed his keys again.
Once they were inside, he turned on the light in the foyer. Nikki looked up to see a chandelier made of gold that was suspended about ten feet above their heads; she gasped in delight as the crystals dangling from it shimmered across the room. The stone leading from the front door to other parts of the house looked as if it had barely been walked on, and the walls were so clean, she wondered if a child really lived there with him as he claimed. The beauty of it all had taken her breath away.
“Did you and your wife buy this place together?” she asked, strolling down the hall, peeking inside every room she passed.
He tossed his keys in a bowl near the door and loosened the collar of his shirt. “My brother purchased it, actually. He handed over the lease when he decided to downgrade. My ex got the main house, and the ranch in Connecticut.”