Live & Learn ~ A Miss Independent Novel

by Kiki Leach

  “Hello?” William asked again, licking the cream from Nikki’s arm and hand as it began to drip to the bed. Oscar almost hung up when he heard her giggling in the background; a sound she only ever made for him was now given freely to someone else.

  He coughed and straightened his back, while simultaneously continuing to help customers. “Yeah, it’s Oscar. Is Nikki there?”

  William turned toward the phone and arched a brow, put off by the sound of another man’s voice on the line. “Who is this?”

  “It’s Oscar Malone, from The Bean. We met at the restaurant opening. And I worked for your brother?”

  A tiny rage built up inside of him as he continued caressing Nikki’s body. “Yeah, yeah, I remember,” he said.

  She bent down and kissed him around his neck and down his chest. “Who is that?” she whispered, her lips pressed hard against his skin.

  He only shook his head. “How’d you get this number, man?”

  “You’re not as difficult to find as you might think. Look, is Nikki there? This is kind of important.”

  “How important is it? What do you need to talk to her about?”

  “Business. If she’s there--”

  “She’s here.” William became pensive and lowered the phone; Nikki sat back, looking down at his hand.

  “Who is that?” she asked.

  “Oscar.”

  “Oscar?” She was genuinely surprised but also internally thrilled. “How the hell did he get your number?”

  He shrugged and looked to the side. “I’d like to know that one myself.”

  “I didn’t give it to him.”

  “If it was for emergency purposes, I can understand that.”

  “I didn’t give him your number.” She gulped. “Did he say what he wanted?”

  “Wants.” He waved the phone at her before handing it over. “He’s still on the line.” He shifted his legs and Nikki rolled over to the side. He got up from his bed and headed to his bathroom, slamming the door. Nikki flinched as the sound rattled her.

  She held the phone tight and flipped her hair back as she pressed it to her ear. “How the hell did you get his phone number?”

  “I asked around to a few people he knew. You’d be surprised how many are willing to give up a lot for the right price.”

  “You paid for the information?” She wanted to be angry with him for prying, but there was a tiny part of her that was almost aroused by the fact that he was so anxious to get in touch with her again. But she couldn’t allow him to hear that in her voice as they spoke and continued to be curt in her responses. “What do you want, Oscar?”

  “I need your help down here at the shop. Max quit, Mel’s out sick and I’ve got no one else.”

  “Maybe you should finally think about hiring more help when things like this happen.”

  “Or maybe you can come down here to help me out yourself. Just for a few hours and I’ll pay you triple.”

  “If I made triple on a regular basis, I could afford to make my portion of the rent at Vanessa’s.” She crawled her fingers through her hair and leaned back, crossing her legs and pulling at the end of William’s shirt. She wanted to see Oscar. She missed looking at his face and the way he stared at her when they were alone. But she also knew that once her shift was over, none of what happened between them in the absence of his wife would matter, just like the year they had spent together before she returned to town. She breathed out and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, but I can’t come down there today. I know that you’re in a bind and I feel awful, but--”

  “I need you Nikki,” he begged. The urgency in his voice pulled at her. She looked at her strewn clothes and thought of putting them back on and heading down to help him for just a few hours as promised. She even bent her knees, preparing herself to drop down on the floor. But then she heard a noise coming from the bathroom, where William was waiting for her, and crawled back on top of the bed and crossed her legs. Oscar felt hopeful as she paused, but that hope was soon drained when he heard her sighing.

  “I can’t do this, I’m sorry.” Her voice cracked. He gripped his hand tightly around the phone and grinded his teeth. “I hate to leave you in a bind like this, because I know how much you love that shop. But if I am really planning to move on with my life, I have to start doing what’s best for me now, which means that I’m no longer dropping everything in it for you.”

  He clinched his jaw and gulped, mentally and emotionally burned by her words. “I never knew you did.”

  “Don’t do that,” she shot back. “You’re only saying that to be an asshole.”

  “It’s an honest statement, Nik.”

  “No it isn’t, not when you’re the one that wanted to stay married. I asked you to make a choice and you chose to be with her, so don’t sit there and act like I never did. Don’t pretend as if I was the one that gave up on us and what we had when I never did. That was you.” Her voice grew harsh; the words came without warning. She sat up in the bed and thrust her finger out as if he had been sitting right in front of her instead of on the phone and miles away. “Everything negative that resulted in this relationship was because of you and the choices that you made.”

  “And what about yours, Nik? The choices that you’ve made--”

  “I’ve chosen to never do this with you again. To never make the same mistake twice, and that means giving up in helping you out when all I ever got in return were a bunch of empty promises.” William finally came out of the bathroom as he couldn’t stand to hear anymore of such a one sided conversation and stood in the doorway staring at her. “I have to go.” She clicked off the phone and placed it back onto the hook.

  Oscar banged the phone down hard on the counter, cracking the antenna. Customers looked over in his direction to see what the noise was, but he ignored them and turned his back, staring down at the phone.

  Nikki pulled her knees up against her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She was nervous at William’s solemn reaction and almost didn’t want to speak in fear of what he would say. “How much of that did you actually hear?”

  “Every word of it,” he told her. He came back over to the bed and rested his hands on either side of himself. “But what I’m most concerned about is how you feel after talking to him and where we stand right now.”

  “I’m still here with you, right?”

  “You are, and that’s a start,” he said. “But what exactly did he want from you? Besides helping out at the shop.”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore. Because I am done running after him every time he calls. I did it for almost a year and I can’t waste my time like that anymore.”

  He thought for a few seconds and furrowed his brows. “Do you really wanna keep working there? Not just for him, but at some 9 to 5 that only pays you well under half of what you deserve?”

  “No, but I don’t have any other options right now. The money that you gave me for clothes and the spa was nice, but I can’t keep doing that to pay for things like my rent and food, and acting classes and workshops. Oscar did that for a long time and I admit that I gladly took it all without hesitation because I felt it was the least he could do since he wasn’t leaving his wife.” She winced. “That didn’t sound as bad inside my head, but I don’t want us to be like that.”

  “What if I didn’t just ‘give’ you those things? What if you earned them all on your own, with a little help from me?”

  “What exactly are you wanting me to do?”

  He snickered and sat back down next to her on the bed. “Nothing illegal, strictly legit. It just so happens that a friend of mine is working on Wicked as the casting director, and--”

  She shot up in the bed like a rocket on its way to space. “You mean the Broadway musical that became a complete phenomenon -- THAT is the Wicked you’re referring to?”

  He nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah.”

  She crawled to the edge of the bed, leaping from it and bouncing up and down on the floor like
a child that had just received her first piece of candy. “How can you be so calm about this? That musical has managed to change people’s lives for the better, and not just onstage. Careers for better or worse were born and bred from that musical.”

  He bobbed his head. “I’ve heard it was good.”

  “You’ve heard it was good?” She grumbled. “I’ve never old you this, but my parents met on Broadway. In fact, when they first started out, they both auditioned for that musical and got turned down for it. It was for the best because it made them work that much harder to prove themselves, so when they auditioned for Cinderella and the Prince just two years later, they landed it before even finishing the scene. They have two mantles in their house occupied of nothing but Tony awards and I want mine to sit right between all of them.” She wrapped her hands around her throat, feeling the warmth of her skin as it flushed in excitement. “I would give my right arm to be in Wicked. I would give a leg, a kidney, whatever I had to in order to make it into that musical as more than just a stagehand or audience member.”

  He grinned. “You don’t have to give anyway anything like that,” he said as he grabbed his phone.

  She climbed back onto the bed, astonished. “You really are going to do this for me and don’t expect anything in return?”

  “I didn’t say that. I expect to have you.” He looked at her for a long while, then placed the phone back down on the nightstand and slid his finger beneath her face, pressing his thumb against her chin. He became serious. “All you really ever have to do is ask me, Nikki, for anything and it’s yours without a doubt. What good is it to know all of these people or have all of this money to spend, if I’m not willing to share it with someone that I am beginning to care so deeply about? That’s why I gave you the card before and didn’t expect or even care to have it back.”

  Nikki didn’t know how to react to his immediate generosity. The only thing she had ever asked for but had never been given was a chance to showcase who she believed she was always meant to be, a star. To see her name in big, bright, Broadway lights sitting high up next to her parents; to have an audience filled with adoring fans who loved watching every moment of her in action, zooming from one side of that stage to the other, just as they always had with them. People often told her that her head was in the clouds and that it would never happen for her the same as it had for others that she knew. But now she was starting to believe that those things weren’t so true. Now she was starting to believe that they were wrong and she had been right all along. But she didn’t want it to be for nothing. She didn’t want to come from oblivion and steal the spotlight from someone who may have deserved it more. She wanted to earn her place on the stage, and keep it.

  She leaned over to kiss William, his soft lips engulfing hers. She pulled back when the intensity became too much to handle and placed a hand on his chest, pushing herself away.

  “Is this my thank you?” he asked.

  “You may not believe it, but there’s more where that came from.” She stopped and pressed her fingers against her mouth. “I want this almost more than anything I’ve ever wanted before in my life, but--”

  He smiled. “But what?”

  “I’m glad that you’re so willing to do this for me; that you’re doing it with no strings and just because you think I deserve it. However, I don’t want to actually land a part based on the fact that we’re dating.” He made a questionable face, which worried her. “Or because I’m just a girl who also happens to be your friend, or someone you just like having sex with.”

  “Can’t you be all three?”

  Her face reddened. “I guess that’s possible. I’ve just never had it all three rolled into one. I thought I did once…” She paused to shake the memories from her head. “But like I said before, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “You sure about that?”

  She nodded. “Positive.”

  “Alright.” He picked the phone back up and began dialing. “Hopefully Massimo can get you in for an audition first thing tomorrow morning. You want to suggest a role for yourself?”

  “I don’t really care, just as long as I’m out there proving my talent to someone.”

  He nodded and turned away to begin speaking into the receiver. Nikki sat back against the headboard and gnawed her bottom lip. She stared at the smoothness of William’s back and smiled even wider than she had before. Age really is nothing but a number, she thought. Especially now when being with someone older and more sophisticated in his actions as opposed to just his words was finally benefitting her in the best way imaginable.

  Part Twenty-One

  After Sheila had finally managed to pull herself away from the floral shop as well as her wedding planner for the day, she dragged herself to Time’s Square for more shopping. While waiting to cross the street, she looked into her purse for her phone and saw that Nathan had called her at least six more times from his office, but never chose to leave any voice or text messages regarding the reason why. Once she maneuvered her way across the street and stepped inside a small boutique to eliminate the noise, she hustled to a corner and quickly called him back.

  Nathan stared at the phone as it rang. He had been back at his desk for hours after leaving Joan, but had barely completed any of his filing and memos for Mr. Gallagher as required before he was set to call it a day in just a few minutes; his mind seemed to remain on what he had learned about Vanessa and the professor and was reeling at the thought of his actions and their ultimate breakup being the reason why a ‘relationship’ had started up between those two in the first place.

  He knew that Sheila was calling, he saw her name flashing across the screen, but he couldn’t bring himself to say a single word to her that would result in anything positive.

  Once she finally stopped ringing, he pulled up a few accounts online and began searching on any information that he may have missed earlier regarding ‘Professor Adrian Samuels’. It was clear to him by now that at some point during their ‘union’, Vanessa told him about the ups and downs of their relationship which is why he sounded as if he knew him personally when they spoke on the phone the night before. He didn’t like the idea of her being so open with what they had with someone like him, but at the same time, he knew that he couldn’t fault her for it.

  After printing off a few articles Adrian had written during his tenure at NYU as well as some he had written around the time he was still in high school, he sat back to read them, and wondered what the hell the big deal was. Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary compared to what he had read from other philosophical scholars before him and he couldn’t understand what exactly it was that had qualified him as a ‘child genius’.

  “Hey.” Eddie knocked on his door and he looked up from his desk, startled. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost, man. Everything alright?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m good.”

  “You sure? You didn’t say a word to anybody when you got back from lunch--”

  “Yeah, I’m good. I’m good. What’s up?”

  “I just came to let you know that the guys and I are going out again later tonight for celebratory drinks. We won’t make it as late this time, or have as much since my dad will be there too.”

  “What are we celebrating?” asked Nathan.

  “McManus won a case against one of the manufacturing company that was producing led in the seams of their mattresses. A $15.6 million dollar payday. The food and drinks are supposed to be on the house at Angelino’s. You in?”

  Nathan glanced back down at the articles and shook his head. “Not tonight. I plan to take Sheila out for dinner to make up for skipping out on her last night.”

  “Understood. But hey, that reminds me. Keisha wanted to know if Sheila ever get to talk to V about her writing for the magazine?”

  “I think she’s gonna shelve that idea for now.”

  “Probably for the best, at least until the press from the reunion finally dies down completely. I’ll see ya.”
/>   Nathan sat back in his chair, tossing deuces as Eddie left his office, then placed his hand over his mouth to think. He still had so many questions and not enough answers and knew that the only way of getting them was by going straight to the source herself. But he couldn’t do that without saving face with his fiancée first. So he grabbed the phone and decided to call Sheila back, informing her that he wanted to take her out for an early dinner. She wasn’t exactly thrilled by his tone of voice, which sounded both pushy and anxious (and not in a way that meant he was eager to see her). But to keep their fighting to a minimum, she agreed to an early date night and told him that she would be choosing a restaurant before he got home. After hanging up with her, he snatched both of Adrian’s articles from his desk, looking at them one last time. He folded each one corner to corner and stuffed them into his pants pocket before heading out the door.

  Part Twenty-Two

  Later that night, Vanessa and Maurice rode hand in hand in the backseat of a cab on the way to Alexis’ for dinner. He kept his eyes on her the entire time as she tried to keep her focus straight ahead. She knew once she looked into those root beer colored irises of his, she would be a goner.

  “I was thinking earlier.” He raised her hand and stroked his fingers up and down her arm. “Instead of taking the boat out this summer in Manhattan, why don’t we just head to the Hamptons? It’s been awhile since we’ve been back to that summer house we all chipped in to buy back in high school.”

  “You know I’ve never really been too fond of the Hamptons because of what always seems to happen there every year. Anytime we try to get the entire group together, shit goes down that we almost never recover from.”