Live & Learn ~ A Miss Independent Novel

by Kiki Leach

  William understood her pain and wanted to help her overcome the agony of drifting from her best friend, but wasn’t exactly sure where or how to start.

  When it came time for dinner later that night, everyone sat around the den in silence while attempting to avoid eye contact. Since none of them really knew how to cook, save for Maurice who wasn’t in the mood after being turned down for sex three times before nightfall, they called for a pizza which had promised to be there within the hour.

  It was already past 8:45.

  “Maybe we should call them again,” said Vanessa. “Maybe he got lost on the way out here.”

  Nikki looked over at her and scowled. “I gave the directions perfectly the first time.”

  She twirled the tiny curls of her hair around her finger and closed her eyes. “Like I said, maybe we should call again to make sure he hasn’t gotten lost.”

  Nikki shifted in her chair and clinched her jaw. “Bitch.”

  “What was that?”

  “Why don’t we play charades?” William suggested, trying his best to ease the tension.

  “I hate that game,” Vanessa mumbled.

  “It’s better than anything you’ve come up with tonight,” Nikki stated. “We can’t even get Maurice to cook for us because of you.”

  “Oh, please, he has a hand.”

  “V,” Maurice snapped.

  “What?”

  He sat back in his chair and massaged his temples as he felt a headache coming on.

  When the doorbell finally rang, Vanessa jumped up first. “I’ll get it.” Then she paused and stared at everyone behind her. “Is anyone going to give me any money for this, or am I paying for it as well?” Maurice remained agitated, but reached into his back pocket for some cash and got up to hand it to her. “Thanks.” She left them in the den and griped about the length of time it took for the delivery person to arrive, but was stunned when she saw who was actually standing on the other side of that door. “What the--?”

  “Where’s the party?” Nathan bellowed as Sheila stood at his side, unenthused. He was holding the box of pizza in both hands while Sheila held onto a bottle of wine.

  Vanessa’s imagination ran wild as she thought of knocking their heads together and tossing their unconscious bodies into the ocean with Maurice’s help. “What the fuck are you two doing here?” she asked. “Is this a joke or am I in some kind of hellish nightmare that I have yet to wake up from since leaving the city?”

  “It’s not a joke,” Nathan told her. “And as far as I can tell, you’re not sleeping. I heard from Eddie who learned from Keisha that you were coming up here for the holiday weekend and thought it would be a good idea to stop by. Maybe mend some fences underneath the fireworks.”

  “I didn’t learn about you and Mo until after we got here,” said Sheila. “I just want it clarified so that you didn’t think I was happily taking part in stalking you.”

  “It’s not stalking. We’re here to have a good time, just like you, V.”

  “Oh I was just trippin’ the lights fantastic until the two of you showed up here, and with our food.” She snatched the box of pizza from Nathan and stepped back from the door.

  “What’s going on out there?” Maurice hollered from the other room.

  “We’ve got more company,” she shouted back. “And it’s more fucked up than you could ever imagine.”

  “That wasn’t the kind of response Sheila and I were hoping for.”

  “Really? How does this work?” She slammed the door in their faces and walked back to peek her head into the den. “By the way, the food is here.”

  “What the hell is going on?” asked Maurice as he got up and followed her toward the kitchen. Nathan reached down for the knob, twisting it and shoving the door back. When he and Maurice looked at one another, an invisible line of territory had been drawn between them.

  Sheila stepped into the house and looked around at the decorum. “I need a drink and this isn’t strong enough.” She gave the bottle of wine to Maurice. “Is the bar still in the same area?” Staggered by their presence, he couldn’t bring himself to speak to her and only pointed back behind him.

  Nathan kept his hand on the knob and twisted it back and forth. “Your girl forgot to lock the door. You might want to tell her something about that. It’s dangerous. You never know who’s lurking around outside your home just waiting to come in.” Nathan smirked at Maurice before joining Sheila, along with William and Nikki, the latter of who was less than thrilled to see either of them.

  Maurice carried the bottle of wine to the kitchen and found Vanessa with the box of pizza. She flipped the lid back and began poking each slice with a plastic fork. “What are you doing?” he asked her.

  “They brought it with them. If it’s laced with something toxic, this fork will melt right into the cheese.” She noticed the wine and raised her hand. “And we’re not drinking that shit either – no telling what they did to it.”

  “What are they doing here?”

  “I mentioned to Keisha at work yesterday that we were coming up here. I didn’t think anything of it, but apparently she told Eddie who ran off at the mouth to Nathan, who then suggested to Sheila that they come too. Even though she claims she didn’t know that we were here until they arrived.”

  He crinkled his brows. “Really.”

  “Yeah.” She continued stabbing at the food.

  “And you don’t find that strange?”

  Before she could answer, Nikki waltzed into the kitchen and grabbed a slice of food, never questioning what Vanessa had been doing to it or why. She stuffed it into her mouth, relieved she finally had something to fill her belly that wasn’t made from an apple. “What are tweedle dee and tweedle dumb doing here?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, but I wish they’d go the hell back.”

  “We didn’t know the party moved in here.” Nathan beamed as he waltzed into the kitchen with Sheila. William held back, observing all of them from afar.

  Vanessa grumbled. “The ‘party’ didn’t move anywhere. There wasn’t supposed to be one in the first damn place.”

  Nathan moved over to where she stood and stared down at her as she continued poking the food. “Pizza is normally eaten with your hands.”

  “No shit Sherlock. I’m only making sure that whatever the hell was put in this before it reached our front door won’t kill us all.”

  “We wouldn’t have had the time to do anything to it if we wanted to, V.”

  “Ok wow, well, glad to know where we stand on that.”

  “We saw the delivery guy coming up to the house when we pulled up and paid him to give us the food in exchange for letting us bring it to your door instead.”

  She dropped the fork in the middle of the food and narrowed her eyes. She closed the box and handed it over to Maurice. “Can you take that in the den with everybody else? I need to talk to Nathan alone for a second.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah, it won’t take long.”

  Maurice grimaced at his rival, who turned his head to chuckle. Sheila watched Nathan and Vanessa from the corner of the room, only leaving with the others at the advising of Maurice who offered to pour her another drink.

  Vanessa picked up a towel to wipe the grease from her hands and threw it back down on the counter. “Now are you gonna tell me what the hell you’re really doing here or am I going to have to play the guessing game all night?”

  “Not much to guess when it’s Fourth of July weekend. You didn’t think I’d bypass our first summer back to the city without visiting the Hamptons at least once.”

  “I call bullshit. You’re being much too slick with everything that you tell me. I might not know whatever it is that you’re hiding now, but I’ll find out about it soon enough.”

  “I’ve got nothing to hide, V. Not this time.” He eyed the bottle of wine on the counter and pushed it back from the edge. “Sheila and I picked that up on the way here at some old time liquor store.”
He showed her the year. “1983. Isn’t that about the age you like?” He winked at her upon exiting the room.

  A shiver of something ran up and down Vanessa’s spine. She wasn’t exactly sure what Nathan’s plans were in showing up for the weekend, but she knew for certain that whatever happened during their time there was bound to make an already terrible beginning get much worse by the end.

  Part Twenty-Five

  The next morning, Vanessa woke up to the smell of food sizzling on a skillet. She inhaled the delicious flavors and slid on a pair of shorts and one of Maurice’s t-shirts, and headed downstairs to the kitchen where she found him standing behind the stove scrambling eggs and frying up pieces of bacon and sausage for breakfast. It was enough food to feed an entire army.

  “Hey.” She yawned while falling down onto the chair behind the island.

  “You finally decided to get up,” he said.

  “It’s 8:30am, Mo. Please. Not everyone gets up and goes running like a manic before the sun is even up on a Saturday. The result of your efforts are momentous and spectacular” – she admired the beautiful shape of his bare back – “but again, please.”

  He laughed to himself as he placed some eggs and a few slices of bacon on a plate and handed it to her. “Thanks,” she told him.

  “I was planning to bring you this in bed, but…” He poured her a glass of juice and handed it over as well. “Are Nikki and William still asleep too?”

  “Ugh.” She bit down on her bacon and snarled. “I was hoping like hell that they were just a bad dream, along with the She Devil and her serpent.”

  He bent down on the island and enfolded his hands. “I still don’t know what that’s all about. I’m trying to give their being here the benefit of the doubt, but--”

  “Don’t. That’s the worst mistake we could ever possibly make with those two. Any benefit of any doubt is bound to do us both in, indefinitely.”

  “I don’t remember him mentioning where they were staying up here.”

  “Sheila said something about her parent’s place, I don’t know. To be honest, I was only half listening to the conversation last night because I was too busy trying to get them the hell outta here.”

  “Morning,” Nikki said as she came into the kitchen with William strolling in right behind her.

  “Happy Fourth!” he exclaimed. “Great day on the horizon.”

  “Yeah.” The instant Vanessa saw them holding hands, she rolled her eyes and picked up another piece of bacon, chomping down hard.

  Maurice stood up and nodded. “I’ve still got some food here if you’re hungry.”

  “Great, thanks,” William said. He took a seat beside Vanessa, but she moved over to avoid any personal contact. “Last I checked, I didn’t bite, V.”

  “I’d hope to God not. Otherwise, Nikki might be in need of a tetanus shot right after.” She laughed. Maurice held back a chuckle, but neither William nor Nikki thought anything was worth snickering over. She grabbed the last piece of bacon from her plate and spun around in her chair. “Excuse me.”

  “What’s up, V?” Maurice asked her.

  “I think I’m going down to the beach to get some air.” She shoved her bacon into her mouth and rested her hands on her hips. “It feels kinda stuffy in here all of a sudden.”

  “Are you sure it’s not your own air you’re breathing in?” asked Nikki. She took her place beside William after fixing her plate of food.

  “The air didn’t get clouded with filth until you both walked in.”

  Nikki turned in her chair and leaned forward as if she were preparing herself to take a flying leap across the room. William placed a hand on her leg in an attempt to hold her back from making a mistake he knew she would regret. “Is that a fact?”

  Vanessa mouthed, “Yeah.”

  “Alright, okay.” Maurice moved around the island and stood in front Vanessa, using his body to shove her back. “Why don’t we go and take that walk,” he said. “Might help you to cool off if you get near the water.”

  “I’m not getting in it,” she complained.

  “I’m not asking you to this time, but let’s just go.” He took her by the hand and guided her out back to the deck and down to the sand surrounding the ocean.

  Nikki spun back around and threw her fork down on the plate. “At this rate, we are never going to get back to where we were before all of this.”

  William got up to fix his own plate. “She knew about you and Oscar, right?” She nodded while breaking down her sausage into small pieces. “Then like I said yesterday, give it time and she’ll come around.”

  “HEL-LO, everybody!” It was Sheila. And her voice sounded like nails on a blackboard. Nikki and William saw her standing on the other side of the double doors, holding up a bag of something and shaking it back and forth. “I have food,” she said.

  William sat down his plate and was about to walk over when Nikki held out her hand to stop him. “Don’t you even think of letting her inside of here.”

  Sheila latched onto the knob and pushed the door back with great ease. “I thought V was a lot better at keeping her doors locked?”

  “She’s had a lot on her mind lately,” said Nikki. She looked up at William and crinkled her brows. “I knew we should’ve checked all of the doors before going to bed last night.”

  “That probably would’ve been a good idea,” Sheila replied. She went over to the fridge and began looking around for a tub of cream cheese. “I brought bagels.”

  “Maurice cooked, if you couldn’t already tell.”

  Sheila saw the mounds of eggs and sausage and turned up her nose. “Blech, I can’t eat any of that heavy homemade stuff this early.”

  “You mean breakfast?” she mumbled.

  “No. Carbs and high cholesterol foods that leave fat on my body where there should be toned muscle. Where’s everybody else, still sleeping?”

  “Mo and V went out to the beach,” said William. “Where’s your better half?”

  “Still in bed.” She poured herself a glass of juice and whirled around to look at the both of them. “We wore each other out last night. I think he does it now to keep me from asking too many questions about certain things, but it was so good, I didn’t give a damn!"

  Nikki felt like puking and pushed her plate back. “I think I’ve officially lost my appetite.” When the phone rang, she got up to answer it. She smiled upon hearing the voice on the other end and handed it over to William. “It’s your daughter calling to wish you a Happy Fourth.”

  “Okay.” He looked down and pressed his hand over the speaker. “I gave her this number just in case since the reception has been so bad on my cell. I’ll be out here.” He pointed toward the same doors Sheila had come in from, then leaned forward to kiss Nikki’s cheek and quickly excused himself.

  She grabbed her plate and dumped the remaining food in the trash. As she saw Sheila getting cozier in their space, she became even more uneasy with her being around. “I don’t know if it’s smart of you to still be here while Vanessa’s out. She’s already not happy that you two showed up unannounced.”

  “She’ll get over it, just like she did with you and William.” She hopped up on the counter near the sink and continued drinking her juice. “So, you two sure do look as comfortable with each other as ever – even more than the night at Bar Nineteen. I thought he would’ve dumped you for a cheaper model after wearing out his black card, but maybe this is the real deal.” Nikki tried as best as she could to disregard her and began washing the plates after covering the other food with plastic wrap. “Didn’t you tell me that Vanessa was still ‘your girl’ or something like that, when it came to him? It’s funny, because from where I sat last night, she didn’t look too fine with anything. In fact, I think you barely spoke a word to each other the entire time Nathan and I were here.”

  “You didn’t stay long because she kicked you out, remember?”

  “That’s true, but I doubt much changed after we left. There was a tim
e when you two were virtually inseparable no matter who was around. I get the feeling that despite what you said, she’s not too fond of him.”

  She dropped the plates in the sink. “If you think that, then why are you asking me about it?”

  “Just making conversation.” She smiled. “I also can’t believe that a man would cause such trouble in your friendship paradise. Say it isn’t so?”

  “Don’t be a bitch.”

  “I’m trying to sympathize here with you, Nicole.” She jumped down from the counter and moved closer to her face. “How does it feel to have the Ice Queen finally freeze you out for good over someone you’ve chosen to be with?”

  “Don’t ever compare our situations,” Nikki retorted. “And she didn’t ice me out for good. We’re having a fight, but we’ll come back together in the end like we always do.”

  “How do you know that it’ll be the same this time?”

  “Because I’m not you, so I think I’m good.” She dried the dishes and placed them in the drain before exiting the room.

  Sheila sat down her glass and folded her arms; the immense jealously she felt over Nikki’s lifelong bond with Vanessa continued to eat her up inside.

  William reentered the kitchen and walked over to her, holding up a cell phone. “Is this yours?”

  She panicked and checked around inside her pockets. When she felt nothing, she took the phone from his hands and dusted the sand from the faceplate. “I didn’t even know I had lost it this morning. Where did you find it?”

  “It wasn’t too far from the house,” he said. “I felt it buzzing underneath my feet, kicked around the sand a little bit and there it was. Where did Nikki go?”

  “Back upstairs.”

  “Great, thanks.” He placed the phone back on the receiver and headed up to meet her.

  Sheila scrolled for any calls she might have missed between her own beach house and Vanessa’s. There were a few texts from Nathan asking where she had gone and one from Melanie asking if she was busy later that afternoon. “Hm.” As soon as she saw Melanie’s name, the wheels began spinning inside her head. Sheila had no real interest in actually screwing up Nikki’s relationship with William, as it in no way benefited her to do so. She did, however, have interest in widening the wedge that had formed between her and Vanessa. She didn’t necessarily believe as Nikki had said before that her former best friend would abruptly come running back to her after learning the truth. But seeing as how she was certain her nemesis had been deceiving everyone in regards to Oscar while her own indiscretions were all out in the open and put on full display for everyone else to judge, she thought she had a better chance than not in doing so.