Live & Learn ~ A Miss Independent Novel

by Kiki Leach

  “We wouldn’t be fighting if you would just let me live my life, Vanessa.”

  “I’m letting you live your life – you can live your life. I just don’t think William is the right person for you to live it with, and I’m sorry but it’s how I feel. Now having said all of that, I am going to try like hell for you sake. Which means after tonight, I’m gonna shut up about it and let you do you. Because I love you and I miss us, and I don’t wanna lose you over something stupid like not accepting a man who at least isn’t married.” Nikki laughed. “I know beneath all of the crap I’ve said that he’s a good person and if he really does make you happy then, so be it.”

  Nikki took Vanessa by the hand and squeezed tight. “You’re going to come around a lot sooner than you think.”

  “Uh.” She pulled her hand back. “Let’s not push it, alright? We can just hug it out and then see where this all goes from there.”

  Sheila came around the corner just as they embraced one another. A twinge of jealousy hit her directly in the gut.

  “What do you plan to do about Adrian?” Nikki asked her.

  She exhaled and lowered her shoulders while continuing to hold her friend in her arms. “I have no clue.”

  Sheila sat her drink down on the side of the counter and stormed over to them, tapping Vanessa on the shoulder. “Can we go outside for a second?”

  “What” – Vanessa pulled away from Nikki and grumbled – “could you possible want from me now? I’ve said all I had to say to you earlier. I think I was done.”

  “I haven’t even had a chance to start yet, V, so can we please just take this someplace else?” She headed off from the kitchen and through a screen door that led out back.

  Vanessa turned to Nikki and crossed her fingers. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, just send out the coast guards to find her body and give Maurice my passport.” She followed Sheila out and stepped around past the deck. “What do you want? I’m all out of shit to bargain with, so if this is about yet another thing you need, look elsewhere.”

  “It’s not – I don’t need anything else.” She tossed her hair behind her as the wind carried it past her shoulders. “Did you know about Nikki and Oscar?”

  Vanessa shrugged. “What does it matter if I did? And how do you know about that anyway?”

  “Melanie told me about it, and I think it matters a lot.”

  “Why would she tell you anything about her personal life? How do you even know this woman well enough to I assume, invite her here with her husband?”

  “Can we save those questions for another time and focus on right now?! Because right now I think it’s bullshit that you’re embracing Nikki despite what she’s done to them since you won’t ever forgive me for the same thing I did to you! And what she did was a HELL of a lot worse because they’re married. You and Nathan were barely still committed to each other when we stared having sex.”

  “So are you saying that it makes what you two did to me okay?”

  “No! What I’m saying is that you can’t just go around cherry-picking your morals with certain people in this group. If they apply to one person, they should apply to all of us! You can’t hate me for making a mistake--”

  She chortled. “A mistake? Really?!”

  “Yes, a mistake!”

  “A mistake is ONE TIME, Sheila.” Vanessa threw up her index finger. “ONE. You and Nathan were having sex all over the city and would’ve continued fucking until the end of time if I had never found you two together in that damn shower!”

  “You don’t know that Vanessa, but that’s not the point anyway.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “No! My point is that you can’t keep treating me like shit for what I’ve done while giving Nikki hugs and comforting her for doing the same damn thing!”

  “I wasn’t comforting her because of that. Maybe if you had heard the conversation from the beginning instead of eavesdropping on the last little bit like you always do, you’d know that. And why do you care so damn much anyway?”

  “Because I miss OUR friendship just as much as you missed the one you have with her! I miss hanging out with you and talking to you on the phone and coming over to your house to bitch about my life while eating ice cream in my pajamas!”

  “We’ve been there, alright? Get a new song to sing.” She tried walking away but Sheila snatched her arm back.

  “No,” she said. Vanessa gently shoved her back. “I want to know why she has always been more important to you than I ever was. Why you always accept her for her faults but never accepted mine. The moment you found out about me and Nathan, you threw me aside and straight into the lion’s den. I’ve been there ever since despite busting my ass to get out of it. And yet you still treat me as if I never mattered to you, as if our friendship never mattered to you--”

  “You call blackmailing me earlier tonight about my ex a friendship? You call seeking him out to keep me away from your fiancé a friendship? You call digging into my life when I’ve asked you time and again to stay the fuck out of it a friendship? I may get pissed at Nikki, yeah. She may do things that I don’t like or approve of and say stupid things to my mother, but it doesn’t matter, because at the end of the day I know that she’s got my back no matter what. Even when we were kids, I could never say the same about you because you were always fucking me over for the sake of pleasing yourself and it hasn’t stopped yet! So if you want a reason why we aren’t friends and why we will probably NEVER be friends again, look in the fucking mirror, alright?! Now, I am DONE having these conversations with you” – she wildly waved her arms across her chest – “done. I don’t need you to try and prove yourself to me, I don’t need you to try and change your ways because we both know it’s never gonna happen – I just need you to back the fuck off of me, for good.”

  Tears emerged from Sheila’s eyes almost immediately. She felt too weak to stop them or wipe them away. “Then I guess that working for you at the magazine is off the table now, too.”

  “Unfortunately, no it isn’t. Because I can’t trust that you won’t go behind my back and run off at the mouth to Adrian or Maurice. You’re like a baby with a pacifier, if I give you at least SOME of what you want, I know that you’ll be affable.”

  Sheila looked toward the sand and dug her feet in as deep as they would go. She felt like crawling inside of it and covering herself. “I knew that you hated me, but had no idea it was that much.”

  “I don’t hate you, Sheila. I did, or at least I thought I did but contrary to popular belief, I don’t anymore because really, what’s the use? I’m not going to continue living my life in anger because of you and that nutcase you call a man of yours.”

  “You loved him once too.”

  “Yeah, well, thank God THAT’S over with. I can’t imagine continuing to be with someone who treats people the way that he does. He’s been laughing his ass off this entire weekend for one reason or another despite the chaos he created, and doesn’t give a damn about you, me or anyone else here. This has been nothing but a live action Telenovela for his ass, don’t you get that? He doesn’t care about anybody but himself and the moment Adrian showed up here, whether it was to screw me over or make a dig at you, is when you should’ve realized it if you hadn’t before.” Vanessa hit her with a few hard truths, many of which she didn’t want to face head on in knowing they were due back to the city in less than a day.

  “V, I--”

  “Don’t, okay? Just…” She pushed her hair behind her ear and exhaled. “Mo and I are gonna leave. I don’t wanna be here anymore and I seriously just don’t ever wanna talk about this ‘non-friendship’ with you again after tonight.” The fireworks began shooting up from the other part of the beach. Neither woman had the strength or want to look up and watch the colors filling the sky.

  “Alright,” Sheila sniffed. “I’ll just stay out of your hair. And um… That’s it.”

  “That’s it.” Vanessa crossed her arms and headed back into the house. She gathered
her things and asked Maurice to take her back to their own house. Nikki followed with William, while Alexis, Gina, and Alexander vowed to head home that night to avoid another confrontation. Oscar and Melanie had planned to leave along with everyone else but with being too exhausted from the night’s events to head back to his parent’s house for the night, Nathan offered them an empty room.

  Sheila almost immediately fell apart the moment she realized everyone else was gone. She went out to the end of the beach and dropped down to the sand. She pulled her legs up to her chest and sobbed until her face hurt. Adrian saw her from the deck and walked out there to join her. He caught her wiping her face and fell down in the sand beside her. She looked at him with tears in her eyes and without hesitation, took her into his arms. She grabbed onto him as he held her tight and hushed her.

  “This was one of the worst times I’ve ever had out here,” she said.

  “I was going to wait in mentioning this, but now that you’ve said that, I’ve got to agree that this is probably one of the worst weekends in the history of this holiday. The Congo has been looking a lot better to me all night.”

  She laughed and sat upright, wiping her face with the parts of her hands that weren’t covered in sand. “That wasn’t actually the goal.” She dusted her hands and turned her eyes up to more of the fireworks.

  “What was the goal for this weekend?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I thought Nathan wanted time alone with me, but--”

  “Why have you chosen to stay with him?” asked Adrian. “From what I saw tonight and what you’ve said before, he doesn’t treat you very well.”

  “I’ve been in love with him since I was a kid.”

  “Vanessa was too at one point.”

  “And she’s not anymore because she found the person she is supposed to be with. Nathan was never meant to be her person.”

  “And he’s meant to be yours?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “What still makes you so sure of that?”

  She didn’t know how to respond that question anymore. Normally, she would’ve said ‘because it was just meant to be that way’ or something within the same vein of it without pausing. But now looking into Adrian’s eyes, she didn’t know if what she thought or said would be anything close to the truth.

  Instead of waiting around for an answer, he jumped up from the sand and held out his hand for her. “Come on.” She slid her fingers into his palm and he helped her up. For hours they walked along the beach not saying another word. Sheila was just happy to have the company of someone who wasn’t screaming at or judging her for being who she was. Adrian was just happy to be in the presence of someone he hadn’t previously screwed over.

  Part Twenty-Nine

  “I NEVER want to travel with those people EVER again,” Vanessa said as she and Maurice stumbled back into their Manhattan townhouse. She dropped her bags directly on the floor and strolled through the foyer, peeling off her shoes and untying her hair. “I don’t care who’s paying for what and I don’t care about the circumstances. If we EVER go anywhere else and one of them pop out from someplace unwanted, we are OUT before we even put our bags down!” She fell onto the couch in the living room and threw her legs over the arm.

  Maurice leaned against the frame, smiling to himself as he watched her. “You’re breathtaking.”

  She laughed. “Thank you, but I don’t feel it and I’m still pissed. If it was absolutely meant for us to be stuck with all of those people, the least we could’ve had was a decent time. I thought that was the point of 4th of July weekend? You go to the Hamptons. You drink. You hang. You sleep for a little bit. And then you come back home. I mean, what the fuck? Why can’t this group of people ever get shit right? I accept the dysfunctionality of it all because I have no choice. But does every time we all get around one another have to turn into World War III? And I really don’t get Nathan’s part in all of this – that is what’s the most confusing to me.”

  “I didn’t understand the point of inviting that Adrian out there,” he said. “This guy who is supposed to be a professor of philosophy was meant to help us out, how? Was he supposed to sit us down in a circle and have us hold hands while he explained the circle of life and why we all needed to get along? He came in at the last minute, was there a few hours’ tops, and didn’t do anything of any significance that night or even this morning when we all left. He was your professor, did you even say anything to him?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t have anything positive to say, so I kept my mouth shut.”

  He snickered, but kept their glances at one another in the back of his mind. “Did he suck as a teacher?” Vanessa gazed up at him but couldn’t bring herself to explain the truth. Not then. Any time after, maybe days or even weeks, but just not in that moment. She was tired and stressed and couldn’t bear the thought of Maurice feeling as if he needed to compete with someone who in her mind, was no amount of competition whatsoever. Not just to Maurice, but to what they had finally managed to build.

  “He wasn’t awful,” she informed him. “I just didn’t care much for him, is all.”

  “Hm. Well at least you and Nikki managed to make up in all the lunacy.”

  “Yeah, for now.”

  “You don’t think it will last?” He moved into the room and she lifted her legs, giving him room to sit down on the couch. She lowered them on his lap and he stroked his fingers up and down and between her thighs.

  “I don’t know. I hope so. I basically told her I couldn’t make any promises, but that I would at least try not to be such a bitch about it anymore.”

  “That’s all you can do.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” She rested her hands behind her head. “In the meantime, I’ll just deal. And enjoy the time that we have together until she finally decides to come back home.”

  “In that case, what do you want to do first?” he asked her.

  “To be perfectly honest, I could think of oh so many things for us to do in this heat.” They eyed one another, then looked toward the foyer. Maurice pushed her legs back and immediately leapt from the couch, sprinting for the stairs. “Fuck you, I thought of it first!” Vanessa shouted, racing behind him.

  He stopped at the first step and turned back; she bumped into his chest. They both laughed as he looked down at her. “You can either wait for me to finish first, V, or we can conserve water and just shower together.”

  “You’re not gonna leave me alone until you get that, are you?”

  “Hell no. I’ve been wanting to lather up that body since you grew into it in the 9th grade. Before that, it was just the thought of you playing with my rubber ducky, which you do so well.”

  She chuckled. “Alright, fine. But when you wash my back, you are gonna really have to wash my back, not just rub soap suds all over me and pretend you’re doing something back there when you’re not.”

  “So this is a real shower.”

  “It’s a real shower.” She slid off her shoes and kicked them to the side. “Are you man enough to handle it?”

  He reached around and grabbed her ass cheek with his entire hand. She shrieked in excitement. “I think the better question is are you” – he bent down to the side of her face – “woman enough” – he kissed every inch of her throat – “to handle… this.” He jerked away from her and began removing his clothes while hurrying upstairs.

  “MO!” she hollered, climbing up behind him and unbuttoning her pants. Clothes were strewn from the hall to the bathroom, which is where they stayed for the remainder of the afternoon.

  Meanwhile across town, after William and Nikki returned to his house, she went directly to the study and dropped to the couch, exhausted. She covered her face with her hands and sunk down. “I can’t believe what happened this weekend,” she said. “Between Vanessa’s old professor and Melanie and Oscar, I don’t think I ever want to experience anything like that ever again in this lifetime or the next.”

  “I don’t
think I ever want to either. But for different reasons.” William walked in and tossed his keys on the bar. He positioned himself against it and crossed his arms.

  She saw the pensive look on his face and sat up straight. “You were pretty quiet on the ride back.”

  “I didn’t have much to say. I did a lot of thinking.”

  “What kind of thinking?” she asked, the hint of worry tingling in her voice.

  “Us,” he said. “Of our relationship and yours with Oscar, as well as his with his own wife.”

  “Who cares about their relationship?”

  “I think that you might.” He crossed his arms a little tighter against himself. “I remember when he called here and how angry you had gotten with him on the phone.”

  “That’s because he had no right to call here.”

  “No, he didn’t. But that’s not what had gotten you so angry with him, and I know that. So do you. I tried not to think too much about it after because we were moving forward. But when he showed up with his wife this weekend, I saw a side of you that I didn’t particularly like. You were angry, jealous.”

  “Sheila invited them out of spite and Melanie only showed up with him to piss me off. You know that.”

  “It shouldn’t piss you off, Nicole, not when she’s his wife. You were reduced to nothing more than his ‘side piece’ and that makes a difference in a relationship.” His words were hard to listen to, but honest. She knew she needed to hear them even if she didn’t want to. “When you started badgering Melanie about that ‘ring around the dick’ game--”

  “I didn’t think she would actually take the bait and run with it.”

  “And you didn’t like what she ran with, which is the point I’m trying to make. You were in actual tears when she told you how many times they had been together. I think you convinced yourself of differently for so long, to hear the opposite almost broke you.”