by Kiki Leach
The moment she was gone, Maurice emerged from the living room, now dressed in actual clothes. Nikki looked over at him as he came up beside her. “You heard all of that?”
“Every single word.” He slipped his hands inside his pockets, staring at the door. “What she said was right, you know,” he told her. “If the man really wanted to leave his wife, he would’ve left her by now. He has an option, you’re his way out of that marriage and yet, he’s staying with Melanie.”
“He’s not staying,” she said, though now she wasn’t so sure. “I know what I’m doing. I love her for caring, but… she doesn’t know my life. She doesn’t know what I have with Oscar and neither do you. He might not leave his wife tomorrow, but he will eventually.” She tried to convince herself that it was true; if she believed in it hard enough, it would happen.
“You realize that day may never come, right? And you would’ve wasted your life giving it to someone who only sought to steal your breath for their own.”
“That’s muy filosófica coming from you of all people Maurice Livingston, but I could say the same about you and V. By the way, you owe me doscientos cincuenta dólares. She almost figured out that I only went to bat for you because you offered to pay me for it, but I back-peddled. Calling you the lesser of two evils in comparison to Nathan made my stomach turn.”
“It’s true.”
“No it isn’t. All we have ever seen since you’ve moved in is woman after woman parading throughout this house like she owned the place after having sex with you. You might be in love with Vanessa, but by my calculations, you and Nathan are still on the same level of sordidez.”
“And your boss isn’t?”
She sneered. “Just pay me my money.”
“It’s in the bank. We can head down to TD later before they close.”
“They close in thirty minutes, Mo!”
“Then we can head down there tomorrow once I get off work. You’ll get paid.”
“I don’t trust you. We are going now.” She looped her arm inside of his and yanked him out the front door.
Part Five
Sheila had been waiting at the outside dining area of Isabella’s for the last fifteen minutes. Vanessa wasn’t late, so much as Sheila decided to show up early so not to be late herself like she was the last time they were supposed to meet when Nathan showed up in her place instead. She became restless while anticipating her former friend’s arrival and ordered mimosa after mimosa to help calm her anxiety. She had downed a few pills on the way in a cab, but still couldn’t seem to conquer her growing nerves.
When Vanessa finally arrived, she greeted Sheila with an insincere smile and took a seat across from her, placing her clutch on the table as she slid her chair underneath and crossed her legs. The sun was blazing down on both of them as they sat beneath a thin umbrella, but it was damn near competing with Vanessa’s icy mood.
A pimply faced waiter with bright green eyes and strands of brown hair sprawled all over his head walked out to their table the moment he saw her arrive. She initially ordered a rum and coke, light on the coke, heavy on the rum, then changed her mind when she remembered what Maurice had told her earlier. Drinking around Sheila again, and so soon after last night, was probably not the best idea.
“Just get me a tonic water with a lot of lemon slices in it,” she said. He nodded and headed back inside the restaurant.
“No one followed you on the way here?” Sheila asked before taking a sip of water.
“What?”
“The paparazzi. I think at least three of them tried to run me off the road since I stepped out this morning. I thought about telling Nathan, but I didn’t want him to worry.”
She rolled her eyes a little. “Yeah, well, I didn’t see anyone behind me, but I wasn’t paying too much attention. I’m less worried about what other people think after having seen the article and more worried about what my mother has to say. I haven’t been on the cover of anything for something like this since high school.”
“Same here. She hasn’t called you yet?”
“No, which makes me a bit nervous. Have yours contacted you?”
“No, but they’re out of town. I’m not looking forward to when they come back.” Sheila leaned down on the table and grinned wide. “In spite of everything, you look really nice today. Is that a new watch?”
“It’d be new to you, since you’ve never seen it.”
“Right.” She patted her wrist with her left hand and Vanessa caught the flash of her 2.1 karat gold diamond against the rays of the sun.
“But thanks,” she replied, staring down at it with a lump in her throat. She looked back into Sheila’s clueless brown eyes and feigned a smile. “My mother would probably say I look tacky, but I like it.” She dropped back in her chair. “You look…” She struggled to say something that wasn’t going to get her into another fight. “Nice as well. One of the models wore a similar outfit in our magazine last month.”
“I know. I own the copy. Attitude is still where I get most of my creative ideas.”
“Really?” She attempted to sound surprised, though she wasn’t.
“Of course! Do you remember during freshman year when your mother and my parent’s had that party with the New York City Elite in her townhouse? She banished us to your bedroom and we stole every issue the magazine had put out that year, comparing outfits of what we wanted to wear versus what was socially acceptable?” She laughed and dropped her head. "That seems like such a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, probably because it was.”
Sheila lowered her eyes to the table and gradually nodded. “Probably,” she muttered. “Isn’t the tenth anniversary coming up soon?”
“Yeah, in a few months. Alexis is thinking of having a big blow out to celebrate. I’m not sure exactly when.”
“Hopefully by the time it comes around, I’ll have made it to the guest list.”
Vanessa averted her attention elsewhere and opened her eyes wide while fiddling with her earring. “Mm-hmm, yeah. Me too.”
Sheila sensed the growing tension in her voice and sighed. This was definitely going to be a long lunch.
When the waiter returned, he asked if they were ready to order. Vanessa chose the Farmer's Market Egg White Omelette with a cream cheese bagel while Sheila requested a Mushroom Omelette with yogurt on the side. After he left them alone again, Vanessa sat forward and took a sip of her water.
“So,” she began, placing the glass back down near her napkin, “do you plan on telling me exactly why I’m here?”
“You’re here because I need you to know that I never meant to attack you like that. The things that I said and did, I never meant them. It’s just that seeing you with Nathan again--”
“But we weren’t doing anything, Sheila. Eliza forced us to dance together, so we did.”
“You didn’t seem to need a lot of coaxing into it.”
She craned her neck and twisted her face in fury. “Do you really want to go there?” she asked, her tone harsh.
“No.” Sheila raised her hands up, palms out in a defensive manner. “I’m sorry. My insecurities come into play when you’re around each other, and so close. I just lose it and I’m sorry about that.”
“Yeah, well maybe that’s something you need to get in check,” she mumbled.
“Vanessa, you know, if I recall correctly, you attacked me first when we were back in high school.”
“That attack, unlike last night, was well deserved seeing as it was not long after I caught you fuckin’ Nathan in the shower. You should be lucky that I didn’t rip your throat out with my bare hands and that the least I ever did was fix that crooked nose!”
“Why do you have to make it so difficult to talk to you?”
“I don’t make it difficult to talk to me. I run a fucking empire. If it were difficult to talk to me, I wouldn’t have made my mother’s magazine into the success it has become today. It’s just that I don’t like talking to you.”
/> Sheila clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and grit her teeth. “I asked you here today so that we could change that.”
“Well, it sure as hell looks like we’re doing a damn good job of it so far, doesn’t it?”
“If you don’t want to be here, why did you even bother to show up?”
Vanessa looked to the sky and shrugged. “Free food.”
“You’re saying that if I hadn’t offered to pay for your food, you wouldn’t have come?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“V, I am trying here. I really am.”
“Try harder.”
“What the hell do you expect me to do? Get on my hands and knees and grovel for your forgiveness?”
“That’d be a start.”
“I already told you that I was sorry. What language do you want it in now, Mandarin?” Sheila sat back and placed her hands in her lap. “You act like you’ve never done a single thing wrong in your life when that was your entire high school mantra! Remember ‘Bad Girls Do it Better’?”
“I remember that being a ‘bad girl’ never led me to sleep with your boyfriend and pretend to be your friend to your face. It never led me to tell you intimate things about him only realizing later that those things would soon be used against you during sex or any other moment you two spent alone together. It never forced me to hold your hand as you cried over him when he didn’t call you back only to turn around and fuck him in YOUR CAR not a few hours later. So forgive this former ‘bad girl’ for not living up to your expectations of forgiveness and for not being so welcoming with the bullshit you’ve been serving up since your return.”
She swallowed hard and sucked in her cheeks, mentally reliving every moment mentioned and feeling the shame now that never came to her back then. She took in a deep breath and stared directly into Vanessa’s hardened eyes. “It’s not bullshit, V,” she finally said. “I wish like hell that you would understand how much I’m trying to make amends for the things I’ve done to our friendship.”
“You’re trying to appease yourself of the guilt. But you know what, it’s whatever.” She waved her hand and rested her elbows on the arms of her chair. “After last night, I probably don’t have a right to still be so pissed at you for so long anyway.”
She knit her brows in confusion and rattled her head a little. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing.” Vanessa thought back to her moments with Nathan in her office, every touch, every kiss and caress, and refocused her eyes on the busying traffic as it hailed down the street. She felt guilty about what she had almost done, but at the same time, felt it was justified for being betrayed in high school.
Not long after, the waiter finally returned with their food. They began eating in silence, which pleased Vanessa, but Sheila vowed to continue making an effort to get back into her good graces.
“You’ve never told me about your time at NYU,” she said, placing a piece of omelet on the edge of her tongue.
“And why would I?”
She inhaled, exasperated, and returned to her plate. “I’m just trying to make conversation.”
“It’s not necessary.”
“I’m still curious. What were your professors like?”
Vanessa thought of saying something snarky in response, but decided against it. If she was going to make it through lunch without throttling Sheila where she sat, talking about something other than Nathan was probably her safest bet.
“They were fine. It depended on the kind of classes you took, so I tried to avoid the more difficult ones.”
“What did you take?”
“The basics. Philosophy, humanities, journalism... English, marketing, whatever. I needed a degree to take the position at the magazine because Alexis wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Did you like any class in particular?”
She glowered and dropped her hands to the table. “Why are you asking so many questions about NYU? Do you plan on enrolling there for fall or something?”
“I only brought it up because I heard that one of your professors is doing missionary work someplace. An Adrian something?”
She arched a brow and then crinkled it. “How did you hear about that?”
“Joan told me after she appointed me head of the reunion committee,” she thoughtlessly replied.
“How the hell would Joan of all people know he was my professor? She never attended NYU.”
She looked up, nervous after realizing what she had said. “She had friends that attended.”
“Okay, but why were you two discussing it at all?
Sheila sat up straight and tightened her jaw. She saw the look on Vanessa’s face, the line of fury forming between her brows, and knew she had gone too far. “She was talking about her friends that had the same class, and your name just came up in the conversation.”
“Really. Did she tell you what the class was?”
“No.”
“Then why was it being mentioned?”
She anxiously shuffled in her chair and yanked on her skirt. “She just brought it up.”
“Yeah, and I’m asking why?”
“It’s just something she said, V.”
“Well, what exactly did she say?”
“Just that you all had the same classes.”
“One she apparently never told you the name of, which was philosophy, by the way. You might want to remind her of that in case she mentions it again.” She glared long and hard at Sheila until the latter broke eye contact.
Vanessa wanted to take a sledgehammer and crack her skull to see if anything had been sliding between the crevices of her brain aside from questions pertaining to her past and personal life. She didn’t know what she was getting at, though it made her curious enough to wonder just how much she knew and was told.
But she didn’t want to dig further for fear of blurting something she shouldn’t, especially considering her relationship with Adrian was a private matter. So she returned to her food and glanced down at her watch. They had only been there for thirty minutes, but it felt like an entire day that would never come to an end.
“Let’s not bring up the Adrian thing again, okay?”
“Alright,” said Sheila. She eyed her up and down and squint. She had known the truth about Adrian and Vanessa’s relationship for weeks after learning it from Joan, the former head of the reunion committee. At the time she was determined to use the information to hold over Vanessa’s head, possibly blackmail her into being her friend again. But as of late she wasn’t so sure. Having the information might have helped in improving their relationship, but it also may have helped in destroying it again as well. “I didn’t realize talking about it made you so sensitive.”
“I’m not sensitive about anything regarding Adrian, I just don’t want to talk about him again, okay?”
“Okay. I didn’t mean to pry, I was only curious about what your life was like while I was away.”
“Well, after the last few days, I can tell you that it was peaceful, tranquil, and settling. Your return has really messed with all of that.”
“I never meant to come back here with the intention of screwing things up for you again, Vanessa. I know it doesn’t seem like that after everything, but I never asked for this.”
“Why the sudden flip? You go from thinking I’m fucking Nathan in front of our entire senior class to wanting us to erase it all and just hold hands while skipping down the street singing kumbaya. You’re so desperate to move away from what happened, or act as if that time of your life was some kind of myth.”
“Maybe I don’t want to keep living in the past.”
“Maybe some of us don’t have much of a choice in the matter. I’m happy that you got what you wanted, but it cost you a friendship in the end. I was the best damn thing that ever happened to you and you royally fucked that up, do you realize that?”
“Why do you think I’m so desperate to have it all back, V?”
“Because you have no friends,
Sheila. Treat people like shit or like they don’t matter and that’s what happens.”
Vanessa began picking at her food again and broke down in ordering a mimosa filled to the rim with more champagne than orange juice. She told herself it would only be one, and if she even thought of having another, it was time to leave, and fast.
Sheila didn’t know what else to say to get through to her. She would never be sorry in having Nathan, but there was a tiny part of her that would forever be sorry in how it all began. But she was determined to win back Vanessa’s friendship no matter what or how long it took.
When she heard her phone buzzing with a voicemail, she dug around inside her purse. She wasn’t sure if she even wanted to listen to it, but grabbed it anyway and noticed Nathan’s name in her ‘missed call’ list. She glanced at Vanessa, who swung her arm in a fit as she poured salt and pepper all over everything, save for the pancakes and mimosa now sitting adjacent to her water, and pushed the button to hear what Nathan had to say.
Vanessa noticed her suddenly giggling about something as she held the phone to her ear and became nauseous upon the first snort. Seeing Sheila happy for any reason made her want to vomit; it’s why she didn’t mind her squirming and feeling so uncomfortable in her presence. If she were paying for her own food, this was around the time she would’ve asked for the check and left without a single goodbye.
After Sheila tossed the phone back into her purse, she picked up her fork and continued eating as if nothing had just occurred. Vanessa glared, curious at her continued gleeful demeanor. She recalled Nathan telling her that he was convinced Sheila was cheating on him with some man she had volunteered with back in California; that she apparently lit up like a million watt bulb when talking to him in person or on the phone, and seemed to giggle just like that.
“Something funny?” she asked, attempting to ease into the conversation.
