by Kiki Leach
“He can do some things okay, I guess.” Nikki took off her jacket and placed it behind the counter. “Do you know who closed up last night?”
“I went home before Oscar locked the doors.”
Nikki went over to the register and began counting last night’s change, making sure everything was still in place and the money matched up from the night before. Melanie sat down her coffee and began unwrapping her muffin.
“Did Maurice make this coffee for me?” she asked.
She knit her brows. “He makes it every morning before work. I assumed he made it for Vanessa specifically this morning, seeing as she had to face her mother today. His coffee is the only thing she can have that doesn’t make her feel sick before 10am.”
“I hope her meeting with Alexis doesn’t go as bad as she seems to think it will. She can be a pretty reasonable person when given the right chance.”
“Are we talking about the same Alexis Brown?”
“I’d like to think so, and I’d like to think that she’s a very decent human being no matter what kind of attitude she seems to give off. People always give strong women a bad rap.”
“She is strong and intelligent and beautiful. She’s interesting and she dresses very well. But she’s also very cunning and can be kind of mean and has never liked me or my friendship with Vanessa.”
Melanie stood back and sipped more of her coffee. “I can’t imagine why, seeing what a great and respectable woman you seem to be.” Nikki took her tone of voice as yet another subtle dig, but bit her tongue in favor of responding. “What time is your audition today?”
“3:30. I’ll need to leave by 2 in order to get ready for it, though.”
“Oscar and Max should be in by then. He tried to come in this morning, my husband, but I told him that the women could handle everything just fine without him for the time being. I don’t think he was so sure, but he hasn’t called yet. But it’s good to have him here tonight since I won’t be able to stay after five.”
Nikki glared at her from the corner of her eye as she continued counting change. “Your cover launch?”
“Yes. I hope Vanessa hasn’t forgotten about that. I kept wondering last night if I should call her this morning to put a little reminder in her ear, but with everything else she has going on, it might be the last thing on her mind right now.”
“As far as I know, it’s still happening.”
“Are you planning to attend?”
Nikki looked up from her change and smirked. “No.”
“You weren’t invited?”
“It’s for Vanessa’s business, and that means no pleasure for me.”
“I bet you always manage to get your pleasure in other ways, don’t you?” She smiled as Nikki snarled at her. Her phone started buzzing inside her pocket and when she pulled it out to look at the name and number of Vanessa’s assistant, she perked up. “Speak of the devil herself. I’ll be in the back if you need me.”
Nikki whipped around. “I need you now, we open in less than an hour.” Someone began knocking on the door and waving at them, hoping to come inside. “And people are already showing up.”
“Then go and let them in.”
“I can’t, we’re not open yet. The tables haven’t been cleaned, the floors haven’t been mopped, there’s no coffee made. I don’t even know if all the mugs in the back have been washed yet.”
“Doesn’t Oscar normally take care of these things the night before?”
“No. That’s why he always has someone here at least two hours early every day. You’re married, don’t you two talk about these things?”
Melanie looked at Nikki as if she could kick her in the face any second. She sent Samantha straight to voicemail and stuffed the phone back inside her pocket.
“If he’s a paying customer, then we’ll open the doors, it’s as simple as that. Meanwhile, you can make sure the dishes are clean, the food is fresh and then mop the floors around his feet.”
“Oscar won’t like that.”
“I don’t care what Oscar won’t like, you’re with me today so please just do as I asked.”
Nikki rolled her eyes like an angry child and breathed out between her teeth. “Whatever you say.”
Melanie went over to the door and unlocked it. “I apologize,” she said, as an elderly man so tall his head almost slammed against the framing, stepped inside. She looked back at Nikki as she tried fixing the tables, making them look somewhat presentable to the public. “Serve him something.”
“I can’t, because like I already told you, nothing’s turned on because we’re not supposed to be open yet.” She looked up at the man as he approached the counter and smiled. “I’m sorry, we’re not supposed to be open yet, so nothing’s been turned on but the register. Despite you having a shirt and shoes as required, we have no food, no coffee, and technically no service.” She glanced back at Melanie who wanted nothing more than to shake every piece of shit out of her.
“It’s okay,” the man said in a kind voice. He waved his hand and then pointed behind him. “I can wait.” He went over to a table that sat just a few feet from the counter and took a seat in a crumb-free chair, grabbing a newspaper that had been left behind by someone else the day before. He flipped it over to the front page and jerked his head back when he saw the cover and headline. He adjusted his glasses on his face and leaned forward to get a better look at the words and pictures. “Is that Alexis Brown’s daughter? My grandchildren idolize this young woman and look at what she’s doing to this other person sitting beneath her.” He adjusted his glasses again and pulled the paper closer to his face.
Melanie came over and nearly jumped out of her skin after seeing the picture that had been placed on the front. She gasped, and then laughed unintentionally, covering her mouth as she did. “Oh my gosh! I hadn’t seen this one. It looks like her skirt is flying up so high – my gosh. Is she not wearing any underwear?”
The man spun the paper around to see what it looked like upside down. Nikki groaned and turned away to begin making coffee.
Part Eighteen
Sheila had finally made it to Queen’s in record time, but was terrified as hell of what she had seen along the way. A few neighborhoods were run down to the point of appearing completely abandoned, kids were playing in the street without their clothes on, dogs were running loose and chasing cats on top of supermarkets and dilapidated houses.
These were certain things she expected to see while living in the city, and some she had while growing up. But for some reason, she never expected to see them like this; most likely because while living in the city, she had never stepped foot outside of Manhattan or New Jersey her entire life. Queens was never a place she desired to travel to, which became difficult when she now had no other choice in the matter.
When she reached Adrian’s apartment complex, she promised her driver she would pay him whatever he wanted as long as he didn’t leave her there alone. He agreed to wait and got out to open her door.
She stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked up at the name of the complex, Belair, noticing someone had spray painted blue X’s across every other letter. She was beginning to have second thoughts, but knew of no other way to obtain the information she wanted. So she decided to forge ahead, taking her time and easing past the gate, while at the same time trying not to touch anything that she thought could make her sick.
Once inside, she reached into her pocket for his information and went over to the elevator to push the ‘up’ button for the first floor, not realizing it was where she stood. Since the button wouldn’t light up for her, she kept pushing her finger against it, hoping the doors would at least open.
“What the hell is wrong with this thing?” she asked.
“It’s broken,” someone said as they came around the corner. “That’s what’s wrong with it.” It was Adrian. He was leaning on the wall with one hand and resting the other at his side. He was wearing nothing but slacks and a white tank, something that didn’t
seem to remotely appeal to Sheila as much as his voice had over the phone. Though she could manage to admit to herself as she stared at him what amazing physical shape he was in.
She pointed at the elevator and moved back. “If it’s broken, they need some kind of sign on the doors to say so. That way, people like me won’t keep looking stupid waiting for the doors to open every time they jam their finger against that button.”
“You mean a sign like that?” He pointed above her head and she looked up to see a yellow piece of paper dangling from the roof of the elevator, only managing to stay on with a few strips of tape, which said OUT OF ORDER. “It should also say that it got jammed because of people like you slamming your finger into it.”
“Who’s supposed to see a sign way up there?”
“Anyone willing to look above their own eye level,” he said. She scowled. “If you haven’t guessed it already, I’m Adrian. Hello.” He stepped up and reached out his hand to shake hers. “And you have got to be one of the most infamous women in America at the moment, Sheila Harris. That picture of you in the paper doesn’t do you justice.”
“I bet it doesn’t since all the lighting is from shaking camera phones. Is your apartment somewhere down here?”
“It is. A… B, C. That’s how it goes around here, ‘A’ being on the first floor, B being on the second and all of that.” He snickered. “Come on.” She followed him around the corner to his room. He opened the door and allowed her inside first. She was surprised at how spacious and clean it was, considering everything she had seen on the outside. “Would you like a drink?” he asked, moving into the kitchen, which was open and clearly seen from the den just a few feet away.
“Water is fine – BOTTLED water is fine. Perrier if you have it.”
“I don’t. In fact, I don’t have any bottled water, but I can boil some for you and then put it on ice if you’d like. It’s the same difference.”
She sensed his sarcasm and waved her hand to indicate a no. She continued looking around the room and noticed the variety of paintings that hung on just about every part of his wall. One of them looked familiar to her, a Van Gogh, but she couldn’t place where she had first seen it. She made her way around the coffee table and saw a blanket folded up at the end of one of the couches with a small pillow placed on top of it.
“Do you live here alone?”
“I have a roommate, but he’s out right now. Have a seat,” he said, reaching for his mug on the counter. He stepped out into the den and stood across from her. “I can assure you the couches don’t bite.”
“Do they have fleas?”
“I don’t have a dog.”
“I meant for you.”
He grinned and placed the rim of his mug to his lips. “You seem like the kind of girl I might like.”
“Sorry.” She raised her hand and wiggled her fingers, flashing her engagement ring.
He laughed. “I didn’t mean what I said in that way because I’m not attracted to you. You’re attractive, don’t get me wrong. You’re just not exactly my type, physically. But I’m glad that you think so highly of yourself. High self-esteem is a very positive thing despite what you’ve always been told about it not being that way.”
Sheila was stunned by his thoughtless attitude and didn’t feel that the way he looked warranted it. He might not have been the most handsome man in the world with the best features, but to the world, he was certainly not the worst to stare at.
Adrian was a tall man with large round eyes as green as the leaves on a tree in Brooklyn springtime. At the time of his relationship with Vanessa, his dark hair was cut short, but since then, he had grown it long, keeping it at his shoulders. He was still in good shape, doing as most did, finding various places to work out around his city without being seen by too many people who may have known him from his teaching days – thus the reason he never moved back to Manhattan – and performing crunches until he couldn’t reach the other side of the floor.
Physically, he was never Vanessa’s type, but he was smart. Oh, was he smart, and that was one thing that sent her libido into complete overdrive and more than made up for everything else about him. He had a brain that was as filled as a public library holding four million books that had all been read in less than a few years’ time.
He fascinated her with his intellectualism and the things he had seen and done all over the world. And she fascinated him by being the only woman genuinely interested in his constant debate sparking arguments regarding the Law of Physics – the debate being the initial thing that brought them together, and also the one thing that managed to kill everything in the immediate blink of an eye.
He was fond of the way Sheila stared at him with such perplexity. Most people would be turned off by his caustic demeanor, but he felt there was something about her that might have gotten off on it just a little bit.
He pointed at the couch with his mug in hand. “Are you going to sit down?”
“I’m not sure if I plan on staying.”
“If you want to know more about my time with Vanessa because you think it will help you, then you’ll stay.”
“What are you going to tell me that I haven’t already heard from other people?”
“How about I proposed to her not long before I left the city, and she turned me down. Twice.”
Stunned, she eased down onto the couch and placed her hands on top of her legs. “I’m listening.”
“I thought you would, but my apologies” – he placed a hand on his chest and bent forward before taking a seat himself – “it’s not true. I was just seeking your attention.”
Her mouth dropped open and she guffawed. “I’m starting to see why you two didn’t work out.”
“We were fine. Until that student walked in on us and ruined everything we had managed to build up for ourselves. Vanessa and I had a good thing going before that.”
“All you seemed to have going was ‘a lot of great sex’.”
“That’s not all we had,” he told her. “She was special to me, and still is. I was her first adult relationship and can pretty much guarantee that she’ll ever have with anyone else what she had with me.” He leaned his head. “I remember in the beginning that she would talk to me about Nathan and what he did to her. I promised her I wouldn’t be anything like him and she believed me for a while, but anytime she saw me talking to another female student, she didn’t feel that way. I can see you’re the same about him too, which is what made you call me in the first place. But instead of going off to find someone new, you’re afraid that he’ll find Vanessa all over again.”
“He has found her,” she said. “But I don’t think she’s been too receptive of him lately.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I can’t guarantee that it will always be like that.”
“I understand.” He nodded. “There was another guy named Maurice thrown in there, but I don’t think it was ever anything too serious.”
“You mean, Maurice Livingston.”
“That’s the one.”
“Was she sleeping with you while she was still seeing him?”
“I don’t think so. They might have taken a break or broken up by then. I didn’t ask.”
“Because the sex was too good to stop, right?”
“I was mostly interested in her, the sex came second once we started having it on a regular basis.” He sat back and rested his ankle on top of his other leg. “I know that if you think I come back, it might help to keep her distracted and I have no problem in doing that. Keeping her distracted is what she appreciated about me the most, whether it was through books or with sex…. But I’m curious what you gain from learning about what we were like together during that time.”
“Knowledge, which is the epitome of power. The more I learn about her time with you, the more I know how to relate to her. The more I know how to relate to her, the more I can use that relation to my own advantage.”
“You seem bitter when you talk
about her.”
“I’m not bitter, just a little bit annoyed.”
“Do you hate her?”
“I’ve tried to hate her since we were kids because I thought it would make things a lot easier between us, avoidable. But I still love her as a friend, I just don’t like her very much right now. And I don’t trust her. Which is the exact same thing she can and has said about me. Everything but the love part.”
“You miss her.”
“I do…” She glared. “But so do you.”
He grinned. “I never once sat here trying to deny it.”
Part Nineteen
Vanessa was on the phone with Maurice, who had called her asking about how the day was going so far.
“Not good.” She leaned forward on her desk and rested her hand on her forehead. “My mother just walked into the building a few minutes ago. I haven’t seen her yet and I’m afraid that she might try to have me escorted out by the police.” He laughed aloud at his desk. “It’s not funny, Maurice!”
“Yes it is, V! Your mother isn’t going to have you escorted out by anyone. She might yell at you until your eardrums burst, but she’s not going to take you out.”
“Well, she’s planning on doing something, I can just feel it like a shiver traveling up my spine. She hasn’t made it up here yet and I am just--”
“You need to calm down.”
“Mo.” She spun around in her chair, facing the window. “If I could calm down, don’t you think I would do that? Don’t you think that I would try to do everything in my power in order to calm the hell down?” She sighed and dropped back in her chair, never hearing the footsteps that approached from behind.
“LITTLE GIRL, you better have a DAMN good excuse for not calling me back after what I learned about you last night!”
