by Kiki Leach
Vanessa almost dropped the phone when she heard her mother’s voice booming from doorway. It flew out of her hand and she fumbled for it before it could hit the glass. She pulled back, clutching it against her chest, and spun back around to face her. She sank down into her chair and reached out her hand, using the edge of her desk to help bring herself forward.
She took a deep breath and sat up. “Mother--”
“I don’t want to claim you right now, Vanessa. All I want to know is what in the HELL happened at that damn reunion on Saturday night?!” She waved around what looked like a stack of newspapers. “You better have a damn good explanation for this ‘Ghettotrocity’ you managed to cook up, Miss Thing. But if it’s like anytime I had to bail your fast behind out for the INSANE things you did in high school, I can already tell it won’t be! And hang up that damn PHONE!”
She hadn’t seen her mother this angry since she was fifteen and stole her car to take a joy ride to New Jersey with Sheila. She tightened her hand around the handle of the phone and swallowed hard before turning her lips into the receiver and whispering.
“I’m gonna have to call you back.” She fumbled again as she tried placing it back onto the hook. Though her curtains were still down, she could feel everyone outside her office closing in on their conversation. “My employees are probably listening to all of this.”
“LET them! You shouldn’t have installed this damn glass in the first place, and more importantly, you SHOULD’VE thought about your actions to keep me from coming in here to tell you about them!” Alexis slammed the papers on top of her desk and rested her knuckles at the edge. “What in GOD’S NAME is the matter with you, girl? I have had people from New York to Los Angeles and even our publisher in Hong Kong calling my phone until it rang off the hook yesterday morning, informing me of your exploitations at that reunion after they had made their way to the damn internet! You were showing your ASS all over the place--”
“Mother--”
“NO!” she hollered, pointing down at Vanessa like a disciplined child. “I want you to be quiet.”
“It is really not as bad as you think. In fact, I think you’re over exaggerating just a bit.”
“Girl, you better get down on your knees and thank God you are too damn old for me to take a switch to your behind! I ought to snatch you up right here and now for showing your entire ASS all over the cover of the New York Daily News! You are suddenly a media sensation just like you were then, and for all of the wrong reasons, just like you were then! When the hell is it going to get inside your thick skull between Nathan and babies that you are the child of a mogul? You’re not playing the role of a side chick in a hip hop music video!”
Vanessa opened her arms wide, confused at her choice of words. “What?”
She held up the cover of a different tabloid, which showed Vanessa straddling Sheila on the floor of the ballroom and grabbing a chunk of her hair, presumably before attempting to slam her head into the ground. Vanessa scrunched her brows and pressed her fingers together, anxiously bouncing them against one another as she tried to ponder an acceptable explanation.
“I had a few glasses of champagne on an empty stomach, so the events that occurred that night are not technically my fault.”
“Just like it wasn’t your fault when you broke Sheila’s nose after graduation? Had Veronica not gone out of her way to tell the public that her daughter needed a nose job for that ‘deviated septum’ and literally PAID everyone at that party to keep quiet, that incident would’ve been spread out all over every news outlet too! I strive to be the best in this business and you can’t HELP but take this down to the gutter.”
“I didn’t bring anything to the gutter! Sheila came after me because she thought I was basically having sex with Nathan when we were only dancing!”
“Why the hell were you two dancing together in the first place?”
“Did you bother to read any of the articles, or were you just too busy looking at the size of my ass on the cover of that thing?”
She fiercely tossed the paper back down onto the stack and leaned forward. Her eyes bulged from their sockets and the veins on either side of her head expanded as she grit her teeth. Vanessa leaned far back in her chair and flinched. “Vanessa Rae Brown, don’t you keep PISSIN’ me off! Do you understand the kind of damage this will cause for us? Do you see Anna Wintour’s daughter showing her behind all over New York City? Do you see her getting into a public fight with a former friend over a man, A MAN, Little Miss Independent, who isn’t even worth half a dollar and NEVER was? And even if she did, you are not some lily little white girl who can continue to get away with things like that and have them overlooked. What you do, who you are, that reflects on ALL of us here at Attitude. Are you understanding me, Vanessa? You are not sixteen years old anymore and I have run out of excuses in trying to defend you in order to save the integrity of YOUR reputation as well as this magazine!”
She opened her hands and jumped forward, looking toward the ceiling and hollering. “I’m sorry!” She fell back and reached around to scratch the back of her neck. In reality, she felt like choking herself. “I’m sorry,” she repeated in a more quite tone. She rattled her head and exhaled. “I know that this is embarrassing for you as well as the magazine. And I know that I have done things in the past that continue to make you question my ability to handle the responsibilities that come with running it. I never meant for things to escalate like that. But--”
“There is always a ‘but’ with you, girl--”
“You need to know the truth, and the truth is that Sheila came after me like she always does. She starts shit she can’t finish and I’m always the one left to blame for it. She attacked me because of some theory that she had inside her head about me and Nathan. We won King and Queen of that stupid thing, something which was most likely her entire idea because she was so certain she would win. When she didn’t and we did, we were required to dance together.”
“Was it a requirement? Or was it something you CHOSE to do on your own?”
“I didn’t CHOOSE to do anything. We were practically bullied into it.”
“Oh, girl,” she snapped.
“Ok, that wasn’t the right word, whatever. The point is, I never meant for any of that to happen. If anyone deserves to be throttled here, it’s THAT bitch.”
“Sheila’s not here right now, nor is she my child, YOU ARE. And when you go out representing ME and MINE, you need to remember to show some decency and RESPECT. And how about a little class while you’re at it?”
“I have class. I have plenty of class, more than that ratchet piece of gutter garbage ever will.”
“I see you so perfectly demonstrated just how much class you possess, Vanessa.” She exhaled, pressing her fingers against her forehead in aggravation and slipping them down her face to the tip of her nose. “Your sister never would’ve pulled something like this, showing her behind all over every news outlet and publication in this city.”
“Felicia didn’t have friends in high school. In fact, she didn’t have friends OR enemies, because people in high school couldn’t bother enough to care about her either way. She was YOUR daughter and that meant something to the adults, but no one else. She was a complete bookworm and shunned all of that stuff anyway.”
“I’m beginning to think that you should have too. Maybe then you could be on that beach enjoying freedom while eating pinto beans and rice right alongside her and her husband and children, instead of back here actin’ like some THUG in a dress! What the hell kind of example do you think this is setting for Regina? I’ve all but banned that girl from talking to you right now! She is fifteen and easily influenced by your actions, Vanessa. Alexander had to take her to school himself this morning because the press was hounding our front door.”
“I don’t know what else you want me to say.”
“Try starting with ‘you TOLD me so, Mama’! What did I say to you the minute those people came back to town? And now they’re li
ving up to every single word, right down to damn near destroying your life all over again and every positive aspect that you managed to rebuild in their absence. You’re allowing them to take everything that you have become away from you.”
“I’m not allowing them to do anything. They’re not stealing pieces of my soul or who I am, they already have those things locked away in jars someplace – probably at the senator’s mansion.” She paused and breathed out. “God knows I didn’t ask for them to come back! I didn’t ask for them to stay in town or for Sheila to possibly have her wedding here. You can blame me for a lot of things, but you can’t blame me for that.”
She leaned aside and rested her hands on either side of her waist. “Why are Nathan and Sheila staying in town?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked her daughter straight in the eye, then behind her, out the window. “Yes you do,” she said. “They’re staying to be closer to you, but each has their own agenda behind it.”
“How can you be so sure of that?”
“Because I know those two better than you think.”
Vanessa looked down at her desk and released a heavy sigh. “I can’t force them to leave town, Mother. Believe me, if I could, I would have made it happen the moment I learned they were coming.”
“But you can stay away from them, Nathan especially.”
“You ask me to stay away from Nathan, meanwhile, Sheila is the face I’m trying to bash in on the cover of the paper.”
“Sheila is not your problem, she’s only part of it, one that wouldn’t exist without Nathan standing between.”
“We would’ve continued to have problems in our friendship with or without Nathan. He just escalated them, is all.”
“I don’t believe that,” she said. Vanessa looked up and squint, curious. “I believe Nathan is the entire root of your problem. It grew into a bigger one when you found them together, but it all started with him. You remember how much I didn’t even want you dating him in high school, neither did Alexander and if your father were around, I’m sure he wouldn’t have wanted it either.”
“Well, daddy’s in the Congo, so he has no say on anything that happens in my life,” she mumbled.
“Nathan’s parents weren’t too fond of your relationship either,” Alexis went on, ignoring.
“How could I forget how much his father hated me but seemed to fall in love with that adulterating sl--” She stopped. “Her.”
“I knew that if I tried to keep you from him, you’d find your way to him regardless. And God only knows what would’ve happened then.” She glanced down at the paper again and shook her head. “I don’t know how you’re going to fix this, Vanessa. I’m hands off this one. But you better think of something fast, or I am putting you out on the street.”
“And who’s going to run this place in my absence?”
“You’re looking at her. I built this magazine from dirt and rocks before you could even walk.”
She scoffed. “I was thirteen when you started this magazine not long after daddy left and we needed more income.”
“You are here because I brought you here, ME! I can just as easily remove you from this position and if you keep testing me with this kind of nonsense” –she pointed down at the magazine— “that is EXACTLY what will happen next.” She pushed the papers forward on Vanessa’s desk, forcing her to take a look at each one. “We have Melanie’s launch tonight and a restaurant opening on Thursday. You better figure out a game plan before the end of the day or--”
“Wait a minute, back up. What restaurant opening?”
“Alexander’s first business partner is opening his second restaurant around the corner from Eleven Madison and we’re required to attend. I told you over a month ago that this was going on!”
“You never told me any of this; maybe that was to your good daughter, Felicia.”
“I could have told you two seconds ago and never before, it does not matter. We are required to attend despite your actions at that damn reunion -- but I mean it. You better figure out a game plan before tonight and minimize the negativity down to nothing, or I will fly that girl back here myself and plant her in that seat to work for me instead.” She pointed.
Vanessa crossed her arms. “You wouldn’t demote her from rank.”
“No, but I WILL demote you out into the damn street just as I SAID! Get on the phone and make this right!” She quickly exited the office.
Vanessa saw the paper sitting at the edge of her desk and picked it up. She took note of the crazed look in her own eyes that was put on full display as she held onto Sheila’s hair. The terrified look on Sheila’s face didn’t seem to faze her at all. But she felt embarrassed for the first time in her life, which was saying a lot considering all she had done in her early years, and tossed the paper across the room; it separated in sheets and layers and hung in the air, flying from side to side before finally landing on the rug. She turned back toward the window, praying the day wouldn’t get worse, but after the last few weeks, wasn’t exactly banking on that ideal.
Part Twenty
“How long were you two together?” Sheila took a long sip of tea that Adrian had made especially for her. She was thirsty, but hadn’t found much of what he had to drink in his apartment desirable, save for the bottle of gin he kept in the back of the fridge, but what she wouldn’t allow herself to have on an empty stomach. So he went to a neighbor and asked for various packets of tea, if only because it got Sheila to stop complaining so damn much.
At that point, he was almost regretting having let her inside to tell her the time of day, let alone anything about his relationship with Vanessa. But he was just desperate enough to be closer to her again just as she was just desperate enough to keep her away from Nathan.
He bobbed his head back and forth. “About three months.”
“That’s it? From the way you talk about her like some long lost love of your life, I was expecting more along the lines of almost a year.”
“It was part of a semester. But we flirted a lot longer than that. We were always in each other’s faces and space, and there was no plan to ever avoid it.”
“How did it first happen? What was the exact moment that brought you two together?”
He sighed. “Do you want the Cliff’s notes or the deleted version?”
“If I wanted it short and sweet, I wouldn’t have made it all the way out here outside of my comfort zone, and instead asked you on the phone or made up some shit myself, which I’ve been known to do a few times before.”
“Why am I not the least bit surprised by that?” he said. She tossed visual daggers his way and he laughed, leaning forward and wrapping his other hand around his cup, drinking his coffee until it was almost gone. “She came to my office one day to talk about a grade. I was ready to go home from a long day and almost out the door, but she insisted she needed to talk to me because she had convinced herself that I had graded her paper wrong. It was something I made every student do at least once a semester, write a paper detailing the events that occurred during World War II, but to put those events into their own words, as if they were telling a story to someone who had never heard it before.”
“How does that relate to philosophy?” she asked.
“It gets them to think.”
“She’s known to do a lot of that. Maybe too much of it, which is way she still hates me. What kind of grade did you give her?”
“B minus.”
“She came bitching to you about a B minus?” She chortled. “She really HAD changed her ways.”
“She closed the door and sat down in front of me and tossed the paper on my desk. She wanted me to read it again, every world until I realized the mistake that I had made in giving her a grade lower than what she felt she deserved. We argued about it for over an hour, which sort of seemed like foreplay now that I think about it. I kept trying to tell her that a B minus was more than fair, but she didn’t want to hear any of it. She tried leaving my office a
few times, threatening to go to the Dean to have me removed from my position because I was too incompetent to teach someone of her level. I grabbed her arm before she could get out the door and she jerked away and shoved me back a little bit. I lost my balance but I was so turned on by her at that point that I kissed her. And I kept kissing her because she didn’t ever try to push me away. That day she was wearing a short pink skirt. Her legs were just shaved and smelled like peaches. I put her on my desk and slid my hand between her--”
“OKAY.” She lifted her hands high in the air and sat back, bugging her eyes, mortified. “I think you got carried away there. I get the entire picture now, you don’t have to go into any more detail past that. From what I’m gathering in this conversation, you two fought and had sex. Hate sex.”
“I wouldn’t call it hate. It was more or less aggressive, but not hate. And it was often, never tedious and never in one place.”
“Through all the sex in various places, you fell in love with her?”
“Yes, but not just for that reason. She was smart and she would listen. I could talk to her about almost anything and she would be right there, taking a mental note of every word. But I couldn’t tell her how I felt for a long time because I knew that she wouldn’t believe me. When I finally did, she still didn’t believe me but I couldn’t stop myself from telling her anyway. I felt she needed to hear it just as much as I needed to say it. I told her we’d get married and have kids someday, that we’d have a full life together and be like the family she always said she wanted. I made her believe in this dream but for so long after I said it, I knew it was something that we could never have.”
“Why would you do that to her?”
“Because I was an asshole. And because at the time, I thought it was true. I thought that we could get married, that I could stop teaching and she could work at the magazine or whatever it was she wanted to do, and we could live a happy life in Connecticut or anyplace outside of New York. But that’s not real life and I knew that it wasn’t no matter what I kept telling her. What we had together was a fantasy based on the lives we wished we could’ve had with each other if we weren’t who we were. I couldn’t face her when I told her that I was going because I knew that she would hate me. So like a coward, I wrote her a letter and left it in her mailbox. I knew that she would break me if I saw her, keep me from leaving, and I couldn’t do that to her or myself.”
