by Kiki Leach
As she lifted her head and stared up at the clock, Oscar did the same, then looked over at her and grinned.
“This is the longest we’ve ever been horizontal,” she said as he wrapped a hand around her shoulders and pulled her close. She slightly turned and tucked her head beneath his chin. “Tell me this wasn’t a mistake. That I didn’t give myself to you again only to be crushed by--”
“It wasn’t a mistake,” he told her. “It’s not a mistake. The only mistakes we can make now are staying with the people that we know we shouldn’t.”
She rested an arm on his chest and drove her fingers up and down against his thin hairs. “You want me to end things with William,” she said.
“That goes without saying, Nik.”
“Maybe for you, but, not for me. I can’t do that. I won’t.” She got up from the floor and crossed the room. She grabbed one of her oversized PJ shirts and slipped it over her head.
A conflicted Oscar sat up and stared at her. “What?” he asked.
“You want me to end things with a man who is literally helping me to build up my career. I’m nowhere near being established yet. I can’t just dump him out of the blue while I’m still playing someone’s understudy. And I’m sure as hell not going to dump him while you’re still married.”
“Then you’re keeping him your pimp slash contingency plan?”
She reached for her phone to check for any missed calls and snickered. “Between all of that good sex, I almost forgot how much of an el pito you could be when it’s not being used to satisfy me.” When she saw no missed calls, she threw the phone onto the bed and looked back at him.
“Do you trust me when I tell you that I’m officially leaving Melanie?” he asked, holding his hand out for her. She took it with caution and got back down on the floor in front of him.
“I want to,” she said. “I’m trying. But your track record is hazy.”
“I’m trying to fix that.” He leaned in and skimmed his mouth up and down the front of her throat.
She moved her fingers into his hair and laughed. “And so far you are doing fantastico. But, it doesn’t mean that I’ve suddenly stopped caring about William,” she told him. And instantly, he pulled back. “I’m sorry. I know that this isn’t something you want to hear right now, if ever, but it’s true. I don’t just think of him as someone who can buy me nice things and get me a job. He actually respects me as a person, and as a woman and believes in me and my craft.”
“And I don’t?” he replied.
“I never once said that you didn’t.”
Oscar turned his eyes toward the floor. “You’re staying with him out of fear,” he said.
“And if I am,” she started, “it’s only because you’re the reason it’s there to begin with.”
They looked into one another’s eyes for a long time, studying, imagining, attempting to understand.
Oscar understood her fear. He understood the reason behind it. He didn’t understand why that reason had to cost him the only thing he felt had been worth fighting for.
As he leaned in to kiss her, they heard a loud clanking-clacking noise coming from downstairs.
Jerking back, Nikki’s eyes expanded by the second like two flying saucers when she realized it had been the front door opening and closing shut.
“Dios Mio.” Her voice was so light, Oscar barely understood either word she said.
“Hey, Nikki!” William hollered from downstairs. “I’ve brought someone back with me that I really want you to meet.”
She quickly scrambled from the floor, all the while slipping on the sheet still wrapped around Oscar’s waist. As she fumbled and struggled to get to her feet, he tried to catch her to keep her from falling flat on her face.
Downstairs, William waited with his daughter in the living room. Exhausted from their long ride back from Connecticut, she had crawled onto the couch and began dozing off. William stared at her, smiling, then fixed himself a drink. While sipping back his cognac, he rested a warm, comforting hand against his daughter’s face and brushed his fingers back into the sandy brown curls of her hair. Once she began to snore, he chuckled to himself and gently tapped the edge of her nose with his finger.
When he heard a loud thumping sound coming from up above his head, he looked up toward the ceiling and saw a slight rattling motion in his chandelier. Not wanting to wake up his daughter, he sat his glass of bourbon down on the bar and headed out of the living room, through the foyer and upstairs.
Racing as fast as he could into his bedroom, Nikki froze in place with Oscar standing before her as she heard William’s footsteps getting closer and closer to the room.
She looked around as fast as she could and pointed toward the closet in the corner. “HIDE!” she whispered. “I don’t know who he has waiting downstairs, but if he catches you in here, he won’t care.”
Oscar had no time to argue as Nikki quickly grabbed his clothes from the floor and stuffed them in his hands. As the door started creaking back, she opened the closet as fast as she could and viciously shoved Oscar inside. His head bounced back against the wall, but he tried to keep the sound of pain he made as quiet as possible. He wasn’t exactly into hiding anymore, but knew that coming out to William in his own house, let alone in his own bedroom in which they had just had an unbelievably amount of gratuitous sex probably wasn’t exactly the best time or place to stake his claim.
The moment William walked inside, Nikki turned from the closet and smiled.
“Hey!” she said, doing her damnedest to pretend that all was well.
William noticed something different about the room, the entire atmosphere as well as the vibe was off in so many ways, but he couldn’t exactly explain why or when it might have happened.
When Nikki raced over and wrapped her hands around his neck, holding him tightly, he wrapped his around her waist and kissed her throat. His eyes closed as he inhaled her and she sat back quick, remembering that she smelled more like Oscar than herself.
She gently pushed William’s arms down from her waist and took his hands instead.
“Where in the world have you been all day?”
William stared at her for a few seconds before shaking his head of suspicion and answering. “That’s what I was calling you about downstairs. Didn’t you hear me?”
“I did,” she said. “But I…” She looked down at herself. “I needed something to wear before I walked out of this room.”
He stood back and eyed her from head to toe. “I don’t remember that shirt being inside my closet.”
“It’s in a place you’d never think to look, in the very back.”
“I might need to do that sometime,” he said. “Just to see what all is in there.”
A concerned Nikki could feel her throat actually closing up the longer they stayed in that room. Hives were bound to spread between them at any moment.
“What was it that you wanted to show me downstairs?” she asked, leading him toward the door.
“A who,” he said. He glanced back into the room one last time before taking her down.
As soon as they were gone, Oscar quickly dressed himself and climbed out of the nearest and lowest window he could find.
Once they reached downstairs, William tightened his hand around Nikki’s and brought her into the living room. He tapped a sleeping Corrinne on her shoulder and she rolled over on her side, rubbing her eyes, but never actually opened them.
Nikki bent down to get a good look at her face. Her mocha skin was so smooth that she almost looked like a real live Kenya doll.
“She’s beautiful,” said Nikki.
William nodded in agreement. “I’m hoping to have a few more just like her one day,” he said.
Nikki only smiled, refusing to say a word of it. William had yet to know about the fact that she had no desire to have children with anyone. The closet ever being with Oscar and even then, she wasn’t prepared, which resulted in her eventual abortion. The only person who ever kn
ew aside from her doctor, was Maurice. She was determined to take it to the grave with her outside of that because she knew that judgment was equivalent to being stoned alive.
Nikki leaned into William’s ear. “What happened out there?” she asked. “Why did you have to go out there and get her?”
“My ex-wife refused to be specific,” he said. “Only telling me that I was needed and Corrinne wanted me there. We got into an argument, which got pretty ugly, which is why Corrinne is here tonight. And will probably be here for a good long while until this custody battle between us is finally resolved. I hope that doesn’t bother you too much.”
It did bother her, immensely, but seeing as how she wasn’t expected to pay rent or bills or much of anything unless it was something that she wanted to do, it made remaining there with him bearable in comparison to living with Vanessa and her ‘rules’.
“By the way,” he started, picking up his glass of bourbon. “On the way back home, I got a call about Sharon, the woman you’re an understudy for, and was informed that she suddenly dropped out to take the lead role in a feature film that starts shooting in LA next week. Which means that you have now officially landed the part of Glinda.” He arched his brows and took a sip from his glass.
Nikki brought her hands together and bit down on her bottom lip, then pointed at herself. “I’m officially Glinda in ‘Wicked’.”
“As long as you want it, the role is yours.”
“As long as I want it? As long as I want it?” She squealed and threw her arms around William’s neck.
He laughed while holding onto her, though both tried to remain quiet to keep from waking Corrinne.
He sat his glass down again and dragged her into the foyer. “In honor of this, with the play officially starting in a month, I want to have a party for you on opening night. One including people like Vanessa and Maurice as well as some industry professionals that I think you’d do well in working with for future projects. None of those people will include Alexis,” he said. “After what happened last night, I think it’s best that we all keep our distance for a while.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” she told him. “Any distance from Alexis is perfectly fine with me.”
He smiled and kissed her lips, then turned back to his daughter. “I’m going to carry her upstairs to her bedroom,” he said.
Nikki stayed behind and immediately had the urge to text Vanessa. Realizing she had left her phone upstairs, she tiptoed up behind William, then darted off to his bedroom to grab her phone from the bed. She thought to check the closet to check on Oscar, then felt her phone vibrating with a text message.
Until Next Time.
From Oscar.
It was the smallest gesture he could have ever given, providing the biggest impact. As long as he could reassure her, she was certain that what was happening between them this time was well worth fighting for. Even if the battle she was forced to fight the hardest was between her head, and her heart.
Part Nine
After spending most of her time away from Maurice and in tears that night, Vanessa called up the one and only other person she knew was never bound to give a hard time about the things she had done, stupid decisions she had ever made and more importantly, about the men who almost always seemed to leave her in a state of complete disarray more often than not.
Her stepfather, Alexander.
While waiting for her order of ice cream in a ‘hole in the wall’ parlor not far from Jamaica, Queens, she saw him walking through the door and got up as quickly as she could to meet him half way. As he looked down at the distress in her face and wiped away the flood of tears with his large hands, she collapsed into his arms and breathed in and out against his old blue and white flannel t-shirt as if God had just sent down one of his angels to repair the broken pieces she had shattered into. When her name was called to retrieve her ice cream, Alexander took her back over to her chair and helped her sit down. Then he rushed to the counter and paid the cashier while grabbing her ice cream, as well as one for himself, and took a seat in front of her.
As he inched the cup toward her hand, Vanessa was beginning to wonder why she had even ordered it in the first place. She wasn’t hungry, she had already had a full meal. The last thing she needed was more food that was certainly going to make her sick. She started to wonder if the numb feeling passing through her body, which started the moment Maurice admitted to being the reason her entire world managed to turn upside down, might have been the reason for it. If you’re numb, you can’t feel anything, much less pain or knowing when it’s best to put the spoon, fork or knife to the side.
Alexander dipped his spoon inside of his ice cream and placed his hand on the table. Flipping it over on the back, he reached out for hers and held it tight.
Unable to control the pain any longer, Vanessa took her face in her other hand and began to sob.
“Have you spoken to Mo since you left the house?” he asked.
She immediately shook her head. “He’s been calling, but I keep sending it to voicemail each time.” She dropped her hand from her face and sat back in the chair. Her brain felt muddled, her heart destroyed. All she really wanted to do in that moment was crawl into the nearest bed and never come out of it. “How the hell were we just together a few hours ago? How the hell did I wake up in his arms this morning? How the hell did my life go from semi-tolerable to a complete truckload of shit in just a matter of a few hours – in just a matter of one weekend?”
Alexander swiped his hand across the back of his neck. “You don’t think that this will be something that you’ll be able to move past?”
She folded her arms and sighed.
“He was the one person I could always count on to never, ever lie to me about anything, for any reason. He told me the truth even when it killed him to. Even now, he can’t help in being brutally honest during times when all I want is for him to either hold me or just shut the fuck up. How the hell can he hold something in like this for five years? Even if he thought that there might have been just the smallest chance that I wouldn’t forgive him, he would’ve said something because it’s something I deserved to know--”
“Not if he feared he might lose you, baby girl,” he said. “People who are in love do some crazy, crazy things in order to hold onto what they have.”
“We weren’t together when he did this, Alexander--”
“It doesn’t matter. The boy has been in love with you for as long as he’s kept this lie to himself, and even longer.” He looked aside and chuckled. “He was always a mess when you were younger. Coming around and having dinner at our house when his parent’s had no idea where he was. That boy used to follow you around like a sick puppy in heat. Your mother thought that he’d grow out of it once he discovered other girls, but I knew that he never would. And I knew that no matter who or what came before you, that he would sit around and wait forever for you to finally see in him what he managed to see in you from the very start. It’s been almost twenty years of feeling like that for you, Vanessa. All those years of friendship, all those times he was at your side supporting you, loving you. And each time you accepted it with open arms. There was no way in hell he was going to risk losing that by telling you what he had done. He knows you better than you know yourself, baby girl, and he knows that even if you wouldn’t have meant to do it, even if you didn’t want to do it, you would’ve pushed him away, much like you did other people you felt had done you wrong--”
“Other people who had done me wrong,” she said.
He nodded. “Alright. The bottom line is that boy knew what the outcome would be. And he was so determined to stay in your life that no drug in the world would’ve been able to get that truth out of him, until he was ready. I’m not condoning what he did by any means, and I’m not saying that you should go back home and try to work things out when you’re feeling like this. But from what you told me, it’s clear that he never meant to keep you in the dark maliciously.”
She bro
ught her hand up to her face and dropped her eyes to the space between them on the table. “He only mentioned it because I told him about Adrian and the baby first. Which Alexis still doesn’t know about. And I don’t want her to know about this thing with Mo either yet, so I’d appreciate it if--”
“Of course,” he told her.
“Thanks…. I started to see this pile of guilt in his eyes and I didn’t know where the hell it had come from. And then he mentioned Page Six and Olivia and I just saw red.” She pressed her chin down against her chest and breathed in and out while taking in all the sounds around her. “I’ve never loved anybody with my whole heart before,” she said. “Every time I thought that person might have been Nathan, I just want to sit back and laugh until the tears start coming because what I felt for him back then just doesn’t compare. What he did with Sheila, it doesn’t compare. I would rather walk in on them ten times over than to have to deal with this shit right now.”
She flicked the cup of her ice cream and watched it spin to the center of the table. By then, the cream had turned into pure liquid.
“I’m not going to tell you how you should feel about this,” said Alexander. “And I’m not going to give you a timeframe of when I think you should forgive him, because it’s not my place to tell you that you should. But I want you to think back on the conversation that we had when Nathan first blew back into town – actually before. When I was standing in your kitchen and telling you the difference between a first love and a true love. You remember that?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve firmly pushed Maurice into the latter category.”
“I know that, which is why it hurts so damn badly.”
