by Kiki Leach
“I told you that it was about offering peace.”
“You’re proving that second by second with the way you continue to speak to me like an asshole. You either tell me the truth, or this bottle gets poured down the drain and goes straight into the trash. Thirty-five thousand just wasted on your ass.”
Nathan watched helplessly as Vanessa spun the bottle around her hand and feigned dropping it a few times.
“V, I told you that I went through a lot of shit to get that bottle for you.”
“Then I guess you should start opening ya muthafuckin’ mouth and tell me exactly what it is that I need to hear,” she told him. “Don’t pussyfoot around and don’t give me half-truths, because I’ll find the shit out one way or another and you’ll still be screwed and looking stupid while also being out of a cool 35k.” She lowered the bottle to her side and held it by the neck as if she could drop it at any second.
“Alright,” he said, pushing himself away from the frame. “Alright.”
“Go.”
“I heard about Nikki’s ‘opening night’ party – something about it being held at Bar Nineteen next week.”
She shrugged. “So?”
“Well, I got to thinking.”
“Aw, shit. That’s terrible for all of us who seem to know you oh ‘so well’--”
“About maybe showing up there to give her my support.”
She made a face. “What the hell makes you think she wants any kind of support from you of all people, Nathan? She and Mo might be on better terms now, but you’ll be on that list as soon as Sheila gets there, which will be never.”
He opened his hands and bent his head forward. “Actually, Sheila’s already there.”
“What?”
“She’s going to the party, V.”
“How the fuck is that even possible?”
He clamped his teeth together and blew virtual steam through his nose. “Adrian’s planning to take her.”
Unsure if she had heard correctly, Vanessa backed up and wildly waved her hand in front of her face. “Wai—Wai—Wai—Hold on a second, back up. Adrian? As in, Adrian Samuels – Professor Adrian Samuels…” She leaned in and pointed at her chest. “My former Adrian Samuels is taking her to this thing?”
“Yep.”
“And you’re just sitting back and allowing it to happen?”
“What choice to I have in that, V?”
“Um, I don’t know, how about the choice of you two still being engaged.”
He walked over to the couch and slumped down to the edge. “She gave the ring back to me yesterday.” He draped his arms over his legs and leaned forward.
Vanessa nervously ran her hand down the front of her throat and stared down at Nathan as he kept his eyes focused on the coffee table in front of him. She placed the bottle down in the middle, but he never shifted his focus.
“Did she happen to tell you how serious things have gotten between them?”
“Not really,” he said. “She was sort of vague about it. But I got the feeling from the way she talked about him that something more might have happened. I can’t prove it, but--”
“For the love of God and everything else holy, please don’t ever try.”
“I won’t,” he said. “To be perfectly honest, I’m not exactly surprised she left. I’m surprised that it took her so long after the shit I put her through.”
“Yeah, well, there’s something about you that seems to put a spell on us even when you do us dirty,” she said. He arched his brows and grinned with satisfaction. Vanessa felt like vomiting. “That wasn’t a compliment of any kind, Nathan.”
“I know.” He momentarily looked up into her eyes and laughed.
“So what exactly do you plan to do? And how exactly are you planning to use me to do it?”
He leaned back and turned his lips downward. “What makes you think I plan to use you for anything, V?”
“You didn’t come over here to bring me that expensive ass bottle out of the goodness of your heart, so just stop.”
He pressed his hand down on the edge of the couch and sat back. “Alright. Around the same time I found out that Sheila was going to this thing with Adrian, I found out that your boy was taking Melanie.”
That was like a record scratch in Vanessa’s brain the moment those words came out of Nathan’s mouth. She heard them as they strung together, the sounds they made as each word bounced off of his tongue and knew intrinsically what they meant.
And yet, she still couldn’t manage to decipher what she had actually heard.
“What?”
“Mo is taking Melanie to this party.”
“How the fuck do you know that?”
“Sheila met with me at uh, The Bean,” he said, keeping his eyes on her face, knowing that if he lost a single ounce of himself, she’d figure out that he was full of more shit than a clogged toilet. “After she left, I sat there for a while to think about what she told me, and then Melanie walked in.”
“Alone?”
“Yeah. She was telling the girl behind the counter that she’d have to close up on her own next weekend because she would be out with a friend. Being who I am, I strolled over to her and decided to ask her about it.”
Vanessa looked closely at his face and shook her head in complete disbelief. “You just went up to a woman you barely know and asked her who the hell she was hanging out with? It’s a wonder she didn’t mace your ass.”
“She knows who I am, V. Just, not very well.”
“My point exactly. What did she say?”
“After a few minutes of going back and forth, I finally got her to admit that she was taking Maurice. Or that Maurice was taking her.”
She started to squirm. The thought of him being out with her at a public party meant that they were more than likely moving things further than she had originally anticipated. Maybe what Melanie had to offer him as a companion, as his woman was a hell of a lot more than she ever could. Meaning a lot more ‘conventional’ and a hell of a lot less ‘crazy’.
Nathan chewed on his lip while keeping his eyes locked on Vanessa’s every reaction, move, stance and look. He didn’t want to make her feel worse than she already did about Maurice and whatever the hell he had going with Melanie, not at all, it was the last intention he ever had. After seeing them together for the second time on the night he and Maurice were hauled off from her house in a police car, and talking to each of them separately about their relationship and what it meant to each of them, he was finally able to understand the truth of what it was all about.
And why he truly never had a chance in hell with her again once she had finally given into Maurice after years of resistance. What they had couldn’t be faked or tamed or felt by anyone else. It was all them and there wasn’t a single person on earth, him included, that was ever going to have the chance to truly come between that without coming out the other side alone, broken and damaged by the hurricane which consisted of nothing but what they felt for each other, what they had always felt for each other and always would feel for each other.
But Nathan, above all else was an opportunist. And as much as he didn’t want to see a woman he once loved in pain, he also knew that there would be no way in hell she’d ever think to take him out in public again after all the shit he had done to her unless she was certain that she could use his presence for her own gain. Getting under her skin about Maurice and Melanie was just the tip of the iceberg. He wanted the entire boat to come crashing down.
Once Vanessa managed to get her thoughts together, she looked down at Nathan and began to question his sincerity.
“Did she say anything along the lines of him actually asking her?” she said. “Or was it something that they both just decided because he had an extra ticket? Because I know damn well that she wasn’t invited and if she were, she wouldn’t go.”
“She made it seem as if he asked her flat out if she would be willing to go with him.”
Vanessa closed her fingers
inside her palms and threw her fists into the air. “FUCK!” She strode back and forth in front of the table a few times and pressed her hands against her back. “And you said he wasn’t with her?”
“No,” said Nathan. “Like I said, she was alone.”
“Okay.” She pressed her fingers against her lips. “Okay, then it must have been after Nikki and I saw her at the B&G.” She stopped for a second to stare at him. “Which leaves me to wonder, how do you know that she was even telling you the truth?”
“Why the hell would she lie to a stranger, V?”
“You two may not know each other all that well, but she damn well knows that you know me and Mo and she’s also aware of what went down between you two. She could’ve easily told you that Mo invited her because she assumed that you would come here to gloat about it.”
As he felt himself losing her, and thus his plan, he decided to play every card he had.
“You still plan to go, right? Even if Mo is really going with this chick?”
“Of course. Just like I’m going to the play, it’s all to support Nikki above anything else. Even if Mo sees it fit to take her along as a date. It’s too damn bad she can’t tie a fountain to her back seeing as how she’s so damn parched.” She pressed her hand over her mouth to imitate a cough. “Bitch.”
“You really think he might try something with her?”
Vanessa’s head whipped in his direction and she glared. “No, Nathan. He’s not you.”
“He’s not me, but he’s still a man with a dick that probably hasn’t been sucked since you two ended.”
“You are so fucking disgusting.” She spun away from him and crossed the room. “Mo wouldn’t do something like that. I mean, he would have and did before we got together, but he wouldn’t now. Not if he thinks that there might be a chance for us to make things right, and better.”
“And he thinks that a chance might stand?”
“Yes.” She paused. “I think. I don’t know.”
“Men can’t read signals, V,” he said. “We need to have shit spelled out for us if you want us to know what the fuck you’re actually trying to tell us. Otherwise we--”
“What? Screw around? Yeah, don’t I know it.” She shifted back over toward the bookcase. Resting her hand on the edge, she focused her eyes on the cracks in the floor.
Nathan got up from the couch and walked over. Placing his hands around her shoulders, she almost leaned back into him for comfort. And then remembered that this man wasn’t the one she needed. Briefly, she turned up to look him in the face, then shook is hands from her body and walked away.
Silence stood between them like an invisible wall before he spoke again.
“Listen, Vanessa,” he started. “If you really want to make things right with Mo, then you need to let him know about it. He’s not gonna sit around and wait forever for you to come around when he’s got willing pussy in his face twenty-four hours a day like she seems to be.”
“That’s because the bitch won’t take her pasty ass back to LA and do the damn job she’s supposedly been so highly paid to do for the last ten years! But I’m not afraid of him actually doing anything with her.”
“You’re not?”
“No,” she said, spinning around to face him. “Like I said, he’s not you. But I can’t say that the two of them constantly spending time together and thus getting to know each other on a level that may not be intimate physically, but…” She stopped and took in a deep breath.
“What if I came to the party with you?” he asked.
“Yeah, let’s start yet another riot in public so that we can all be on the front page of whatever tabloid decides to show up that night and top the shit that went down at the reunion. Real smart, Nate.” She went over to the couch and plopped down. Then fell back and lifted her feet on the coffee table. “But hey, you know what? With my sister in town, it’s not like Alexis won’t have somebody to run the magazine in my place when she sends my ass off on extended leave.”
“I never said anything about a riot, V.”
“I don’t care. I’m not taking you with me, Nathan. Whenever you and Mo get in the same place, shit goes down and I won’t be in the mood for it that night.”
“Just like you won’t be in the mood for Melanie when she no doubt throws whatever the hell she’s got going with Maurice in your face?”
She swallowed back the building bile in her throat. “If she happens to come anywhere near me, I’ll just go off in the opposite direction. I’ll do my damnedest to stay away from both of them the entire night and everything will be fine.”
“That’s worked out real well for you before, V, right?”
She didn’t answer.
He zipped around the coffee table and took a seat next to her legs. “You’re not happy, V. And I know that I’m part of the reason for that being the case. I just want to be there for you for once and make this shit right.”
Vanessa placed her hands behind her head and started to laugh. “You’re full of shit.”
“I’m not,” he said.
Vanessa stared into his eyes, gauging for seriousness. She found a splinter in each one and sat up straight.
“What the hell is this really about?” she asked.
“What?”
“You heard me. What the hell is this really about? You didn’t come over here just to tell me about Mo and Melanie. You mentioned Sheila first, is this why you’re trying to go? You want us to show up together, to what? Get underneath her skin?”
“Showing up with me would do the same for Maurice, wouldn’t it?”
“I knew that there was something else behind this. You never do shit for anyone else without always looking out for number one first.”
“In this case, we both benefit, V.”
“How? Sheila doesn’t even want you anymore! She woke up, saw the light and realized that there was someone else out there willing to finally treat her with respect. Not that I really give a shit, but her being with Adrian just might keep her ass out of my fuckin’ face for the duration! And you’re telling me to bypass that opportunity just so that I can help you win her back and we can all go back to living the same damn cycle that’s been spinning around and around in circles since the moment you two came back? Hell naw. No.”
She got up from the couch and strolled into the kitchen.
Nathan slammed his fist against his knee. “Damn it.”
He got up to follow her.
“I know that I did Sheila wrong, V. Chasing after you, gettin’ my ass arrested. And before that, not calling her while I was gone and coming back here first to see you instead of her. But while I was locked up, I realized that she might actually be the best thing for me.”
“You mean the only thing for you because she’s the only woman we both know who’s always been willing to put up with your shit. And not just because she can but because she was hoping like hell that something positive would finally come from having done so for so long. It never did, and now she’s gone. You only want her back now because you don’t want to be alone for the rest of your life and you’re too lazy to find someone else and put in the actual work.”
“Vanessa.”
“What?”
“I don’t love her like a small part of me still loves you. I don’t think I’ll ever find another woman again that I’ll love just as much, even if I tried. But she comes close to the only happy that I might ever have in this life.”
She stood back against the counter and crossed her arms. “You’re serious.”
He nodded. “Yeah. It may not be possible to get back what we had before all of this, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t try like hell to make that happen.”
“I’ll be. If this isn’t some full circle kind of shit, I don’t know what the fuck is.” She looked away and muttered. “Shit.” She moved away from the counter and over to the fridge. “Alright, I’ll go with you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. If you were willing to go throu
gh all of this trouble and pay all of this money just to try and get her ass back, then yeah, I’ll go. Besides, it might be nice to see Mo get a little taste of his own medicine. But the first sign of any shit going down, and we’re gone, understand?”
“Understood.”
“Alright. And just so you’re fully aware, if things don’t happen the way you want or expect them to, we’re not fuckin’. Period. I’m no longer desperate enough to use you for personal gain that requires me being on my back. Nor am I Sheila Harris which means my legs are not open for you like a 24 hour restaurant in the Bronx.”
“Got that too,” he said.
“Good. You damn well better.”
Part Thirty-Five
“Usted puede hacer esto. Usted puede hacer esto. Usted puede hacer esto. Mierda.”
Nikki sat in front of the mirror inside her dressing room located in the Gershwin Theatre, and panicked.
It was opening night. Finally, her time to shine. A chance to prove to the world and her parents and anyone else who never believed she would make it that she belonged here and would soon be deigned as one of the best of the best this side of New York City.
She hadn’t just arrived, she was here and determined to stay.
She was also scared shitless, her stomach was in knots, her head pounded and her feet felt stuck to the floor. All because she feared that everything she had worked so hard for, not just over the last month but since she was a child, would all go to hell before the curtain even rose on her first scene.
When she heard someone knocking, she nearly jumped out of her skin. Still in her robe and only partially made up, she stood up from the bench and went over to the door.
“Yes?” she asked before pulling back on the knob. “I’m not ready yet if you’re--”
