by Leach, Kiki
“That’s because I have more stuff filling up the blank spaces. The last time you were in here, this place was barely furnished.” Vanessa walked over to the couch and leaned against the back of it, slapping her hands down against her legs. “Since when the hell are you and Rodney splitting up?”
“Since three months ago,” she told her while pulling back the curtains and starting out of the window. “When I found out that his lies were worth much more to him than our marriage. We’ve kept it quiet until now for fear the press might get wind of something, but…”
“And Alexis knows about it?”
“She knows. I was reluctant to tell her when it all happened, but when she kept pressing me on the entire family coming for a visit last month, I eventually had to let her know something. For a while, I could keep up with the ‘everything is fine, we’re happy and still madly in love with each other’ shtick to keep her off my back, but I could only keep up with that for so long before I cracked.”
“What’d she say when you finally told her the truth?” asked Vanessa.
“She was pissed, as expected. I had drawn up an entire fairytale when it came to Rodney, which is the only reason she was fine with me leaving the city with him in the first place. But once I told her the reason why our split needed to happen, she started to understand. Now I’m just trying to keep her from giving him grief because it’s the last thing that we all need, especially the girls because they have no idea what’s going on yet and we don’t think it’s a good idea to tell them.”
“That might be for the best. But, what exactly happened?”
Felicia turned to her sister and sat down in the frame of the window. “He started taking more money from our joint bank account. When I initially questioned him about it, he would throw things at me about the money being for certain repairs around the house, repairs for things that never got fixed or needed fixing in the first place. After nothing but one lie following another, I finally hired a private investigator because it got to a point that certain bills weren’t getting paid on time. That is how much money he had been taking out, or rather stealing. The PI followed him to the bank one Thursday morning, watched him take out almost three thousand dollars and tailed him to another woman’s house in Studio City.”
“What the hell was he doing stealing your money and giving it to this other woman? Was he screwing around?”
“No,” she said. “Not then, but he had, which is the reason why he needed the money.”
“I’m confused here, Felicia, was the money for this woman or not?”
“It was for her.” She closed her eyes as her stomach knotted. “And the child they share together.”
Vanessa wildly shook her head back and forth and lifted her hand. “Hold up, SAY, WHAT?”
Felicia nodded. “A son,” she said. “Named Emmanuel. He was born the same day as our oldest inside the same damn hospital.”
“Oh my God.” Vanessa jumped up from the back of the couch and crossed the room. “You’re telling me that Rodney had an entirely different family that you didn’t even know about, and he was using the money that you made together to support these people?”
“Yes. Two years after Saleena was born and when Kimira came along, he had convinced me that living within a lesser means was good for our family. Knowing how we had grown up, I was appreciative of that and was fine going along with it, at first. Little did I know that he had only suggested it because he was using those means that we needed for our family to support another one.”
“Is that why you walked up in here wearing Dior instead of something from a craft store or handmade by a bum off the beach?”
Felicia didn’t answer, and instead held back a chuckle while crossing her legs one over the other.
Vanessa sat back down, this time on the edge of her bookcase.
“Does this other woman know about you?”
“She’s known about me since the very beginning. I was the fool throughout this entire mess who chose to remain in the dark.”
“You’re not a fool,” Vanessa said under her breath. She stood up from the bookcase and moved over to another window. “But is this what prompted Alexis to tell you about me and Adrian?”
“Yes. The first time she mentioned it, she went on about how you were sleeping with this man during your freshman year of college and how that asshole Harold Kramer from the NYDN was ready, willing and able to leak that information to the press if she didn’t hire him first. She also showed me a picture from his days as a professor. And, he’s pretty fione.” She smiled, and then pointed. “But not more than Maurice, who also loves you, which I’m guessing this one didn’t.”
“No,” replied Vanessa. “I’m not sure he’s even capable of knowing what the word means – at least he wasn’t with me, which is fine because I didn’t know it much with him either. That’s why I had worked so hard to block that time out of my life. The experience with Adrian helped me to grow up as a person, and more importantly as a woman, but it was also something that I never wanted to relive again. But no such luck. Thanks to Nathan and Sheila, it got dug right back the fuck up and thrown in everyone’s faces before I even had time to know what the hell was going on.”
Felicia crossed her arms. “Those two have never ceased to amaze me.”
“Yeah,” she mumbled. “I was hoping that when they left for California, it would be the end of them. But I guess that was just too damn much to ask. Since they’ve been back, my world has flipped inside out in ways you can’t even imagine.”
“No imagining for me, baby sister,” she said. “Alexis has sent me every article in every paper in which you have been featured over the last few months.”
She rattled her head and yanked the front of her robe. “Of course she fucking did. Why the hell am I not surprised?”
“You shouldn’t be.”
“Did she call you while we were in the Hamptons?”
“Mm-hm. The same night the shit hit the fan and Nathan brought Adrian out in the open. She also mentioned something about Nicole dating William? But I’ll save that for another time.”
“Please do.”
“Oh trust me, we are coming back to that,” she said. “Now Alexis told me that she has been trying to convince you since the moment she found out that you were dating Mo to tell him the truth about all of this because she fears that you’re going to lose him to your lies.”
“I’m not going to lose him to my lies,” she said, stepping away from the window and crossing the room.
“And just how the hell do you know that, Vanessa? Look at me, look at yourself and what you’ve already been through. Lies is what busted up your relationship with Nathan back then.”
“His busting inside of Sheila is what ended that. Don’t get it twisted.”
“I’m not and that wasn’t an image I needed inside of my head,” she snapped. She got up from the window and stepped toward her. “Regardless of the incident behind what happened or the why, the fact of the matter is that lies are what ultimately brought you two down. It may have been for the better considering how toxic you to were, but the point of the matter is that his lies are what sent you on a downward spiral. Alexis and Alexander wanted to send you away for a while because they weren’t sure if they could even control you anymore, do you remember that?”
“How can I forget it, Felicia?”
“Then you know what lies can do to people. How they can destroy them – relationships. Maurice was the first and only person truly there for you during all of that,” she said. “He was the first and only person you really let in once it all became public.”
“I know that.”
“Then why the hell don’t you think that you owe him the truth?”
“I know that I owe him the truth!”
“Then why don’t you give it to him?!”
“Because I’m afraid if I do, that YES, I AM going to lose him! I was with Adrian not even a month after Mo and I ended whatever the hell it was we had back t
hen. If he finds out that I went to Adrian so soon after him, he may not look at our relationship the same way again. As far as he knows, I was completely celibate during that time. I had convinced him of it because I wasn’t ready to be with him, and said I wasn’t ready to be with anybody as a result. Now imagine being in his shoes and finding out that everything you thought you knew about a relationship you could have had, has been nothing but a lie.”
“Vanessa,” she breathed. “I’m first to admit that that man has always loved you above all others, but it wasn’t as if he was some kind of saint during that time or any time before it.”
“Yes, I know all too well that he’s never been a saint,” she said. “Thank you. His dick has probably seen more vaginas than a gynecologist.”
“Then you should have no problem telling him about your little fling with Adrian.”
“It is not that simple, Felicia – damn it! That is the one thing that you and Alexis just can’t seem to understand! And I admit, that part of it is my fault.” She placed a hand on her chest and breathed out. “Adrian wasn’t just a fling. Yes, I got flung because it didn’t last long but before all of that, before it all went hell, I had created an entire life with this man inside my head. An entire life that because I thought I was going to live it with him, completely accepted. Love or not, I was convinced it was going to happen, and when it didn’t? It gave me a completely different outlook, on life, on myself, on love and other men, on everything. Mo has never been in any situation with any other woman in the same way that I have been with Nathan and Adrian. I’m it!” she hollered out. “I’m it, that’s all he’s ever told me. He’s never wanted anything with anyone else but me and now he’s got it.”
“You’re allowing him to live inside a fantasy that doesn’t exist by keeping this from him, V.”
“So what? What the fuck is so wrong with living in a fantasy? That man is the closest I will ever, ever have to being completely happy – to feeling completely whole within myself and being okay with the shit I’ve been through, because it brought me to him. He is the reason why that part of my life with Adrian, and the life before it with Nathan can go POOF, gone!” Her voice cracked. She pressed her hands together and rested them against her mouth to keep herself from completely falling apart. “I can’t lose that. I can’t lose my reason, Felicia, I can’t.”
She turned away from her sister and dabbed the tears beneath her eyes as they fell.
Felicia watched her sister before coming up behind and running a hand down the back of her hair. “Baby girl,” she whispered in a calming voice, which only made Vanessa more emotional. “By not allowing yourself to live inside the reality of all this? You already have.”
Part Five
While back at The Palace, Sheila hadn’t had much success in getting in touch with Nathan either. In fact, she seemed to have even less luck than Vanessa as she couldn’t manage to get anyone on the phone to even talk to her.
After being ignored by his parents and leaving enough messages on his voicemail to clog a drain, she decided to call the one person she knew she shouldn’t; the one person she had promised to both herself and Vanessa that she would keep away from, from here on out: Adrian.
If she slipped up and said anything to him about Vanessa’s baby, much less her miscarriage, she knew it would be her ass and she’d never hear the end of it.
If she slipped up and said anything to him about their own night together spent on the beach, she knew it would be her heart.
But she had to try.
And because she wanted to hear his voice, she decided that calling would be better than sending a casual text message, questioning Nathan’s whereabouts. His voice gave her comfort when people like Vanessa gave her nothing but grief for even existing. It gave her pleasure when Nathan gave her nothing but pain.
After clicking on his name and hitting the green button, she waited for a few seconds and listened to it ring. After about the third or fourth one, an irrational fear swirled around deep inside her belly and forced its way up through her body and to the stem of her brain. She thought that maybe it was possible he had felt the same way – that it was best to keep his distance, given her continued commitment to Nathan, even if he personally thought that she could have, and should have done better for herself in that department.
As she kicked herself for even trying to call and was about to hang up, a gruff voice answered with a quick “Hello”.
She smiled and took a few deep breaths while moving around the room and responding back with a “Hi.”
Adrian, immediately recognizing her voice after having never looked down at the number, leaned back against the counter in his kitchen and beamed from ear to ear. “I wasn’t sure if you were going to call me after that last text message this afternoon,” he said. “When you told me you were fine and had gotten back to the city safely, I was sort of thinking that I wouldn’t hear from you again today.”
His words threw her entire body into a conniption. Her heart was beating so fast that her thoughts couldn’t keep up. Neither could her hand in trying to stop the pounding sound that she was positive could be heard through the phone. “Do you want me to hang up?”
“No.” He replied so fast he hadn’t even a chance to think of what he was saying. It all came out so naturally for him whenever he spoke to her. “I don’t want you to hang up, Sheila – if you called it was with a purpose right? All I’m saying is I assumed that with you going back home with Nathan --”
She placed her hand down on top of her dresser and closed her eyes. “Speaking of Nathan” – which by now she was no longer certain she even wanted to do, but felt she had to in order to keep the focus from going back to, or remaining on them – “I’m assuming that you haven’t heard from him since we left?”
Adrian paused, which gave her pause as well.
“No,” he finally said. “I haven’t. He’s not there with you?”
“No.” She pressed her hand across her forehead and moved to the other side of the room. “We sort of got into an argument not long after getting back to the hotel room this afternoon and then he bolted. I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”
“Do you want me to come over,” he asked. “Or help you to look for him?”
“No,” she replied. “He’ll turn up eventually. I just thought there might have been a chance he would’ve made his way out there.”
He chuckled. “Why? Have you checked with V?”
“Yes, and she doesn’t know where he is either.” She walked back over to the bed and sat down on the edge. “He just has these moments where he does some really crazy things, like inviting you out to the Hamptons. And he doesn’t have very many friends since him and Maurice stopped speaking long before we were all out of high school.” She stopped. “I don’t know, I was just hoping upon hope that you had seen him.”
Adrian cleared his throat and suddenly stiffened against the phone. He wanted to hear Sheila’s voice. He didn’t want to hear another man’s name being uttered from her lips – lips he had been anxious to taste since last night, and long before.
“I haven’t heard from him,” he said. “But if I do, you’ll be the first call that I make.”
She held the phone loosely in her hand and nervously shook it back and forth against her face while nodding. “Thanks.”
“Sure.” He moved over to his table and pulled out a chair to take a seat. He exhaled through the speaker and Sheila closed her eyes again.
The feeling she had about this phone call wasn’t good. In fact, it almost made her feel nauseated.
“Why do I have such a sick feeling inside my stomach,” Adrian started, “that if I don’t hear or see Nathan that this might actually be the last time that we talk?”
She tried to hide her disappointment in his words behind a smile. “I don’t know. Why do you?”
“I thought I could do this for you. But, you calling to ask me about your fiancé’s whereabouts doesn’t really bode well for any fu
ture we might have as friends. I’m not um... I’m not a ‘Maurice Livingston’ kind of guy,” he told her. “I wish I could be that for you, but I can’t.”
She dropped her head and watched a single tear fall to her lap as both her heart and stomach plummeted. “I don’t think a Maurice Livingston kind of guy exists outside of a fairytale. And I’m okay with that.”
“Are you?” he asked sincerely.
“I will be. Eventually.”
They were quiet for a long time before she spoke again.
“Thanks for answering me when I called. I guess nobody else wanted to pick up the phone the moment they saw my number.”
“I didn’t actually see your number. I just heard my phone ringing and pushed the right button. I’m glad I did.” Another long silence ensued before he muttered the two words she would dread hearing. “Goodbye, Sheila.”
As her hand wrapped tighter around the phone, she drew her pinky into her mouth and placed the tip of it between her teeth, biting down hard to keep from whimpering like a wounded animal in his ear.
Before a single word could escape from her in return, she heard a click followed by the dial tone.
Slowly, she pulled the phone away from her face and stared down at his number as the call officially ended. Then she slid her finger over both his name and without hesitancy, hit the delete button.
It was, she concluded, one of the hardest and most painful decisions she had ever had to make. She barely knew this man and what he was about outside of being Vanessa’s ex, and already, it felt like she had just given up a piece of her soul.
Adrian placed his phone down on the table and looked over at his roommate who exited from the backroom.
Shirtless and with a gut that seemed to extend from where he stood to the opposite side of the room, he nodded and trudged past Adrian into the kitchen, his club feet dragging across the floor. “You on the phone?” he asked.
Adrian glanced down at his cell and blinked once. “I was. But that’s over now.”
“What is?” His roommate grabbed a large bowl from one of the cabinets and filled it with cereal and milk. Though his eating habits were adolescent from time to time, the man was well over a certain age and during certain points of argument regarding one thing or another with Adrian, had no problem throwing that fact around and in his face.
