by Leach, Kiki
After guzzling down a few glasses and on the verge of becoming lightheaded thanks to the lack of food in her system, she suddenly remembered and groaned about the photoshoot she had yet to compile notes for, as well as her deadlines for articles she had yet to complete.
She guzzled back more wine in the hopes of further dulling her overactive brain, convinced that if life could have gotten any ‘sweeter’ for her in that moment, she would’ve been holding that wine glass while teetering over the edge of a cliff.
Just as she was about to take another sip, her doorbell rang, startling her.
“Shit.”
She wiped the spilled wine from her mouth and looked down at herself when she realized some had landed in small droplets on Maurice’s shirt. Rubbing the stain into the fabric with the edge of her fingers instead of attempting to rub it out with club soda, she thought back on the last time she had seen him actually wearing it, on their first official date out alone together, and smiled. He looked so good that night that she could hardly speak when he first appeared in front of her. The only man truly able to take her breath away, he had a fresh haircut, but was allowing the hair on his face to grow out, which left a light five o’clock shadow that was noticeable in both the sun and moonlight. She was so happy to be with him that night, not caring what the hell lay ahead as long as they were together. She wanted to feel that way again, but deep down no longer knew if it would ever possible, with him or anyone else for that matter. And that made her more angry than sad.
When the doorbell rang again, followed up by a thunderous round of knocking, she snapped out of her daze and sat the glass down on the table. She continued wiping down the tiny stains as she pushed through the kitchen door and stumbled into the foyer.
“Who the hell could it possibly be now?” she asked.
“It’s Sheila, V. I’m sorry it’s so late and I wouldn’t bother you unless it was something that I really thought you needed to hear – from me, especially from me before anyone else.”
Vanessa threw her arms up and allowed them to drop down; her hands made a hard slapping sound against her legs that seemed to vibrate throughout the entire room. “What the fuck is this night? Damn it.” She tilted her head back and wrinkled her nose. “Be real with me.” She pointed between herself and the ceiling. “Was I so shitty in a past life that these people are now my punishment in this one?! Because otherwise, I don’t understand what I did to deserve this kind of treatment, I really don’t!”
By now, it was nearing 2am and she had yet to even close her eyes to blink. Heading over to the door and stepping over blood and splinters of wood, she sighed, aggravated that her night didn’t look to be getting any better as time passed.
The knocking picked up again.
“Sheila, what the hell do you want?”
“I need to talk to you, Vanessa. It’s important.”
“I’ve heard that enough times tonight to know it won’t end well,” she grumbled. “Is what you have to tell me so gotdamn important that it can’t wait a few hours from now?”
“It can’t!” She stepped closer to the door and rested her forehead against the wood. “I’m sorry, but I need to let you know about this now before I lose my nerve and you hate me more than you already do.”
Vanessa wasn’t exactly sure if that notion was truly possible.
She debated with herself on whether or not opening the door was the right thing to do and reluctantly reached for the knob when she realized that absolutely nothing she could say or do was going to get this woman to get the hell off of her doorstep any faster.
When she opened the door, she leaned aside and noticed that Sheila had been crying. Her eyes were somewhat swollen and the skin just beneath them was puffy. Her hands were shaky and her hair looked as if she had been rolling around in a haystack for a good few hours.
Vanessa eyed her from head to toe and made a sour face. “What the hell happened to you tonight? Why do you look like you’ve just been mugged on your way over here?”
“I wasn’t.” Sheila wiped her face and stepped forward. “I just had a night that I’m sure I won’t ever be able to relive again. Even as much as I might want to. Can I come in?”
Vanessa eyed her again, then nodded her head. “Sure.” She moved aside and waved her hand between them. “Whatever.”
“Thanks.”
“Mm-hm.”
As Sheila stepped inside, her mouth dropped open at the mess around her feet. Her head whipped from one side of the room to the other as she saw the blood stains covering various parts of the floor and noticed that the railing attached to Vanessa’s stairs was now split straight down the middle.
She spun around to her and cried out, “What the hell happened in here?”
Vanessa looked over the mess again and lifted her shoulders. “A fight broke out between…” She paused to think. The last thing she needed was to try and explain Nathan away, so she only gave partial truths. “It doesn’t matter who was involved, it’s over now and I’m really not in the mood for discussing it any further than that. So, what do you want?”
Sheila stared at Vanessa for a long time before moving throughout the foyer like a scared child who was about to get beaten by her mother for cheating on a chemistry test.
She whirled on the tips of her toes when she noticed that Vanessa hadn’t moved from place and gestured toward the kitchen. “You mind if I have a drink first?”
“That depends. Did you drive over here?” she asked. “Because if you even have a sip of something and wreck your car once you leave here, I’ll be damned if I see my face on the cover of anything and labeled your enabler.”
“I didn’t drive over here, V,” Sheila snapped. “I took a cab from where I was before, and then walked around the city so that I could have some time alone to think.”
“Alright, fine. I’ve got an open bottle in the kitchen already. As you can guess by the mess and the fact that I’m still awake enough to even answer the door, it’s been one helluva long night. Come on.”
She trailed back into the kitchen and went over to the cabinet to grab another glass.
Sheila immediately came up behind and saw even more wreckage all over the floor and countertops, but decided to remain silent about it this time.
As she moved over to the table, she saw the wine sitting in the middle and checked out the year it was made, turning her nose up at the recent date. “You don’t have anything else a little older?” She removed her sweater and sat down her purse while taking a seat. “I think we both might need something stronger once I tell you the reason I came over here.”
Vanessa arched her brow as she turned back to her and quickly studied the look on her face. It read as one of guilt, which meant that Sheila was there to seek forgiveness for something else she had done.
“Shit.” She immediately clinched her jaw and slammed the cabinet door shut. “No, I don’t have anything else older,” she replied in a tone so sharp it could’ve cut right through glass. “This is it.”
Sheila suddenly felt a chill in the room and reached for her sweater again, draping it around her arms and rubbing her hands together to warm them. She knew what that look meant from Vanessa; she knew what her tone and actions meant and that it more than likely wouldn’t end so well for her, because it never had in the past.
She started to chew on the inside of her lip and nervously tapped her foot against the floor.
Maybe coming over wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Vanessa slammed the glass down in front of Sheila, forcing her to jump up from her chair, and narrowed her eyes while reaching for the bottle. Once the wine had filled her glass, Sheila tossed her hand forward to grab for it, but was startled when Vanessa snatched it back. Drops of wine spilled out on the table, but Vanessa was so focused on her nemesis that she couldn’t give even half of a damn about the stains it could leave behind on the wood.
Sheila slowly dropped back in her chair and gulped while looking up into her forme
r friend’s destructive brown eyes. She could say so much without speaking which always seemed to scare Sheila a lot more than when Vanessa actually told her with words just how much she hated her.
“Why are you here?”
“Like I said at the door, I need to talk to you.”
“Like you said,” she repeated, squinting. She considered her body language and could see Sheila wiping her hands against her lap, which meant that her palms were sweating and she was scared as hell to say whatever it was that she felt needed to be said. Vanessa’s eyes shot up to her face and she noticed her jaw twitch. Leaning forward, she moved her face directly in front of Sheila’s and breathed out. “What exactly does that mean?”
Sheila’s eyes shifted around the room and she gulped. “It means that I need to talk to you--”
“About, what?!” When she didn’t receive an immediate answer, Vanessa rested a hand on her hip and shoved her face even closer. “About. What?”
Sheila frowned and shook her head, anxious that she would let more slip out of her mouth than initially intended. “I – I shouldn’t have come,” she said, her voice cracking. “It’s late and you’ve got work soon, right? This was a terrible night to show my face here, I shouldn’t have come.”
“It’s always a terrible night to show your face around here, but it never seems to stop you from doing it.”
“And that’s my cue to leave.”
She stood up to gather her things, but Vanessa shoved a hand into her shoulder and forced her back down in the chair. Sheila almost tipped back, but caught onto the edge of the table before she could split the back of her head open against the wall.
Her eyes enlarged and her bottom lip dropped. “Vanessa!” She straightened herself and readjusted her now wrinkled sweater. “What the hell was that?!”
“Me not allowing you to leave,” she replied.
“You just said you wanted me gone!”
“Don’t scream at me in my own house, and no I didn’t. You said it was a terrible night for you to show your face here, and I agreed. But you came here for a reason tonight, one that you’re certain will no doubt piss me off--”
“All the more reason for this news to wait.”
“Do you see my house? Do you see what the hell happened here tonight? Do you really think you can just come over here at almost two in the morning and waste my time with nonsense then skedaddle the hell out of here willy-nilly without telling me the truth of why you really showed up? I don’t think so. You are going to tell me what the hell you came over here for, and you’re going to tell me about it now. And after what I’ve been through tonight, trust and believe me when I tell you that I won’t have a single problem dragging it out of you by any means necessary, and I do mean that with complete sincerity. So Start. Talking.”
Sheila breathed in deep and swallowed hard. Vanessa crossed her arms over her chest, leaned on one foot and tilted her head. She was becoming more annoyed and fed up with Sheila’s lack of communication.
As Sheila prepared to drop the bomb about her time spent with Adrian, she looked across the room to focus on anything but Vanessa’s face and noticed something nestled in piles of glass against the base of the wall beneath the sink.
She peered and ducked her head. “What is that?”
Vanessa followed the direct line of her eyes but remained puzzled. “What is what?”
“That?” She slid out of the chair and paced to the other side of the kitchen, bending down and gently blowing away pieces of the glass from a large, black rectangular object. After realizing it was a wallet and recognizing the embroidered letters “NAT” on the leather covering, she held it up and waved it at Vanessa while simultaneously flashing her diamond engagement ring. “Was Nathan over here tonight?”
Vanessa, noticing the bling from the diamond as it sparkled in the light and realizing what Sheila was attempting to do in waving it in her face, stood back and smirked. “He was here, and now he’s not.”
“He must have been in a hurry to leave his money behind like this. And in a pile of glass.” Sheila dodged her eyes left to right and smacked wallet against the palm of her hand a few times. “Was he involved in what happened here tonight?”
Vanessa shifted her eyes upward and refused to answer.
“Okay,” Sheila said. “Where is he now?”
Vanessa made a face and took a step closer. “Not here.”
Sheila dropped her head and swiped the wallet back and forth between her hands. Her chest swelled and her stomach filled with knots. Wherever he was, she didn’t have a good feeling about it.
“When did he get back to the city, V?”
“He said a few hours before he dropped by, which was around eleven. By your reaction, I’m assuming that he didn’t even call to let you know that he was somewhere within the vicinity of Manhattan--”
“No.” She lifted her head and smiled, then tossed the wallet behind her on the counter and draped her hands on either side of herself. She cleared her throat. “Did he say where he had been?”
“He wasn’t with Adrian, that’s all I know and cared about. Anything else, you’ll have to ask him for yourself.”
She nodded and sucked in air. “Why was Nathan here” – she pointed to the floor – “V?”
“Why are you here, Sheila?”
A long thread of silence engulfed the room.
Sheila wrapped her arms around herself and wiggled her foot. “I’m going to need a little more of your cheap wine for that.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Bitch.”
Sheila hobbled around her and grabbed the bottle, pouring enough in her glass for a single swallow. She gulped it back, then poured herself another and sat back down in the chair. Vanessa sat down as well and stared, waiting for her to speak.
“I don’t have all night for this conversation,” she said.
“Okay.” Sheila drank back more wine and exhaled. She sat up in her chair and rested her hands on the table. “I don’t exactly know where to start.”
“How about at the beginning like every other shitty story you’ve ever told me before.”
Sheila sneered and refocused her eyes down on the table. “This might surprise you but coming back to town hasn’t been much of a picnic for me, just as much as it hasn’t been for you. To be honest, it doesn’t help that Nathan and I haven’t been in a very good place emotionally and were barely hanging onto just a fragment of this relationship long before we even left California.”
“Could’ve fooled me with that one.”
“V,” she scolded.
Vanessa raised her hands and sat back. “Sorry. You were saying?”
Sheila tucked her hand beneath her chin and continued to reflect. “I never wanted to move back here. I never wanted to take up residency again after what happened because I knew all of the problems that would come along with it. I just wanted you and me to make our peace and move on, but he insisted that we stay for good again, and I knew why. But I wanted him and I was determined to make this work and so I did what he asked of me and agreed to stay with the unspoken promise of a wedding. That altar was supposed to be the light at the end of our dark tunnel. But I’ve realized after tonight that it’s not enough for me to hang onto anymore and it was never enough for him to stick around for. No matter what I have tried to do, no matter how hard I have tried to make it work and make us seem like this great and happy couple that can’t wait to spend the rest of our lives together, I feel like such a fraud underneath it all.
“Everything between us,” Sheila continued, “is completely off and I know that most of it has to do with his feelings for you. But it also has to do with the fact that I don’t think he’s actually ready to get married. And not just to me, but to anyone. I don’t know if he’ll ever be. And deep down someplace inside of me, I knew it the minute he dropped down to one knee and proposed to me after we visited my grandparents back in Athens. But I was so resolved with him being mine, officially. Mostly because I didn’t want
there to be another chance for you.” She crinkled her brows and wiped a few fallen tears from the tip of her nose. “I knew when I first saw you two together again that he wanted you back and that you felt the same way. And I knew that if I gave you both a chance, it would happen.”
The words hit Vanessa like a ton of bricks. Suddenly, she found herself traveling back to a place in her mind that she never wanted to revisit again: the night of the reunion, with Nathan coming to see her at the office and the sex that almost took place on her desk.
He had caught her in a moment of anger and vulnerability, taking full advantage the very second her legs fell open in front of him. But there was no denying that she was just as into what was happening between them as he was. They drank in every bit of each other until the rush of feelings culminating and colliding with every kiss, touch and caress made them heady and drunk with the passion that had spilled over from child into adulthood.
Sheila’s unexpected phone call managed to stop things cold, but Vanessa started to wonder, what if she had never called? Would things be much different than they are now, between all of them? She hoped like hell that they wouldn’t be because after tonight, she was more positive than ever that there wasn’t a single part of her that would ever want Nathan like that again, and she was content with that.
“I didn’t want to believe that the bad things would progress into something worse,” said Sheila. She leaned back in her chair and pressed her fingers hard against her mouth. “I didn’t want to believe that all the hard work I had put into making this relationship legitimate in the eyes of the law would mean nothing. For so long, I had groomed myself into becoming Mrs. Nathaniel Taylor and after he told me that he was willing to move up the date, I was so sure that it would finally happen. Even if he wasn’t ready for it, I didn’t care because I thought that I was ready enough for the both of us. But something changed in him, almost the very next day, and it wasn’t cold feet. He still made the promise for us to get married, but he wasn’t as anxious about it anymore.
