by Leach, Kiki
Samantha knocked on the door and peeked her head inside. “Your mother’s on her way down,” she said in a hushed voice. She peeked behind her, then quickly turned back. “She apparently just heard about Nathan and Maurice’s arrests.”
Vanessa pinched the bridge of her nose and dropped her head. “Aw, shit.”
Nikki panicked and whipped her head around to her friend. “You didn’t tell her about that yet?”
“No. I’ve been trying to avoid her as much as I can since it all happened.” She bent forward and whispered. “I haven’t even told her that I was pregnant with Adrian’s child!”
“What the hell is this?” asked Alexis, shoving Samantha out of the way and holding up the Daily News with a side by side picture of Maurice and Nathan on the front cover
Vanessa shot back in her chair and turned straight ahead as Nikki tried to sit as still as a statue to remain unnoticed. But Alexis peeked at her from the corner of her eye.
“My daughter and I need to have a word,” she said, stern. “I suggest you wait in the hallway.”
Nikki looked up at her and gulped. “Yes, Ma’am.” She jumped up from the couch and went to the door.
“Oh, and Nicole?”
Nikki rested her hand on the frame, then dropped it and slowly spun around like a mannequin atop a spinning wheel. She gulped again. “Yes.”
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about every little thing that you said to me in the Hamptons. Nor have I forgotten about your indecent relationship with a man old enough to be your father.”
She nodded and peeked over Alexis’s shoulder, glaring at Vanessa.
“Mother, just let her go, okay? Whatever is going on between them is still none of your concern.”
Alexis turned her head to the side and gave her daughter that ‘don’t test me’ look that Vanessa easily picked up on. Before she could say anything else, Nikki was on her way out the door, gesturing to Vanessa that she would be waiting downstairs in the lobby.
After making sure she was gone, Alexis closed the door and hurried toward Vanessa’s desk, slamming the paper down on top of it. “This scene,” she said, “is starting to look all too familiar to me.”
“I can’t believe they even bothered to still print this considering how long it’s been.” Vanessa leaned up and shrugged. “But at least I wasn’t directly involved this time.”
“Indirectly,” Alexis replied. “Turn to page forty-three and read the fine print.”
Vanessa picked up the paper, flipped to the page and hovered her glasses over the tiny printed letters located at the bottom of the article.
“Reportedly,” she started as she read, “the brawl took place at none other than the home of Vanessa Rae Brown, current Editor-In-Chief of the” – she moved closer to read the smaller bits of print – “sales slumping Attitude Magazine?!” She tossed the paper back. “Assholes. Overnight our sales shot UP from last quarter.” She placed her glasses next to her keyboard and rubbed her head.
“Girl, I don’t give a damn about that right now. What the hell happened inside your damn house last night? And if Adrian wasn’t the issue, was Nathan the reason you and Maurice are no longer together? What the hell was he doing there to begin with?”
Vanessa wavered on whether or not she wanted to tell her mother the entire truth, or bits and pieces.
Alexis wagged her finger as she sat down in the chair before Vanessa’s desk. “Don’t you TELL ME that you were even THINKING of getting back with that vile little snipper after what he did--”
“I wasn’t – I’m not, I’m completely past that.”
“Then what the hell was he doing inside your home?!”
“He came by to tell me about Adrian and the reason he brought him down to the Hamptons in the first place. Maurice showed up a little while later and that’s when all hell broke loose.”
“My God, girl.” She lay back in the chair. “Drama, drama, drama just seems to follow you wherever you go.”
“I’ve heard that tune before, Mother, and not too long ago at that, if I can recall. Maybe it’s about time you finally stop singing.”
“I’ll stop singing it when YOU finally stop living it.” She rested her head in her hand and sighed. “Were you the one who decided to have them arrested or were they so loud that the neighbors decided to call instead?”
“I had them arrested, and I won’t apologize for thinking they deserved it for being such idiots and tearing up my house like two animals in the street.”
“This is the reason you no longer wanted Felicia’s birthday dinner at your house for tonight.”
“I didn’t want you all coming over and asking questions about the railing that got broken in the middle of it all. And to be perfectly honest, I didn’t think it would ever actually blow up like this.” She thought a moment and moved her head about. “Maybe I did, but I at least hoped it would be something that wouldn’t get out like almost everything else.” She pressed her palm against her forehead and wiggled it back and forth. “Maurice may be screwed out of his job and it’ll be all my fault for putting him in this position.”
“Don’t you dare go blaming yourself for what he did, girl. I love that boy as if he were my own son and maybe someday you two will get it together and actually make it happen on paper. But if he and Nathan got into that fight, then it’s all on the two of them and has nothing to do with you.”
She winced. “Mmmm, except it kinda does.”
Alexis breathed in heavily and pressed her thumb and forefinger together. “I was trying very hard, Vanessa, to give you the benefit of the doubt. Thank you for proving to me once again that I should always follow my instincts. Now tell me.” She slid forward in the chair and rested her hands in her lap. “How are you involved in all of this, aside from the obvious?”
“Before we left for the Hamptons…” She paused and pressed her lips together, nervous. She waved her hand back and forth a few times which made Alexis nervous.
“Spit it out, girl!”
“Before we left for the Hamptons, Nathan sort of caught Maurice and I having sex.”
Alexis closed her eyes and arched her brows. Then she bit the inside of her lip and wrinkled her nose. “Were you two in public?” she asked, attempting to remain calm.
“Of course not. I’ve done a lot of things, but I’m not Sheila for eff’s sake.”
“Then how could he have seen the two of you together, Vanessa?”
“After Mo and I left your house, we were sort of feeling each other a little too much and I guess forget to lock the front door. Nathan came by to talk to me that night about Adrian and long story short, found us together upstairs.”
She pressed her fingers directly between her eyes and leaned forward. “My God. And that’s what led to what happened there.” She pointed to the paper.
“Yes, but not exactly.”
“What the hell does that mean?” she snapped.
“It means that when Nathan came over again, on the night that fight took place, he was coming to tell me the reason he brought Adrian to the Hamptons.”
“Which was…?”
“Seeing Maurice and I together. After he told me, I went ballistic and we got into a fight; words were said, dishes were thrown at his head. Not long after, Maurice showed up. And then we got into a fight, but the end result was somewhat different.”
Alexis glared.
“Nathan didn’t catch us again or anything like that,” Vanessa continued. “Well, I mean he almost did, but nothing went as far as it did the first time.”
“And that is what led to this.” She pointed to the paper again.
“Yeah.”
“Which is also the reason you and Maurice aren’t together now.”
She pressed her lips together and hummed. “Um…”
Alexis placed both hands on her head. “Oh my God, girl, WHAT?”
“I didn’t want to say anything to you about this, because I don’t want you to think of Mo as a bad person. Becaus
e I don’t think of him as a bad person, I just think he did a really stupid thing. He thought it was for the right reasons and I understood his intentions, but--”
“What is it, girl?”
She waited and sucked in air before speaking again.
“You know that cover story of me, Nathan and Sheila from back in high school?”
“The reason your life became more important to the public than it ever should’ve been? Yes.”
“Well…” She leaned her head. “Maurice was sort of the one responsible for that. He wanted to hurt Nathan and Sheila just as badly as they hurt me and so he went to Page Six and gave a story about them.”
Alexis clasped her hands together and pressed her chin on top of them, staring out of the window behind her daughter. “So the love of your life is the one responsible for turning it into the spectacle it’s become today. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“In a nutshell.”
“And you’re not able to forgive him for it.”
“He broke a trust with me, Mother. I still love him with every part of my soul…” She had to stop and catch her breath as the emotion of what he truly meant began to overwhelm her. “But how can I be with him when I can’t even trust if what we have will continue to stay between us? How can I lie next to him every night without wondering if something I say to him will be used against me down the line if he decides that being with me is too much?”
“Baby girl,” she said. “If after all these years that man is still willing to put up with you and all the things you’ve done, he ain’t goin’ nowhere. Period.”
“Except he did!” she hollered. “The night we got into that huge fight and I told him to get out, he left! He left with no real intention of ever coming back--”
“Everybody hits a breaking point, baby, but that doesn’t mean he was never coming back. Most times you are even too much for me to take, and that’s saying a lot considering I gave birth to you.” Alexis got up from the chair and moved around the desk to stand in front of her daughter. She leaned back and folded her arms. “Do you believe in your heart of hearts, even in the light of Page Six, that Maurice Livingston would actually go out of his way to ever sell you out or violate your trust for his own gain or anyone else’s?”
“No,” she said. “No! But I’m afraid. Nathan made me afraid. Adrian made me afraid. I don’t want to be afraid with Maurice.”
“Then don’t be,” replied Alexis.
“Easier said than done.”
“You two were friends first, Vanessa. Better friends than any two people I’ve ever seen, even now. How hard can it be to find your way back to that first?” She grabbed either side of Vanessa’s face and bent forward to kiss her directly in the center of her forehead. “I want you to be happy. And I know that you want it for yourself just as much. Don’t let a mistake get in the way of something you know damn well you deserve. This man is nothing like your father. He is nothing like Nathan, thank God. And he’s nothing like Adrian. Don’t wait too long to see him for the blessing he truly is.” She pat Vanessa on the face then went to the door, but stopped and turned back to her. “By the way, wish your sister a Happy Birthday and be at the house by eight o’clock tonight. That friend of yours isn’t invited.”
“Mother.”
“My house,” she said upon exit. “My house.”
Vanessa rolled closer to her desk and rested her elbows at the edge. Her mother was right, she and Maurice were friends first, the best of friends. Losing even that much of him felt as if she had lost too much of herself.
It was now or never, she thought. I can’t waste any more time in finally getting back what’s rightfully mine.
Part Twenty-Nine
After arriving at the Avian in Midtown, Sheila spotted Adrian sitting behind a menu in the corner of the restaurant and rushed over without the help of an overly eager hostess who was more enthusiastic about getting a good look at Adrian again as opposed to actually showing Sheila to their table.
When Adrian saw her coming forward on her own, he smiled and stood up from his chair. Dropping his menu to the table and draping one hand around her waist to give her a hug, she wrapped both hands around him and pressed her entire face into his neck, drawing in his natural male scent. It made her slightly dizzy but in a way that she felt if she had fallen over from it, she would’ve landed on a pile of pillows instead of the concrete beneath their feet.
He reached around to push her chair in and as they both sat, couldn’t stop staring into one another’s eyes.
“Hi,” he said first.
“Hi. I’m sorry I’m so late. I had to run a few errands around the city, and some took longer than others.”
“I hope one of those errands included informing your wedding planner that you wouldn’t be in need of her planning any longer,” he said.
She laughed, feigning ignorance. “What?”
“Because you broke things off with Nathan and therefore wouldn’t need her services.” Adrian stared down at her hand. “You must have done something, because you’re no longer wearing that ring.”
“Oh.” She wrapped her fingers around the base of her ring finger and fell back in her chair.
“Mm.” From the guilt-ridden look on her face, Adrian could see plain as day that Sheila had yet to end anything, with anyone. He removed his napkin from his lap and slammed it down on top of the table. “So he’s still clueless about us.”
“I had planned to tell him last night, but…” She eyed every patron in the restaurant before turning back to a very pissed off Adrian. “I went to have my ring appraised. And the jeweler told me that it had been purchased in Manhattan long before Nathan and I ever moved to California together.”
“Then he had been planning to propose to you before the move?”
“No.” She rubbed her thumb back and forth across the finger. “He bought that ring with the intention to give it to Vanessa. My guess is that he was hoping to use it as a token of his affection and a way to get her back after screwing her over by screwing me. Obviously, he never got the chance because I became the lucky winner of that Cracker Jack box piece of shit.”
“Where is the ring now?”
“Somewhere inside my purse. I had planned to confront Nathan about it when I got back to the hotel, but we started arguing about other things, and then--” She stopped and looked into his eyes. They drew her in in a way that Nathan’s never could. She wanted to tell him what she had done, and why. She wanted to be honest with him because she felt he deserved that much. But she couldn’t risk losing him so soon, if at all.
She couldn’t.
“Do you ever plan on telling him what you know about the ring?” he asked. “Because if you ever needed an excuse to leave that son of a bitch, finding out the ring that you thought belonged only to you was initially meant for someone else--”
“It’s not that simple,” she said. “I wish it were but it’s not.”
“Why isn’t it?”
“He came back from jail last night with an entirely new perspective. He wants us to start over and make things right.”
“Is that what you want, Sheila? Someone who’s only going to treat you well when shit falls in his lap and he thinks he needs someone at his side to help clean it off? Or someone willing to treat you well every day of the damn week?”
“I’d prefer every day of the damn week,” she said with a smile.
“Then you need to let him know that.” He placed his hand on the table. She looked down and placed her hand inside. “Look,” he said, caressing the back of her hand, “I have two tickets to Nikki’s ‘Wicked’ opening night party that’s taking place at Bar Nineteen next week. A friend of mine is doing the lighting and some other stage work for it. I’d like to take you with me as my date to make this official. But I don’t want you on my arm as someone else’s fiancée. I want it to be the first time we step out together, away from a bed and enjoy our company together. Right side up.”
She laughe
d. “Okay. I’ll call him up right now and tell him that I want to meet him for an early dinner later, or maybe coffee instead.” She reached into her purse for her cell and dialed. “Either way, it’ll be public so that he can’t scream too loudly.”
Standing directly outside his office building, Nathan snatched his phone from his pocket and answered on the second ring.
“Sheil’s?” he asked, recognizing the first few digits. “Is something wrong?”
“No.” She looked up at Adrian. “Why, is something wrong with you?”
“Well, Mr. Gallagher suspended me from work, so there really wasn’t any point in me coming in today.”
She cringed. “Eesh. Did he see the paper?”
“The entire office saw the paper,” he said. “Eddie tried to diffuse the situation before I got here this morning as much as he could because the old man wanted to outright fire my ass. But I’ve got leave for two weeks – unpaid.”
“You might be suspended, but at least you still get to keep your job. And maybe next time you’ll think about what you’re doing before you decide to show up places unwanted again.”
“I got it, alright?” he said. “I got it. Now what’s up? Is something going on because you don’t ever call during the day unless you need something or worse.”
“I just need to talk to you about a few things.”
“We can talk tonight back in the room.”
“I’d, um… I’d rather do it someplace outside of the hotel, like at The Bean?”
He became suspicious when her tone of voice turned serious, and frowned. “Any particular reason why?”
“Nathan, please just meet me at The Bean in about” – she grabbed Adrian’s wrist and stared down at the time on his watch – “an hour.”
“Now,” mouthed Adrian.
Sheila grinned. “Now might actually be better. I’ll explain it all when we see each other. Just do this for me, please.”
When her seriousness turned to desperation, he nodded. “Alright, sure. I’ll be there.”
