Miss Independent, Volumes 1 & 2

by Leach, Kiki

  She snatched her hands from his and moved across the kitchen. He was left a bit stunned. When he turned to face her, she was looking out the window, thinking.

  “V--” he started.

  “We need more curtains. These are old and dreary, we need something to lighten up this room.”

  “Sure, yeah, we can stop by IKEA this weekend and get whatever kind of curtains you want – what the hell is going on with you?”

  “Nothing. I…” She couldn’t tell him about Nathan. It wasn’t like before, when she could complain to him about whatever man she was dating being a complete asshole, not when he was so openly attempting to be a contender for her himself. It was over, she thought. Done. From the way he looked at her and things he said about making a memory, she realized she now had a lover in Maurice, and the friend she always knew was long gone. “It’s nothing. Just the whole Oscar thing is really bothering me. I don’t understand why he chose my building when there are plenty of abandoned buildings surrounding New York City as we speak. He said something about it when he came to see me a few weeks ago, but I didn’t think to take him seriously.”

  “Why did he want to see you?”

  “He wanted to tell me all about his grand love for Nikki, about how I didn’t understand it and how I needed to stay out of it BECAUSE I didn’t understand it. Whatever, it was just a bunch of bullshit to make me see his point of view, which I didn’t and won’t.”

  “Did you tell Nikki about it?”

  “If I told her, she’d just think that everything he ever said to her was true and I know that it wasn’t.”

  “He went all the way down there to see you; that means something, V. I’m starting to think a little differently now, because no man goes out of his way for any woman like that, that he doesn’t care about.”

  “He does if he wants to keep getting laid by both his mistress and his wife. All the better if his wife is just one roll away on the bed now! I know guys have a man code and all that, but this prick is screwing with our friend’s feelings and has from the very beginning.”

  “I never said he wasn’t.”

  “That is EXACTLY what you just said, Mo.”

  “I said it was possible that he was being sincere. He might be screwing with her, but… maybe he does really give a damn about her too.”

  “That doesn’t even make any sense!”

  “It makes perfect sense to me.”

  “Of course it does, because you both have a dick.” He took a step back, his face in shock at how she spoke to him. Realizing what she had said, she dropped her face in her hands and shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” he told her. “You have every right to be angry about this.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think I do. Frankly, I don’t think I have the right to be angry about a lot of things these days.”

  Their doorbell rang then. They looked at each other with confusion, wondering who could possibly be stopping by at this time of the day, and on a Sunday at that. Vanessa had a slight panic attack in fearing it was her mother. Maurice assured her if it was that he would help her sneak out of the back of their townhouse so that she wouldn’t have to face her wrath. As they went to the door, he looked out of the peephole, pulling back and grimacing as he turned to stare at Vanessa.

  “It’s Nathan,” he said.

  “What?” She slightly shoved Maurice aside and stood to her toes to look out the peephole herself. “What the hell is he doing here?”

  “I--” Before he could get out another word, Vanessa jerked the door back and rested an arm on her hip, glaring. Maurice begrudgingly moved across the room, violently punching the air with his fists. “Perfect timing, asshole,” he muttered to himself.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she asked Nathan as he stood before her appearing somber.

  “I need to talk to you. We weren’t finished up there.”

  “We were more than finished. Just because you’re staying in town doesn’t mean that you just get to drop by whenever the hell you want.”

  “V--”

  “I want you to get the hell out of here and don’t ever think of coming back.”

  He stepped up, moving closer to her face. She wasn’t as tempted as before, she was much too angry for that now. “What happened up there wasn’t a mistake.”

  “What happened was every mistake in the book, Nathan. What happened – what KEEPS happening is every mistake we could ever possibly make with each other. I want you to get the hell off of my property before I call the police.”

  He snickered and made a face. “Are you serious right now, Vanessa?”

  “I’m dead serious. I want you gone. If I can’t get you outta my life, I can damn for sure get you the HELL outta my house!”

  He looked over her shoulder at Maurice, who had posted himself against the wall at the end of the foyer, and sneered. “Have you let him hit it yet?”

  She breathed in deep, her anger intensified. “You are fucking with the WRONG ONE, Nathaniel Taylor!” she hollered. “You know me too damn well to ever talk to me like that! Get the hell outta my house before I shove my foot so far up your ass--” She girt her teeth and tried slamming the door in his face, but he stopped it with his hand.

  “Alright, alright, alright, I’m sorry,” he said, shoving it back. “Damn.” She jerked the handle and he stumbled forward, nearly kissing the floor. “I didn’t mean to say it like that, it just came out.”

  “A lot of things just ‘come out’ of you don’t they? The same couldn’t be said for you and Sheila last night, though, right?”

  “What happened in the hotel room earlier was a--”

  “MISTAKE,” she said. “A MISTAKE, FOOL! Just like everything else about us before now!”

  “Vanessa, I can see when you look at me that you don’t mean anything you ever say to me, especially this.”

  “Especially this?! What part of get the FUCK out of here don’t you understand?! About as well as MISTAKE.”

  “Everything that happens between us is something that’s meant to, scripted or not. You can believe whatever you want, but you came to me today, and not to talk about Sheila.”

  “It doesn’t matter why I came to you today, what matters is why I left. Now I am done with this conversation and I’m even more than finished with your ass. I want you to get the hell out and I’m not gonna ask you again.”

  He waited a moment and stepped back, glancing back at Maurice one last time. “Alright. But I’m not leaving the city, so you’re going to have to deal with me, and this eventually.”

  She slammed the door in his face and then stopped, exhaling, realizing she would now have to face the music.

  She cautioned herself as she turned to a completely perplexed Maurice. He moved his hands inside his pockets and stepped toward her. “What was he talking about? You went to see him today in his room, after having brunch with Sheila?”

  She shut her eyes and tightened her jaw. “Mo--”

  “That’s why you were pissed off when you came home. It wasn’t about Sheila or whatever she said to you at brunch, it was about Nathan, like everything ALWAYS seems to be!” He thrust his hand forward in anger.

  “You need to calm down--”

  “No, YOU need to listen to what the hell I have to say! See?” He moved past her and walked over to the door. He banged the side of his fist against it and turned back to her. “This is EXACTLY what I’m talking about, V, it’s what I’ve always said! The man makes you absolutely miserable with the things that he says and does. Asking if you let me ‘hit it’ yet? Who the fuck says that to a woman they care about? But no matter what, you keep running back to him like some dog missing a leash!”

  “I don’t keep running back to him, and never like a damn dog, you need to get that correct. And he didn’t always make me so damn miserable.” She turned away.

  “Name one time that he didn’t. One honest time and I’ll drop this subject and never speak of it again.” He waited for
an answer. She dropped her shoulders and spun back around, never saying another word. “You can’t even name one. There were times you laughed with him, but they were never with him, he was just always there. Even then, those times were few and far between because the most you ever seemed to do was cry. No man should ever make you feel the way he did so often, Vanessa, and apparently continues to do. I saw what happened every day back then, I was right there with a front row seat, and I can honestly say that you never seemed to be happy with him. He’d abandon you for one reason or another on a Friday night after our football games, and then you’d come home with me to keep yourself from drinking. I never went out when I took care of you, not even for team events that I was required to attend, because unlike HIM, I was determined to put you first. It’s been that way ever since. But even so, he’s like some kind of drug to you, some sort of sick and twisted pill that you can’t stop yourself from swallowing because you think that if you keep ingesting it at different times of the day that it’ll finally take affect and make you feel good, but it doesn’t. Nikki’s running all over town after a married man and you can’t stay away from Nathan--”

  “I just kicked him out of my house.” She pointed back.

  “Our house,” he emphasized. “And you did that because I was standing here.”

  “I would’ve kicked him out with or without you here.”

  “Maybe, but that’s not something we’ll ever find out.” He lifted his shoulders. “I’m just surprised to learn that while you attack me for sleeping with different women, you’re off almost having sex with him--”

  “I never attacked you for sleeping with different women, I never attacked you at all! I only said what anyone in their right mind would say and that was for you to finally stop being such a dick about it! And it doesn’t matter anymore about Nathan, none of it does, because he’s getting married. There is no being with Nathan for me.”

  “Same song, different tune, Vanessa. No matter how many times you sing it and how many different ways, it still doesn’t stop you from going to him every chance you get, the very man who made you believe that we were all the same. But we’re not, because I love you. I love you with everything I’ve got inside of me, it’s like a burning fire inside my chest that I can’t extinguish. And the difference between me and that son of a bitch you kicked out is that I know how to show it…” She dropped back on her heels and averted her eyes, knowing he was right, but still unwilling to admit it. “I’m going upstairs to change,” he said. “And then I’m going for a run because I can’t stay here with you right now. I’m too angry and I don’t want to say anything else that’s going to disturb what we have going, even though I’m not so sure what it is myself.” He brushed past her and raced upstairs to his bedroom, slamming his door.

  Part Ten

  Maurice ran for at least two hours to get the idea of Nathan and Vanessa being together out of his head. It wasn’t working; even blasting music in his ears to the point of almost bursting his ear drums couldn’t erase the picture of them going at it like wild rabbits in Nathan’s hotel room. He bent over feeling as if he was going to heave, and placed his hands on his knees, breathing in and out as slowly as he could. He almost felt dizzy and pressed his fingers against his eyelids as his vision became blurry. He wasn’t having a heart attack or stroke, though part of him might have welcomed it at the moment if it meant forgetting his own thoughts.

  “Maurice?”

  He heard someone call out to him. Though muffled from the distance and his music, the voice sounded vaguely familiar, and very feminine.

  “Maurice!” they called again.

  He removed his earbuds and turned to see Melanie behind him. She was stopped at a local vendor buying a bag of fruit for Oscar to try. She waved and finished paying for her fruit, then headed toward him. As she got closer, she couldn’t help but admire him as the sweat dripped down the front of his body, between the crevices of every muscle and down to the rim of his shorts; though she tried her best to not appear so obvious about it, or to remain so focused on how good he looked outside of his clothes. She hadn’t seen Oscar like that in over a year, and she was probably more antsy now than she had ever been before in her life.

  When she finally reached Maurice, she gulped and presented him with a wide grin to hide her growing attraction. “I, um…” She shook her finger at him. “I thought that was you from over here, but I wasn’t so sure with your back turned. It’s just been a few hours since we first met and we’re already bumping into each other on the street like it’s some kind of thing between old friends. I guess if I moved back here permanently, something like this would happen all the time. Or almost all the time.”

  He wiped the sweat from his face and the tip of his nose. “Yeah.” He rested his hands at his sides and looked her over. “I didn’t know you and Oscar lived on this side of town.”

  “We don’t. We live on the Upper East Side, but he is still busy at work tonight. So I decided to travel around the city until we can get around to sitting down one on one and properly discuss and sign those papers for the new building.” She looked up at the sky as it darkened and breathed in the cooling air. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes as a smile graced her pink lips. “I’ve forgotten how beautiful Manhattan can be at this time of night, right after the sun sets. Los Angeles is never really like this.”

  Maurice turned his eyes toward the sky and shrugged. “This place is okay once you get used to it. But Los Angeles is probably better at most times, right? Especially at night.”

  “You’ve never been?”

  “I’ve visited Malibu and Sacramento in the past for jobs, but never had the desire or need to visit LA. I have friends out there, thought.”

  “Don’t we all?” she said, though she sounded a bit sarcastic. “What did you do?”

  “I was a model like Oscar before finding permanent work at an ad agency.”

  “Wow. Did you know Oscar during that time? I’m sure you two probably ran into each other at various shoots every now and then, right?”

  “I knew of him when he would book certain jobs that I auditioned for but turned down. But we weren’t ever really friendly to each other and hadn’t really spoken much until Nikki started working at his shop.”

  She nodded, remembering her initial connection to Maurice in the first place, and souring. When she noticed him staring at her in a perplexed manner, she straightened her face. “Well with Los Angeles, in some ways it can be viewed as one of the best places on earth, but it’s not always like that. It’s great if you’re looking for opportunity and hungry to be in show business like I was; you get little to no opportunities for something like that living in the Midwest. But it’s not the best if you’re really looking to build a family – a place like Sacramento or anywhere outside of Hollywood would be better suited for that. I was lucky meeting Oscar when I did, even more so after realizing we both wanted the same things in life,” she said. Maurice looked aside and made a curious face. Melanie noticed but refused to say anything of it. “Where were you headed on your run tonight?”

  “No place in particular. I just needed to get out of my house. Vanessa and I got into somewhat of an argument and a run is always a good excuse to do that.”

  “I hope it wasn’t something too serious?”

  “It wasn’t. Everything we argue about seems that way at the time, but it never really is. No matter what we say to each other, we always come back together in the end. But I’m hoping this time will be a little different.”

  “Different how?” she asked. He gave her a questioning look, realizing he had said more than he would’ve liked. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry like that. You don’t even know me well enough to divulge like that.”

  “It’s okay. I volunteered the information.”

  “I still shouldn’t have…” She stopped to smile. As the sun finally set behind him and the moon began to rise, Melanie couldn’t stop herself from staring at his skin. Smooth as it was,
she wanted to touch him just to see if he was real, then caught herself when she almost reached out to his face. “Um…” She turned away momentarily and shut her eyes to think of what she wanted to say next; it had become lost to her in just those few seconds. “Well it was nice to see you, again.”

  “Yeah, you too. Maybe I’ll see you around again sometime.”

  “Most likely at the coffee shop. I’ll be there when I’m not helping Oscar downtown.”

  “I’ll see ya, then,” he said, before jogging off in the other direction.

  “See ya.” She watched him go and suddenly became pensive.

  Part Eleven

  As Nikki stood outside observing Oscar inside of the coffee shop, chewing the polish that had been left on her nails from the night before, she couldn’t help but think to herself that this is what she was missing on the phone with William – the elation upon seeing the face and hearing the voice of a man you actually wanted to be with in every way humanly possible.

  She lingered for almost an hour, watching as people poured inside and dipped out with bagels and cups in their hands, laughing and mingling with each other. She tried to stay out of sight as best as she could, but Oscar managed to finally get a good long look at her as he was talking to another customer about the location of his new shop. She spotted him staring back at her and had the urge to run off in the opposite direction, but felt compelled to stay put as he made his way outside.

  She dropped her hands from her face immediately and stood straight, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet as the up close vision of him made her tense. He peeked his head out and smiled at her; she quickly waved without saying a word.

  “I saw you out here from where I stood behind the counter,” he said as he closed the door. “What are you doing here tonight?”