Miss Independent (16 page)

              “We were discussing my schedule.”

              “Bull
shit
. I may not have gotten good and laid in a very long time, but I can still remember the signs of a woman who has, even if she
is
crying her eyes out afterward.” She paused and took a seat beside her friend. “Do you know who I met with today?”

“Your mother?” she asked, uninterested.

“No, but she was there too. I met with the president of CBS Films. She’s in town this week and we had a meeting at my office.”

              Nikki gradually dropped her hand from her face. “What?”

“Her assistant called me up a few weeks ago and informed me she would be in the city soon for a visit and wanted to meet with me. I’ve had so much else on my mind since then that I had completely forgotten all about it. Anyway, someone on her team had heard that we were going to publish our annual ‘Women in Power’ issue next month instead of September like we do every year to compete with
Vogue
, and wanted to know why their president wasn’t up for consideration or at least placed on the short-list. I all but told her that I had no idea that the president of CBS films was a woman, and then she gave me a quick rundown of the basics. So I called her up last week, she came to my office today and we spoke about her family, about her children. About her husband.”

              “Her husband?”

              “Yeah. I wasn’t sure how much she was willing to tell me at first, but before I knew it, she was spilling all over the place like a bucket of water inside a bouncing vehicle. She said it’s really difficult for her to live bicoastal with her children knowing that her husband is here in the city alone. She wonders about him. What he does, who he’s with when she’s not around.”

              Nikki gulped and started shaking her head. “V—”

              “So then you
do
know that she’s Oscar’s wife.”

              “They are barely even married.”

              “Are you kidding me?!
Are you
FUCKING kidding me, Nicole?!”

              “Vanessa—”

              “You knew! You knew this entire time that this man was married, and you’ve been happily screwing him anyway! For so long I thought maybe this guy was a complete asshole who had been stringing you along which is why you never wanted to talk about it. Then I thought he might’ve just been using you and you’ve never been serious about a single person in your life anyway, so I thought you didn’t care either as long as the sex was good enough. And now I learn he has a wife and two kids living in Los Angeles, and you’ve known all along. But
oh, hey,
they’re barely even married because she happens to live someplace else part time.”

              “You don’t know anything about this!” she hollered, jumping up.

              “Then tell me! What don’t I know?! Aside from the fact that you knew this man was married, what else matters? Certainly didn’t matter to you, seeing as you’ve been apparently fucking his brains out of him for months on end despite that! And now you bring it into my home?!”

              “Ay, Vanessa! You can be such a perra critica at times,” she mumbled.

              “
Excuse
me
?!” She leapt from the couch in a rage. “You’re screwing around with another woman’s husband, but
I’m
the judgmental bitch? I have to work with this woman now, and you don’t even seem to give a damn! Do you even realize how much of a conflict this is?”

“Then put someone else on the cover of your magazine!”

“It doesn’t work like that,
Nicole
! You know, for so long all I’ve ever done is go behind to clean up your messes and now I’m stuck working with your latest one!”

“No one asked you to get involved.”

“Get involved?! As if I was just sitting around asking for some shit like this to fall into my lap? As if I don’t have enough
shit
to deal with already, in case you forgot!”

“I didn’t forget,” she said. “But this has nothing to do with you.”

“Have you completely lost your damn mind because of this man’s dick?!”

“I haven’t lost anything, V, but you might lose a very important amiga if you keep going on like this.”

Vanessa guffawed. “Are you seriously threatening me with your lack of friendship, as if in this very moment that is the first thing on my mind? You know what, you
have
lost your mind. Get the hell outta my house, I can’t even deal with you right now.”

              “What?”

              “I said get the hell outta my house before I toss your ass out on that concrete my damn self!”

              “Is that a threat?”

              “Ya damn skippy, get out!”

              Nikki stared at her for as long as she could with tears in her eyes, then hurried upstairs to change clothes before heading out the front door. She didn’t know where she was going or when she was getting there, but she had a strange feeling that she may not find her way back in the same way.

Vanessa stood motionless in the center of the room, wondering what the hell was starting to become of her life, and those of her friends.

Part Eight

It was nearly midnight. Nikki still wasn’t home and Vanessa had spent the last few hours wallowing in her own grief to notice.

Not long after their argument, she had received a phone call from Sheila herself, informing her that she would finally be in town next Thursday to handle a few last minute things for the reunion, and wanted to see her first thing.

How the hell did she get my cell number?
was the first thing she thought.

The message was left on her voicemail, so at the very least they didn’t have to speak. But for Vanessa, the idea of seeing Sheila in just a week’s time sent her straight to the liquor in the fridge. It didn’t help that she had played the message at least six more times in an attempt to determine what exactly Sheila’s tone of voice was. Happy? Sad? Neutral? Apologetic? Vanessa didn’t know, and she hated that she was all too eager to find out.

She sat alone at the kitchen table, taking alternative sips of tequila and vodka from two different glasses filled nearly to the rim. She chose vodka when the thought of Nikki came to her mind, and tequila when she thought of Sheila. It was the only way she felt as if she could cope without screaming her head off or wrapping her hands around someone’s throat.

After some time had passed and she realized she was still home all alone, she thought about calling Nikki to see if she was all right, but then she wondered what the point would be.

She would probably hang up anyway, or refuse to answer just to force me into a worried state.

She tapped her fingers on the table recalling every single word of their fight. It was the first time she had ever screamed at Nikki like that, and vice/versa. But she didn’t want to believe that her friend could be that cruel and cold-hearted about openly having sex with someone else’s husband. Great or not, where had her conscious gone? Where had her morality escaped to? Had it all been replaced by absolute selfishness? Vanessa ran her fingers through her hair and took another sip of each, this time, simultaneously. She wanted to feel numb. She didn’t want to remember the day, or the events, or the people involved in them. She didn’t even want to remember herself.

That proved difficult when she heard the front door slam shut. A part of her hoped it was Nikki, but then there was a tiny part that didn’t want to face her at the moment. Then again, Vanessa believed she was the lesser of two evils, given her desire to avoid Maurice as well, probably more, which was impossible. She cringed when she realized it was him, and that he was getting closer. She never returned any of his calls from earlier in the day and felt uncomfortable about seeing him, especially if he was going try and plead his case.

He walked into the kitchen without a single thought of looking around, and dripping in sweat from head to toe.

When he noticed Vanessa sitting at the table, he made a face of wonder, but tried not to linger.  He felt if she was avoiding him the least he could do is the same.

Except he couldn’t.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi. Where have you been?”

“I went for a run around the city.”

“You’ve been out for a run this entire time?”

“Would you like to hear what I did in between running?”

“No,” she said. “Not at all.”

“Are you just getting home?”

“I’ve been home for hours.” She took another sip of her vodka.

He bent over and looked for something in the fridge. Vanessa noticed tiny beads of sweat dripping from his nape down the crevice of his back. His entire body was glistening; his smooth olive skin appeared slightly darker in the moonlight. And as he took a certain stance behind the door, his muscles seemed to flex all on their own. She was just drunk enough to imagine running her tongue all over his body but sober enough to quickly remove the image from her mind before he took note of the rousing expression on her face.

Though it
did
make her curious, still after all these years. What exactly had these women been obsessing over since the beginning? What would make them so desperate to return even after he treated them like shit? She was determined she would never find out, even if it threatened her sanity.

She poured the remainder of her vodka into her tequila and drank once more, turning back and shutting her eyes to imagine another time and place.

She could feel Maurice’s presence growing from behind her.

“Why are you sitting in the dark?” he asked, admiring the mocha color of her skin in the moonlight. He would’ve given anything to taste her in that moment, but he pulled back.

Instead he yanked a beer from the fridge and popped the cap with his teeth before placing it on the counter.

She scowled. “Drinking a beer after a run seems unbalanced.”

“I’ve got to rehydrate myself. Beer helps me to do that.”

“It doesn’t, but just keep telling yourself that like the women and the sex, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

He gulped a few swigs. “You seem like you’re in a
great
mood,” he said. “What’s going on? Where’s Nikki?”

“I don’t know, and right now, I couldn’t care less.”

“Why? What did she do?”

“It’s nothing. We just got into somewhat of a fight.”

“The hair pulling kind or a knockdown, drag out?”

“No. She’d probably cut me and then I’d have to shoot her ass… It was verbal. She said some things, I said some things… it just got really nasty between us. I hadn’t screamed at anybody like that since--” She stopped and looked down at the table.

“Is this why you’re sitting in the dark?”

“Yeah. And I was too damn lazy to turn on the light.” She drank the rest of her vodka/tequila mix and slammed the glass down.

“How much of that have you had to drink?” He motioned toward the glass with the tip of his beer.

“Enough to know when it’s time to start up again.”

Maurice came over and picked up the glass, sniffing it. He jerked his head back in shock. “What else was in here?”

“More alcohol,” she said.

“And you drank it all straight?” he asked. She nodded. “Maybe you’ve had enough.”

She snatched the glass from him and placed it back on the table.

He pulled a stool from behind the island and sat closer to her. “What was the fight about?” he asked.

“Just…” She crossed her arms one over the other and took a moment to think. “I’ve come to the realization that Nikki’s not perfect. And I’m not either. And you definitely aren’t either. But I always seem to hold my friends to a higher standard than everyone else I know. There are certain qualities that you two have that no one else in my life has ever managed to compete with. But I’m starting to understand that maybe I shouldn’t do that.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not truthful, and it actually does more harm than good. I put you two on a ‘friendship pedestal’ and when you make mistakes, I lash out because I don’t think you should. I mean what I say at the time, but I don’t mean how I say it because we all make mistakes and screw up from time to time. It’s not fair of me to scold either of you for things I could so easily do myself. You lose people that way. I’ve
lost
people that way.”

“You’ve lost people who didn’t deserve to have you in the first place, V.”

“I know,” she said. “I know, but…”

“What did she do to you?”

“It wasn’t to me. She just really screwed up something for someone else. It didn’t affect me personally, but it was something that I would normally write her off for. But I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I
can’t
, Mo. But I’m still so angry with her. I don’t know how to come back from that. How do you forgive somebody for something that you’re not even sure you would forgive yourself for?”