Miss Independent (32 page)

Once everyone else began joining in on the dance, they were shuffled from the center and to the other side. Vanessa looked down at their feet as they moved.

“This is nice,” he said in her ear. “Holding you close to me like this.”

He turned his face toward hers and lightly pressed his nose against, inhaling her skin. The slight touch of his lips on her throat, and the opening of his mouth made her jump back. She released his hand and curled her fingers inside her palms.

“I need some air, or some punch or…” She looked into his eyes; they were longing, waiting, wanting. “I need to get the hell away from you.”

She sprint across the room to the spiked free punch and poured herself a few glasses. Maurice watched Nathan watching Vanessa, then followed him as he exited the ballroom in haste. When he realized he was going to the men’s restroom, he decided to wait nearby. He noticed a hotel security guard across the way and called him over.

“You mind if we have a talk?” he asked.

Nikki was still nowhere to be found and Vanessa was getting worried. She knew that if she kept her mind on her friend, it would release her of whatever she was thinking and feeling for Nathan in that moment. She wasn’t, however, expecting his intoxicated fiancée to pollute her space after spending all night trying to avoid her.

“You looked good out there dancing with Nathan like that,” she slurred.

Vanessa made a face of disgust. “You sound drunk as hell.”

“Like you always did in high school? Because you
stayed
drunk from sun up to sun down.”

“Yeah, well, after seeing you half naked with Nathan, what choice did I have? I at least knew how to hold my liquor.”

“That night. But what about the next day?”

“I held it then too. Now would you PLEASE get the hell outta my face?”

“No – because I need to talk to you.”

“Look at my face, does it tell you that I’m in the mood to deal with your ass right now? Because if it does, I’ll change it real quick to ‘Fuck-off’ mode. Just let me know.”

She took Vanessa by the arm and spun her around to face her. She nearly fell over with the drink in her hand. “What the fuck?” snapped Vanessa. Sheila knocked the cup from her hand; red punch splattered on the floor, just missing her white dress. She looked down, her mouth agape. “Sheila, have you lost your
got
damn mind?”

“No, but you’ve lost yours,” she snapped back. “I came back here all ready to lay myself on a sword for you, practically kissed your ass from jump--”

“Kissed my ass from jump?! When the hell did this happen--?”

“And all you’ve done since you’ve seen me is treat me like shit, talk down to me and act as if you are better than I will EVER be--”

“
Well
--”

“And then I come out here, and see you dancing all over Nathan like some cheap ass, thirsty ass TRICK swinging around a pole--”

“Say, WHAT?!”

Vanessa was genuinely baffled. It was clear she and Nathan still had feelings for one another, but she tried to keep it classy.

“You were all but fuckin’ his leg on that dance floor!” Sheila hollered.

“You better get the hell outta my face with this bullshit,” Vanessa shot back.

She leaned down and continued slurring. “You were
fuckin
’ him.in.front.of.me--”

Vanessa leapt forward, getting as close to Sheila’s face as she could, just to be clear. “I was DANCING with him, you stupid bitch, but God knows you wouldn’t know the difference between dancin’ and fuckin’ since you always seemed to do both in PUB
LIC
!”

Sheila was maddened by that point. What Vanessa said had certainly made things ten times worse. She reached her arm as far back as it would go, and smacked an open hand straight across Vanessa’s face. She stumbled into the table and grabbed the edge so as not to fall to the floor, though she had knocked over the punch bowl and a few cups. Once she stopped feeling dizzy from the blow, she licked the corners of her mouth to check for any blood, then stuck her tongue on the inside of her cheek and clutched her jaw. She hadn’t been hit that hard since a fight with her sister when she was sixteen years old.

“This is EXACTLY why you will NEVER find happiness!” Sheila continued, pointing in her face. “You are a bitter, thirsty ass, HUNGY ASS TRICK still obsessing over a man who dumped your ass FIVE YEARS AGO! Don’t you think it’s time you finally got over it?!”

“Get over THIS!” Vanessa reached up and backhanded her, sending her flying back onto the floor. The crowd around them immediately separated, eyes wide, mouths dropped as they grasped what was happening and saw the end of Sheila’s dress hiked around her waist. “You have fucked with me one too many times.”

Sheila started laughing uncontrollably as she pulled her clothes down. “Not as often as I was fuckin’ Nathan in that shower and his bedroom, and the block around the corner from your house.
Bitch
.”

Blinded by hatred and Sheila’s vitriol, Vanessa stretched out her arms and jumped on top of her. She tried smacking her again, but Sheila kept waving her hands to keep her from making contact. She went for the throat next. “
YOU
ARE THE SORRY ASS TRICK!” she hollered. “Anybody who calls themselves a friend while willingly going after someone else’s man is a SLUT, TRASHBOX, BITCH,
WHORE
!”

“You are
miserable
!” Sheila screamed. “You will always
be
MISERABLE, that’s why you don’t have a man now!”

“I wouldn’t want YOURS if I knew damn well he didn’t want me BACK!”

“He DOESN’T!” Shelia thought the louder she screamed, it would make her words true.

Out in the hallway, Maurice stood by the door leading to the ballroom waiting for Nathan to return from the restroom. When he saw him try to ignore him and walk past, he tapped him on the shoulder. Nathan turned and stood back a little. He eyed Maurice as if he were an unworthy opponent and adjusted his jacket. He placed his hands in front of him and smirked.

“Finally got me alone,” he said in a condescending tone. “I’m glad we have this time because I have been meaning to ask you how life was going as Vanessa’s permanent lapdog. She give you any yet to keep you hanging around this long?”

“Not all of us need sex to be around a woman we care about.”

“Guess that means all the women you
have
fucked, are, well, fucked. And it also means Vanessa hasn’t let you lay it, and won’t.”

“Still the same self-satisfied son of a bitch you were in high school,” Maurice responded. “Probably no wonder why Vanessa wants nothing to do with you anymore.”

“Have you been paying attention? I’m pretty sure she wants more to do with me than she’ll ever want to do with you.”

He leaned back and crossed his arms. “Is that a fact? Then she never told you about our relationship while she was at NYU?” He debated on whether or not to go further, but blew it off.

“The phantom relationship? No, she never told me, but then again why would she?” He pointed to his temple and leaned forward. “It was all inside your own head.”

“Maybe you should ask her about that and see if she feels the same way,” Maurice answered, “that it was all inside my head.”

“You’re still living with her, aren’t you? How many women does she see coming in and out of your room every day? That’s probably a real turn on for her.”

“No more of a turn on than catching you in the shower with her best friend.”

In an instant, Nathan pulled his arm back and balled his fist. He reached out to punch Maurice square in the face, who saw what was coming before he could, and shuffled to the side. Nathan hit the wall instead. When he turned toward Maurice, he tried swinging again, but Maurice ducked and tackled him around his waist as if they had returned to the football field. He turned and slammed him back into the wall.

Nikki suddenly came around the corner then, after having left the reunion to meet with Oscar, and watched in horror as they continued tackling and taking swings at one another. She screamed for them to stop, but when they didn’t, she looked for security and ran back into the ballroom to search for Vanessa. She stood to her toes, looking around the room, then noticed the crowd getting larger on the other side. When she didn’t see Vanessa, or Sheila, she panicked and ran over, pushing her way through the crowd and stopping in her tracks as soon as she found them rolling around on the floor, slapping one another and screaming extreme profanities. She took a chance and bent down, yelling out Vanessa’s name, hoping to get her attention. She fell back a few times as Sheila unknowingly kicked her feet in the air.

“VANESSA!” she called again.

“WHAT?!” she finally responded, as she grabbed at Sheila’s hair and attempted to smash her head into the floor.

“Maurice is outside fighting with Nathan!”

She stopped and sat back. “What?”

“They’re outside the doors acting like two babuinos. Dios Mio, get up, girl!” She yanked Vanessa up from the floor and they ran out. Sheila and the crowd followed.

They all stopped when they saw the two still taking violent swings at each other. Neither was beaten up too badly physically, with the exception of a few small bruises here and there.

Vanessa leapt forward and wrapped her hands around Maurice’s arm, pulling back. Sheila moved in and jerked at Nathan.

“What the HELL is going on?!” asked Vanessa. She looked at both in absolute shock while shoving them back from the other.

“Your ex-boyfriend over here is a piece of SHIT!” Maurice bellowed. He spit on the ground after a little blood filled his mouth.

“And your lapdog is a fucking liar! But I expect nothing less from someone who has openly FUCKED the entire city since we were kids.” He turned his eyes to Vanessa. “Except one.”

“You piece of shit--” Maurice jumped forward again, but Vanessa shoved him back.

Sheila tried moving Nathan away from the crowd. He ripped his arm away from her and began walking in the opposite direction on his own, spitting to the floor and wiggling his jaw. She turned to Vanessa, who was tending to Maurice, then went off after him.

Vanessa walked with Maurice to a nearby bench and eased him down. He winced when he fell back against it. As the crowd dispersed and returned to the ballroom, she tenderly took his face in her hands and overlooked the small bruises that had formed near his eye. He flinched as she rubbed across it.

“What the hell happened out here?” she asked. “And where the hell was hotel security?”

He pulled the handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth, then tossed it onto the floor. “I paid him enough cash to take a smoke-break in Queens so that I could talk to Nathan alone.”

“Real nice,” she replied in a sarcastic tone. “Talk to him, or try to rip his face off?”

He noticed her hair sprawled all over her head. “Look who’s talking.” He nodded and grabbed his face, readjusting his jaw.

“Yeah, well…” She pat her hair down. “That’s Sheila’s fault. She said I was practically fucking Nathan on the floor out there when we were dancing. Bitch has lost her mind.”

“Has she?”

“
Yes
. We were dancing.”

He stared at her but didn’t respond.

Nikki came back over with a bag of ice in her hand for his face. He and Vanessa continued to stare at one another for a long time before he took the bag and got up from the bench, brushing away her help.

“What happened out there and in there?” asked Nikki. “I leave for ten minutes and come back and everything is complete chaos!”

“Ten minutes? You disappeared and I went looking for your ass… it all went downhill after that.”

“This isn’t my fault, V.”

“I didn’t say it was. Sheila started in on me and Nathan probably said something to piss off Maurice.”

Nikki placed her hand on Vanessa’s face, looking it over. “At least it isn’t bruised.”

“Yeah… She’d still be pulling my stiletto from her ass if it were, especially when she had no basis to hit me.”

“What were you two fighting about?”

“She thinks I still have feelings for Nathan.”

“You don’t?”

“Whether I do or not, I wasn’t planning to act on them. She had no reason to come after me like that, especially after I didn’t throttle her ass after finding them fucking in the shower in the locker room at school. I just think if I never went back for my jersey that day, I probably never would’ve known. And sometimes I wonder if it was better to learn it then, or was it best to never know and break up because of a feeling I had about it.” She stood up, watching Maurice as he went out of his way to avoid looking at her. “And now he’s pissed, and I can’t do anything about it… I need to be alone. I need to think about some things and I can’t do that here. If anyone asks where I am, you know where to find me.”

She left as Nikki went over to Maurice and laid a hand at his back, letting him know that no matter what, she was there. It was the first time she had shown him any genuine compassion, and the first in which he allowed it and didn’t make a negative remark.