Miss Independent (35 page)

Vanessa shut her eyes and exhaled slowly, deeply.

Thank you, God
.
I waxed
.

She turned her head aside, kissing his neck the same as he had hers. And then she moved her lips to his ear and curled her tongue around his lobe.

He tucked his fingers inside the rim of his underwear and began to pull them down. She lifted her legs and leaned back, sucking her lips in anticipation. And suddenly at the most inopportune time, her office phone rang. They both appeared confused, staring at one another.

“Ignore it,” he said, leaning in for another kiss.

She pulled back. “It could be something important for work.”

“Can’t they wait till Monday?”

“You’d think.” She glared down at the caller ID and scrunched her brows. “I don’t recognize that number. Maybe they have the wrong office.”

Nathan got a closer look, then reached down for his pants, frantically pulling them back up around his waist.

“It’s Sheila,” he told her.

“What? Whose number is she calling from?”

“It’s my cell phone. I left it back at the hotel.”

Her answering machine suddenly clicked on.

Hi, you’ve reached Vanessa Brown’s personal telephone. If you’re receiving this message, I am out of the office at this time. Please leave me your name, telephone number, email and any other information I may need in order to get back in touch with you as soon as possible. Thanks, and have a blessed day.

It beeped.

“Hey, Vanessa?” the message began.

She covered her mouth with one hand and held her chest with the other. She had forgotten to forward the messages to Samantha’s phone before leaving work the previous day.

“
Shit
,” she muttered.

Nathan began zipping and buttoning his pants.

“I’m sorry to call you so late,” Sheila continued, “but I just wanted to touch base with you and apologize about tonight. The alcohol got the best of me, and…” She paused and exhaled. “You may not believe it, and I can’t blame you if you don’t, but I didn’t mean what I said about you never finding happiness. I didn’t mean what I said about you and Nathan either. And I sure as hell didn’t mean to hit you like that. I don’t know what I was thinking…. I also don’t think you’re bitter or stupid for believing whatever you did in high school. And I think you
will
find happiness someday, if you haven’t already.”

              She looked up at Nathan, who was already staring at her, then quickly tore her eyes away and slid off of the desk. She went over to the other side of her office and began fixing her bra and lifting her dress.

              “I hope it’s okay that I called this number,” she went on. “I called your house and after a lot of begging and pleading, Nicole finally told me you might be up there since you weren’t answering your cell. She said you might’ve wanted to be alone, and that is where you go. I thought calling you from Nathan’s phone instead of mine would make you pick up, but I guess not.”

              Vanessa clutched her dress even tighter and looked toward the ceiling. She felt like ten day old garbage that should’ve been put to the curb weeks ago.

              “I don’t know where he went tonight either.” She nervously laughed. “But he needed to get away from me too, and I don’t blame him… In any case, I didn’t want you thinking that this was what I wanted coming back to the city. I didn’t. And I
did
invite you to the wedding, not Nathan. I didn’t do it as an attack. I genuinely wanted you to be there, because I miss our friendship and what it meant to the both of us before I went and fucked it all up. I keep doing that, and I’m sorry. I really want us to try again, V. I want us to get back on the right track. We might not ever be like we were, but we could at least try, right?” She paused. “I don’t know if you’re listening to this or if you’ll even listen to it when you finally get it. I’m probably taking too long anyway and your machine might cut me off soon. If you
do
get this, I hope you listen and please call me back. I don’t know if Nathan told you, but we’re staying in town a bit longer than planned…” Nathan turned a little after hearing that part and arched his brow. “So I’m around, anytime. Just call.”

              When it finally clicked off, Vanessa exhaled, not realizing she had been holding her breath the entire time until that very second. She felt awkward and ashamed and embarrassed and disgusted.

Nathan had just finished dressing, slipping on his jacket last, and watching Vanessa’s phone in case it rang again.

She looked over at him, her heart filled with so much anger, but not at him, at herself. She wanted to cry but kept herself from showing more emotion than she should.

“So you
are
in fact staying in town.”

“V--”

              “This was a mistake,” she said. “This was such a colossal mistake, I don’t even know where to begin. You’re a chronic cheater, that’s what you are, and I’m…” She closed her eyes and sighed, as if to relieve herself of the pain. “I’m a total mess.” She pressed her hands against her mouth and breathed in and out very slowly. Then she looked down, realizing her panties were still around one of her ankles. She dropped her head even further in shame and felt like screaming. “Just, go.” She couldn’t even bring herself to look at him anymore. “Just leave and don’t come back.”

              “I think we need to talk about what just happened here, and what it meant.”

              “It meant nothing, it
means
nothing. And it didn’t happen because your soon to be wife called and ruined all possible attempts at adultery. God, I thought that I was above this kind of shit. I never thought I’d find myself wanting to screw the brains out of a man who wasn’t legally mine or otherwise, and maybe never was. And here I am with panties swinging around my ankle and my titties out like an all you can eat buffet.” She shook her head. “I thought that I could do this. That I could be mature and rational around you both, but I can’t. Do I still have feelings for you? Yeah, deep feelings that I’m not sure will ever go away. Do I still want to? Hell no, but that’s the way that it is. Shit like this doesn’t help me move past that.”

              “Do you want to move past it?” he asked sincerely. He stepped closer, flinching as he tried to gauge the expression on her face. “Because I don’t think I do.”

              “You have to. You’re the one who’s going to be saying till death do you part in six months.” She waited a moment, staring at him as his eyes gradually lowered from hers. “You should go home to her. You heard her voice, she doesn’t seem altogether right now.”

              “What about you?”

“What
about
me? Maybe if you had given a damn about my feelings five years ago, none of us would be in this mess to begin with. But you didn’t, and now we’re here. So just go. Go home to your
wife
.”

She picked up her panties, balling them, and went over to the window. Tears formed in her eyes and rolled down either side of her cheeks. But she was determined not to wipe them away until he was gone from her office. He lingered a few moments, wondering what to say, if he could even say anything else. He wavered, moving back and forth, physically and in his mind before finally leaving. She turned halfway to watch him take the elevator and then wiped her face, smearing whatever makeup had been left behind from earlier in the night.

Part Seventeen

After showering in the company locker rooms, reflecting on what had just happened with Nathan in her office, and what it in fact all meant to the both of them, she took the long way home, walking in a safe area but sure she wouldn’t come across anyone she knew. She had stuffed her panties in an envelope inside her purse and put her cocktail dress back on because she had nothing else, unable to bear anyone seeing her after what she had just been through and done. It was all too humiliating enough that she couldn’t imagine adding to it by being fake with someone whose only goal would be to try and expose her for their own gain.

By the time she got home, she was hoping everyone would be asleep. She didn’t get her wish as she had heard Maurice’s voice coming from the den. She thought of ignoring him and going up to her bedroom without saying a word, but when he called out to her again, she grit her teeth and headed over to see him.

He was sitting on the edge of the couch in the dark, wearing only a pair of grey sweatpants. He looked angry. A line had formed between his brows and his hands were balled around a small bag of ice that he had been using for his face. She walked in further and crossed her arms one over the other, nodding.

“How is it?” she asked timidly.

“Better than it looks. I’m more concerned about you. What happened to you tonight? You left and--”

“What did it matter? You were pissed.”

“I was still concerned about your wellbeing. I looked for you before we left, but I didn’t see you anymore. And then Nikki told me that you needed time alone and I actually got worried considering what had happened, so I called. Then you didn’t answer your cell phone.”

“Oh, well…” She lifted the strap of her dress on her arm and sighed. “It’s probably buried deep in my purse somewhere.”

“I figured. I thought about calling your office when I didn’t hear from you, but thought if you went there this late, you didn’t want to be bothered.”

“So you waited up for me instead?”

“Yes.”

She looked to the floor, slightly embarrassed. “What if I never came back?”

“Then I would’ve scoured the earth searching for you until I found you.” He took in a breath. “Where did you go, V?”

“I was at the office, just like you thought. I needed time to myself to think about things.”

“Things, like…?”

“You, Nathan, and Sheila. Me and you, you and Sheila, you and Nathan. The stupid fights we were all having that served absolutely no purpose and solved nothing between any of us. It shouldn’t have been taken that far. We were all acting like idiots and sure as hell didn’t showcase how far we’d come since high school.”

“They were the ones egging it on V, just like always.”

“It really doesn’t matter anymore, Maurice. It’s clear those two aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. So we can either accept it or make our own lives a living hell by rejecting them every step of the way.”

“How is rejecting them making
our
lives hell?”

“Because they will haunt us, otherwise. Sheila’s not going to be satisfied until she’s back in my good graces again, and Nathan--”

“Won’t be satisfied until he’s back into your bed.”

She breathed in deep but didn’t respond.

“The things he said to you tonight, and about you…” He shook his head in amazement. “They don’t even seem to faze you, Vanessa, they never have. Is that what he does? Is that how he’s managed to keep you all these years?”

“He’s not keeping me--”

“I saw the way you were looking at him tonight during that dance and I saw the way he looked at you. It’s no wonder why Sheila lost her shit.”

“It doesn’t matter Mo, none of it does, just like I said. Sheila is who he chose to be with regardless of it all. Whatever we have or had is over and was the moment he proposed.”

Silence grew between them as Maurice contemplated her words. He clutched the bag of ice in his hand, lifting it a little as the water forming on the outside dripped between his fingers and onto the floor.

“Then what about what
we
have?”

“What we have is a trust and a deep friendship.”

“And?”

She innocently looked around the room. “And…?”

“There has been more going on between us lately, tonight proved that. You felt it just as much as I did.”

“No I didn’t. Whatever you thought I felt is all inside your head, just like everything else. You think every woman wants you and that I should be at the top of the list because you have a thing for me.”

“You
are
at the top of the list. And it’s not just a thing, you should know that by now.” He stood up and moved closer to her, dropping the bag of ice to the side. She looked behind herself and leaned back on the wall, unprepared for him to approach her. He rested a hand above her head and smirked, staring down at her lips. “What would you say if I were to kiss you right now? If you recall correctly, our entire relationship was equivalent to two ten year olds because the most we ever did was hold hands.”

“That is not true,” she said with a nervous chuckle. “We kissed plenty of times.”

“Name the first.”

She looked to the corner of her eye and wrinkled her nose.

He nodded. “We kept things pretty platonic and safe because you didn’t want to lose our bond. If things went further, you were afraid that nothing would ever be the same. And maybe you were right,
then
, but I don’t think you are now.”

“Now would be worse because we’re closer than we’ve ever been--”