Commitment (58 page)

A waiter stopped in front of him,
offering a glass of champagne.
He shook his head
.
He’d had more than enough to drink tonight.
Before the after-party they’d stopped at two bars, and he’d tossed back the Patr
ó
n with Brendan and a couple of the roadies until his eyes crossed.

“
You got
Sprite?” he asked.
“You think you could get
me one
?”

“Of course
, sir
.”

Usually he was pumped up after a show and wide awake, but tonight he was
edgy and restless
but
tired
at the same time.
The Toyota Center was a challenging venu
e to fill, but he’d filled it, and even more than that,
in spite of h
is earlier crisis of confidence
he’
d blown the roof off the joint, having one of the best shows he’d had
in a year. He
wanted
to call his wife and tell her all about it, but i
t
was late and would
involve
a
nother
conversation
he didn’t feel ready to
have
.
And Riley hadn’t called him either
since that night so
Shawn had no idea whether she would welcome hearing from him or not
.

Still, h
e shouldn’t have
flown
Keisha out.
But things with
Riley
right now were hard, and Keisha was
an
amusement
, albeit a high
maintenance one.
After the show, she’d managed to stick to him like glue, even finagli
ng an invitation to the party.
Right now, she was near the bar someplace, socializing with people she’d
probably
only
read ab
out in the tabloids or seen on
Entertainment T
onight
.
When they’d walked in, she had held on to his arm proprietarily until he’d e
xcused himself to hit the
Men’s Room
.

Brendan came over rubbing his eyes and
looking tired himself.
It was easy to forget that
for every hour he worked, Brendan worked two or three
. 

“I’m a
bout to bounce, man.
You
coming
?”

“Yeah,” Shawn stood
right away, following
him
out
.

As
they got into the rented
Land Rover
, he noticed that it was only just after
two
a.m.

“Damn.
We
must be getting old,” he said.
“Remember when we used to be hitting clubs till six in the morning and then straight to
grab some
chicken and waffles
?”

“Yup,” Brendan laughed.
“I don’t th
ink I have that in me no more.
You see s
ome of the honeys at the party?
They were like
. . .
prepubescent and shit.
”

Shawn laugh
ed. “It was probably her Girl Scout troop.”

“From what I heard, she’s no Girl Scout,” Brend
a
n said shaking his head.
“
Lisa P or whatever the hell her
name is – how old is she?
Fifteen
?”

“I was thinking the same thing.
And how ‘bout her crib, man?
It was like six, seven number ones before I could afford some shit like that.”

“Yeah, but that
house ain’t hers.
She might think it’s hers, but i
t really belongs to the label.
She’s just a tenant.
The minute her numbers fall off, her ass will get booted the fuck out.”

“It’s a cold, cold world,” Shawn said.

“No doubt.”

They fell into a companionable silence
,
and Brendan turned on the radio, scanning
radio
station
s
.

“So w
hat’s up with Keisha?” he asked, a little too casually.

“I should’ve known that was coming,”
Shawn said.
“Nothing’s up with Keisha.”

“Then why’s she here?”

“To
fill
in the
empty spaces
.”

“Shawn.
You’re
fuck
ing
up
.”

“Nothing to do with you, B.”

“I’m just sayin’, man.
Your wife is not the kind to stand for that
mess
.
She will
leave
your ass.
”

“
I don’t n
eed you to tell me about Riley.
I know my wife, a’ight
?”

“
Fine.
I said what I had t
o say,” Brendan looked at him.

Shawn
was still
restless and
awake in his hotel room around three
-thirty
when his phone rang.
He picked up ri
ght away,
hoping
—but not really believing—
that maybe it was
Riley
.
It was only Keisha, and s
he sounded like she had a few drinks in her.

“Why you leave the party without sayin’
nuthin’
?”
she whined.

“Just because the party’s over for me don’t mean i
t has to be over for everybody.
What you
doin
’ up so late?”

“What
you
doin
’ up so late?”

“I asked you first.”

“I just got in.
Wasn’t that house
phat
?
I never been in a place that nice before.”

“Yeah, it was decent.”

“What if I
stopped by
your room?”

Shawn hesitated. “A’ight.
C’mon
through
,” he said finally.

Keisha was still wearing her party
clothes.
Tight jeans and a silver sequined tank top that sco
oped low in the front and back.
S
he pus
hed past him and into the room.
In her hand was a bottle of wine.

“I took this from the party,” she said, holding it up.

“
Merlot
?” Shawn said locking the door.
“You like that?”

Keisha smiled.
“Never had it.”

“You won’t like it,” he said moving toward her.

“Why not?”
she put the bottle down and folded her arms across her chest.

“For one thing, you don’t drink it chilled
. . .
” 

He wa
s directly in front of her now.
They were almost touching.

“How do you drink it?”
she
asked
her voice barely audible.
“Hot?”

He laughed.
“
Not exactly
.”

Shawn leaned in, brushing her lips with his,
teasing her and testing himself;
pulling back when she leaned forward.

“If you don’t drink it chilled and you don’t dri
nk it hot, then how do you .  .
?”

He
kissed her to shut her up.
Pressing his lips hard against hers, he forced t
hem apart with his tongue.
He slid his hands down her sides and lifted her blouse, hi
s thumbs caressing her nipples.
Keisha leaned against the pressure of his hands and reached between them, rubbing him throu
gh his pants until he was hard.
But when she reached for his zipper, he
pulled back abruptly
.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. 

Just a sudden attack of conscience.
Shawn pushed the thought back down.
He’d been toeing the line with this girl for weeks, and now
he could either step over it, or turn back
.

Keisha smiled knowingly.
“You want me to leave?”
she asked.

g

Chapter Twelve

Riley
reached out and grabbed
a
hold
on
Brian’s hand to avoid being separated from him in the thick of the crowd. He gripped her fingers firmly and pulled her closer until he was shielding her with his body, one arm draped across her shoulder. She stiffened for a moment and then relaxed, allowing him to hold her at his side.

“I wish we were closer to the stage,” he said, leaning in to speak into her ear.

“Me too.
But it’s pretty cool being here at all. Thank you for
thinking of
inviting me.”

“I knew you would kill me if I didn’t and you heard about it.”

Toni Morrison was at the university, reading from her latest book
and some of her other works
and Brian had called her the previous evening to find out whether she was interested. Riley
was
eager to accept. Toni Morrison’s
Sula
was her all-time favorite book and the opportunity to be in the same room as the author gave her something to look forward to after a week of emotional
unrest
.

“You want to grab dinner after this?” Brian asked
now
.

Riley nodded and smiled up at him. Brian reached down and rubbed the back of his hand across her cheek. Riley was surprised to feel pinpricks of tears in her eyes at the affectionate gesture. He’d always been such a calming presence, and with all the tumult in her marriage right now, she craved a little calm.

Since that awful night when Shawn had admitted flirting with
that
woman just to
be hurtful
, she was in a tailspin.
She hadn’t even been able to bring herself to call him to ask what he meant, and it had been over a week and he hadn’t called her
either, to explain
or for any other reason for that matter. To say that she was confused didn’t even begin to capture it.
Clearly, h
e was punishing her for something
, but
she had no idea what
.

After the first couple of days spent debating how to broach the subject, she decided to wait.
Shawn
had something to sort out, and
if there was one thing that night proved, it was that
she couldn’t help him do it. So she h
ad to be patient and hold on to the one thing of which she was certain
—
her husband loved her.

Toni Morrison had a serene presence, and a voice
that
was
quiet
, but strong and certain.
She sat at the center of an otherwise empty stage in an armchair, reading to the audience as though to a child at bedtime. The sole light trained on her illuminated the lines and planes of her face and her crown of graying dreadlocks.
A
s she read, Riley felt a chill at the back of her neck. The passage seemed to speak directly to her
.

“
She had been looking all along for a friend, and it took her a while to discover that a lover was not a comrade an
d could never be
—
for a woman.
And that no one would ever be that version of herself which she sought to reach out to and touch with an ungloved hand. There was only her own mood and whim, and if that was all there was, she decided to turn the naked hand toward it, discover it and let others become as intimate with their own selves as she was.”

Riley blinked back tears and nodded. For some reason at that exact moment, even though he didn’t look down at her, Brian squeezed her shoulder.

They ate at Luke’s where the food was mediocre but the ambiance was familiar and comforting. Brian ordered his usual
gyro
and fries while Riley
chose the slightly t
oo greasy chicken Caesar salad.
As they ate, they talked about the reading and
then
about
Brian’s impending clerkship with a judge he admired
in the New York State Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court
.

“So you’ll be in Albany this summer,” Riley said.

“Yup. Not the most happening town, but
I’m excited to learn how the process really works, y’know?”

Riley nodded. She did know. They’d talked about this a lot
once. It seemed a lifetime ago
—
sitting in her bed with her laptop, Brian next to her with those formidable law school texts opened and spread out around him. He had a clear vision of where he wanted to be and what he wanted to do with his law career
.
She’d admired that about him—
his drive and certainty.

Brian had at first made her feel hopelessly
un
focused in comparison, until he told her one night how much he
respected that she’d gone out and seized her passion for writing so early and never wavered.

You’re brave,
he said.
I went into
F
inance because I was too chicken
shit
to tell my family that if I went into the law, it wouldn’t be at one of the marquee
firms
that they wor
ked in or would envision for me.
But you went for it. I bet you do that with everything
—
just go for it.

Riley hadn’t thought about herself that way before he said it. But now she did
and some of it was because of him. He taught her think
of herself as a fighter for what she believed in, for people she l
oved, and for things she wanted, and to not take those attributes for granted.
Now, with Shawn, she understood how intense love could
be
and wondered sadly whether Brian had ever been anything to her besides a friend and a teacher.

“So can I ask how you’re finding married life, or is that off limits?”

Riley
shrugged. “You can ask, but I’
ll al
most always decline to answer,”
she said. “It would be too weird, talking to you of all people about Shawn.”

“That’s a loaded statement if I ever heard one,” Brian said
taking
a couple of fries in his mouth and ch
ewing. “It implies that there’
s something to tell.”

Riley blushed. “I just meant talking about him in general.”

“Sure?” Brian asked. “Because honestly, when I met you at the subway, before you spotted me? I saw you and thought you looked a little sad.”

“Things have
changed so much,
Brian,
and so fast,”
Riley said shrugging. “I’m still adjusting.”

Brian nodded. “I can see how that might be difficult,” he said, his voice gentle. “I bet it’s a whole different life.”

“It is,” Riley said, swallowing
a lump that rose in her throat.

“But most of it good, right?” Brian’s voice was cautious, as though he didn’t want to insult her.

“Most of it,” she nodded.

“Well then I’m glad,” Brian said smiling at her.

When she got home, Riley picked up the phone to see whether there was voicemail, hoping that today woul
d be the day when Shawn called; that t
oday would be the day he decided that he wanted to
break the silence
.
But today was not the day.
There was only one message and it was from Tracy whom she had been avoiding. If she saw Tracy, it would be immediately apparent to her friend that something was
very
wrong, and she didn’t feel ready to admit it.

She walked through the apartment, needlessly arranging things, in the already perfectly arranged space and remembered suddenly something Shawn had told her about his life.
A lot of it is made up
, he’
d
said.
Basically arranged for my convenience
. Like their perfectly arranged apartment, where everything appeared to be in its place, but just
beneath the surface
things had gone
horribly
awry with its inhabitants.

Riley had spent countless hours thinking about where they had gone off the rails and couldn’t pinpoint it. All she knew was that now that he had her, Shawn seemed not to know what to do with her.

What did he mean when he said he’d wanted to hurt her?
Why
? And when he realized that he had, was he satisfied?
Evidently not, because he was still keeping his distance.

Thinking about how that night
unfolded
, and her reaction to him flirting with that woman, Riley was unsettled. She didn’t know she could behave that way, or even
feel
that way. Had they stayed at the party, she may have become one of those women who make scenes, publicly fly off the handle while everyone else looks on, shocked and embarrassed. She flushed to think about it.

I
n the middle of moving a pile of magazines from the entryway to the living room,
Riley
stopped in her tracks.

Oh my god, that was it.

That was what Shawn felt at Cameron’s. It was different, she knew, because she definitely hadn’t been
flirting
with Cameron, but if what Shawn felt was even one fraction of her emotions on the night of the Sony party . . .

Riley put the magazines down and went into the bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed and picking up the phone. Kicking off her shoes and folding her legs beneath her, she took a deep breath and dialed her husband’s number.
She had to do this before she started to
over think
it, or lost her nerve.

Shawn
answered after only one ring.

“It’s me,” she said.

“Hey,”
he
said. He sounded wary,
unsure of himself
.

Riley could hear voices in the background, and then movement, as though he was walking away from the noise.

“How are you?” she asked.

He gave a short laugh. “
Been better,” he said.

“It’s good to hear your voice, Shawn.”

“
You
rs
too.
I’m . . . I should have called you. I’ve been . . .”

“Look, it doesn’t matter,” she said quickly. “It doesn’t matter why you didn’t call. It’s been difficult lately. For both of us. But I just wanted to say a couple things to you. If you have time to listen.”

“I have time,” he said, his voice low.

“I think I understand now,” she said. “Some of the stuff I’ve been giving you grief for, like Cameron’s and  . . . I don’t know how to explain this very well. I don’t think it was okay what
you did
at his party
.

“
And I think you need to find a way to deal
with situations like that;
a way that doesn’t involve fighting and letting things get out of hand.
But I understand the fee
lings. I think maybe you think . . .
maybe you thought I didn’t have those same feelings. About you, I mean.” Riley
sighed
, frustrated. “I’m not explaining myself very well.”

“No,” Shawn said quickly. “I get what you’re saying.”

“You do?” she asked, relieved.

“Yeah.”

“Shawn
,
I
get scared too,” she said. “And
we’re so different
I
sometimes
wonder if I give you what you need. . .
”

“You do,” he said
right away
.

“I know you say that, but I still wonder. And at that party I guess seeing you with that woman, I started thinking about that. Wondering whether someone else . . .”

“No one else could
ever
give me what you give me, Riley,” Shawn said.

“I feel the same way,” she said.
“So that’s why I called. I think it’s important for you to know that.
Shawn, for me t
here is no one else
who . . .”

“Look . . . I have to go, okay?”
he said abruptly.

Riley’s
brow
furrowed
in confusion. He sounded
so
strange.
He
want
ed
to go
now
? Just as they seemed to be opening up to each other?
There were a couple beats of silence. He seemed to be waiting for her permission.