Commitment (34 page)

She sat on the arm of a nearby chair and brushed her hair out of her eyes.

“How old are you?” he asked, suddenly curious. 

She looked like she was barely out of high school.

“Twenty-one.”

He seriously doubted that.
Nineteen, tops.
Funny how every single
young
girl he met backstage
or
hanging out
at the studio
lookin
g for attention was twenty-one.
They never seemed to have the imagination to claim to be twenty-two.

“What’s your name again?”

“Keisha.”
She smiled, pleased to have elicited even the
tiniest
degree of
his
interest.

“Keisha, why are you here?” he asked.

She blushed.  “I’m Mike’
s cousin
,” she began.

“I know why
he’s
here,” Shawn cut her off.
“But why are you here with him?”

“C’mon,
man
.
”
Chris Scaife seemed to come out of nowhere, putting a
n arm about Keisha’s shoulders.
“That’s not how we treat our guests.”

Keisha looked relieved to have been saved from
having to answer his question.
Relieved, and smug.
Because if Chris said she could be there, then no one, not even the
talent
,
could second-guess him.

Shawn turned away, looking
once again into the live room.
He was itching to get in front of the mike himself
but the smart thing would be to stand back
,
watch
and listen
.
It was one thing when Glock was performing at a show – the energy from the crowd, the lights and the overwhelming din of the music sometimes helped even the most lackluster performer look and sound good.

From what he remembered
though
, these kids were high-energy, and their perfo
rmance was far from lackluster.
Las
t
time he’d seen them in the studio and listened to them
raw – without accompa
niment and mixing and digitizing – they had been equally impressive
.
They had ho
arse voices that would record
well, especially for the hardcore s
tuff they liked to rhyme about.
They reminded him of
that old group Das EFX
vocally.
If Chris exploited that similarity, they would
blow up in no time
.
People
were hungry for a return to old-
school
sounds
.
Hell, even
Riley
said she used to listen to hip-hop back in the day.
He would have to remember to ask her what she thought of Glock when she saw them perform in L.A.

“Even though last time you embarrassed me by not showing up, I’m inviting you one more time to come to Sans Souci,” Chris said from behind him. “
Come sip some champagne and kick back.
”

Shawn turned.
“
I’ll let you know.”

The briefest look of
annoyance crossed Chris’ face.
He wasn’t used to
having his invitations rebuffed,
but
the
real,
unspoken issue
, the reason for the invitation
was
Riley
.
Chris had never met her and was irritated that Shawn hadn’t
invited him to the wedding, even though his
ego would neve
r permit him to say it out loud
.
So Shawn
would bring
Riley
to Sans Souci tonight, and
get that out of the way
but
from then
on
he had no plans to
expose her
further to
Chris or his
crazy lifestyle.

Hell, he wished she didn’t have to be exposed to
his
crazy lifestyle.
They’d been married a
little more than a
month, and already he had another
multi-city trip on the horizon.
He wasn’t looking forward to it
as much
, which was new.
There was nothing like being onstage – n
othing.
But
still, he was just getting used to knowing that Riley was there, whenever he wanted her
.
Now
at least
he knew she would be home –
wherever that turned out to be – when he got back.

Tomorrow, he
would
call
the realtor
and make an appointment
to look at the condo in the next couple of days while
Riley
was at work.
Even though she said she liked it, he worried that she would settle for something less than he wanted her to have, just because she didn’t want him to spend
the
money
to get it
.

“You
listening
, man?”

Shawn looked up.
Chris said something to him which he’d missed completely.

“I was talking about MTV.
We booked a spot
for Glock
.
If you
rolled
in
with them
, it would
make
some
noise
around this CD.”

But did he want to create hyp
e around Glock’s CD?
That was the question.

“Yeah.
No problem,” he said, his better nature winning out.
“
Call B and let him know.”

Keisha was still sitting there, her eyes fixed on him. She was wearing skinny jeans and a white tank top
with high-heeled white sandals.
Around her neck was a complicated array of gold and silve
r necklaces of varying lengths.
Her bracelets – on both wrists – were equally busy, and her fing
ernails were long and scarlet.
She idly twirled a strand of her long, dark hair around her forefinger, her head
bopping to Mike’s rhymes.
She turned and caught him looking and smiled, but Shawn didn’t smile back.

Just
then
, someone
turned up the volume
so that it was dif
ficult to
talk over the music
.
T
he sound of
a sample Chris was experimenting with
filled the control room and then everyone was moving, alm
ost involuntarily
,
to the music.
Shawn’s eyes met Keisha’s
for a second time but this time
she
didn’t smile and instead
stood,
pretending to be casually
moving
to
a chair at
the other end of the room.

When the music ended he followed her, feeling a stab of rem
orse at having embarrassed her.
She wa
s practically a kid, and a fan.
It was just that it was
still
a
fairly
new sensation for him, being able to
refuse women that looked like her without a second thought. 

“I wasn’t tryin’ to
dis
’
you before,” he said to her.
“I
’ve
just got work on the brain, y’know?”

She looked up and
nodded
eag
er to accept his explanation.
“Yeah,
I understand
.
”

“If I come to the club tonight I’ll definitely check you out and
put in a word
to the casting director on my next video.”

“Thank you.”

“And Mike and Darryl should be able to do something for you too,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but they don’t have the
same budget as you,” she said.
“Might not be no dancers in their video.”

Shawn
nodded
.
“That’s true.”

He remembered what that was like – when no one knew for sure if he wou
ld sell and budgets were tight.
Every video was made on the cheap, every public appearance booked in small
venues until he proved himself.
He looked
at Keisha a little more closely. W
ha
t did she know about all that?

“K
Smooth
.
I’ll be damned.
”

Shawn
smiled and
turned at the sound of the familiar,
husky smoker’s
voice.
Jodi Weeks.
The foremost fe
male producer in all of hip-hop who had a big enough mouth that he heard her fine, even over the loud music.

Jodi
was
short and dark-skinned
with a tight, athletic build.
She
habitually
dressed like the rappers she worked with, even though at thirty-four, she was easily a
decade older than most of them
.
Her eyes, always warm, drew Shawn in just like the old days when he was a kid newly isolated by fame and desperately loo
king for
a
hint of something
genuine
.
He
stood and went to embrace her.
They held each other for a long enough time to draw everyone else’s attention, so Jodi pulled him out into the hallway.

She stepped back and looked him
over.
Even though she was only five-foot three, she
almost always
managed to make him feel like
the skinny eighteen-year-
old he’d been when they first me
t.
Jodi had that homegirl combination of pretty and tomboyish that
he’d
always had a weakness for, and
she
wore it well.
He could easily think of a dozen rappers who w
ould love to get them some Jodi but
most
were too intimidated to even try.

“
Look at you,
still fine as I don’t know what
.
How long has it been?
” she teased.

“Six months
at least.
Where you been, Jo-J
o?”

“
Never mind where I been.
How ‘bout you?
I
heard a vicious rumor,”
she said, looking at him slyly out of the corner of her eyes.

Shawn
shook his head, playing along.
“You shouldn’t listen to rumors.”

“
C’mon
now,
w
ho is she?”
Jodi asked,
hands on her hips
.

“Her name’s
Riley
Terry.
Was
Riley Terry
.
Riley
Gardner now,” Shawn said
, unable to keep the pride out of his voice.

Jodi punched him in the arm, har
d enough that it actually hurt.
“I can’t believe you
upped
and
got married!
She has to be something special.”

“She is.”

“Lemme see that damn ring.” She grabbed his l
eft hand.
“And I
’ll
meet her
, right
?”

“If you promise
not to trip
,”
Shawn said, only half joking.

Jodi pretended to be hurt.
“So I can’t tell her about
me and you
?”

Shawn looked at her blankly.

“Okay, so it was almost eight years ago, but it was
still
the best
five
months of your young life
.”

Shawn laughed.
“It was.”
E
mphasis on the second word.

Jodi
wrinkled her small, cute nose.
“I don’t know.
I might get jealous.
Maybe I shouldn’t meet her.”