Commitment (41 page)

Brian wrinkled his n
ose and shook his head slowly.
“
I don’t think he’d fire you, but . . .
”

“But I’d be pretty much on his shit list from then on in, right?”

“Probably, yeah.”

“
Shit
.”

The waitress came and
Riley
ordered a double cheeseburger, extra fries
and a thick vanilla milkshake.
Brian ordered a gyro and a Pepsi, then leaned back and grinned at her.

“What?” she asked testily.

“Still pig out when you’re stressed, huh?”

Riley
shrugged.

“Some thin
gs never change.” H
e was still smiling at her, looking at her in a way that
suddenly
made her feel as though she was doing something wrong by sitt
ing and eating dinner with him.
“I’m glad you called me,
Riley
.”

“It’s no big deal,”
she said looking at the table.
“Tracy do
esn’t get home till late so . . .
”

“Is that t
he only reason you called me?”

“No,” she admitted, looking up.
“But I don’t
want you to misunderstand
.
”

“Yeah, I know.
You’re a married woman now.”
He l
ooked her directly in the eye.
“You think a day goes by that I don’t remember that?”

“Brian.
It was never
that
deep for you.”

He shrugged.
“If that’s how you make yourself feel better about what happened, then fine; let’s say it wasn’t that deep for me.”

“Was it?”

Brian shrugged again
“I wasn’t getting ready to p
ropose if that’s what you mean.
B
ut I thought we had something.
Could’ve seen it going somewhere. Didn’t know I was going there by myself.”

There was nothin
g to say to a thing like that.
Riley
sipped
the remains of
her tepid, bitter coffee and star
ed out the window at the dusk.
A homeless man on the corner was trying to ge
t the attention of passers-by.
Most people pretende
d they didn’t see or hear him.
He was invisible.

“Somethi
ng else is wrong,” Brian said.
“You want to tell me?”

“No.”

“Okay.” He sounded hurt.

“Maybe sometime I’ll t
ell you,
she said.
“Just
not today.
Okay?
Today I just want to h
ave dinner with you.
Talk about stuff.”
Like before.

“I could tell you about the article I’m e
diting for law review.
”

Riley
smiled.
“Sounds like just the kind of ‘stuff’ I had in mind.”

“Good.
Because
this is complicated.
”

“The
more complicated the better.”
She leaned back and relaxed.

After dinner, they
walked over to Washington Squar
e Park and sat near the courts.
Brian picked up a game and
Riley
watched, drinking a latté
that
was a vast improve
ment on the coffee from Luke’s.

It was well after ten by the time they decided it
was better to call it a night.
Brian walked her to the subway and
Riley
paused at the turnstile, turning to face him.

“So call me,” she said.

Brian’s eyebrows
rose
. “You sure?
I won’t get a K
Smooth
beat-
down
?”

Riley
laughed.
“I promise.”

“You take care.
” He put a hand at the back of her neck, stroking it briefly before
turning and disappearing into the crowd
.

The apartment was quiet and dark when she got in, a
nd Shawn was nowhere in sight.
Riley
walked through the too-huge rooms, but s
he was indeed, all by herself.
Surprised by how disappointed this made her,
Riley
sunk into
the
plush, Italian leather s
ofa and reached for the phone.
She was all over the map these days
– one minute exasperated by how much her life had chan
ged with him in it, and then
just as suddenly,
craving him once again.

Just a
s she
started dialing, she heard his keys, and
there he was
.
Relieved,
Riley
dropped the phone and stood to greet him
.
He had changed
s
ince she’d first seen him this
evening
, and was wearing beige slacks and a chocolate brown crew-necked shirt.

“
I’m sorry
I
stayed
out
so late
,” she said
.
“I was in a
crappy
mood.”

“
That’s okay, I had someplace to be anyway
.” H
e kissed the top of her head.

She held him away from h
er, and looked him up and down.
“
You’re al
l dressed up.
Another
one of those dinners?”

“Somethi
ng like that,” he said vaguely.
“Where’d you go?”

“To get something to eat.
Lots
of stuff happened at work today,”
Riley
said,
rushing past the meal and launching into an
explanation he hadn’t asked for.
“
And
that’s why
I
was in a foul mood
.”

“What happened?”

“Well.
One good thing -
I talked to Lorna finally
. . .
”

“You did?”

“
. . .
and she wants us
to come upstate this weekend.”
Riley
waited for his reaction. 

Shawn walked into the kitchen and she could
hear him in the refrigerator.
He emerged moments later with a soda, and sat on the sofa,
sliding off
his shoes.
Riley
waited.

“And you forgave her?
Just like that?”

“I was the one who called.”

Shawn looked up, s
urprised.
“She didn’t come to
our wed
ding, and you just let that go.
And now all of a s
udden she wants to meet me
.
”

“She’s the only mother I have
, Shawn
.
And I understood her reasons for not wanting me to get married.”

“Oh, you understood?
Well explain it to me.”

Riley
sighed. “We’ve been over this.
She’s got different ideas than most peopl
e about marriage and all that.
She thinks it
’
s a racket
.
”

Sha
wn held up a hand to stop her.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll go.
You’re right.
You want to go, we’ll go.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yea
h.
Of course w
e’ll go.”

“Thank you.”
She went to sit next to him. “And there was something else too
Greg gave me a
new job description basically
.
”

S
he went on to relay the conversation in much the same way she
’d told Brian about it earlier.
It fel
t sleazy, telling him second
.
Shawn listened and leaned back, taking a long, slow sip of his
drink
.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally.

Riley
sat stock still for a moment
.
She would never have thought in a million years that he would realize just how disappointed she would be to have her
work constrained
in the way Greg had done.
She’d underestimated him, as always.

“I know you want to writ
e about more important things.
If it’s becaus
e of me
. . .
”

“No,” she said hastily.
His understanding lef
t her the room to be generous.
“It’s not because of
you.
That’s what we’re
supposed to do as reporters –
capitalize on our connections.
It’s part of the game.”

Shawn looked unconvinced.
“You could always
look for a
gig
someplace else.
Where no one knows who you’re married to.”

“I want everyone to know who I’m married t
o,” she said without thinking.
The words were out before
she
realized she
actually,
truly meant it.

g

The twists and turns of the narrow Taconic Parkway gave Shawn an excuse to
let out
his frustration
in his driving.
He gunned the engine of the brand new
Bentley EXP9 F
more than was necessary, wrenching the steering wheel into each curve, shifting gears frequently to account for slow moving vehicles ahead of him, cursing
under his breath
the entire time.
Next to him,
Riley
was placidly
flipping through
the latest issue of
Vibe
mag
azine, ignoring his theatrics.
She’d looked at him like he’d lost his mind when he told her he’d bought a car, reasonably pointing out the cost of parking, the likelihood that it would be damaged or stolen in the city, the infrequent use they would get out of it since he was constantly being chauffeured places.

“I can’t writ
e stuff like this,”
she
said, almost to herself
.
“I wouldn’t even know where to begin.
I mean, I couldn’t care less who’s having a baby for which NFL player.
”

“That’s not all they write about, Riley and you know it.”

“Close enough,” she mumbled.

Shawn
didn’t tell her that the real reason he’d bought the
stupid
car
was to impress her mother.
He wanted to show this woman - who from what he had heard would be sure to hate his guts - that he could more than provide for her daughter, that she woul
d have the best of everything.
What mother in their right mind - radical feminist
or not - could object to that?
But then
Riley
had messed
up
that whole groove when looking over the sleek, midnight blue
luxury SUV
, she said dryly,
‘
Great.
Rap star and new wife charge into quiet upstate town in flashy, new car.
’

He hadn’t thought of it that way, but now it seemed so obvious he was angry at himself for not seeing it before - all the car said was that he’d brainwashed
Riley
from a writer consumed by ideas to a hip-hop princess preoccupied with
things.
No wonder people thought rappers were stupid, and what was the word
Riley
had used that day?
Shallow.
That’s what his new
one hundred forty thousand dollar
car screamed.

“
Shawn
.
Next exit.”

At the speed he’d kept up, the driv
e had only taken about an hour.
L
ast night
he’d planned to grill Riley about her mother
, but then the narrative director of the
music
video he was filming next week had come by with the storyboards and they’d spent almost the e
ntire evening going over them.
In the end, he’d gotten Keisha
picked for
one of the dance sequences.
She would be in the third row of dancers behind him doing
pelvic thrusts and high kicks.