Commitment (3 page)

“You coming or not Riley
Terry
?”

g

He had a slow, deliberate walk, like someone who refused to be rushed, no matter what. K
Smooth
was coming toward her from the elevators, but Brendan was no longer with him. Riley had opted to wait in the lobby bar while he did his telephone interview from his suite, and had spent the time writing as much descriptive material as she could – about the club, her impressions of his manager, and most of all, about her first reaction to the man himself.

Of course she’d left out the part where he made her stomach tighten and her palms get sweaty. Details about her overactive libido were not suitable for public consumption and even less likely to be of interest to her persnickety boss.

“Want to go get something to eat?” he asked her.

“Sure,” Riley said. “How’d the interview go?”

“Same ol’, same ol’.”

“Where’s Brendan?”

“Why?
Do you want him to come
with us
?” he asked, looking amused.

“
Just
curious.”

“He’s upstairs
calling his girl or something,”
Shawn shrugged.
“How’s Jamaican food sound to you?”

He ushered her out front and they stood by the curb waiting as the valet hailed them a cab. For some reason
, she’d expected a private car.
If MTV was to be believed, rappers only traveled in black SUVs. Or flashy white ones with shiny rims or spinners. She smiled to herself at the stereotypes that popped into her head.

“So are you headed to California after this? That’s where you live, right?”

No point betraying that she knew perfectly well where he lived, and had
thoroughly Googled him just before leaving the office. She even knew what his favorite restaurants were, that his preferred athletic shoes were Pumas, and that he never, ever wore Nikes. 

Shawn laughed. “I live in hotels. Or in Maryland, if you mean where my legal residence is. After this I’m headed to Baltimore for a show. I’ll hook you up with a couple passes if you’re interested.”

“That’s really generous of you, but I probably wouldn’t be able to make it to Baltimore.”

A
taxi
cab
pulled up and they got in. He gave the driver the name of a popular downtown Jamaican restaurant.

“So you’re not even curious about seeing me onstage,” he said. 

“I did see you onstage,” she pointed out. “Tonight at the club.”

“Nah,
that was just . . . an appetizer. So let me send you some passes.”

Riley shrugged.
“Okay. Send me the passes.”

“Don’t just humor me.” He leaned in closer. “If I send them, you have to come.”

“I’m not humoring you.
If you send them, I’ll be there.”

Shawn narrowed his eyes “I don’t believe you,” he said. 

Riley laughed but didn’t deny it. Of course she wouldn’t be there. If she understood Greg – and she was pretty sure she did – this was not meant to be some long, probing exposé
.
All she had to do was write up something that proved they weren’t completely out of touch and call it a day. And besides, she was fairly certain he’d extended similar invitations to no fewer than five other women tonight alone.

Maybe he was much, much better looking than she expected, and more articulate than most in his industry, and traveled unpretentiously by
taxi cab
but she couldn’t let any of that cloud her judgment. The scene at the nightclub made it clear that the fundamentals were the same. Parties, women. The usual crap.

Pepper Island was crowded for a
Thursday
, and Riley forgot until they were inside that her dinner companion was likely to draw the attention of everyone in the room. Even by the standards of a bunch of jaded New Yorkers, he was a big deal. Just about every head seemed to turn in their direction simultaneously and one woman dropped her fork so that it clattered loudly against her plate. The manager ushered them to a table that was obviously meant to put K
Smooth
on display, and suggested that the chef make them something that wasn’t on the menu.
He
accepted, looking
at Riley for confirmation before he ordered Red Stripe beer for them both. 

Through the crab-stuffed jerk chicken wings she asked him about when he’d first started writing lyrics, and how he got into what he called “the rap game.” And during the escovitched gray snapper entrée they talked about his adjustment from a private to a public life.

He was describing how he’d landed his first recording contract when he stopped midsentence and Riley looked up expectantly. She’d been scribbling in her notebook as he spoke, her fingers not moving quickly enough to keep up with his word
s and her own racing thoughts.
He was staring at her, his expression inscrutable.

“Look up once in awhile,” he said.

Riley studied his face for a moment until she was satisfied that he was teasing her. 

“Better yet . . .” He reached over and slid her notebook away, shutting it and putting it aside.

“I have a good memory, but not that good,” she protested.
“How am I ever going to remember everything you say?”

“I’ve talked enough.
Your turn.”

“I’m not being interviewed,” she pointed out.

“Neither am I. At least not anymore.”

Riley laughed.
“D
o
you
want me to lose my job?”

“Tell me about it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your job. Tell me about it. We talked about my job, now let’s talk about yours.”

Riley narrowed her eyes, trying to decide whether he was genuinely interested or just throwing her a line. 

“That’s not generally how these things work,” she said.
“Interviews, I mean.”

“Yeah, but everyone prefers a little give-and-take. I ask one, you ask one.”

“Okay,” Riley capitulated. “Deal. What do you want to know about my job?”

“How’d you get into it?”

“I’ve always wanted to be a writer, always have been actually. My only challenge was figuring out how to get paid to do it. And once I did, I realized I couldn’t be happy doing anything else.”

“I understand,” Shawn said. 

“Is that how you feel about
your
work?”

“Yes. It is,” he said simply. “If you could interview anyone in the world who would it be?”

“I would interview . . . Nelson Mandela.”

“Aw c’mon,” Shawn said. “That’s a safe answer. There has to be someone else.”

“You asked your question and that’s my answer. My turn. Besides your own, whose music do you most admire? And why?”

He grinned. “That’s two questions.”

“Don’t get technical,” she leaned forward. “Give me a name. And not another rapper, either.”

“Okay. I guess I would have to say Nina Simone.”

Riley smiled.
“I love Nina Simone. Why do you like her?”

“Because when I hear her voice, I feel what she was feeling when she sang.”

There was a lull between them and he
took the last swig of his beer, looking over her shoulder for their waiter and motioning for another one.

“Had you heard my music before tonight?” he asked after a moment.

“Of course. But mostly in passing.”

Riley stifled a smile at his expression. Clearly, he was
irritated
by
that
answer.

“So, not a fan of rap music or not a fan of mine?”

“Not a fan of rap music,” she admitted.

“So how come your magazine didn’t send someone else to interview me?”

Riley shrugged.
“
I think this interview was an . . . impulse.” She’d almost said “afterthought.”

“But not your impulse.”

Riley said nothing. The way he
looked
at her was unnerving. He didn’t seem to have that thing that most people had
–
where you look away when caught staring. He just kept right on staring, directly into her eyes
.
And
no matter how she tried, she was always first to avert her gaze. 

“So where’s your entourage?” she asked briskly.

“I travel light,” Shawn said.

“Interesting.”

“Why is that interesting?”

“I guess I thought every rapper came with a lot more baggage.”

“Some do.”

“Do you think that’s one of the reasons that
Newsweek
reporter wondered whether you were a pariah among hip-hop performers?” Riley asked. “Because you don’t have a crew with you everywhere you go?”

“You’d have to ask her,” he said. “I didn’t even know what the word ‘pariah’ meant till I looked it up.”

Then he smiled, so it was difficult to decide whether he was joking or not. Riley leaned back in her chair waiting to see what he might say next. Sometimes interview subjects revealed more when you didn’t ask questions than when you did. But for someone who made a living with spoken word, he seemed remarkably comfortable with silence.

He didn’t speak for almost a full minute.

“Political stuff,” he said
suddenly
. “That’s what I see you writing.”

She nodded.
“Yes.
A lot of the time that’s the kind of stuff I write.
But more about racial politics than politics in the traditional sense. And gender politics,” she trailed off, not wanting to talk too much.

“Gender politics,” he repeated.

“Yeah, the balance of power between the sexes and. . .”

“I know what gender politics is,” Shawn said lightly. 

“Of course,” she blushed.

“So gender politics interests you. But rap doesn’t.”

Riley tried not to look surprised. “I see what you mean. But I guess I just haven’t looked at rap through that lens.”

“Interesting,” he said playfully mimicking the tone she’d used to remark on his lack of an entourage. “Maybe you should.”

She fought the urge to defend herself. It wasn’t as though he’d read anything of hers, and she could hardly be surprised that a
rapper
thought rap was the most interesting place to look if you wanted to capture the zeitgeist.

“Poetry?” he asked suddenly.

“What about it?”

“Do you write it?”

“Not very well.”

“But you do.”

“Sometimes,” her shoulders hunched reflexively, protectively. And then she realized where he was going. “And yet I don’t listen to rap.”

“Exactly.”

“I understand you wanting to defend what you do,” Riley said, sounding more argumentative than she intended. “But I guess I don’t think most rap today
says
anything. And
most
of it certainly isn’t poetic.”

Shawn nodded, not in agreement, but as though she’d confirmed a suspicion he had.

“I’ll send you some stuff,” he offered.

“Sure.”

“
But you’re
right; a lot of rap isn’t poetic, but it isn’t supposed to be. Some of us aren’t poets; we’re
the
town criers, putting out the word on what’s going on in
the
streets.” He emptied his glass of the last of his beer. “Don’t be so skeptical, Riley. You might be surprised.”

“Which are you?” she asked.

“Which . . ?”

“Are you a poet or a town crier?”

“You’ll just have to listen to my music and find out.”

“I have listened to your music.”

“No,” he corrected her. “You said you’d heard it. That’s not the same as listening.”

Riley smiled. “You got me there.”

Of all the things she expected from this interview; being challenged
on an intellec
tual level
was not among them. This was supposed to be a mildly entertaining interlude during which some
materialistic, profane youngster
described his Bentleys and showed off his most recent jewelry acquisition.

K
Smooth, she now realized, had not been adequately captured
by the
Newsweek
feature.
Maybe she’d have a story after all.

Riley glanced around and for the first
time realized how late it was.
Almost all the other patrons had left.

“They won’t ask us to leave,” Shawn assured her, leaning over the table and lowering his voice. “Even if we stay till four in the morning.”