Commitment (44 page)

“Sit down,” she said.
It sounded more like an order than an invitation.

Shawn hesitated, not knowing what to do about the fat marijuana cigar in his hand.

“Don’t worry about
the weed
,”
she said dismissive
ly.
“You’d be surprised to know how much of that crap I smoked in my day.”

Shawn sat in the chair opposite hers, but could not bring himself to continue smoking
bud in front of his mother-in-law
, and put it out in the ashtray on the table between them.

“
Riley
gave me hell
for the way I acted at dinner,”
she said conversationally.

“I
asked
her not to
.”

“Well.
She isn’t one to l
isten to what people tell her.
Least of all me.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Shawn said.

“Well I told her not to marry you.”

He said nothing.

“But I can see now why she did.
”
Lorna paused as though expecting him to react, b
ut he didn’t.
“I don’t think she could help herself, frankly.
S
he’
s very much in love with you
.”

“You s
ay that like you’re surprised
.”

“I don’t mean it to
sound that way.
Every parent – well most anyway – thinks
their child is remarkable.
But
I
know
my child is remarkable.
And talented.
And beautiful.
And I have high hopes for her.
So when she said she was marrying a
rapper
, naturally I was disappointed.”

“Why ‘naturally’?” Shawn asked, stung.

“Because
Riley
is
so
full of ideas.
And you have to admit, there’s hardly a rapper out there with an original idea
in his head these days
.
N
o offense.
”
Lorna took a deep pull on the remains of her cigarette and then stubbed it o
ut.
“Y
ou may well be the exception.
I don’t know.
Riley
certainly seems to think so.
And I’ve decided to trust her.
I’ve always been able to trust her so I see no reason not to in this
instance
.”

“Thank you,” Shawn said, not sure whether he wouldn’t rather tell her to go fuck herself.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Lorna stood, her
chair making a scraping sound.
“Just try to be the man she thinks you are.” 

She went inside, and Shawn sat
motionless
.
After a moment, he
picked up the blunt and lit it again, pulling in the harsh, pungent smoke, impatient for its calming effect.

g

“
How’s this?”

Riley
looked up.
Tracy was holding a pink calico strapless dress.

“It would be great on you for the
party.
With pink sandals
.”

“
First of all, I wouldn’t b
e caught dead in pink sandals.
And it’s
kind of
too
cutesy for me.”

“You are so hard to shop with!”
Tracy exhaled sharply.

“And h
ow much
is it
?”
Riley added
.

Tra
cy heaved an exaggerated sigh.
“You can afford it, I assure you.”

“How much?
I’m not spending a month’s salary on a dress, Tracy.”

Especially since they had already blown a few grand on the other stuf
f she’d bought this afternoon.
Tracy looked inside for the price tag and
Riley
saw the barely perceptible lift of her eyebrows.

“Not that much.
Just gimme the card.
You are wearing this dress to
the
party.”

“Lemme see it first.”
Riley
wrenched the hanger from he
r hand and peeked at the tag.
She looked up, smiling.
“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to spend
nine
-hundred
dollars on a
dress.  A
cotton L
ycra dress
, at that
.”

“It’s
Anna Sui
.”

“I don’t care
.”

“But it’s so cute,” Tracy said taking it back
and replacing it on the rack.
“
And you have to look the part.
It’s a premiere.”

“For a music video.
I didn’t even know they had premiere parties for music videos.”

“You know rappers,” Tracy teased.
“Excess, excess, excess.”

“Well if it weren’t for the fact that he’s going
back
to L.A. for three weeks after this,
I wouldn’t even bother going.
I just don’t want him leaving
annoyed
at me.”

“So
what’s that going to be like?
Three weeks without your man.”

Riley
shrugged.
“I’m used to it.”
Honestly, she wasn’t so sure anymore. She had grown accustomed to having Shawn home and the idea of him being gone for weeks was tolerable only because she avoided thinking about it.

She picked up a Diane Von Furstenberg classic ‘70’s silk wrap dress and laughed when Tracy promptly grabbed it and put it back.

“
That looks like something my mother would wear, so no
.
”

It was the first
of Shawn’s
event
s
Tracy had agreed to go to and that was only because she
was curious about Chris Scaife
and wanted to take a voyeuristic look into the
inner sanctum of hip-hop
.

“How’s this?”
Riley
jokingly held up a barely-there yellow Rebecca
Dannenberg
slip dress.
If she was lucky, it would just about cover her
butt
cheeks
.

“Perfect!”
Tracy grabbed it. 

“If I sit in that thing, the whole world will be able to see up my crotch.
That’s if it doesn’t freeze off first.
”

“Stop exaggeratin
g.
It’s sexy, but not slutty.
Shawn is going to rip this thing r
ight off you.
And best part is
it satisfies
your inclination to be cheap.
Only a hundred and fifty dollars.”

“Sold.”
Riley
took the dress back and headed for
checkout
.

Afterwards in
Harambe
, they
ordered lattés and cheesecake, sitting in one of the overstuffed dark brown sofas in the back where
Riley
used to make out with Brian wh
en they’d just started d
ating.
Now she could enter the coffeehouse and look around at the sienna and yellow walls, and waitresses in
Kenté
-print miniskirts
with
a complete lack of nostalgia.
She hadn
’t seen or heard from Brian in
weeks, not since th
ey’d met for dinner at Luke’s.
Something told her his silence wasn’t a matter of being too busy at scho
ol, or too preoccup
ied at work.
He was drifting away, along with all the other remnants of her old life.

“So did you go watch the
shoot
?” Tracy was asking.

Riley
looked at her blankly for a moment then realized she was talking about Shawn’s
music
video.
“Oh.
No, I didn’t.”

“They did it in New York didn’t they?”

“Yeah, uptown somewhere.”

“Have you seen it?”

“They’ll play it at the party.”

“But you could get him to bring you a
DVD
,” Tracy said.
“Jesus
Riley
, for someone who’s super-sensitive about her own work, you sure don’t seem to give a rat’s ass about his.”

Riley
blinked.
“Is that what you think?”

Tracy
sipped her coffee and shrugged.
“That’s
what
it looks
like to me
.”

“That’s not true.”

“
Sure it is.
Y
ou’re a
snob.
Like that editor of yours.
Rap is for t
he masses, right?
Not for one of the talented tenth like you.”

“I’ve never seen you rush out to buy the latest
Snoop Dogg
CD either, Tracy.”

“Yeah but I’m not married t
o a rapper,” Tracy pointed out.
“Besides, now that it’s kind of your job to be writing about stuff like this, I would try to manufacture some interest if I were you.”

Tracy was
right on that point at least.
The only thing that had been saving her at work was that she had to tighten up a few outstanding
issues with the slumlord piece.
But Greg was determined to start her new column
soon
and she hadn’t a clue what to write about.

“And the fu
nny thing is,” Tracy continued.
“If you had to pick someone out there whose stuff was a little deeper than the average performer’s, it would be Shawn.”

“I know that,”
Riley
snapped. 

“
Riley
.
Shawn is high-maintenance.
You knew that
before
you married him.
H
e wanted to have
one
hundred percent of your attention,
one
hundred percent of the time.
And now all of a sudden you think things are different?”

“Yes they’re different.
Of course they’re different.
We live together, sleep together
just about
every night, see each other
just about
every
day.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he feels appreciated.”

Riley
rolled her eyes.
“I
s this where I learn How to Keep My
Man
?”

Tracy took a small bite of cheeseca
ke.
“Okay, laugh if you want.
But out there, at every single event he goes to, are hordes of women -
beautiful
women - who are willing to do what it takes to get and keep a man
like Shawn.
And the fact that he’s married to you doesn’t deter them
.
Not even a little bit
.”

“If Shawn wants to be taken in by one of those w
omen then he’s welcome t
o her.
And she to him.”

“You say that now, but I know if you thought for a minute that you might lose him  . . .”

“Well
fortunately I don’t think that
.
”

“Okay.
Just som
e food for thought, that’s all.
I mean,
Riley
,
taking care of your
relationship doesn’t make you anti-feminist or something.”

“Okay, Tracy.
I hear you.
Can we drop it now?”

“Fine.
But you need to stop
allowing
Lorna
to
crawl around inside your head
,
and think
for yourself.”