Commitment (66 page)

He wondered idly what she
would say if he asked her out.
Even wearing his wedding ring.
He’d never taken it off
but
it never ceased to amaze him how
some
women
managed to just
pretend it wasn’t there, stepping to him like it didn’t mean shit.
He felt reckless and
for the moment,
indifferent to consequences—
Riley was probably going to leave him anyway, so what the hell?

“So Aracely,” he said.
“You ever heard any of my music?”

His standard line. Meaningless because everyone had heard his music.

Brendan was looking at him, sitting very still as though anticipating something terrible
—
like lightning striking him dead.

She blushed.
“Sure.
I’ve heard your stuff.”

“And?”

She smiled.
“I like it.”

“You like it a lot, or you like it a little?”

He
r face was almost beet red now.
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. 

“I like it a lot,”
she said finally.

“B, gimme your card,”
Shawn said holding out a hand.
It took Brendan a moment before he pulled out his business card hol
der and handed a card to Shawn.
He passed it across the table to
Aracely
.

“I’m doing a show
at the Meadowlands next month,”
he said.  “Call and
I’ll
hook you up with some tickets and backstage
passes.”

“I bet if I came backstage you wouldn’t even remember me,”
Aracely
said.

“Oh I’ll remember you,” Shawn said.

At tha
t moment Philip Mark walked in.
He went straight for the pastry and grimaced at one of the suits on Shawn’s pile.

“Who picked tha
t?” he asked, his mouth full.
“Did I pick that
Aracely
?”

“Yeah you did,”
she
nodded. 

She looked intimidated.
By Phili
p Mark
,
who was all of five-foot-
three and a buck-fifty.
He had an olive complexion and a head of kinky-curly dark hair that seemed to dominate his entire head, constantly falling about his face or sticking str
a
ight up, but never l
ooking like it had been combed.
His n
ose was prominent and beaklike.
He was not a good-looking man, but had a certain air of privilege that made you naturally listen to him when he spoke.

“Ho
w could I have been so wrong?”
he
held it up and tossed it aside. “That’s not for you, Shawn.
Trust me.” 

Then he smiled and said hello for the first time since he’d walked in.

Philip shooed
Aracely
out of the room and went through all the outfits that had been selected before he got there, veto
ing some and confirming others.
His energy was exhausting, and by the time they were done, Shawn
was dying to get out of there.
Aracely
was gathering her bag and coat as Philip walked them to the elevator and Shawn stopped, turning to her.

“You want a ride somewhere?”
he asked her.

She hesitated, looking at P
hilip as though for permission.
“No.
That’s okay,” she said.

“You wouldn’t be going to the South Bronx anyway, I assume,” Philip said cattily.

Aracely
looked at her shoes and Shawn wanted to
assure
her that he didn’t care about where she was from but Brendan was pulling on his arm.

“We have to go anyway, man
.”
H
e gave
Aracely
a brief wave.  “Thanks for everything.”

Shawn stepped onto the elevator behind Brendan,
taking one last glance at her.
As the doors closed, he could see her looking at him through her lashes.

“You just
love
trouble
.” Brendan said disgustedly.

“I just want to be with someone who’s uncomplicated for a
change.
Someone who for just one
fucking
minute isn’t making m
e feel like I’m not good enough for her
.”

“Oh, so now it’s about what
Riley
made you
feel?”
Brendan shook his head in disbelief. 

“
T
he one thing I
don’t
have issues
with
was
whether or not I want
to be with her.
I still want to be with her.
But I’m not sure she’s supposed to be with me.”

Brendan sucked his teeth.
“You can’t make her happy anyway, so what the
hell
, right?
Might as well fuck it up.
”

“B,
you don’t understand, man.
Until
you’re in my situation . . .”

They headed out to the car and Brendan u
nlocked it so they could get in, but paused before opening the door.

“
Shawn, if I was married to Riley, I wouldn’t
be
in your situation.
Believe
that
.”

And there it was again. The rage.
He was almost relieved. After a
couple
week
s
of
being numb
, anger was
a
welcome
emotion
. Brendan was looking at him, shaking his head in exasperation.

“You want to fight me too? Because I
see
what you’ve got?”

Shawn said nothing
. One part of him was considering for a moment how much better he would feel if he could beat Brendan’s face in. But another part of him understood the point.

“At the end of the day, Shawn, you do have her. That’s the messed up part. You’re so busy thinking about losing her you don’t
even
realize how good it is to have her.”

Still, Shawn said nothing.

Brendan sucked his teeth. “Man, get in the fucking car.”

That
night
when he called Riley
, she picked up jus
t before the voicemail came on.
She sounded tired, distracted.

“How’s work going?” he asked.
“I mean, coming up
with
stuff to write about and everything.”

“Okay
,” she said without enthusiasm.
“Chris helped me out after all.
I’m doing this piece on female producers
in
rap.
He introduced me to some
people.
I might call
your
friend, Jodi
.
”

Shawn swallowed his objections to
her getting leads from Chris.
His right to be jealous about anything had been revoked two and a half weeks ago. 

“Yeah?”
he struggled to
keep his voice even.
“When?
”

“Look,” Riley sighed.
“I don’t want to spend all night making casual conversation about my work
and your work and the weather.
Do you have something in particular to say?”

Brendan was in the room, watching television and eating the Chinese food they’d ordered, so Shawn took the phone to the kitchen.

“That I want to be with you.
I don’t
want to be with anyone else.”

“And of course it’s all about what you want,” Riley said.

Shawn held the phone away from his ea
r and took a deep breath.

“No.
It’s about what we both want,” he said, the exaspe
ration slipping into his voice.
“
So maybe it’s time you told me.
What do
you want, Riley?
You want to work on this or what?”

“I don’t know yet what I want.”

“I don’t know what e
lse to say besides ‘I’m sorry’.
I don’t know what to do to prove it.”

“And I wish I could tell you what to do to prove it.”

“Look, why do
n’t we go away for the weekend?
To the Bahamas or something.”

“Is tha
t my consolation prize, Shawn?”
she asked caustically.
“You screw around
so
I get to
spend a weekend at the beach?”

“Riley, it’s not about that.
It’s about you and me spending some time together, working this out away from all the bullshit.”

“Well I’m sorry but that’s moving a little too
fast for me,” she said angrily.
“As usual, you want to sk
ip way ahead to the good part.
And as far as I’m concerned, I don’t know if we’ll ever get to the good part again.”

“I move too fast?” he demanded.
“I remember us
screwing the same night we met.
But that was all me, right?”

“You’re
right,” Riley’s voice was calm. “It’s not just you. It’s me too.
We
move too fast.
So maybe
it’s time to slow things down. So, no.
I don’t want to go to the Bahamas or
anyplace else with you for now.
I’m going to Lorna’s for the weekend.”

Shawn closed
his eyes tightly and grimaced. Lorna. Great.
That was like going t
o a feminist re-education camp.
By the time she got back on Monday, she would have divorce papers drawn up and ready to go.

“A’igh
t,” he said.
“And then what?”

“And then I don’t kno
w what.
We’ll talk when I get back.”

She didn’t wait for him to reply and hung up before he could decide what to say.

g

Riley
didn’t know she was staring into space until Dawn tapped her
on the forehead with a pencil.
S
he
realized she
hadn’t even heard her open the door and come in.

“
So how’s this weekend?” Dawn said.

“This weekend?”
Riley
looked at her blankly.

“For the
photo shoot,” Dawn enunciated.
“You, me, the inimi
table K-
Smooth
, your apartment.
Remember?”

“Oh, shit . . .”
Riley
hit herself on the fore
head with the heel of her hand.
“We can’t this weekend Dawn, sorry.”

Of course, n
o one at the office knew about her problems with Shawn and
she wanted to keep it that way.
She could only imagine the glee of those girls from the mailroom who she knew
secretly
hated her guts just because she was
married to their hip-hop idol.
And not to mention the smug ‘I-knew-it-would-never-last look’ that she was b
ound to get from
all and sundry
.

“Are you trying
to blow this off?” Dawn asked.
“Because if the idea of it bothers you that much . . .”

“No
.
I promise you that’s not it,”
Riley
looked up at her.
“I’m going upstate to see my mother
,
today, that’s all.”

“Why this weekend?
Go next weekend and let me shoot you guys this weekend.”

“Can’t.
Already made plans.
And his scheduling is a little more complicated than we can
work out at a moment’s notice.
But how about we
talk about this a couple weeks from now
?”

Dawn sighed.
“I guess.
I mean what the hell, you’ve already strung me along for a lot longer than that.”