Commitment (81 page)

That’s enough of that
, Lorna told her
after a few minutes of weeping.
Now what’re you going to do about it
? 

Whining and
acting like
a victim
was
definitely
not allowed.
She’d never succeeded in beating up Linda Chalmers, but she fought her
about
once a week for the
next month, never backing down.
Linda finally grew tired of facing a hysterical opponent with fla
iling arms, and left her alone.

Shawn’s situation was of course far
graver
than a schoolyard bully, but Lorna was bound to see his retreat into sil
ence and solitude as self-pity.
And she would have none of that. 

MTV was reporting that Shawn was “in seclusion
.”
Th
e words held a
subtle
note of
accusation—
like he was hiding from what he’d done but fortunately, their report was balanced by a clip of one of the dancers from the tour saying that her understanding of what had happened between Shawn and Keisha (whose name MTV declined to broadcast, referring to her only as his ‘accuser’) was that it was completely consensual, spanning a period of weeks and ending in Chicago when a
ll the dancers were terminated.
The dancer looked in the camera and shook her head in disbelief,
I don’t know why she’s saying this,
she refle
cted.
I mean, if anything, she was the one chasing after him.

Not that that offered
Riley
any sense of consolation.
Chris was doing what he’d said he would
—
exposing the fact that Shawn
hadn’t forced
himself on someone who was unwilling
,
by arranging for people who witnessed some of his interaction
s
with Keisha to come forward.
But now a whole new picture
of what went on when Shawn was on the road
was emerging.
Flirtation
and sexual banter
;
the kinds of games he would absolutely lose his mind
about
if he even suspected she
were
play
ing them with guys
she knew
.

Strip poker.
Dirty dancing
in nightclubs.
Suddenly, Tracy’s whole objection to the ‘lifestyle’ men in the entertainment business lived was coming into sharp focus.

“
Riley
!”

Lorna
was
calling her.
Riley
went down to the kitchen, immediately
searching
Shawn’s face as she entered, hoping to read
on it
some clue of what the conversation had been
about
.

“Here’s some coffee,” Lorna handed her a mug and she took it, her eyes still on her husband.

“We’re driving back tonight,” he said.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

Lorna’s face was impassive.
It didn’t look like they’d had an argument, but one never knew with Lorna.

“Everything’s fine,”
Shawn said, attempting a smile.
“I just need to take care of business, that’s all.”

“Well, there’s nothing for you to do until the grand jury, right? So why . . .”

“I mean
business,
” Shawn said.
“I
need to meet with the
Arista
team
.
Let them know
they need to back off while I work this out
.”

So Lorna had given him the pep talk.

Riley
relaxed and took a sip of her coffee.
“And I guess I need to go back to work and clean out my desk,”
she said after a moment. That would be hard.
Leaving
Power to the People
after all this time and under these circumstances. 

Both Lorna’s and Shawn’s heads jerked upward at the same time.  She hadn’t told them, she remembered now.

“I quit,” she said, avoiding their eyes.

“You did
what
?”
Lorna was the first to speak.

“This whole thing isn’t going to fall conveniently into my da
ys off.
I thought it would be better if . . .”

“All that does is make it look like you
’re ashamed of me,” Shawn said.
“Like you can’t face anybody or something.”

“You know that’s not it, Shawn.”

“Yeah but that’s what it looks like.”

Riley
looked at Lor
na and she nodded.
“That was
pretty
drastic, don’t you think?”

“This
whole thing is pretty drastic.
I want to be there—
for every he
aring, every meeting with Doug.
Everything.”

Shawn sighed. “Can you go back to them and
tell them you changed your mind?
”

“I don’t want to,” she said
more sharply than she intended.
“This . . . this woman is not just screwing with your life Shawn
, she’s screwing with mine too.
I’m not going to go to work and sit behind a frigging computer and act a
s though it’s business as usual.
”

“Well then you’re giving her exactly what she wants
—
the chance to disrupt your life,” Lorna shrugged.

Riley
lo
oked from her mother to Shawn.
Who would have thought the time would come when they would be on the same side opposing her?

“S
o you think I should do what?
Go
back and say I made a mistake?”
she asked incredulously.

Shawn nodded.
“It’s not too late, right?”

Riley
heaved.
“I don’t know.”

“Go
in on
Monday.
Talk to them.
Maybe tell them you need a leave of absence instead.
”

“Fine,”
Riley
said, defeated. “I guess I could do that.” She looked at Shawn.
“
You’re
ready to go back?”

“I can’t hide out forever.”

“W
e’ve been here only one night,”
she pointed out.

“We have to go home,
Riley
.” Shawn’s voice was firm.
“
I
have to handle this.”

Riley
looked at Lorna for support but she only rai
sed her eyebrows as if to say,
w
hat d’you want me to do?

“Okay,” she said finally.

They left shortly after six, with Shawn in the
driver’s
seat this time.
He didn’t talk to her too much, but instead of the morose silence of ear
lier, he now seemed determined.
His jaw had that rig
id stubborn look—
the one he sometimes got when they were
fighting
.
The one he got
when he refused to back down
.

“I’ll drop you off at home,” he said when they were on the West Si
de Highway close to their exit.
“I have to go by Brendan’s
real
quick.”

“I’ll come with you,” she said, already knowing he would refuse.

“I won’t be that long,”
he was trying to reassure her, but there was still
a certain tension in his voice.
“I’ll be back in an hour or two.”

“Why can’t I come?” Riley persisted.

“It’s not that you can’t come.
You don’t need to come.”

“Shawn you want to tell me what’s going on?
What you’re thinking about?”

“I’m thinking abou
t keeping my ass out of prison.
That’s what I’m thinking about.”

Riley sighed.
She could understand him being testy, but why the hell was he sh
utting her out all of a sudden?
What the hell had Lorna said to him?

“So am I,” she said quietly.
But she leaned back in her seat again, realizing that arguing would be futile.

So eager was he to get where he was going that h
e dropped her off in front of the building and she lugged the bags upstairs
on her own
, dumping them in the living
room.
The
voicemail indicator
was blinking like crazy but
Riley
ignored it, going into the bedroom a
nd switching on the television.
Nothing interesting was on, and MTV thankfully had stopped running news about Sha
wn’s arrest for the time being.
Instead they seemed to be playing his music videos on a loop
, the way they did when someone died
.

She dialed Tracy’s number and waited through the three rings
that always preceded voicemail.
But instead of a recording, Tracy picked up.

“Hey,”
Riley
said dully.
“What’re you up
to
?”

“Hey!”
Tracy sounded surprised to
hear
from her
.
“Where are you?”

“Home.
Sh
awn
wanted to come back.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Better I guess. He’s at Brendan’s.
I was barred from going with him so who knows what they’re up to.”

“Look.
Riley.
I’m sorry about what I said before . . . about Shawn dragging
you down.
I didn’t mean it.”

“
It doesn’t matter,” Riley said.
“Even if you did mean it.”

“No.
I
didn’t
mean it. I really didn’t. You need some company?
I can be there in twenty minutes.”

“Please.”

She arrived bearing a half gallon of
v
anilla
b
ean ic
e cream and an apple pie. Riley could have hugged her.
Just
what she needed—
comfort food.
They sat in Shawn’s den watching a corny love story on
Lifetime
and eating apple pie a la mode, talking about anything and everything except for the whole sordid mess with Shawn and Keisha.
They were well into their second movie and drifting off when Riley looked up to find that
Shawn was standing at the door to the den and they
hadn’t even heard him come in.
Brendan was with
him, carrying Chinese take-out.
Tracy took the bag from Brendan, and they both headed toward the kitchen. 

“How’s my husband doing?”
Riley asked.

Shawn smiled.
“How’s my wife?”

She shrugged. “Okay I guess.”

He walked toward her and
extended a hand.
She took it and he pulled her up from her position cross-legged on the floo
r, wrapping his arms about her.

Sometimes she loved him so much it was
like
actual physical pain.
She could feel her heart swell, her chest tighten and her throat constrict all at once;
she was so filled with feeling.
Shawn’s face was still smooth from when he’d shaved late in the after
noon, and there was a tiny nick,
a spot
of dried blood,
on his chin from the too-sharp disposable razor he
’d used at her mother’s house.

“So what’d you and Brendan talk about?”

“Just business stuff.
About the record label and all that.”

“Is everything going to be okay?”

S
hawn released her and shrugged. “I don’t know yet. I meet with them Monday.
I’ll find out then.”

“What do you think they’ll say?”

“I think they’ll let it ride.”

“Are you saying that to make me feel better?”

“No, I’m saying that to make myself feel better,” he joked.