Commitment

by Forrester, Nia

  “I know you want to write about more important things. If it’s because of me . . .”

  “No,” she said hastily. His understanding left 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 to,” 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 magazine, 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 write 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 would 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 drive had only taken about an hour. Last 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 entire 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.

  The night he’d come in to find Riley with the phone in her hand, looking so happy to see him, he’d been at a party at Mike and Darryl’s new crib in Brooklyn Heights, purchased by the ever-generous Chris Scaife. Keisha was there with two of her girls, dressed to kill, pushing up on him and trying to create the impression to her friends that they were really tight. Shawn played along, allowing her to drape an arm about his shoulder, lean in and whisper into his ear, and even grab his butt one time. That was when he decided it was probably better to go home, even though it was still early and nothing had really jumped off yet.

  Keisha had followed him out and cornered him at the stairs just as he was leaving, grabbing his arm. So what’s up with the video? She was way too close. He could feel her breasts, soft against his chest and his head filled with her too-sweet perfume. You’re in, he told her. Don’t worry about it. And that was when she kissed him. Just the brief pressure of her crimson lips against his was enough to make him feel guilty.

  He pulled back before she could go any further and she smiled at him then, a coy, flirtatious smile.

  Oh, she said, I forgot you was a married man.

  And then she was walking away, leaving him standing there with an almost painful pressure in his groin – his first extramarital hard-on. He’d made a mental note that night to stay the hell away from her.

  “Left turn and then the very next right,” Riley was saying now.

  Shawn focused, taking in the tree-lined streets and tranquility of his surroundings. The neighborhood was not unlike Largo, Maryland where he had his townhome before moving to New York. Well-kept lawns, large colonial-style houses with two-car garages and children riding bicycles along the sidewalks. He’d felt out of place there, without the picture-perfect family to go along with the picture-perfect surroundings. And he felt out of place here too, though for different reasons.

  Riley directed him to an older, Tudor-style house, with a short driveway, and an old Saab parked in front. He pulled up behind it, turned off the engine and looked at her. She smiled and took a deep breath, looking nervous and excited at the same time.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Let’s go.”

  She kissed him fleetingly on the lips and reached back to fix his collar. He swatted her hand away.

  “Get the bags?” she said. “I’ll go in and get her.”

  Riley headed up the driveway while he took his time unloading their stuff. Momentarily, the front door opened and Shawn heard Riley exclaim, and watched as she embraced someone. They held each other for what seemed like a long time and then the two started back down the driveway together. Shawn watched their progress. Riley’s mother wasn’t much different from what he’d expected; wearing faded blue jeans with a pair of those ugly shoes, Birkenstocks, and a white Indian-style tunic that had an intricate pattern embroidered on the front. She was staring right at him, taking wide strides in his direction, even as Riley kept an arm about her waist, chattering in her ear.

  The two women hardly looked related. Riley was more delicate than her mother, her features smaller, her figure more slender. Lorna Terry was solidly built without being masculine, feminine without appearing weak. Something about her physical appearance seemed to announce her view of the world.

  “Shawn. I’m Lorna.”

  Instead of the handshake he expected, she hugged him. It took Shawn a moment to respond, hugging her back. She smelled like cigarettes and patchouli. She stepped back and stared into his face, into his eyes really. Then she grinned and looked over at Riley.

  “He is cute,” she said finally, nudging her daughter in the ribs.

  Shawn smiled, not knowing what to say.

  “I have three students coming over for dinner, Shawn. I hope you don’t mind. It’s this thing they expect the faculty to do once a month or so. Pretend we give a shit about young minds, all that crap.” She winked at him. “So I’m making pasta. Easy, quick and painless and won’t expose me for the lousy cook I am. You like pasta, don’t you, Shawn?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  Lorna grimaced. “Don’t call me ma’am. Lorna’s good enough for my daughter, so it’s good enough for my son-in-law.” She reached out and patted the side of his face. “I can’t get over how handsome you are.” She turned and headed for the house. “We eat at six.”

  Riley stood in front of him grinning, her arms folded. “Lemme show you everything.”

  She grabbed one of the bags and looped an arm through his, leading him into the house. It reminded Shawn of a house on a sitcom - everything in its place and a place for everything. And there were more pieces of African art than he had ever seen in any one place except for a museum; masks and statuettes, tapestries and vases, all of African origin. And then there was the smell of incense permeating the entire house, and underlying that, the unmistakable odor of cigarettes.

  Upstairs, in the room Riley had grown up in, old posters of Denzel Washington were side by side with others bearing the likenesses of Huey Newton and Gero
nimo Pratt. A Kenté bedspread covered the full-sized bed.

  “Damn,” Shawn said. “She started on you early, huh?”

  “What’s that mean?” Riley sounded defensive.

  “With this Black Power stuff.”

  “I can’t remember it being any other way. Lorna always taught me it’s important to feel comfortable in your own skin.”

  Shawn looked over the books on the bookshelves. More of the same. Autobiography of Malcolm X, Black Like Me, American Hunger. All the books he had always told himself he would read. One day. Suddenly, the gulf between his life and Riley’s seemed that much wider. He turned away from the bookshelf and saw that she was sprawled across the bed, completely comfortable and in her element. She was more at ease here than in their own living room back in the city.

  “How long did you live here?” he asked.

  He got up to go look out the window into the backyard. A little blonde boy next door was playing in the dirt, kicking it at a little girl with red curls who put a hand up and turned her head away each time, but made no move to get up or run.

  “All my life pretty much. And then I enrolled at the college and lived in the dorms. I moved back for senior year.”

  “You ever want to move back now?” He turned to look at her again.

  Her eyes were narrowed, confused. “What do you mean ‘now’?”

  “I mean now. Do you miss it?”

  “I miss my mother sometimes, but living here? Not really. I don’t understand what you . . .”

  “I mean, this is like a college town, right? Lots of people like you. Writers, poets . . .”

  “Shawn. There are more poets and writers per square mile in New York City than there are in this entire town. I’m perfectly happy where we are. Okay?”

  A sharp rapping on the door startled them both and then Lorna was looking in.

  “I need help in the kitchen,” she said. “Shawn?”

  Game on. He followed Lorna downstairs and toward the rear of the house into a large kitchen that adjoined a sunroom and looked out into the backyard. A pot was boiling on the stovetop and she pointed to two large onions and a green pepper.

  “Cut as finely as you can manage,” she said handing him a knife.

  Shawn started his task, watching as Lorna searched through the cabinets taking out a variety of spices and pastes, stirring things together in a large mixing bowl.

  “Riley’s father was a musician,” she announced suddenly. “Did she tell you that?”

  “No. She didn’t.”

  “Well, Lorna paused in her stirring. “He thought he was a musician anyway. I’m not sure he was ever any good.”

  “So what happened?” Shawn asked, more out of politeness than curiosity.

  “He took off when I was eight months pregnant. He thought I was trying to trap him into some kind of middle-class domestic ideal. And maybe I was. I don’t know. I was only nineteen.”

  “So you didn’t get married.”

  “Nope. Never did. I’m glad of that now. At the time, I was actually ashamed that he didn’t want to marry me. Can you believe it? Ashamed. And then Riley was born and I looked at her and . . .” She stopped and smiled at him as though embarrassed that she’d sounded so sentimental. “Well anyway, let’s just say that all of a sudden, her father didn’t seem so important anymore. He popped up every once in awhile as she was growing up.”

  “You’re telling me how important your daughter is to you,” Shawn said. “I understand that.”

  “Well then now it’s your turn,” Lorna said, her voice firm. “Tell me how important she is to you.”

  Shawn held his breath, counted to ten and then spoke. “I don’t need to prove to you, or anyone, how important my wife is to me.”

  Lorna smiled. “Fair enough. But your wife,” she said lightly, “is still my daughter. So you’ll forgive me for being overprotective.”

  They stared at each other, neither of them willing to be the first to look away. Finally Shawn smiled and resumed chopping vegetables.

  “Yeah, I guess I can forgive that,” he said finally.

  g

  Lorna’s students were three freshmen - one guy, Kevin, and two girls, Brittany and Lisa – all of whom immediately recognized him. Lisa was a sister from D.C. so she especially had followed Shawn’s music and had a couple of his CDs but to her credit, she played it cool when introduced to him and seemed to have no problem treating him like a regular person.

  Lorna laid the spaghetti and meatballs out in the kitchen with a salad and opened a bottle of red wine. Everyone served themselves and sat cross-legged on the floor in the living room, or on the sofa, balancing their plates on their knees. Shawn couldn’t help but think about his grandmother, and how she would have had a heart attack to see people eating in her living room.

  Riley sat next to her mother, and touched her a lot as they talked, looking happier than Shawn remembered ever seeing her. A tight, irrational knot of jealousy formed in the pit of his stomach to see that there was someone other than him who could make her look that way.

  “I have a question for you, Shawn.” It was Brittany, the skinny blonde girl from Wisconsin.

  She had been giving him the eye all evening and at first he’d mistaken her interest as purely related to his being K Smooth but the more she looked in his direction, the more he became aware that it was simpler than that - just an everyday case of ‘look at me, like me, fuck me’.

  “Don’t you think a lot of what rap is about degrades women? And I don’t just mean the obvious stuff like calling women bitches and ‘hos. But the imagery in the videos, the exaggerated machismo, the whole thing.”

  Lorna and Riley halted their conversation and looked at him expectantly. Lisa, the sister from D.C. looked uncomfortable and Kevin, seemed merely curious. But Brittany, he knew, was more interested in getting his attention than in getting an intelligent response.

  “Yeah,” he said agreeably. “It does.”

  He could see Riley’s face freeze. Obviously she’d expected him to defend himself, prove to her mother and these smug, don’t-know-their-ass-from-their-elbows undergrads that he was more than “just a rapper” and that he was aware of the socio-political ramifications of his work. But he was sick of that bullshit. He’d had this conversation too many times, and with people far sharper than Brittany from Wisconsin. He was tired, the meatballs were too damn spicy, and all he wanted to do was drive back to Manhattan, and sleep in his own bed.

  “Doesn’t that bother you?” Brittany persisted.

  He shrugged. “Sometimes.”

  Riley was growing irritated with him. He could feel her battling the impulse to defend him since he wouldn’t defend himself. And then Lorna spoke.

  “Just because a person has an audience there’s no guarantee that they see the larger significance of what they put into the public square,” she said, speaking directly to Brittany as though he wasn’t there.

  Shawn bit down on his lower lip. “Oh, I see the significance,” he said. “I just try to keep a healthy sense of perspective about my responsibility for how other people understand my work.”

  Everyone - except for Riley he was relieved to see - seemed shocked to hear him string a complete sentence together.

  “Well.” Lorna recovered the quickest. “What level of personal responsibility do you think is appropriate? If someone listens to your songs and calls his girlfriend a ‘ho. Or starts to see women on the street as just ‘bitches’? How responsible are you for that?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Really. So who is responsible?”

  “I can’t pretend to know that,” Shawn said calmly.

  “Oh, I see,” Lorna sipped her wine. “As long as it’s not you.”

  “Mom,” Riley cut in. “Let’s just . . .”

  “No. I find this curious. Shawn feels he isn’t accountable for the effect of his own words. So I’m at a loss. I wonder, what would it mean if I were to abdicate responsibility for my words, for
my ideas?”

  “People who listen to rap come with their own baggage,” Shawn said, putting down his plate. “They have a lifetime of experiences that helped make them who they are. I’m not so egotistical to believe that the single most influential thing that’s shaped the way they see the world is a track on the latest K Smooth CD.”

  There was the vaguest hint of a smile on Lorna’s face. She took another sip of her wine and sighed. “It’s late, and I’ve had too much to drink,” she said. “Anyone want to help me clean up?”

  All three of her students scurried to the kitchen after her, and Shawn and Riley were left alone.

  “I’m so sorry,” Riley said. “She gets like that. Combative.”

  “Forget it,” Shawn said. “I can hold my own. Even with your mother.”

  Riley looked down at the rug. “I just don’t want you two to be enemies or anything.”

  “I don’t have a beef with her, Riley. But it sure as hell looks like she’s got one with me.”

  Riley said nothing, half-heartedly emptying her wineglass.

  They had dessert out in the sunroom; a cheesecake from Junior’s that Riley had picked up before they left town. Shawn ate his slice while standing, looking out onto the backyard.

  “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot before.”

  Shawn turned to look at Brittany who had sidled up next to him. She had clear, blue eyes and curly hair that she’d pulled back into a ponytail.

  “You didn’t put me on the spot,” he said.

  “It’s just that I’ve always wondered that, y’know?”

  “Wondered what?” Shawn asked.

  “Wondered what you guys really think about women. But I guess seeing as how you’re married to Professor Terry’s daughter and she’s so smart and accomplished and everything, you can’t possibly think less of women.”

  Shawn looked at her for a moment. “Have you ever even heard any of my stuff?” he asked her.

  Brittany reddened. “Well, on the radio sometimes and . . .”