Commitment

by Forrester, Nia

  “It’s about business, Keisha. If I told you, you’d tell Anita, and so on, and so forth . . . and the next thing you know, we’d have a rebellion, people walking off, shit like that.”

  “Well,” her voice had softened a little bit. “It ain’t as though I was expectin’ to be in the tour at all, so I guess I still came out ahead.”

  “Yeah . . . that’s what I was thinking. It’s good experience for your career.”

  Career. That was laying it on a little thick but she was just dumb enough to think that that’s what she had—a career. Neither of them said anything for a moment, and Shawn was preparing to tell her he had to make a meeting when she cleared her throat.

  “Anyways,” she said. “What you doin’ today?”

  He bit into the heel of his hand, cursing himself for not being quicker to end the conversation.

  “Nothing much,” he said, trying to sound casual. “But the thing is, Keisha, what I told you before . . . me and you hanging out is just asking for trouble, y’know what I’m sayin’?”

  “Then why you call me?” she shrieked.

  Shawn held the phone from his ear for a second. “To make sure we’re cool, that’s all.”

  Suddenly she was laughing, a harsh ugly laugh. The fact that he’d ever found her cute was more unbelievable every time he interacted with her.

  “You ain’t slick,” she said. “You just wan’ make sure I don’t blow up your spot, school your wife on what kind of motherfucka she really married to.”

  “Nah, Keisha, c’mon. It ain’t even like that.”

  “Smooth, you is too, too tired. If I feel like payin’ your wife a visit, nothin’ you say, no amount of ass-kissin’ is goin’ to stop me. That little scene at the airport was real sweet. But I wonder how sweet it would be if she knew what you was doin’ in Houston.”

  It was time to take off the kid-gloves.

  “If you fuck me, Keisha, I will most definitely fuck you. Your ass won’t be dancing anyplace but on the Hunt’s Point ho’ stroll . . .”

  “Who you tryin’ to threaten, Negro?”she yelled. “Don’t you know I will . . ?”

  He hung up on her. Damn. That had gone well. He ignored his phone when it immediately started ringing. He’d have to change that number ASAP. Shawn sighed and used the land line to call B’s apartment. He wasn’t in, so he tried his mobile and got him.

  “B,” he said. “I think I just started some shit.”

  g

  Riley adjusted her robe about her and glanced again at the kitchen clock. It was 6:13 in the morning. Tracy would be up and about, almost ready to head out the door to come pick her up. They were driving to D.C. for the Free Tibet march and rally and Tracy insisted as always when they went on road trips together, that they leave early to avoid traffic. Like there was ever a time in New York City when you could “avoid traffic.”

  The coffee’s drip into the carafe was painfully slow. Riley leaned on the counter with her head in her hands, wondering what had gotten into her to make her agree to make the three-and-half hour drive in the first place. Oh yeah, it had been her idea. After reading some article on the Dalai Lama she’d talked Tracy into going to the rally and she’d agreed with extreme reluctance. So calling her up and canceling at the last minute was probably out of the question.

  The coffeemaker stopped dripping and Riley reached for her oversized mug, filling it almost to the brim, adding a splash of milk and sugar. Lots of sugar. Absolutely necessary for her to get her ass in gear. It had taken her three weeks to figure out how to operate this machine. Like many of her things that she’d brought over from the Flushing apartment, Shawn had quietly disappeared her coffeemaker and replaced it with one made by Lamborghini. Yes, the same people who made the sports cars. She couldn’t even imagine what it had cost, but when she figured it out, she had to grudgingly admit, that the espresso it produced rivaled that of any upscale coffeehouse you could visit anywhere in the city.

  “Baby, what’re you doing up so early?”

  Riley just avoided dropping her mug, but did manage to spill coffee down the front of her robe. She spun round to face Shawn. He was standing there with his boxer briefs low-slung on his hips, rubbing his eyes, squinting against the light. He looked good, really, really good.

  When had it happened that she had to restrain herself with him? It used to be that when she wanted to jump him, he beat her to it; but over the last few days she’d learned that if she made anything resembling a sexual advance, rejection would almost certainly be the result. She looked away and focused instead on cleaning up the coffee spill.

  “Getting ready,” she said. “Why are you up?”

  “Getting ready for what?”

  “I’m going to D.C. with Tracy this morning, remember?”

  Shawn shook his head. “You didn’t tell me you were going to D.C. I would’ve remembered something like that.”

  “I did tell you,” Riley sipped her coffee. “But even if I hadn’t . . . anyway it’s just for one night.”

  “Now you’re spending the night in D.C.?”

  “Yes. I told you about this Shawn. The night you got back, I told you about the Free Tibet rally?”

  Recognition entered his eyes. “Oh yeah. Tibet.” He shook his head. “But you didn’t say it was overnight.”

  “Oh, do I need to get an overnight pass?” she asked.

  He opened his mouth as though he was about to answer and then seemed to think better of it.

  “Call me when you get there,” he said finally, turning to go back into the bedroom.

  Riley closed her eyes. Now why did she have to go and say something like that?

  It was still a little chilly out, and this early in the morning, she had to layer up, wearing jeans, a black cardigan over a white t-shirt and a tank underneath. Riley waited outside for Tracy instead of in the apartment where it was warm because she didn’t want to get into it with Shawn before she left. When she was tossing her toiletries, jeans, tops and a couple other outfits into her overnight bag, she could tell he was awake, even though pretending not to be.

  The last few days had been weird. Ever since he’d come back from Chicago they hadn’t made love and he always seemed to be heading off somewhere with Brendan—but not like before when he was just busy, now he almost seemed to be avoiding her. When she reached for him, he kissed her almost like an uncle—on her forehead or near but never quite on her lips. Once she’d gone in for the kill, just sticking her tongue in his mouth and he’d reacted immediately, like a man on fire. Then, just as she was certain he was about to give in to her, he remembered someplace he had to be and jumped into the shower.

  But what made it all the more confusing was that at the same time, he went out of his way to be nice whenever they were together, not responding when she tried to bait him into a fight. Like this morning. Now, thinking about it, she was actually glad to be getting away for the night, away from the strange tension between them lurking just beneath the surface of all the sweetness and light.

  She dropped her bag from her shoulder and stretched her arms above her head, yawning. Still tired. Could use another cup of coffee. She could always try to get Tracy to stop at a Starbucks or something but Tracy was one of those people obsessed with “making good time” so she was probably better off going back upstairs and filling one of those plastic mugs she used to take to work before they started giving tickets on the subway for eating and drinking. She looked back at the doorman, Javier. He was on duty between midnight and eight a.m. and was not nearly as good a sport as Ed, especially so close to the end of his shift. Just as she’d decided to go for it, Tracy pulled up honking the horn and it occurred to Riley that they were driving to a human rights event in a BMW. How bourgeois was that.

  She got in and tossed her weekend bag on the back seat, slamming the door behind her.

  “Excuse me,” Tracy said. “You think you might want to be a little more careful? If you wreck it, I can’t afford to get a new one. What’s your p
roblem?”

  “You’re late.”

  Tracy glanced at the dashboard clock. “By ten minutes. What’s the matter with you?”

  “I need coffee.”

  “We’ll stop once we’re on I-95, but not one second sooner. You know what traffic on the Jersey Turnpike is going to be like around nine o’clock?”

  “I knew you were going to do this to me. Lemme run upstairs and grab some then.”

  “Riley, you had all morning to get coffee. Let’s just get going already.”

  The traffic was light as a matter of fact. It was smooth sailing all through the city and even through the Holland Tunnel. Riley could feel her irritability ebbing, the further they got from New York. She turned to look at Tracy who was fiddling with the dials for the radio, trying to find a station.

  “Nothing but crap on,” she complained.

  “You mean nothing but rap,” Riley said.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But that’s what you meant.”

  Tracy looked at her. “What’s the matter with you this morning?”

  “Maybe I should just try to take a nap. Just tell me when we get a rest stop so I can get some coffee.”

  Riley adjusted her seat backward and closed her eyes.

  “Don’t go to sleep,” Tracy hit her in the shoulder. “I need someone to talk to.”

  Riley rolled her eyes and resigned herself to being exhausted and testy for at least another hundred miles.

  They pulled into Washington D.C. a little after ten a.m., driving in on New York Avenue, the main drag leading into the city past rows of gas stations, fast food restaurants, low-rent motels and burnt-out or boarded up townhouses and neighborhoods that seemed to have been neglected for long that they’d finally died. But the townhouses themselves were old and beautiful enough that—had they been transplanted almost anyplace else—they would have been considered prime real estate, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  Shawn grew up in D.C., and to hear him tell it, in a neighborhood every bit as depressed as these. Except for public charity appearances and donations to a few urban revitalization causes spent very little time in the city. He seemed to have nothing but negative memories of his early life in D.C. and never talked about it in any detail except to say that he missed very little about living there. Riley looked out the window as they drove by at the scores of young men standing on the corners, not too different from guys in New York or probably any other urban center in the country. They just seemed to be milling about with nowhere to go.

  They checked in at a hotel on Thomas Circle that was a fair distance from the Washington Mall where the rally was being held, parking the car in the hotel garage and heading on foot in the direction of Constitution Avenue. Unlike New York, downtown D.C. was almost a ghost town on Saturdays but for Riley at least, it was a relief to walk through a city where there weren’t throngs shoving past you in the opposite direction.

  The Mall was a different story though. Though still early, several hundred people had already gathered, buying food from vendors, signing petitions, even beating drums and dancing. Most were sitting on towels or blankets on the grass facing the stage just in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol where later on the Dalai Lama was supposed to make an appearance along with a host of celebrities, like Richard Gere who supported his cause.

  “Looks like the ‘I-wish-I-was-at-Woodstock’ crowd to me,” Tracy said as they made their way past a group of young, girls wearing tie-dye t-shirts and ripped jeans. “Are you sure you want to hang?”

  “I want to see the Dalai Lama,” Riley insisted. “He may be the most spiritually pure person of our time.”

  “Says who?” Tracy sniffed. “This just looks like a lot of hype to me.”

  “Okay well let’s it’s too late to decide you don’t want to be here, so let’s just find a place to sit.”

  They found a tree to sit under, which was perfect since the infamous Washington D.C. humidity had begun to rear its head, and spread out the blanket Riley had brought for that purpose, stretching out on it. They people-watched for awhile and Tracy took out a book she’d brought along. Riley remembered she hadn’t called Shawn as she’d promised and her phone was in the hotel room.

  “Tracy, got your cell?”

  Tracy motioned in the direction of her bag and Riley dug inside until she found it. She dialed the apartment but there was no answer, so she called Shawn’s mobile. Instead of his voice she heard a recording telling her that the wireless number she had reached was no longer in service. She tried again and got the same recording. Weird. Had he forgotten to pay his bill or something?

  “Tracy what’s Brendan’s number?”

  She looked up from her book. “What’s the matter?”

  “Shawn’s number is no longer in service. Brendan might know how to reach him.”

  “I don’t know it by heart—look in my contacts.”

  Brendan picked up almost immediately.

  “It’s Riley, Brendan. Shawn with you?”

  “Yeah. You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “How’s Tracy?”

  Riley grinned. “She’s fine. You want to say hi?”

  Tracy gave Riley a weary look, but Riley noticed she didn’t hesitate to take the phone either.

  “Hey Brendan,” she said. Her voice had changed, just a tiny bit. She probably didn’t even notice it herself. “Uh huh . . . no, I’m fine . . . yup. I won’t, but if Riley has me out in this sun all day . . . okay. Okay. Sure.” She handed the phone back to Riley who put a hand over the mouthpiece.

  “That was quick,” she said, eyebrows raised.

  “Shut up.”Tracy looked back down into her book.

  “Hello?”

  “Riley?” It was Shawn now.

  “Sorry I didn’t call earlier,” she said. “I got caught up . . . and by the way, what’s going on with your phone? I called and it said it was out of service.”

  “Ahm, I changed the number,” he said.

  Riley wrinkled her brow. “Why?”

  “Because I thought I lost it,” he said. “I forgot to tell you about that. Here’s the new number . . .”

  “Give it to me when I get home. I’ll just call Brendan if I need you. Anyway, I just wanted you to know I got here fine.”

  “So what time you coming home tomorrow?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Come back early,” he said.

  She wanted to ask why but was afraid of how that would sound. She’d already used up her ‘bitch quota’ for the day with her smart-ass remark this morning. And he was being so patient with her lately. Uncharacteristically patient. Something wasn’t right. On the one hand he was overly attentive when he was around and on the other hand, he tried not to be around too much. And of course, there was the sex thing—or in this case, the lack of sex thing.

  “Okay. See you tomorrow.”

  “A’ight.”

  They hung up and Riley held the phone for a moment longer, struggling with the urge to call him back, interrogate him if she had to and find out once and for all what the hell was going on.

  “What’s the matter?” Tracy looked up from her book again. “You’re sitting there with your mouth open like you’re trying to catch flies or something.”

  “I was thinking.”

  “What about?”

  “Shawn’s been acting really weird.” She leaned in closer. “Y’know the last time we had sex was before Houston?”

  Tracy shrugged. “Honeymoon’s over, Riley.”

  “No,” Riley shook her head. “That’s not it. I mean, sometimes Shawn is like a twice-a-day type of brother, if you know what I mean.”

  Tracy laughed. “Oh, it’s like that is it?”

  Riley blushed. “Not twice every day . . .”

  “I would hope not. How the hell could you walk, if that were the case.” Then for a moment a troubled look crossed Tracy’s face and she quickly looked down at her book. “When you get home
Sunday, put on something sexy, give him a massage, get him all hot and bothered and when you finally break down his resistance scream and moan like you never screamed and moaned before. He’ll be fine after that.”

  Riley laughed.

  “I’m telling you, girl. It’ll work.”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  “Fine,” Tracy started reading again. “You’re the one who’s not getting any, so I wouldn’t knock it till I tried it if I were you. Besides, every couple goes through dry spells. And with all the bickering you guys have been doing lately . . .”

  “It’s not that,” Riley said with certainty.

  The worst fight she and Shawn had ever had was after the Sony party and even then, the night had ended up with some of the best sex they’d ever had.

  No, something was definitely wrong. Maybe he was still punishing her. And they still hadn’t had the conversation they needed to have; the conversation where he would tell her once and for all why he’d wanted to hurt her that night. He’d said he was sorry, but she still didn’t have an explanation.

  The rally turned out to be a colossal disappointment. The spiritual epiphany Riley had been hoping for at the sight of the Dalai Lama didn’t happen. Perhaps the fact that all she actually saw was one corner of his crimson robe had something to do with it. That, and the fact that she didn’t exactly hear him either. As he was speaking, a group of what looked like college kids nearby was enjoying the effects of what looked like a very small joint, pretending to be much higher than they really were.

  Tracy seemed content to read her book through the whole thing. Riley felt a strange heaviness in her head, a feeling that was needling her, a thought that she couldn’t quite pull from her subconscious and make coherent.

  “Well, look at this,” Tracy said suddenly.

  Riley looked at her. Tracy was holding up her phone for Riley to see.

  “Guess who’s in DC too?”

  “Richard Gere,” Riley said dryly.

  “Well, undoubtedly. But I was talking about Brian. He just texted me.”

  Riley sat up, alert now. Tracy noted her reaction but said nothing.

  “Where is he?”