Commitment

by Forrester, Nia

  “No.” He looked at her. “I mean for all of it. A trial and all that.”

  Riley shrugged. “I have to be. It is what it is.”

  “I don’t think he would expect that from you,” Chris said quietly.

  “What does that mean?” Riley asked.

  “I’m just saying . . .”

  “What? That I should leave him?” she demanded.

  “No. Just that you shouldn’t think that he would expect you to stay.”

  “I can’t believe you guys!” Riley walked away from him. “Everyone seems to believe he’s not going to beat this thing. First Shawn, Brendan and now you too?”

  “Look,” Chris held her by the shoulder and turned her to face him again. “This kind of charge. For a rap star. For some folks, like the folks that might wind up on a jury, it ain’t even a surprise. As far as they’re concerned, of course he did it.”

  The tears rose to her eyes again. He was right. She knew he was. That was what had her most afraid and was the fear she hadn’t allowed herself to voice.

  “And for some of women we know,” Chris said slowly. “Some of the types of women we know, this ain’t nothin’ new, their man getting locked up. But that’s not you. That is most definitely not you.”

  “I’m tougher than you think, Chris.”

  “I know you are.” He touched the side of her face briefly. “It’s not about that. But this could ruin you. You ever think about that? The life you lead. The life you want? Something tells me it doesn’t include trips to Sing Sing on weekends.”

  “Shawn would be so fucking pissed if he knew you were telling me this,” she threatened, angry tears spilling onto her cheeks.

  Chris shook his head sadly. “No, Riley. You’re wrong,” he said with certainty. “He’d be glad I did it, because it would be too hard if he had to.”

  Riley wiped her face with the back of her hand. Was that what Shawn had been trying to say? That she should take some money and run?

  “And here I was thinking you offered me a tour of your house to make me feel better,” she said bitterly.

  Chris wrapped an arm about her shoulder. “I did offer you a tour to make you feel better, but I had to get that out of the way first.”

  Brendan was sitting with Shawn when they got back and shortly afterward, Doug arrived with an associate, a young Black woman. Of course, Riley thought. It was important that the jury see that Shawn could interact with a young woman not at all dissimilar to the one he’d been accused of raping. They had to see her lean in and talk to him at the defendant’s table, rest her hand on his shoulder, behave as though there was no way her client could ever be guilty of the things he was being accused of.

  Her name was Robyn Crandall, and she seemed to be just a little older than Riley. She was wearing a suit, even though it was a weekend, as was Doug.

  “Brendan, you’re a potential witness,” Doug said right away, as he sat. “I think you probably should sit this conversation out.”

  Brendan looked like he was prepared to protest but finally nodded his agreement.

  “And Mrs. Gardner,” Robyn Crandall said. “Perhaps you too.”

  “She’s not a witness,” Shawn said quickly.

  “Well,” Doug seemed to be measuring his words carefully. “I can imagine certain lines of questioning that we might want to pursue that could involve her.”

  “Like what?” Shawn demanded.

  Riley placed a hand on the side of his face, and turned it gently so he was looking at her, silently urging him listen.

  “Well, you talked about a confrontation in a nightclub, did you not?” Doug asked. “When there were words exchanged between your wife and . . .”

  “Yeah? So what?”

  “Well,” Robyn said. “She didn’t go up to your wife and say, ‘Your husband raped me’, right? It was more along the lines of informing her that you’d been unfaithful?”

  “They’re right, Shawn,” Riley said.

  “So the idea is that you would get up on the stand and save my ass, even though I cheated on you?” he shook his head. “Nah. That ain’t happenin’. There’s lots of other ways to . . .”

  “To discredit her, yes there are,” Doug said. “But most of them involve her reputation and casting aspersions on her character. That kind of testimony is never . . .”

  “And some of it is shit that happened which proves she was trying to get to me. Like the strip poker incident,” Shawn pointed out.

  “If it’s admitted.”

  “Well the conversation with Riley might not be admitted either. And besides, she’s my wife. Everyone will think she made it up to get me off.”

  “They may,” Doug acknowledged. “But having that testimony is an option we don’t want to foreclose.”

  “No, no fucking way,” Shawn said adamantly. “Then the next thing you know, her picture’s in the papers and . . .”

  “I’m not sure we can avoid that anyway,” Riley said quietly.

  “We can,” Shawn insisted. “We will. I’m not exposing you to this shit.”

  “She already has been,” Brendan pointed out.

  “Not like that,” Shawn said shaking his head. “Not like . . .” he stopped and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, face in his hands. He inhaled and raised his head again. “No.”

  “We can always revisit this if it becomes necessary,” Doug said briskly. “But either way, I think she should sit this out.”

  “There’ll be plenty of time for you to get looped in if we decide not to use you,” Robyn said. “But in case you’re a witness, for the time being, we should probably just limit your view of the sausage-making.”

  Riley stood. “If that’s the best thing, sure.” She walked away and did not look back, but only with great effort.

  g

  The session went on all morning and into the afternoon. Chris had finally led Riley to a guest room where she tried to watch television to get her mind off things. But she was irrepressibly drawn to the music and entertainment channels where they frequently updated the news on the charges against Shawn. In point of fact, there was very little that was new, and watching them only made her feel worse.

  She ate lunch with Brendan at a diner in town, neither of them speaking very much, and when they returned to the house, Doug and Robyn had already left and Shawn was ready to head home.

  He was visibly tense and said little as they pulled away from the house, until she asked him how it had gone.

  “Okay,” he said, non-committal.

  “So what’s next?”

  “More of the same. Until trial.” He started to say more then stopped himself.

  “What is it?” Riley prompted.

  “What Doug said about you maybe testifying,” he glanced at her. “Just want to make sure you understand that that’s not happening.”

  “Look, it isn’t as though I’m . . .”

  “What kind of man would I be? If I let you walk in a courtroom and defend any part of what I did?”

  “So you should go to prison instead? When I know what she said to me? I’m sorry, but that’s just absurd. And besides, I’ll be there anyway. You think I won’t get my picture taken just because I’m sitting in the courtroom instead of up on the stand?”

  “I wanted to talk to you about that.”

  “What?” Riley turned in her seat to look directly at him but he was staring straight ahead at the road.

  “You not coming to the trial.”

  “No. Shawn, no way am I sitting this out.”

  “I’m not asking,” he said.

  Riley pressed her lips together firmly, fighting her inclination to scream at him, ask who he thought he was that he could actually order her to stay away. But this was not the time for one of their power struggles.

  “You can stay with your Mom upstate. I don’t want people following you and taking pictures outside our apartment and crap like that every day.”

  “They could just as easily follow me to Lorna’s,” sh
e pointed out, trying to sound reasonable. “And she would hate that.”

  “I doubt it’s that important a story for people to follow you upstate,” Shawn said. “Mostly the New York tabloids and some national industry press will follow this.”

  “You’ve been thinking about this for awhile,” she accused. “You knew you weren’t going to let me come.”

  “If you take this time off work as a leave of absence,” Shawn continued, “afterwards, you can go back and it’ll be back to normal, hopefully. This way at least you avoid all the drama.”

  What the hell was she supposed to do upstate? Wait around by the phone? Watch on Court TV?

  “Will you come too?” she asked. “I mean every evening while it’s going on?”

  “Probably not. If I need to meet with Doug . . .”

  “No,” Riley said. “We are not going to be apart while this is happening. No way.”

  “You want me to travel back and forth between the Bronx.”

  “No, I want you to let me come. But if that’s not in the cards, then I guess you’ll have to travel back and forth between the Bronx,” she said stubbornly. “It’s your call.”

  She watched his face as he processed the nature of the compromise and finally nodded.

  “I’ll come up to your mother’s every night,” he said finally.

  Riley sighed. It wasn’t the solution she preferred, but it was something she could live with. Not seeing him at all while they went through this ordeal separately, on the other hand, was not an option she would even begin to consider.

  g

  Almost as bad as hearing about the arrest in the first place, was going in to the office and watching the faces of her co-workers change as she walked by. No one would meet her gaze intentionally and when they couldn’t avoid it, they smiled these sad, sympathetic smiles that clearly meant they thought her husband was guilty of rape. When finally she got to her office and was able to shut the door, Riley let out a deep breath. She had a meeting with Greg during which she would ask for her job back, and instead request a leave of absence. And then she would clean out a few things from her desk and head home. Shawn was meeting with Doug and they planned to meet back at home where they would pack a few things and make the drive up to Lorna’s.

  “Riley?”

  She looked up. Peter had cracked open her door and stuck his head in. If anyone would be ballsy enough to intrude at a time like this, it was him.

  “Hey,” she gave him a wan smile.

  That was all the encouragement he needed to enter the office and shut the door behind him. He leaned back as though barricading it against other unwelcome guests and shook his head slowly from side to side.

  “Oh. My. God. What the hell, Riley?”

  “Peter, please don’t start,” she said wearily. “It’s awful, terrible, humiliating, and scary. All of those things. Let’s not belabor it.”

  “I wouldn’t think of putting you through it,” he said. “But how are you holding up?”

  “As well as can be expected, I guess.”

  “You were on Page Six,” Peter said almost sadly. But there was a gleeful voyeuristic undertone to his voice as well that did not go unnoticed.

  “Again?” Riley said dryly.

  “Oh yes, I forgot about the fracas in the Hamptons,” Peter said. “My god, you’re quite the notorious one these days.”

  “Peter, was there something . . ?”

  “Yes, believe it or not. I saw Brian. He wanted me to tell you to call him if you wanted to talk. He said he thought it was probably not the best idea in the world for him to call you. Unless you tell me you want him to call.”

  “I can’t think about Brian right now. I have to think about what Greg’s about to say to me in the meeting we’re having in . . .” Riley glanced at the time. “In fifteen minutes.”

  “Well I’d heard you quit.”

  “I did. Then Shawn made me call and ask for this meeting to get my job back and take a leave of absence instead. So here I am.”

  “And how’s he doing?”

  “How do you think? He’s been accused of one of the worst things a man can be accused of.”

  “Of course. But he did . . . sleep with her, right? That’s what they’re saying on . . .”

  “How do you expect me to respond to that, Peter? I mean, it’s public information at this point, but still about my private life, so what exactly do you expect me to say?”

  “Riley,” he came toward her, sitting on the edge of her desk and reaching for her hand. “It’s me. We’re friends. I’m on your side, remember?”

  She sighed. It was becoming more and more difficult to discern who was on her side.

  “Look, I understand people’s curiosity. I really do. But I know you’ll understand if I just don’t want to talk about it.”

  Peter blinked, with what looked a little like annoyance. “Sure. Okay. Well, I passed on the message I was given, so let me leave you to get ready for your meeting. Good luck with that.”

  When he was gone, she folded her arms on the desk and rested her head on them, trying to focus on what she would say to Greg. It would be difficult looking in his eyes and seeing the disappointment that was sure to be there. Whatever she’d said about him in the past, she knew he was invested in her success and even saw her as a protégé of sorts. So much for that now. She couldn’t blame him, or anyone else for that matter, for thinking that she was just another deluded woman sticking with a man who didn’t deserve it. That was certainly the way it had to look from the outside.

  She cringed to think about the judgment she’d heaped on women in similar situations in the past—wives of professional athletes and other entertainers who somehow had their families’ most difficult and personal tribulations plastered across the front page of the paper. Entire Sunday brunches with Tracy had been dedicated to discussing how foolish such women were. After all, their husbands were wealthy, they’d said. These women could cut their losses and start a new life; do anything, go anywhere. And yet they chose to stay in an impossible situation. Had they no pride? No sense of self? And yet, here she was doing exactly the same thing, telling herself, as they no doubt had, that her situation, her husband was completely different.

  She was just short of wallowing when her door opened again. Riley looked up, prepared to deal with the second intruder. It was Dawn, and the look on her face was so genuinely concerned that Riley could not bring herself to ask her to leave. Without a word Dawn came around they desk and pulled Riley up into a warm hug. Even as she tried to pull away, Dawn held her tight for a moment more. Finally, she held her at arms’ length and looked her square in the face.

  “It doesn’t seem like it right now,” Dawn said. “But you’re going to be alright. You are a powerful, beautiful, intelligent woman and you know exactly who you are. That’s more than enough to get you through this.”

  The words released something inside her and Riley fell completely apart. Then Dawn was hugging her again, holding her close so that her sobs were just muffled enough that no one outside the room would hear. She let her cry until finally Riley pulled back and reached for tissues on her desk.

  “You did that on purpose,” she said jokingly. “You came in here expressly to make me cry.”

  Dawn shrugged. “Everyone can use a good cry once in awhile.”

  “I feel like I’ve cried more in the last few months than in the rest of my entire life,” Riley said wiping her eyes.

  Once the words were out, she realized what it had to have sounded like to Dawn—like she was referring to the time since she’d married Shawn.

  “What can I do to help?” Dawn asked. “Just ask.”

  That was what one of the things Riley had always liked about her. She was direct, honest and forthright. No hemming and hawing.

  “Thank you for asking. But I have this meeting with Greg and unless you’re up for impersonating me, I think there probably isn’t anything you or anyone else can do at the moment.”


  “It doesn’t have to be right now. If you think of anything, please call me,” Dawn said. She squeezed Riley’s shoulder firmly before leaving her alone once again.

  Greg was waiting behind the huge oak desk in his office that overlooked Chambers Street. There was a distressed leather sofa and equally worn coffee table near the door, shadowed by ceiling-high bookcases. On the floor was an impressive antique Persian rug that Greg had himself picked out in bazaars in Morocco, and the walls were painted a warm, dark honey.

  “Sit,” he said indicating the sofa when Riley walked in.

  She did as he asked and was surprised when he came from behind his desk to join her.

  They sat about two feet apart. Greg’s eyes were concerned, his brow furrowed.

  “I don’t accept your resignation,” he said simply.

  Riley’s shoulders heaved. “Thank you. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Yes. I suspected as much.”

  "I talked to my . . . family,” she said. “And they thought I was too hasty. And after thinking about it, I agreed. I appreciate you having me back.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, you never left,” Greg said, giving her a half-smile.

  “Well, that’s where it becomes a little difficult. I’d like to request a leave of absence instead, if that’s at all possible.”

  “Would twelve weeks suffice?”

  Riley’s eyes widened in disbelief. She’d been thinking half that time would be the absolute limit.

  “Thank you,” she said. “That would be wonderful.”

  “Then consider it done.”

  “My seniority,” she said carefully.

  “We’ll have to hold that question until you return, I’m afraid. I can’t make any promises, but I certainly have no plans to give your column to another writer.”

  Riley nodded. “That’s good enough for me. Thank you.”

  “You don’t have to keep thanking me, Riley. You’ve been a valued part of our team here for a long time and when life takes an unfortunate turn, I like to think we remain mindful of that value, and keep the home fires burning as it were.”

  Riley nodded, biting in her lower lip and willing herself not to fall apart yet again.