Afterwards

by Nia Forrester

  When she opened the door, she’d stood in the way so that he had to brush against her as he entered the house he paid for. Four bedrooms, three and a half baths on an acre of property in Bedford, NY. Sheryl liked living in the affluent community because of how it sounded, but was bored there. So she drank and, Chris suspected, screwed around a lot. Whenever he came over, if she happened to be alone, she made a move, sometimes subtle, sometimes overt. This time it was overt and he’d taken the bait, plowing into her, right there in her kitchen against the oak cabinets, both of them keeping one ear open for the sound of their son returning from school.

  Once he was done with her, Chris could never make himself stick around. The self-disgust was too powerful. Screwing around with Sheryl was a dirty habit he kept reminding himself he had to kick, but what made it easy to succumb to her wasn’t just the fact that she was physically attractive. The other lure was that, like him, Sheryl didn’t romanticize sex and never had. From the very first night they met almost twenty years ago, they’d realized that compatibility—for them, intercourse was recreational, and nothing more. But he still felt like a scum-bag using the mother of his son to get off, just because he was too busy, lazy or disinclined to try to sustain an actual ongoing relationship with a woman.

  “I got work to do, Sheryl,” he told her now. “Thanks for the heads up about the nuptials.”

  Sheryl shook her head. “Do the right thing, Chris,” she said one last time before flouncing out of his office and down the hall from whence she’d come.

  Waiting an interval until he was sure she’d gone, Chris headed out toward the reception area.

  The receptionist, whose name he forgot once again, had been in the middle of sipping from a bottle of water, looked up and her eyes widened. She quickly put the water down and under her desk, sitting up.

  “Mr. Scaife?”

  “Chris,” he corrected.

  “Yes,” she said, but seemed unable to make herself say his first name.

  “In the future, do not put that woman on my appointment book. No matter what.”

  “I don’t do your appointment book, Mr. Scai . . . I don’t do your appointment book. I just check the computer to see who’s on it and if they are, I let them in. And if they’re on the approved guest list and you’re free, I check to see whether . . .”

  Impatient with the details of office protocol, Chris shook his head. “Then who does my appointment book?”

  “That would be Stephen,” the young woman said. “Your scheduler.”

  Stephen, his scheduler? Who the hell was Stephen?

  “So where’s Chastity?” he demanded. Chastity was his executive assistant. That much he knew.

  “She should be in her office, Mr . . .”

  Taking a deep breath, Chris headed for Chastity’s office. Chastity was a pretty, thirty-something Italian-American with jet black hair, curves for days and a smart mouth on top of that. Her name was no preparation for her appearance, because though she looked like many things, and ‘chaste’ wouldn’t even make the top 100.

  When Chris got to her office, she was sitting behind her desk and looking at her computer monitor flanked on one side by a young man with a huge, wiry afro wearing a skinny suit, and on the other, Robyn, who like Chastity, was peering at something on the screen. As he entered, only the young man noticed him immediately and smiled.

  “Mr. Scaife,” he said, stepping forward and extending a hand. “I’m Stephen. Your new scheduler.”

  Chris ignored his hand, and the young man stepped back again, lowering it.

  “Chris,” Chastity said without looking up. “What’s up?”

  “Hello,” Robyn said, smiling at him.

  The dress she was wearing stopped just above her knees and Chris couldn’t help but notice that she had the kind of skin that seemed to glow from within. Helped along by a light sheen of body oil.

  Nodding at her without speaking, Chris looked again at Chastity.

  “How’d Sheryl get back to my office?”

  At this Chastity looked up.

  “That was an oversight on my part. I’m training Stephen to take care of your appointments and I gave him a list of approved guests to put on your book without checking. Somehow I messed up and overlooked that Sheryl was on that list.”

  “That list has only about five names,” Chris said. “How could you overlook that Sheryl was on it?”

  At that, Stephen looked down at the carpet and Chris knew right away what had happened. He’d worked with Chastity long enough to know she didn’t make those kinds of mistakes. She’d probably given Stephen a rundown of who certain names were, and the new guy had probably taken it upon himself to assume that one of Chris’ kids’ mothers would almost certainly be granted a place on his schedule if it was open, and then gone ahead and booked her without checking.

  “It happens,” Chastity said airily.

  “Well make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Chris said, turning to leave them.

  “Chris, could I have a moment?”

  Robyn’s voice stopped him and he turned.

  “Actually, I was down here seeing whether I could get some of your time,” Robyn said.

  “Let’s do it now,” he said, looking at Chastity. “What do I have next?”

  Chastity looked at Stephen who consulted the tablet he was holding against his chest.

  “You have a lunch with Bill Stafford from the Met, about . . .”

  “Cancel that,” Chris said.

  “No, Stephen, don’t cancel that,” Chastity said, sounding exasperated. “He’s canceled on him twice before.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He’s the one looking for charitable donations for the Save the Music program. Music programs for inner-city schools?”

  “Sounds like that might be a lunch appointment worth keeping,” Robyn offered, and when Chris looked at her, she shrugged. “Just sayin’ . . . “

  “Then you do it,” Chris said.

  Robyn’s mouth fell open slightly. Her lips were painted a delicate pink, and they were shiny too. Very pretty.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You think the lunch appointment’s worth keeping, then you do it,” Chris said.

  Robyn looked at Chastity as though for help and she shrugged.

  “He doesn’t want to see me,” Robyn pointed out.

  “And I don’t want to see him,” Chris said. “So . . . we’re at a stalemate.”

  “But this is actually a very important cause,” Robyn said, beginning to sound annoyed.

  “So all the more reason you should see him. Sounds like you’re one of the converted. I’m sure he’d much rather talk to a true believer than the cynical CEO.”

  Robyn sighed. “But, Frank . . .”

  “Will be fine with it once you explain that you’re going to help me out of a scheduling situation.”

  “But you don’t have a scheduling situation.”

  “Now I do,” Chris said, beginning to enjoy himself. “I have a very persistent man from the Met who keeps making appointments to ask for money and I can’t cancel on him again. So . . .”

  “But I have my own work,” Robyn said. But her voice had grown weaker, less assured and so Chris knew she had given in.

  “You work for me,” he reminded her.

  At that, she squared her shoulders and stood up a little straighter. Ah, what was this? Some spunk coming through? Chris could feel that she really, really wanted to tell him off, and smiled. Something about her was different since he’d last seen her, and it wasn’t just that she’d gained a couple of pounds in all the right places, it was like she got her . . . moxie back.

  “Yes,” she said finally, her tone all business once again. “I do. So tell me what you need me to do in this lunch with Bill Stafford from the Met.”

  “Find out what he’s asking for, figure out whether it makes sense for me to do it and then come back and let me know what you recommend, and then I’ll decide.”

  Robyn bl
inked. “If he’s asking for money for the Save the Music program, I can tell you right now that I recommend you give it. It’s a very good . . .”

  “I don’t make decisions based on someone’s whim,” Chris said, seeing that this irritated her further. “I need details. So take notes during your lunch. I’ll meet with you when you get back.”

  Robyn looked at him for a moment and then sighed. “Fine. Then I should probably tell Frank that the project I was working on for him is on the backburner for a few hours.”

  “Yeah,” Chris agreed. “You probably should.”

  Robyn walked by him, leaving in her wake a light scent like green tea and honey.

  Chastity looked at him and shook her head.

  “What?” he said.

  7

  Robyn shook Bill Stafford’s hand as they exited Nectar Restaurant. The man was positively buoyant, because she’d all but promised him that Scaife Enterprises would pledge a significant sum to support two schools uptown in their efforts to preserve their arts programs.

  Chris was going to kill her.

  “Can I get you a cab?” Stafford asked.

  For some reason, when Robyn heard the name she’d expected some white-haired older gentleman in a tweed sport coat, but Bill Stafford was instead a lanky, ponytailed hipster in jeans and t-shirt who’d just happened to grow up going to New York City Public Schools “back in the day when people gave a shit about stuff like art and music” he said. And now, he was a violinist by profession, playing for the Metropolitan Opera House, witnessing the trickle of young musicians who had come from the public education system dwindle to almost nothing.

  All I see are upper middle class and upper class musicians who had private lessons since they were three years old, he’d said over a hearty lunch of Greek food. Drives me nuts that we’re leaving behind a whole generation of musicians just because they don’t have access to instruments and instruction to hone their talent.

  His passion had been admirable. And infectious. So infectious that Robyn had recklessly issued a promise that there would be some form of support from Scaife Enterprises forthcoming when she knew no such thing.

  “Thank you,” she said to his offer to get a cab, and watched as he stepped out into the street and held up a hand.

  As a cab pulled up in front of him, he opened the door and turned to smile at her.

  “On an unrelated note,” he said. “Would it be out of line for me to ask for your number?”

  Robyn looked at him, confused for a moment.

  “I’d like to take you out,” Bill Stafford said, seeing her confusion. “Socially.”

  Poised to duck into the cab, Robyn thought for a moment. Bill Stafford was about as far outside her comfort zone as she could get—a bohemian white guy with a non-corporate career. But considering where her comfort zone had gotten her, maybe it was worth a try. And she was trying to stop being such a hermit. Since she’d started working at Scaife it felt like entirely new vistas had opened up for her. The staff were all bold, brash and whip-smart; and not only in the legal department. It was the kind of workplace where bringing anything other than you’re A game every single day was out of the question. Maybe a date with someone like Bill was that was worth a try—one more step out of her box and into a new world.

  “Sure,” she said smiling at him. “I would like that.”

  Reaching inside her purse, she pulled out one of her business cards, handing it to him. Bill Stafford glanced at it and smiled back at her, nodding.

  “I’ll call you,” he said.

  As the cab pulled out into traffic Robyn’s thoughts shifted to her meeting with Chris and how she was going to sell him on donating to the Save the Music program. Before she left the office, she’d checked in with Stephen and confirmed that she was now “on the book” for three-thirty, and had half an hour with Chris. Getting him to donate to the charity and talk about her original business in less than an hour would be a challenge, but she was up for it.

  Her original business was that Frank wanted Chris to make an in-person appearance in Paris where Scaife was trying to acquire a small French company that had a specialty of developing popular French hip-hop artists. Their last three artists had gone on to become mega-stars and when Chris heard their music, he’d tasked the research and development folks with investigating the recording company and coming back with the pros and cons of acquiring it. The legal aspects of acquisition would be relatively problem-free because the company was heavily in debt, but Frank looked at the R&D reports and thought Chris was being rash by jumping to the decision to buy so quickly. That was how he worked, apparently.

  He doesn’t just want to invest, Frank told her shaking his head. His first impulse is always to acquire. I keep telling him it doesn’t make good business sense to keep getting bigger without an end-goal but he won’t listen. Claims he does have an end-goal.

  And what’s that? Robyn asked.

  He said he wants to rule the world, Frank said laughing. He was just messing with me.

  Robyn didn’t laugh.

  Talk to him for five minutes and anyone could see that Chris Scaife had an intensity to him, a single-mindedness that shone through in his eyes, like a man who wouldn’t stop until he was dead, chasing something, only perhaps he knew not what.

  Robyn’s original mission was to get him to go to some Paris meetings where, Frank hoped, Chris would see that acquisition should not be their goal. The French outfit did well because it was small and unaffiliated with any large media conglomerates. Their R&D folks had reported to Frank that the reason Pouvoir Noir (translated meaning ‘Black Power’) Records was so successful was that they had earned themselves a reputation in the underground hip-hop scene for being authentic lovers of the art form, and because of that attracted real-deal students of rap, talented young men, many of them North African, some native French, who were enamored of African American culture and music.

  To take over the company in toto could mean killing that thing about it which made it desirable.

  Frank hoped that going to the meeting in Paris would give Chris a sense of that, and he would instead agree to purchase an interest in the company, giving it the resources to take their work to a new and more impactful scale. According to the president of Pouvoir Noir, they had almost a dozen artists in the wings that they had no resources to develop as they deserved, simply because of a lack of capital. Scaife Enterprises had that capital.

  Back at the office, Robyn paid the cabdriver and hurried into the building. She wanted to write up a one-pager on the Save the Music thing, and grab her files about Pouvoir Noir. And then she needed to get her talking points together because half an hour would fly by, and she could not come back without having secured Chris’ agreement to the Paris trip.

  Clearly Frank could have simply picked up the phone and asked Chris himself. Certainly he seemed comfortable enough to argue with Chris Scaife when the situation called for it. So asking Robyn had to be a test of sorts, and she needed to pass it with flying colors if she meant to do well in this job. Bad enough Frank had looked at her strangely when she told him she’d been enlisted to go meet with someone about music programs in Harlem.

  “Robyn, there’s a visitor for you,” Pam, the receptionist said when she got off on her floor, walking by.

  “Oh yeah?” Robyn asked, not stopping. “Who?”

  “Your husband, he said,” Pam called after her. “I let him wait in . . .”

  Robyn stopped in her tracks and turned. “Pam,” she said, lowering her voice. “Did you say . . ?”

  “Yeah, your . . .”

  “I’m divorced!” Robyn said in an angry whisper.

  Pam hunched her shoulders and grimaced, mouthing the word ‘sorry’.

  Robyn shook her head. Nothing to be done about it now except meet this challenge head-on. Meet him head-on.

  “Look, never mind,” she said. “So I guess you told him he could wait in my office?”

  Pam nodded. “Yeah. After h
e said . . .”

  Robyn held up her left hand to display the absence of a wedding band.

  “I know,” Pam said, grimacing again. “But lots of women don’t wear them. Afraid of how it might affect them professionally. I just thought maybe you were . . .”

  “Forget it,” Robyn said. “I’ll take care of it. But can you do me a favor?”

  “Anything,” Pam said, eager to make amends.

  “Buzz me in no more than five minutes. I’ll put you on speaker and you’ll remind me of a meeting I have. Okay?”

  “Okay. And Robyn, I am so . . .”

  “No worries.”

  Curtis’ back was to her when she entered her office and Robyn noted with pleasure that he was facing the view from her office that she still found awe-inspiring every morning when she arrived, even though she’d had weeks to grow accustomed to it. One could see clear across to New York Harbor from here, and at night—because she’d had had a few late ones since taking the job at Scaife—the skyline was breathtaking.

  “Curtis,” she said.

  He turned and stood, and Robyn had to remind herself not to react to him as a woman would when greeting her husband. It had been months since they’d last seen each other. At the final settlement of their divorce in fact, when he sat across the conference room table in her lawyer’s office with a face like stone, regarding her like a stranger.

  “Rob,” he said. His voice was warm.

  She cringed inwardly at his use of the pet name he’d had for her for the past twenty years. And felt that cringe even more deeply when he leaned in to kiss her on the cheek and her nostrils filled with the familiar scent of his favorite cologne.

  Curtis wasn’t particularly tall, only five-ten; nor was he amazingly handsome, but he was as familiar to her as her own face and looking at him now, it was hard to see him as anything other than an important part—practically, the cornerstone—of her life. Slipping back into caring about him would be like slipping a foot into a comfortable and well-worn shoe.