Commitment (31 page)

“
Men are
so ridiculous
.
He
won
.
You’re married.
Game over
.
He even
convinced
you to change your name.
A
H
erculean feat in and of itself considering . . .
”

“It was really important to him that we have the same last name,” Riley said
, a little
defensively.
“And not at all important to me th
at I keep the one I had
.”

“Hey, I don’t care.
I’m just wondering what your mother’s going to say about it, that’s all.”

“Never min
d that.
We were talk
ing about apartments, remember?
So the deal is that Shawn
thinks Brian still wants me or something
and
the
place
in Flushing
reminds him of all that
.”

Tracy swerved in front of a Yellow cab, cutting across two lanes to turn onto Central Park West.
             

“Brian does still want you.”

“Not really.
He
still wants to have the option.
There’s a difference.”

“Not in a man’s mind.
And definitely not in your man’s mind.”

“Yeah but
as you pointed out,
now we’re married so he can finally calm down.”

Tracy laughed.
“
Unless he’s one of those men who think that n
ow you’re married he has license to really show his
butt
.”

Riley
said nothing.
Well, it was true – Shawn was not exactly the mellowest brother in the world when he felt threatened.

“Is this it?”

Tracy pulled up in front of a ma
mmoth building facing the park.
A doorman watched their approach and stepped closer to the car as they slowed down, poised to open their doors.

“I think so.
”
Riley
checked the address she’d scribbled on a piece of paper
along with the realtor’s name.
“Yeah.”

Moments after
the car
came to a complete stop, the doorman had opened
Riley
’s door and she climbed out.

“Would it be alright for u
s to park here?” she asked him.
“We’ll only be about a
n
hour or so.”

“Of cour
se.”
He smiled at her as though she’d just told him she was leaving the car for his personal use. 

Tracy swept out of the car, as though she
lived there,
straightening her crisp beige pant
s
and tossing her hair back
before heading for the door. 

The woman who met them inside was almost exactly what
Riley
expected.
Thirtyish with blonde helmet hair perfectly applied make-up and a
faux
Chanel suit with pearls.
She held out a hand, introducing herself as Iris Greenberg and led
Riley
and Tracy through the lobby, which was surprisingly nondescript
, given the grandeur of the exterior
, and toward the elevators.

“I’ve spoken to your husband on the telephone on a number of o
ccasions,”
Iris Greenberg said.
She had a clipped, precise way of speaking, like someo
ne who’d had elocution lessons.
“And I assured him that t
his building is quite diverse.
There’s an eclectic group here – entertainers such as himself, some univ
ersity professors, businessmen.
No one would be out of place here.
He said you had some concerns about diversity, that kind of thing.
”

Riley blushed. “Not concerns, really. Just questions.”

Despite what Iris said,
she
could think of some people who
would be out of place.
People
who weren’t millionaires,
for instance.

“The unit is on the
tenth floor,” Iris
p
rattled on.
“So you won’t have
very much
of
the
traffic noise that some of th
e lower floor units experience.
And then there’s the bonus of the view
across the park
.”

In the
elevator
Riley
noticed that Iris wa
s wearing patent leather pumps.
She hated patent leather pumps.

“How many units are there in the building?”
Riley
asked
adopting
Iris Greenberg’s
real estate
lingo
.

“Just over one hundred
.
Some are smaller than others.
Certainly most are smaller than the one we’re
going to l
ook at.
It’s two-
thousand
seven hundred
square feet and one of only two on your floor
”

Riley
closed her eyes.
O
ver o
ne hundred units.
That was a far cry from the
tiny building
she lived in now
, just above a Korean restaurant
.
An old couple - Mr. and M
rs. Kim - owned the building.
It wasn’t unusual for them to knock on
Riley
’s door just to see how she was doing, or to drop off leftovers from the spicy, fragrant di
shes they sometimes cooked especially for themselves in the restaurant kitchen
.
Mrs. Kim even remembered to decorate the doors with Christmas wreaths every December even though she and her family were Buddhist and didn’t o
bserve the holiday personally.
In a building like this, there was virtually no chance of making the acquaintance of people like the Kims.

On the
tenth
floor, Iris led
Riley
and Tracy down a plush carpeted hall
way to the
end of the building.

“
As I said, t
here’s only
one other unit on this floor.”
Iris Greenberg produced a set of keys and opened the door, switching on a light on the wall just inside.
“Here we are.” 

It was beautiful.
Even empty,
it screamed with possibilities.
The floors were a pristine blonde bamboo, and t
he walls painted a stark white.
Directly opposite the
foyer
was at least forty feet of glass
.
Instead of walls, the entire park-facing side of the apartment was made up of
windows, stretching from
the
floor
s
to
what looked like a
fifteen
-foot
ceiling.

“S
tunning, isn’t it?
S
ome people don’t like the feeling of being exposed that all
that glass brings,” Iris said.
“But I always say, you’re all the way up here, who’s to see you?”

Tracy nudged
Riley
in the side.
“So?”

“It’s nice,” she admitted.

“Let me show you the
suites
,” Iris said, energized by even this moderately positive
review
. 

She flounced ahead of
Riley
, her heels making a clicking noise as she walked. 

“T
here’s
a loft just off the second suite.
These floors will stay brilliant no matter what you do to them
,
”
she said over her shoulder
.

T
wo bedroom
s
uites
were
on opposite sides of the apartment, both of them immense and both with the same floor to ceiling glass windows, looking out onto the most glorious view of the Manhattan skyline
Riley
had ever seen.
Eve
ry
single room, including the k
itchen, had a view.
The master bath
was like
a mini-spa with a
jetted tub
, shower room and separate
water closet, European-style
.
The
his-and-
hers si
nks
had
nickel fixtures tha
t lo
oked
like pieces of
modern
art
, but they were set so far apart that if they were both brushing their teeth in the morning, she and Shawn would not be able to touch each other, even if they completely extended their arms
.

“Loo
k!
”
Tracy said from one corner.
“A bidet!
Who knew they still made these things.”

I
ris Greenberg wa
s positively beaming.
“Wonderful, isn’t it?”

Riley
said nothing.
In a matter of weeks, she mig
ht be living here.
All she had to do was say she liked it,
and Shawn would buy the place.
Just th
inking about it made her dizzy.
She reached behind her and sat on the edge of the
tub
. 

“Could we have a minute?” she said, smiling
weakly
at the realtor.

“Oh, of course.”
Iris walked out, shutting the door behind her.

“What’s the
matter?” Tracy sat next to her.
“You don’t like it?”

“No.
I do
.
It’s just . . .”

“What
Riley
?”

“Should I be
doing
this?”

“Doing what?” Tracy looked confused.

“I don’t
know.
Living this life.
It just feels like . . .”

“Like what?”

Riley
looked up at Tracy, tears were welling up in her eyes and she hadn’t a clue why. 

“Like I’m
being swallowed up by
Shawn’s
life.
T
his isn’t even my life anymore.
It’s like I’m q
uitting my life and living his.
I like my life
and my friends and my apartme
nt and
. . .
”

She was sobbing and gulping now, and Tracy was looking at her like she was crazy, and she felt as though she must be, to be
anything
other than overjoyed to be married to Shawn who she loved more than anything, and to be
considering moving
in
to a place as gorgeous as this.
But then Tracy hugged her, pulling her closer so that
Riley
was enveloped in her arms.
She held her until her tears stopped and then put her at arms’ length, looking
her
in eyes.

“
Oh
,
sweetie
.
I know who you are.
And more important than that,
y
ou
know who you are.
And none of that’s going to change
.
You’ll give up little things, like an apartment in Flushing b
ut remember what you get in retur
n.
And I don’t mean the money.
Shawn loves the crap out of yo
u.
That’s why you married him.
All this other st
uff?
They’re just incidentals.
That’s all they are.
Okay?”

Riley
nodded.

This was why she loved Tracy. Besides Lorna, she had more misgivings about this marriage than anyone and yet she always stepped up, putting her own personal feelings aside and talking Riley off the ledge.

But in spite of Tracy’s kind words, t
he problem was
, the ‘incidentals’ were huge.
So huge they just might overshadow her
and Shawn and everything else.
She couldn’t believe how far they
come from where they’d started.
Now she was sitting on the edge of a Jacuzzi in a
four
-million dollar apartment.
And a woman whose commission on the sale would be more than she made in a year at the magazine was waiting outside desperate for her to say that she loved it and would recommend to her hu
sband that they make an offer.
And if she said she liked it, he would b
uy it without a second thought.
I
t was enough to make her
start with the hysterics again
.