Commitment (83 page)

Riley
l
aughed.
“I know you wouldn’t
.
Since you’re all
gangsta
and what-not
.”

“
You sure you’re up for this?” Chris asked in a
n
abrupt
change of subject.

“I’ll leave the room when Doug gets here if the discussion gets to be too much,” she said.

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

Riley
shrugge
d.
“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 ju
ry, i
t ain’t even a surprise.
As far as they’re concerned, of course he did it.”

Th
e 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 wom
en we know,” Chris said slowly.
“
Some of t
he types
of women we know, t
his 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 y
ou.
You ever think about that?
The life you lead.
The life you want?
Something tells me it do
es
n’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 dis
similar to the on
e 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,” Do
ug 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, Sha
wn,”
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 casti
ng 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 inh
aled 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 decid
e 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 afte
rnoon.
Chris had finally led
Riley
to a guest room where she tried to watch televis
ion to get her mind off things.
But she was irrepressibly drawn to the music and entertainment channels where they frequently updated the new
s 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-committa
l
.

“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 tes
tifying,” he glanced at her.
“Just want to make sure you understand that t
hat’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 def
end any part
of what I did
?”

“So y
ou 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 wante
d 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 struggle
s
.

“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,” she pointed o
ut, 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 u
pstate? Wait around by the phone?
Watch on Court TV?

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

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