Commitment (91 page)

He turned his attention
once again
to his wife, watching as she speared a piece of broccoli
with her fork and bit into it.
Her hair was growing out
even more
, beginning to curl at her nape
and she had
lost
a noticeable amount of
weight.
She
stretched her legs out before her, resting them on
the edge of
a nearby
chair
.
They were
smooth brown
,
slender and
firmly muscled
at the same time
.

The impulse
to touch her, to reach out and pull her closer never went away. That he would be in this predicament with Keisha seemed irrational when the abiding and central truth of his life was that
the sun rose for him
only once
Riley opened her eyes every morning.

“Maybe they won’t show,
” she was saying to Tracy now.
“It’s tough
to make
it up here when there’s a lot of snow like this.”

“Have some fun with this
,” Tracy suggested.
“Maybe they can give you extensions
and
blue contacts.”

“Good idea,”
Riley
said.
“Just what I’ve
always
wanted.”

Shawn smiled and stood to go find Lorna,
brushing
Riley
’s head as he walked by.
She leaned into his
hand
and closed her eyes
,
briefly
warming to
his touch.

Lorn
a was on the sun porch reading.
She looked up when Shawn joined her and set
her book
aside.

“
Pretty rough yesterday, huh?
”

“Yup.”

He hadn’t discussed his testimony with anyone except for Brendan and had even postponed a debriefing with Doug and Robyn
so he could sit with the experience for awhile before someone told him how he was supposed to feel about it
.

H
e hadn’t expected was
how
pointed
the questions would be.
And how graphic.
Grand jurors were permitted to ask him questions directly, and they asked things he should have expected, but felt completely unprepared for.

How many times did you have
intercourse
with the complaining witness?

Who initiated the intercourse?

Where did you have intercourse?

What kinds of
intercourse?

If you were intoxicated, how do you know she consented?

When did your wife discover you had
intercourse
with the complaining witness?

Not only
did he feel like
he was defending himself against a rape charge,
it felt like
he was defen
ding his marriage.
If this was what the questions might be like at trial, he was even more certain now that he’d made the right decision
to keep
Riley
away.

“
Are they going to call you again, you think?”

Shawn nodded.
He’d gotten the definite impression that the jurors ha
d unfinished business with him.
Some of them just seemed to want to know what was going through his mind, and
decide
whether
he was just
a spoiled celebrity who thought he could have
anything
he wanted
, including women who might not be interested
. 

“
Just keep your cool,” Lorna said.

“It’s tough to do.
Did you see her?” Shawn asked referring to Keisha. 

He’d seen her
briefly as he entered the grand ju
ry room, exiting ano
ther door.
She was dressed like someone on her way to choir practice and had her hair pul
led back into a sleek ponytail.
Nothing about her appearance suggested the person he knew her to be.

“I did.
Pretty girl.”

“All of them are,” Shawn said bitterly.

“So one would think it would become easier for you to just say no,” Lorna said lightly.

Shawn looked at her.
It was the first time she’d ever said anything that even resembled judgment about what he’d done.

“It didn’t have anything to
do with that,” he said finally.
“It wasn’
t about her being a cute girl.
I mean, of course that gave me an excuse, but it didn’t . . . that wasn’t what it was.”

Lorna held up a hand.
“I’m sorr
y.
I don’t e
xpect you to explain it to me.
It’s really none of my business.”

“T
he
re’s no explanation.
No excuse.
T
he first time we met, you told me to try to be the man
Riley
thinks I am.
And I came up short.
I let her down.”

Lorna said nothing but the look in her eyes said she agreed with him.

“I let her down, I let
myself down,” Shawn continued.
“
And I feel I let you down too.”

Lorna shook her head.
“
Shawn, I didn’t know you then.
I had no expectations.
I h
ad hopes, but no expectations.”

“What about now?” he asked.

She smiled.
“I feel like I know a little bit about the man yo
u are now,” she said slowly.
“And so quite apart from what you owe to
Riley
, I don’t want you to let yourself down either.”

“Thank you?” he said laughing.

“I do mean it as
a compliment.
Shawn, you are a
powerful
voice in this world.
And you’
ve
been given
such a gift
of the opportunity to
have people
actually
listen.
I want you to get past this setback and continue to use that voice.”

“Question is whether anyone will listen anymore.”

“O
h, they’ll listen,” Lorna said.
“Maybe even more so now.
That’s the
nature of our crazy society.”
She slid him the book she’
d been reading when he came in.
“Here’s some food for thought.”

Shawn looked down.
“
Autobiography of Malcolm X
.”
He grinned at Lor
na, flipping through the pages.
“You’re bringing out the big guns.”

“Ever read it?”

“No,” he admitted.

“You should.
This is a man who managed to
really, truly
change.
It sounds simple, but y’know the old adage that people don’t change
?
I think that’s generally true.
But this is someone who pulled it off and accomplished self-transformation on a scale that only happens very rarely, to my mind.”

“I’ll check it out
when you’re done
,” Shawn promised. 

“No, take it now.
I’ve read it a m
illion times.
And when you’re done, I have some other stuff you might be interested in.”

“Or I could just start coming to your lectures,” Shawn said, only half-joking.

Lorna perked up.
“I just had an idea.”

“Yeah?”

“
Come to my class as a guest lecturer.
”

“Before or after I get convicted of sexual assault?”

Lorna gave him a look.
“Shawn.
You’re not going to be convicted.”

He shrugged.

“I would love to have you come in
and talk to one of my classes.
About your work, about gender in rap, about your exper
ience with this.
If you’re comfortable.”

“I
don’t know
.
What would the college think about
that?”

“Who cares what they think?
I’m tenured.”

Shawn laughed.
“I’ll think about it.”

“When you’re ready, let’s talk
.
I can help you outline your lecture.”

“You sound pretty confident I’ll
want to do it,” Shawn laughed.

Lorna winked at him as
she stood to leave.
“O
f course you’ll want to do it.
You’re a performer.”

Shawn smiled and opened the book to read the first line:
When my mother was pregnant with me, she told me later, a party of hooded Ku Klux Klan riders galloped up to our home in Omaha, Nebraska one night.
He leaned back.
He would
kill some time before Darnell and the rest of the crew got here.

It seemed like minutes later when he looked up and
Riley
was standing over him.
She glanced down at the book but didn’t comment.

“You’re u
p,” she said.
“The stylist is here.”

“I think I’ll wear some of my own stuff,”
he said
.
He had just gotten to the part where
Malcolm Little
became
El-Hajj
Malik
El-
Shabazz
.

“Dawn’s here too.
She’ll probably want to see
what you’re wearing
anyway, so she can set up her shots.”

“Okay
.”
Shawn stood reluctantly, following her into Lorna’s study where several garment bags were laid out and couple women were laboring ov
er camera equipment and lights.
He immediately saw a familiar fac
e.
It was
Aracely
, from Philip Mark’s studio.
Just his luck that the person Philip would send would be the person he’d flirted wit
h in a flash of poor judgment.
She looked up when he walked in and then quickly lowered her eyes
once again
to the shirt she was fussing with.

“Hey
Aracely,” he said amiably.
No point acting like he ha
d something to be guilty about.
“How’s Philip?”

“He wanted to come but had to take care of other business,” she said
.
“H
e wanted me to let you know that he personally picked out these looks for you.”

“
Sounds good
.
Let’s see what you got?”

“
Appare
ntly you’re wearing all white,”
Riley
said rolling her eyes.

“We’re going for t
he innocent as a lamb look, huh?
” Shawn said grinning at her.

“Well, consider the alternative,”
Riley
said dryly.

“You’ll photograph beautifully,” someone said in a musical West Indian accent.
“You have the perfect complexion for white.”

The taller of the two women stepped
forward and held out her hand. “I’m Dawn.
Good to finally meet you.”

“Dawn.
Good to meet you too,
”
Shawn said, taking her hand.
“Thanks for coming out.”

“My pl
easure, my pleasure,” she said.
“Let me tell you what I’m thinking . . .” she pointed tow
ard the backyard.
“You have a minute?
Riley
?”

They followed her out to the back w
here she described her vision.
She wanted Shawn sitting on the ground under the spruce,
Riley
next t
o him with her feet in his lap.
They were going to
put down a fake surface because there was still snow on the ground
.
A few more shots
would be
of them walking about
the garden; a couple
of them separately, and a
couple shots inside the house.
Dawn entered the sun porch from outside and spotted the book Shawn had just left behind. She picked it up and gave a small smile.