Commitment (95 page)

“Yeah.
It might even give m
e good material to write about.
And if I bring Tracy, it’ll be
fun, even
.”

“I’m sure we can bring Tracy,” Brendan said.
“
I’m telling them it’s
likely
a go.
”

“What else you got?” Shawn asked.

“Label wants to
see you in the office tomorrow.
Chris said it played well in his office
too
. Couple other people.
They want to hear
more
from Riley.”
Brendan looked up and smiled at
her.
“We might have to get you a manager, Rae.”

“
Rae
”
was Brendan’s nickname for her.
It came out of nowhere as far as Shawn could tel
l, but Riley seemed to like it.
She gave Brendan one of he
r crinkle-eyed smiles and winked at him. 

“I don’t think my husband would approve,” she said.

“But this wouldn’t be about your husband,” Shawn said
.
“It would be all about you.”

A look a mild surprise flashed across Riley’s face and she smiled back, holding his gaze for a moment then turned once again to
Brendan.
“
Nevertheless,
I think I’ll pass.”

“Okay, well I gotta
roll
,” Brendan said standing and grabb
ing one last piece of a waffle.
“Deuces.”

Shawn turned to watch Riley as she s
ipped her second cup of coffee.
Barefooted and wearing only
her jeans and
a white tank.
H
er fingers about the mug reminded him of the sting he still felt in the shower this morning as the hot water streamed over the path her nails h
ad carved in back two days ago.

At Lorna’s. O
n the sun porch,
on the floor
near the
space heater, both of them soaking wet by the time they were
spent
.
Riley on top, her
hair
was
plastered against her skull, her face bright and so alive.
She collapsed against his chest and he breathed in her scent, feeling himself grow ready once again.

I love you
, she’d said to him, her breathing fast and uneven.
I love you
so
fucking much.

“
I feel a little
crampy
,” she said now
, placing a hand on her abdomen
.
“I think I’ll go lie down for awhile.”

“Okay.”As she walked by he held her and w
rapped his arms
about
her, leaning down to rest the side of his face against her stomach.

“We’ll hav
e lots of babies,” he promised.
“When you’re ready.
When you want them.
Okay?
”

She rested a hand atop his head for a moment before turning to head for the bedroom. 

It was well
past noon before Riley was up and they headed out to grab something to eat.
Shawn had spent the entire morning in the den listening to old school rap and writ
ing.
He had
several
notebooks of new material now.
Hell, maybe even
a couple CDs worth of material.
All he needed was some good beats.

He felt the itch retu
rning—
the pull to the studio.
He used to spend hours there, not even noticing the passage of time, sometimes emerging from an evening session, surprised by the
bright glare of morning light.
On those mornings, he thought he could feel every cell in his body buzzing, hopped up from the process of making something where once there was nothing.

Even though it was
almost completely his creation,
‘The Fire Next Time’ CD
hadn’t been like that for him.
He’d
fel
t like he had too much to prove—
that he could create with
out
Chris Scaife and all the others who had been so instrumental in getting him to the top. It was a difficult labor that gave birth to a child he was proud of, but this time,
this time
he felt like there might be all of the joy and none of the fear.

He looked up at Riley sitting across
the table
from him.
They were in a sushi place a few blocks do
wn from the condo.
S
hawn was glad they could begin
going out
like this
once again
, living their liv
e
s
the way they would have before all the madness had descended.
Since they’d gotten home
there were a few paparazzi following them, but few enough for them to easily ignore it and even venture out without a security detail.

“
I’m thinking about g
oing to the studio.”

An unexpected smile spread across her face and she put dow
n her chopsticks.
“I think that would be great,” she said.

Shawn smiled back at her, and she nodded her encouragement.

“It’s been a long time,” she said.

It had been a long time. He’d been avoiding it.
Somehow, sometime,
without even noticing it,
he had begun to associate the studio with Kei
sha and what happened with her.
That’s where he’d met her, and where the train had started coming off the tracks.

“D’you
want to call Chris?” she asked.
“He could . . .”

“No,” Shawn said.
“
There’s
a
place in Brooklyn.
This other place that
not too many people know about.
It’s quiet there.”

“Okay.
Maybe Brendan can come and . . .”

“No,” Shawn said
firmly
.
“Not
Chris.
Not
Brendan.
Me and you.”

All it took was a couple of phone calls
to book some time
and in an hour they were on their way to Flatbush in Brooklyn.
Flatbush was a neighborhood teeming with West Indian enclaves, interspersed w
ith old-style housing projects.
The main drag, Flatbush Ave
nue was quintessential Brooklyn—
storefronts boasted knock-off purses and faux designer clothing, electronics, the latest Nike offering
s and Jamaican or Haitian food.
The sidewalks were so crowded that a stranger would be forgiven for believing that there was a parade, fair or other special
event
in progress, but the almost frenzied level of activity was par for the course
o
n Flatbush.
It was one of the things that Shawn
most
loved about it.

When he and Riley
parked
five blocks from the studio
and got out, he knew immediately that he would be recognized, but it
was different here.
People
might approach
him, but only briefly, to give him som
e pound or pat him on the back.
There was none of the near-hy
steria he faced in other places
.
Broo
klyn was too cool for all that.
They walked about three steps from the car before someone noticed him and came over to offer their opinion
about his legal troubles
.

“That shit shoulda never gone to court,”
the brother said emphatically.
“Every
body
know it ain’t nothin’ but a gold-digger, man.”

Shawn nodded but said nothing in response, putting an arm about Riley’s shoulder and continuing
the
walk toward
their
destination.

“Keep your head up, man!”

“
Smooth
!  K
Smooth
!”

A couple of teenagers waiting at a bus stop spotted him and approached with
n
otebooks and pens at the ready.
Shawn slowed down to sign, but didn’t take his free hand from Ril
ey’s shoulder and kept walking.
A couple of cell phone pictures were taken as they walked but soon enough they were at the entra
nce to the studio.

The door to Ruff Neck Recording Studio was in the basement of a restaurant, accessed through a pair of corrugated steel doors that opened
up directly from the pavement.
Shawn and Riley walked down the steep metal stairs, through the restaurant storage and
refrigeration area to the rear.
There they were met
by
a man with dreadlocks down to his waist dressed in full Ras
tafarian garb.
He pulled Shawn into a full-bodied hug then gripped his hand for a firm shake.

“Wha’ ah
gwan
, man?”

“Nothing much,” Shawn responded
ironically
.
“Nothing at all.”

The man laughed, throwing his he
ad back. “Remember, man.
Jah in control.”

Shawn nodded. “Most definitely.” Then he turned to Riley.
“
T
his is my wife
.
Riley, this is
Trevor Banks.
Number one dancehall hit-maker in the universe.”

“Stop it, man,” Trevor grinned.
He took Riley’s hand
and held it in both of his.
“Nice to meet you, beautiful.”

“Good to meet you too,” Riley smiled.

Trevor released her
hand and turned to Shawn again
“Nice ital sistah fi a change,” he said.

Sh
awn laughed.
“Shut up
.” He looked at Riley.
“He said it’s a nice change that I’m with a natural Black woman.”

“No hair-
weave, no contacts.
She got her head screwed on straight,” Trevor insisted.

Riley laughed.
“I like to think that I do.”

“Let’s go make some tunes, man,” Shawn said.

“Cool.” 

Trevor le
d them further back
and into a control room through which t
hey could see into a live room.
A band was in the live
room, jamming to a reggae beat.
Shawn bopped his head to beat, already feeling the pure raw energy
that led him
here.
He turned to Riley and found that she was watching him,
a
tiny
smile playing about her lips
.

g

“Look what we have here!”
Tracy came into the living room waving a magazine.

Riley looked up.
S
he knew what it was right away.
She’d been anxio
usly awaiting it for weeks now.
Darnell’s article.

“It was nice of hi
m to send you an advance copy,”
Tracy had already begun flipping through the pages, searching for the feature.

“And it was nice of you to open a courier envelope that was not addressed to you,” Riley snatched it from her and sat on the sofa. 

The cover shot was of Shawn, standing
alone
under the spruce
in Lorna’s backyard
.
He looked pensive, his brows fu
rrowed, eyes slightly narrowed.
Riley was surprised at the rush of feeling
that came back and the sensory-
memory of that tim
e.
Even though they had found refuge with Lorna, each day had felt
fragile and fleeting.

Things were so dif
ferent than they had been then.
They no longer planned their lives around the grand jury, nor even talked a
bout the case on a daily basis.
Shawn still made trips to Doug’s office to meet with him and Robyn, but those appointments were now like almost any other; part of his busy schedule that had gradually become even bus
ier since they’d returned home.
This
weekend, he was doing two shows—
one in Virginia
Beach and another in Richmond.
Life hadn’t returned to precisely what it had been before, but there was a different kind of normalcy.