Four: Stories of Marriage

by Nia Forrester

  “Excuse me.”

  Riley spun toward the unfamiliar voice and found herself staring at a young woman in an army surplus jacket, with a messenger bag draped across her body. She had dark loosely curly hair, pulled to one side in a ponytail that she’d draped over her shoulder. Silver studs pierced her ears from lobe to shell.

  Smiling a pretty, gap-toothed smile she looked embarrassed to have interrupted.

  “I thought I heard another voice and was hoping it was you,” she said, extending a hand.

  Riley took it. “Hello,” she said. “Riley Gardner.”

  “I know.” The young woman gave a nervous laugh. “Of course, I know. I’m Livia. Did Sm … did your husband …?”

  “Yes,” Riley nodded and smiled. “He explained that you’ll be shadowing him this week for a profile you’re doing. That’s great. Really exciting.”

  “Yeah.” Livia nodded, still looking a little at a loss for words. Finally, it appeared she thought of something to say. “Your children are just adorable by the way. That Cassidy …oh my god, I could just tuck her in my bag and make a break for it.”

  Riley smiled again, more thinly this time.

  “Oh my gosh …” Livia laughed. “That was a creepy thing to say, sorry. Especially since that’s precisely the kind of nightmare that you probably … Okay, I’ll shut up now.”

  “Well now that you bring it up,” Riley said. “Did Shawn mention our policy about the kids and press?”

  “Yes! He did. I won’t be taking photos of them, and I won’t include any details about them at all in my piece.”

  “I know it seems a little stupid,” Riley continued, “Especially since we can’t prevent people from taking their pictures when we’re out in public, and they even publish those pictures. But we’re trying to be intentional about not making them into little celebrities or giving the impression they’re newsworthy. I hope you understand.”

  “Of course, of course,” Livia said.

  She seemed a little jumpy, not able to decide which of her feet she wanted to rest her weight on, or what she wanted to do with her hands. Riley was accustomed to this kind of reaction to Shawn, and to them when they were together. But it was discomfiting to encounter it in her own home, and apparently directed at her and her children.

  “Well, thank you,” Riley extended a hand again. “And … good luck with the profile. This one is notoriously difficult to get talking.” She nudged Shawn in the arm, realizing that during her entire exchange with Livia, he had said nothing. Not even to reinforce her message about the kids.

  “Is he?” Livia looked surprised. “He’s been pretty forthcoming with me.”

  “Has he?” Riley glanced at Shawn, who still said nothing. “Anyway. I’m going to get comfortable and out of these work clothes,” she added. “Are you staying for dinner, Livia?”

  “Oh! No, I hadn’t planned … No. I was just on my way out.” She glanced at Shawn. “But I’ll see you again tomorrow, right?”

  “Yeah,” he confirmed. “See you tomorrow. Lemme walk you out.”

  When Shawn returned, Riley was in the master bedroom getting undressed. He stood at the doorway watching her as she peeled off her long narrow skirt and kicked aside her block-heeled pumps. She pretended not to notice him watching as she shed her costume. That was how she thought of much of what she wore for work. She only wore clothes like this when she had what she tongue-in-cheek called her “grown-up meetings”. But it was beginning to be an old joke. She was turning thirty-five this year and was the mother of two. Whether she liked it or not, she was a grown-up.

  Something about that reporter, Livvie or whatever her name was, reminded her of that, and made her nostalgic and even a little melancholy. She remembered when she was the tenacious little newsperson, wandering around New York in painter’s jeans and a baseball cap. She belonged to no one then, answered to no one. And was so damned good at what she did that what she wore was of no consequence.

  “Riley.”

  She looked up at her husband, and her heart softened. Looking at him, directly at him, melted all her resentment and reminded her that back then she didn’t have him, this beautiful man who still loved her in a way that she never dreamed she would be loved.

  “Yeah?” She tossed her organza blouse aside, relieved to no longer have its synthetic softness against her skin.

  “Sorry I sprung her on you.”

  Shawn made his way further into the bedroom until he was inches away. He lifted one of his large hands to her side, slid it around to her back and pulled her against him.

  “It’s fine,” she said. “It’s just … I’m tired that’s all.”

  “I know. Should’ve told you before today. She showed up this weekend. At the game.”

  “She was at your game?” Riley pulled out of his grasp, so she could properly look at him.

  “Yeah. I mentioned it to her, and she just …” He shrugged. “Showed up. But Turner says she’s legit with her work though. No cheap shots, no made up controversy. He uses her sometimes to roll out new talent.”

  Riley shrugged. “If Jamal says she’s fine, then I’m sure she is.”

  “Then what’s up … with all this?” He indicated her face, mimicking her expression with a mock-scowl.

  “Crappy day. Busy day. You know the kind. One of those where you’re running around and not sure you’re accomplishing anything.” She shrugged again.

  “Want me to keep Cullen and Cass out of here for a couple hours? You get in the bath, I’ll bring you some of the wine you like, have Tony do up some of that salmon with the Cajun spice-rub?”

  “Yes. I would love that.” Riley leaned against him, pressing her face into his neck and breathing him in.

  “Okay, go ahead and chill. I got you.”

  If that reporter hadn’t been there when she got home, Riley was sure she would have mentioned it. That’s what she told herself anyway. And once she hadn’t mentioned it right away, she wondered whether it would give it more significance to do so belatedly.

  For all she knew, Shawn had completely forgotten about him. Or, not forgotten exactly, but at least stopped thinking of him as anything other than part of their distant past. Just a few days ago, Riley would have said she had stopped thinking of him as anything other than that herself. But seeing him had jarred her.

  That was what made her so testy with Shawn about the reporter. And what made her look at that Livvie girl and start pining for her so-called good old days as a starving writer. Not that she had ever truly been starving. Power to the People had paid well enough for a writing job, and she had never been that interested in material things to begin with. Not that one would know it to look at her now.

  Now, she was reclining in her jacuzzi tub in a Central Park West apartment that was larger than some homes in Queens and sipping expensive wine. In another room, a chef was preparing her favorite dinner.

  Sometimes, Riley looked at the way she and Shawn and their kids lived, and saw it as if from a distance. And there were still moments when the ease of everything filled her with guilt. They had more money than they knew what to do with, and so they made donations to charity and gave gifts and gestures to people they loved—like paying off her mother’s house, and creating a trust fund for their goddaughter, Layla. But it never felt like they could do enough. There was always more money than they would need for this lifetime.

  All of that had come into even starker focus that afternoon when her assistant had buzzed her from the front office. The fact of her even having an assistant, the buzzing from the front office … both had embarrassed her when she heard who was there to see her, unannounced.

  Brian Marshall.

  It was like a jolt. She hadn’t thought of him in years. Years. And yet at the mere sound of his name being spoken, a million tiny and disjointed memories came rushing back; and with them a deep sense of something like regret, though she wasn’t sure what for.

  Before telling her assistant, Sara, to send him back
, Riley had to sit, and compose herself. She took a deep breath, and she prepared.

  He walked in, wearing washed-out jeans and a button-down with the tail out, and t-shirt underneath. He looked almost exactly as he had then, when he was just a law student. There was little to indicate the passage of time other than his haircut, which was shorter, trimmer, neater and more befitting a serious thirtysomething professional man. And there was also the wedding band on his finger.

  That she had noticed it, that she had looked for it, made Riley’s stomach clench with guilt. What should it matter to her that Brian was married? It didn’t matter to her that he was married.

  Brian, she said.

  And he said, Riley.

  He took two steps toward her and looked for a moment as though he was about to raise his arms but let them drop to his sides again.

  May I hug you? he asked.

  And of course she had hugged him.

  May I hug you? May I. Not ‘can I’ as most people would have said.

  Riley smiled remembering it. Brian and his perfect diction, his Black American Brahmin roots that rarely permitted him to comfortably use slang.

  I’m a scrappy street-lawyer, he said when she asked him what he was doing these days. Started my own non-profit.

  You did? she’d asked. I hope it didn’t give your father a heart attack.

  No, Brian said, laughing. Still alive and kicking. He knocked on the wood of her desk. And giving me hell for my life choices.

  They sat then, and talked about his work, which was defending juveniles charged with adult crimes and facing or serving adult time. He had done his clerkship after law school as planned, he said. And was miserable doing it. It only confirmed that that he wanted what he called a “grassroots law practice.” And with a former classmate, he set out to build just that. After a grant from a foundation that funded non-profit start-ups, he and his classmate had realized their dream and had been limping along for a few years now, scoring a few notable wins, but often on the edge of extinction-level financial trouble.

  They primarily did policy advocacy, he explained. But they made their name, and some money by representing clients with some of the toughest cases—young men and women who had done some very difficult-to-reconcile crimes, whose names could become part of landmark case law.

  They’re kids, he said. And most of them were failed by us a hundred times over before they found themselves in conflict with the law. I just want to make sure we don’t fail them yet again.

  Then he leaned in, and met her gaze head on, and with hands clasped like someone about to say a prayer, got down to brass tacks.

  I’m here to ask for two things, he said. Money, and exposure. And you’re the only person I know who can give me plenty of both.

  The man who said those words was one whom Riley had never met. He was self-assured, purposeful and even intriguing. He had literally walked in off the street after having not seen nor contacted her in more than half a decade and just come out with it: I need something and want you to give it to me.

  This was not the Brian of her memories. This was someone new altogether.

  Tempted as she was to write him a big check on the strength of his gumption alone, Riley knew she couldn’t. Not until she spoke to Shawn. The history between them—Brian, her and Shawn—was too fraught for her to pretend that donating to his work would have no consequence or significance in her marriage.

  But what made her day take a turn for the worse was not Brian’s reappearance, nor that she couldn’t give money to his cause without first talking it over with Shawn. What ruined her day was realizing that by putting Brian off for a while, not only would she see likely see him again, but that she wanted to.

  6

  Riley shred two napkins before she realized what she had done and swept the pieces into a pile which she was then forced to slide into her leather tote sitting in the booth next to her. Once he arrived, if he saw the confetti she had made, he would know immediately that she was nervous, and wonder why.

  There had been a time when he was one of the people she was most comfortable with. They had eaten in bed together, napped and studied and wrote while reclined in the grass in Strawberry Fields together. They had made love in her small, hot apartment in Flushing. They had shared looks across countless rooms at something someone else had said that they both knew the other would find amusing, or ridiculous, or objectionable.

  But now, they were little more than familiar strangers to each other, separated by years of experiences that they had not had a chance to share.

  Brian walked in just as Riley was about to call for a server to order a cup of tea, just so she would have something to do.

  He kissed her quickly on the cheek before he sat, and then, once seated, looked embarrassed. Riley flushed.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Funny how I just … that was …Force of habit, I guess.”

  It was how he used to greet her, all those years ago when he walked in to a restaurant and found that she was already there and waiting for him—with a hurried kiss. He was always a little late back then, always the harried oversubscribed law student rushing from one important thing, and on to the next important thing. The kisses were greetings, an expression of affection and an apology for his lateness all wrapped up in one.

  “It’s fine,” Riley said shaking her head dismissively. “How are you?”

  “Good, good. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  Sitting like this, she studied each change in his face that she hadn’t noticed before. A few greys in his hair, premature, but the mark of someone who worked hard at a stressful job. And a few lines in his forehead, from frowning, or concentratedly scowling, perhaps as he read the grim circumstances of his clients’ cases.

  “So, I thought we might have more of a focused conversation about what you’re hoping I would …”

  Brian unexpectedly reached across the table and touched her hand.

  “We can get to that,” he said. “But I wanted to catch up with you, too. Hear about your life. Your family. Tell you a little about mine.”

  Riley felt her heart sink. She was curious about his life, of course. But she had also hoped they might keep things as impersonal as possible. She wasn’t sure she was ready to look him in the eye and talk about the extraordinary life she was living with Shawn, about the two beautiful children they had, about the magazines and her extended circle of friends. All of that had been bought in part at Brian’s emotional expense.

  He seemed to sense her hesitation and quickly filled the silence.

  “Tell me about the magazines. I subscribe to Polis, did I tell you?”

  Riley smiled, grateful that he had begun with the easy things. “You do?”

  “Yeah. That’s good stuff, Riley.” He nodded, his warm brown eyes meeting hers. “I was so damned proud of you when it launched. Wanted to reach out, but … you know.”

  “I know.” She swallowed. “Literati isn’t doing as well,” she added, feeling some compulsion to let him know that her life wasn’t all a bed of roses. “I think I might even have to shut it down in the next year or so.”

  Brian frowned. “Don’t do that. It’s filling a gap. There’s nothing like it out there.”

  “And yet you don’t subscribe,” Riley teased.

  “You know I never got all that high-art thinking,” Brian said, grinning. There were the beginnings of crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. “This brain of mine is way too pragmatic. Ella likes it though. Buys it at the newsstand sometimes.”

  “Ella,” Riley repeated.

  “My wife,” Brian said. He reached for the menu. “Would be cool if you two could meet some time.”

  “Of course,” Riley said automatically.

  She actually wasn’t sure she wanted to meet Brian’s wife.

  “She’s heard a lot about you.”

  “Oh, I’ll bet.” She reached for the remaining unshredded napkin on the table, then withdrew her hand again.

  “Nothing ba
d.” Brian touched, and this time let his hand come to rest atop hers. “It was so long ago, it’s … Nothing bad,” he concluded.

  “So, this was your recommendation,” Riley said brightly, pulling her hand away to pick up a menu. “What’s good here?”

  “Everything. It’s just good ol’ authentic Greek food,” Brian said, glancing up at her. “The shish taouk is amazing.”

  “I’ll have that,” Riley said, setting her menu aside.

  A server, hovering nearby, hearing her decisive tone, came over to take their orders. She ordered the shish taouk, feeling like she would have very little appetite to eat it, but Brian added to the order for the table, not only getting his own entrée, but hummus with shredded lamb, pita, and baklava for once their main courses were done.

  “Oh, and a pot of tea,” he said, as he handed the menus to the server.

  He seemed so comfortable and unflappable, not at all thrown by being in her company after all this time. Riley wondered how long it had taken for him to truly get over her. Throughout their entire relationship, she had always been aware that she meant something much more serious to Brian than he had to her. She even thought that it was normal, to have ‘love’ be something of an accessory to a life of words and thought and ideas.

  It was probably something she had learned from her mother—men as accessories, never the main event.

  That was why Shawn had been such a surprise, and such a shock to her system. To have him, and to justify why she should chase the drugged and dizzy feeling he gave her, she had lied to herself and lied to Brian for a disgracefully long time. And soon, Shawn became more than a pleasurable addition to her life, he was constantly encroaching, fighting to become the center of it. He had fought that fight and decisively won.

  “Tell me about Ella,” Riley said once the server had gone. “How did you meet?”

  “You never met her,” Brian said, “but you may have seen her a couple times.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. She went to Columbia Law when I was there. She’s my partner as well. In our non-profit.”