Riley said nothing for a moment, then leaned against a nearby building, staring down at her tennis shoes. She hadn’t worn tennis shoes in a long, long time. She wore heels almost every day, or fashionable loafers or flats. She didn’t wear jeans much either, she wore crisp chinos. She didn’t let her hair go wild like it was now, she teased and coaxed it so it appeared straight. Almost daily, she transformed herself into someone else.
“Did you have to emphasize the word ‘tedious’ like that?” she said finally, dryly.
Lorna laughed. “Riley, I love you. But you have to … lean into it.”
“Thank you, Sheryl Sandberg.”
“I mean it. This is your life, darling. Make it what you want it to be. Take charge of it.”
“I took Cullen and Cass to school today,” Riley said, still staring at the ground. This time, her vision became slightly blurred. “And you know what I realized? I’ve turned into one of those women. One of those Upper West Side nouveau-riche moms who don’t raise their own kids. Cullen might be an art prodigy and I didn’t even know it. And Cass practically hung onto my leg when …”
“You’re doing it again.”
“No. This isn’t whining, this is venting. I mean …I guess it’s a little whiny, but …”
“But nothing. Whatever it is, change it if you don’t like it, Riley. And as for Brian. I think you owe him an apology. Jesus, if I were his wife, I would rip your eyes out.”
“Listen to you. Married one measly year and advocating catfights over a man.”
“I’m not advocating them, I’m … relating to them. A little.”
Which was revolutionary in and of itself. Her mother was married, and what was more, she was besotted with her husband Malcolm.
Malcolm T. Mitchell, who was technically Riley’s stepfather, was a writer of two bestselling novels and now, according to Lorna in the middle of writing a third. When he wasn’t writing, he was teaching at Gilchrist College where Riley had gone to school and where Lorna had tenure. In Malcolm, Lorna had finally found her mate.
“How about you all come up here?” Lorna suggested. “For the weekend. I can invent some reason I want the whole family to come, and it’ll give you and Shawn some time to sort things out.”
“No. He’s started working again. On new music. He won’t want to be away from the studio for so long, but he’ll come anyway just because you asked him to, and then be even more irritated. I’ll just have to … wait this out.”
“Okay. Well call me if you need me.”
“Oh, you’ll be the first person I call,” Riley said. “Especially since you’re so sensitive and all. Telling me my problems are tedious.”
“No, the problems are manufactured. Your whining is what’s tedious.”
Riley rolled her eyes. “’Bye, Lorna.”
She ended the call and looked up. She wasn’t far enough away from Cullen and Cassidy’s school, so could still see the parade of yoga-outfitted moms. A few of them had gathered in a little cluster and were talking among themselves. Occasionally, they glanced in her direction so, fearing they were about to come over and invite her into their little sorority, Riley cast her eyes downward and turned to head for home.
The remains of the Limoges vase were nowhere in sight when she got back, and the apartment was quiet, except for the dim and distant sound a vacuum being run somewhere. The aroma of coffee and something with cinnamon being baked hung in the air. She followed the scent to the kitchen and found Tony taking buns out of the oven. A fresh pot of coffee had been brewed.
“Smells amazing,” Riley said, sitting at the kitchen counter.
“The kids love ‘em,” Tony said. “And Shawn said he needed something sweet with lots of fat, so ... cinnamon buns.”
Riley tried not to react to the news that Shawn was home, forcing herself to sit still and not rush into the master suite and beg him to talk. Shawn didn’t respond to that. He needed to be left alone. It was the one of the toughest lessons she had had to learn and accept about her husband—that he responded to conflict in a way that was diametrically opposite to how she did.
She pushed for immediate conversation and resolution, and he needed solitude, and space to process on his own. The waiting for a chance to resolve things always made her antsy, jumpy and insecure even though his need to be alone never took him very far, and he was never gone for long.
Just as she was certain she wouldn’t be able to pretend to be patient any longer, Shawn came sauntering into the kitchen, barefoot, shirtless and damp from the shower. If he was surprised to see her home, his expression didn’t register it.
“Hi.” Riley’s voice was small.
“Hey.” His voice, like his face was neutral. But he looked at her, and looked her over, taking in loose and wild hair, the jeans, the sneakers. “No work today?”
“No. No work.”
“I was at the studio all night,” he said.
Riley nodded. “I figured. I mean … I asked Dennis to …”
Shawn shook his head. “Nah, it’s cool. I shouldn’t have … I should’ve called you.”
She nodded again, and he came closer, hooking an arm around her waist and resting his forehead against hers.
“You know how much I love you, right?” His tone was gentle, unexpectedly so, since there was little doubt that Riley was in the wrong.
“Yes. I love you, too. And I’m so…”
“Let’s not … let’s give it a minute, okay? Before we …”
“Okay.”
Just a few feet away, Tony was keeping busy, his usual poker face in place, as though he wasn’t witnessing a moment of marital reconciliation.
“So, if you don’t have work, what’re you up to today?” His arm around her waist tightened.
Riley shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Want to hang with me?”
“Just you? Or you and that reporter, whatshername?”
Shawn’s arm around her waist stiffened. Just the tiniest bit, and just for a second, but it was long enough for Riley to notice.
“Just me,” he said. “She’s done. Her assignment was over yesterday.”
“Yesterday?”
“Yeah.” Shawn released her and looked over at where Tony was transferring the cinnamon buns from the baking sheet onto a platter lined with wax paper. “Slide a couple o’ those over here, man. You know I love ‘em hot.”
Riley blinked, and swallowed hard, trying to shove down the feeling, sickeningly similar to suspicion, that was beginning to rise from the pit of her gut.
17
Don’t tell me you forgot, Riley. I’ll be really irritated if you guys aren’t coming. Especially since we have fresh blood this time. Jamal’s bringing his fiancée, so we have one more team.”
“We’re coming,” Riley said. “I just have to … rearrange some …”
“Oh my god, I knew you’d forgotten about it! It doesn’t work unless we have enough of teams. And you and Shawn are …”
“Robyn, we’re not talking about the Olympics here. So, let’s try to keep things in perspective.”
“Whatever, Riley. I know how difficult it is when you guys lose, but …”
“Lose? Oh, we’ll be there sweetheart, and the Gardners are going to kick ass.”
Robyn laughed. “No, you won’t, but I like your team spirit. Thursday night. Be there, or …”
“Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.”
“… Or be square,” Robyn finished.
“Ugh,” Riley groaned. “The corndog factor on this whole thing just increased like one-thousand-fold.”
“I don’t care. Just make sure you guys get there by Thursday night.”
When they hung up, Riley grabbed her iPad and cued up the calendar. Somehow, someway, she’d forgotten to log the weekend in the Hamptons that Robyn had unimaginatively dubbed Sports-a-palooza. Since, apart from her career, there were limited outlets for her competitive spirit, Robyn organized three-day weekends twice a year where they all went
out to Chris’ Hamptons house for team competitions.
During the day, the children competed in games like egg-and-spoon and sack races and Pictionary; and after dark when they were in bed, the adults went head-to-head in pool, poker, dart-throwing and dominoes. For the evening games, there was a fair amount of drinking involved, and for the guys, cursing, and shit-talking. And when the weekend was done, no matter how corny it was, they all returned to the city feeling like they’d been on a much longer vacation.
Robyn went all out, getting t-shirts printed for each family in different colors and having trophies made for each event. The men all played along, except for Chris who refused to wear his assigned team colors and sometimes wound up in a bickering match with Robyn because he snuck looks at his phone during all the festivities. But it was a fun time, and Riley didn’t want to miss it.
She especially didn’t want to miss it this weekend because it would take her and Shawn away from the day-to-day routine that they had fallen back into. Just days after their blow-up about Brian, and things were back to a kind of normal. Kind of, but not completely, because Riley could sense something just beneath the surface that hadn’t been righted.
For one thing, they still hadn’t talked about Brian. Not at all since they’d argued about him, and as time wore on, Riley was feeling increasingly guilty about having raised Brian and Ella’s hopes about funding for the Campaign and then ghosting them. Robyn’s call just might be the catalyst she needed.
Ideally, she could take care of that loose end before they went to the Hamptons this weekend. But before she could commit to giving a huge sum of money, she would have to talk it over with Shawn. There was no way around that.
Taking a deep breath, she went to shut her office door, not knowing how the conversation she was about to have may go. She counted to ten and dialed the number, feeling like a coward for hoping she would wind up leaving voicemail. But, no such luck.
“Riley. Hey.” Brian sounded surprised, but not displeased to hear from her.
“Hi. How are you?”
“I’m okay,” he said, tempering his initial enthusiasm.
Now, it was probably sinking in that a phone call from her could just as easily mean bad news as it could mean good. And why wouldn’t it mean bad news? In retrospect, she had to have seemed so emotionally erratic. To have seen him for the first time after so long and end up blathering on about being his ideological soulmate. She cringed a little remembering what she’d said to him in that coffee shop, especially since the emotions she’d had at the time now seemed as irrational as a bout of premenstrual psychosis.
“How are you?” Brian added, his voice now cautious.
“Fine. I’m good, really. I just … I wondered whether we could meet this week. About your proposal,” she hastened to add.
“In person?” he said.
The cringing increased. Now he was afraid to meet with her. Riley couldn’t say she blamed him entirely.
“Yes, I think that would be better than on the phone. Don’t you? I mean …”
“Yeah. Of course. Sure. When d’you have in mind?”
“Wednesday afternoon?” That would give her two days to figure out how to broach the subject with Shawn. She would need every second of that reprieve.
Brian easily agreed, they set a time and hung up. It had been less than a five-minute conversation, and almost as dispassionate as though they were total strangers.
“You comin’ through again later?”
“Nah, man. Not tonight. I’ma leave all that to y’all.”
Kio laughed as Shawn reached for the door handle. “I hear that. I’ll shoot you over what we got so far on that last track. But you gotta promise me you’ll listen to it pure.”
By ‘pure’, Kio meant in his home studio, through high-definition speakers or headphones with no ambient noise in the background. No kids, no wife, no Fireman Sam.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll listen to it pure,” Shawn drawled.
His driver took him straight home and as soon as the SUV pulled up in front of the building, Shawn wondered whether Riley was home as well. He hoped she was. It didn’t even matter if he wound up listening to music all evening, and she was somewhere else in the apartment reading, or with the kids. He just wanted to know that she was nearby.
Maybe because they’d been emotionally so far apart lately, it became important to have her physically close. For the past few days, when he went to bed, it was usually after she was already asleep, and he was grateful for that because then he could get in behind her, hold her, and she would relax against him.
On one of those nights, her passive acquiescence hadn’t been enough, and he’d turned her over onto her back, stripped her naked and worked his way down her body. Riley had been half-asleep while he kissed her from the base of her neck down her chest, across her breasts, to her belly and finally burying his face into her to bring her off. She had exhaled soft, quiet gasps of pleasure, only coming to full wakefulness when she climaxed. When he looked up at her in the dim light, her eyes were dazed and unfocused, her lips slack.
Moving upward, returning the way he came, he entered her with one hard thrust, saying nothing, but still watching her face, wanting her to say something though he didn’t know what. Riley was by no means a traditional wife, but no matter the emotional distance, she was always his to have and to hold. And that gave him comfort.
Upstairs, the apartment was in an uproar. As soon as Shawn opened the front door, Cullen came tearing toward him, shouting something about going to the beach. Then Cass followed, running down the hallway wearing a yellow swimsuit with flaps on it that looked like fins.
“Beach, beach, beach!” she chanted, and Cullen joined in.
Shawn looked up to see Riley, wearing just one of his t-shirts, her hair loose and her expression harried, coming to retrieve their kids.
“Cass, you need to take that off, baby. Momma only wanted to see if it still fits.”
“What’s going on?” Shawn asked.
“Sports-a-palooza,” Riley said. “This weekend. I forgot to put it on the calendar app and Robyn called me at work today to let me know she’d behead me if we don’t go. You can go, right?”
Shawn nodded. “Yeah, I can go.”
“Good,” Riley exhaled and ran a hand across her forehead. “Can you …?” She gestured in the direction of the kids, still chanting.
“Cullen,” Shawn said, deepening his voice. “Cass.”
The chanting stopped.
“Go take off that swimsuit, Cass. And Cullen, go … watch something.”
Riley stifled a smile. “I need him to find his rolling suitcase.”
Cullen went galloping down the hallway, and Cass started fidgeting with the straps of her swimsuit, trying unsuccessfully to take it off on her own.
Riley dropped to her knees and helped pull the straps down, after which Cass pulled it the rest of the way off and ran naked down the hall, screaming, leaving the swimsuit in a little yellow puddle in her wake.
Riley stood and shook her head in exasperation, and when her gaze met Shawn’s, they both laughed. She made the shape of a gun with her fingers and mimed someone shooting themselves in the head.
“Yeah?” Shawn said. “Well welcome to my world.”
That seemed to set her back on her heels for a moment. “I guess this has been your world, huh?”
“For two and a half years,” Shawn said, nodding.
Riley made a sound that was part pensiveness, part comprehension.
“Not that I’m complaining.”
“I know you’re not.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”
“I know you wouldn’t, baby.”
They stood there in silence for a moment, then Shawn glanced over her shoulder. “Tony here?”
“Nope. Just us Gardners.”
“So … who’s going to be doing the cooking?”
“Shawn! I can cook.”
“I know you can. It’s ju
st that you … haven’t. Not for a while.”
“I got pizza fixings. After I get all this stuff organized for this weekend, we’re going to make personal pizzas. I’ll let them roll their own dough … It’ll be fun. You should join us.”
“Yeah. I will. Lemme do a few things in there, first?” He indicated the end of the apartment where his home studio was.
“Sure.” Riley smiled and turned to head in the same direction the kids had gone. She had been careful not to show it, but he knew she was disappointed.
It was almost an hour later, when Shawn removed his headphones and heard the happy squeals from another part of the apartment that he left the loft and went to see what his family was up to. They were in the kitchen, both children sitting on the countertop, each of them with wooden rolling pins and working on mounds of dough.
Riley was keeping one eye on them, and the other on the pepperoni she was slicing. Both Cass and Cullen were practically sitting in flour that had been dusted across the counter to keep their dough from sticking. He stood at the threshold leading into the kitchen, just to watch them for a while, and stayed there until Riley finally looked up and spotted him.
“Want in on this?” she asked.
“Yeah, but I’ll wait for the batch that doesn’t have boogers and kid toenails in it.”
Riley made a gagging sound. “Yeah. I know. Don’t worry, I left some of the dough and different toppings in the fridge for us.”
The kid version of Pizza Night turned out to be genius. Not only were Cullen and Cass entertained, but by the time they were done working on their own meal, they were almost too tired to eat it, and when they had eaten, Cullen actually asked to go to bed. Shawn took that task on while Riley restored Tony’s kitchen to some semblance of order and laid out—this time much more neatly—pizza topping for her and Shawn’s pizzas.
When the kids were down, Shawn returned to the kitchen to find a clean kitchen, their dinners in the oven, and his wife coolly sitting at the kitchen island with a glass of white wine in hand.
“Are we winning at parenting, or what?” she said, holding up a hand for a high five.
“Winning,” he confirmed, slapping his palm against hers.
Four: Stories of Marriage Page 14