Reaching for his phone, he hit a number and put in his ear buds.
“Boss man! You change your mind? You on your way back to the office?”
“Nah. Lunch got cut short. Robyn’s on her way back though. I guess she’s got lots more to do … with her new responsibilities and all.”
There was a pause.
“She told you, huh?”
“Yeah. What I’m wonderin’ is why you didn’t tell me,” Chris said.
Jamal sighed. “Why would I tell you?” He sounded soberer now, assuming his CEO persona, Chris guessed.
“Because she’s my wife.”
“Chris. How you think it would look if I told you before I told her?”
“Look to who?”
“Okay, lemme put it to you like this: I have too much respect for Robyn to check in with her husband before I consider her career outlook. How’s that?”
Chris looked at the phone in disbelief. “Don’t tell me my wife’s over there runnin’ you, Turner.”
“Runnin’ me?” he laughed. “Nah. You know as well as I do that even if she was, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. And y’know why? Because her judgment is sound, and she generally makes the same calls I would make. Hence, she’s my new acting general counsel.”
“I don’t expect you to ask my approval. You know I been stayin’ in my lane since you took over. But you could’ve hollered at me before …”
“I’m not gon’ do that, man. Not when it comes to Robyn, not when it comes to …” Turner gave a brief laugh. “Not when it comes to most things, to be honest with you. And you know that. That’s why you put me here in the first place. Or … have things changed and I don’t know about it?”
Few men, very few men could speak to him the way Turner was speaking to him now. But their relationship was … complicated. They had been brothers-in-arms for a long, long time. In business and working and building SE together. Long before the full dimensions of what he was trying to create had even become apparent to Chris, Turner had been right there helping him build it. And they’d been friends for just about as long.
“Nothing’s changed. Don’t get your drawers all in a bunch.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I only told her this morning. She’s known for about four hours, and you’ve known for now what? Two hours? That’s pretty close to real-time.”
“Let’s cut the chase, though. Is she going to be your new GC?”
“We’re doing a national search for the general counsel, but yes, Robyn has definitely made it known that she wants full and due consideration along with all the other candidates. And right now, she’s got an edge, since we don’t have any other candidates. But we also haven’t begun the search yet, so who knows what’ll happen?”
“You’ll interview her?”
“Yup. And the board will as well … Except you. You’ll have to recuse yourself.”
“Wait. Why?”
“You know why. You’re her husband. You really want to be part of her job interview?”
“I’d like to see how she does, yeah.”
“She’ll do fine. Just so long as you’re not in the room,” Turner said. “You’ll make her flub her lines or something.”
“Are you saying I make my wife nervous?”
“Nah, I’m saying that of all the people she tries to make proud of her, in her world you’re el numero uno, Boss man.”
Chris sighed and leaned back into his seat, unable to argue with that.
He knew Robyn tried to make him proud. And he was. Every day. She was no less a mother to their children—the ones she had given birth to, and all the others—than she was an assistant general counsel, or a hostess, or a wife, or a life partner. Whatever she did, she went hard and did well.
But there was only so much of her to go around, and these days he was not inclined to sacrifice any fraction of his share. When he thought about how hard he rode his GC, he could only imagine Turner would do the same. That position didn’t just mean delegating to associates, it meant travel time, and face time all around the country and increasingly the world; time that did not always confine itself to weekdays.
“Look, if there’s someone out there better out there that we come across, then they’re getting’ the gig. I’m not looking to put Robyn in this position just because she’s your wife, my friend. And fine as hell,” Turner added.
Chris grinned. “Hey. Watch yourself.”
“Jus’ sayin’. But on the real, man. Send me some names. If you know somebody I need to check out, I’m not opposed to wining and dining ‘em. Some shark at one of those high-powered firms that always be suing our peoples on some baby momma shit.”
“I’ll see what I can come up with.”
“Oh, I know you will,” Turner said. “Because the better your list, the less likely it’ll be that Robyn’s puttin’ in ten-hour days.”
“Lunch for you, Mr. Scaife?”
Mrs. Lawson greeted him almost as soon as he entered the house.
“Nope. Already ate. Thank you.”
“Oh.” She looked surprised. But only because when he was working, meals were often low-priority activities unless they were business lunches and dinners.
When he was working. Those words still felt and sounded alarming to him. He was essentially unemployed. Apart from occasional visits to and from colleagues and (far fewer) friends, he had no occupation. His last pet project—because there was nothing else to call it—was helping Riley set up a foundation. She and Smooth had laid almost a million dollars on—of all things—a non-profit run by Riley’s ex-boyfriend. And now, after the fact, it occurred to them that maybe they ought to figure out a better, more systematic way of giving their wealth to charitable causes.
Chris had his own foundation, which carried the name, or really the initials of his sister, Audrey. The A.L. Scaife Family Foundation funded projects to increase life skills for the mentally and physically challenged or disabled, and for mentoring, cultural enrichment and delinquency prevention for underserved youth and communities. The problem was, he’d been so good about finding people to run it, there was really no role for Chris there except attending board meetings.
And his role with Riley in getting hers set up was mainly helping her find her own good people. So yeah, he was bored.
“The children are out back with Felicity, if you’d like to go see them,” Mrs. Lawson said.
Felicity was his youngest two’s nanny, a girl who though only nineteen, seemed to get nothing but joy out of looking after the kids. All Chris cared about was that she had a clean driving record, passed a criminal and drug screening, and didn’t post pictures of his home, children or any personal details on social media. Robyn had liked her in part because she had what his wife called, “a wide-open smile.”
“I’ll go see them in a little bit,” Chris said. “I’ve got something to work on for a little bit.”
And when Mrs. Lawson left him, he went to his office, sat at this computer and began the vital task of looking for a bed for the apartment in the city.
Robyn’s arrivals home after work were timed to coincide with Felicity’s departure each day at seven o’clock. Chris would often look out the window of his home office and see them in the front, doing something like a custody hand-off. Felicity would pass Landyn into Robyn’s waiting arms, and then climb into the same black Toyota RAV4 that picked her up each evening. Caitlyn would be bouncing up and down at Robyn’s side, and wave Felicity on her way.
Today, though, Robyn didn’t just wave alongside Caitlyn, she leaned in to speak to the driver of the RAV4, and Felicity didn’t get into the vehicle. Instead the driver’s side door opened, and someone got out. Then, Felicity, Robyn and now a third woman turned and began toward the house.
Moments later, he heard Robyn calling for Mrs. Lawson, and then voices rumbling in friendly conversation, though Chris couldn’t make out about what. Just as he decided he wasn’t interested enough to try to find out what was going
on, his office door opened, and Robyn came in.
“Can you do me a favor?” she asked.
“Depends.”
She rolled her eyes. “Ten minutes, Chris. I just need you to take Felicity and her mom out back and give her something to drink. Their car is acting up and she called for someone, but I don’t want to just leave her sitting there and waiting. Could you just take care of them until I get changed?”
“Why don’t you ask Mrs. Lawson? I don’t want to have to try to make conversation with the babysitter’s mother.”
“Mrs. Lawson is with the kids upstairs until I get this all sorted out. And she’s more than the babysitter’s mother. She’s our neighbor. So please … just be nice. Ten minutes, I swear. I just need to get out of these clothes. And especially these shoes.” She pointed down at her high, pointy-toed heels.
“She’s our neighbor? The babysitter’s mother is …?”
“I swear. You never listen to me, do you? I told you this when I hired her. Felicity is from just down the street … Her mom is Elaine. Elaine Richards.” And seeing his blank expression, “never mind. Could you just give her a soft drink or something until I get back?”
“Fine. Yeah. Just be quick about it.”
On the terrace, Chris found the two women looking out at the vast English garden, their backs turned to him.
“You’d better be careful you don’t lose their kids in a place this huge,” the woman who had to be Elaine was saying to Felicity. “This is way more acreage than our place.”
Chris made a sound with his throat, just short of clearing it, and both women spun round. Felicity smiled.
“Hello!” Elaine said a little too brightly.
“Hi,” Chris said, extending a hand. “I’m …”
“Oh, I know who you are,” Elaine laughed a little. “It’s been a while.”
This was precisely the kind of thing Chris hated—running into someone he had met but had no reason to remember, but who remembered him. He supposed it made sense that she would know him if they were neighbors.
But ‘neighbors’ was relative when you lived in an area where the homes were at least a quarter-of-a-mile apart. He couldn’t recall having seen this woman before a day in his life.
“Good to see you again,” he said, taking her hand.
“You too. It’s been ages.”
“Robyn’ll only be a moment,” he said, refusing to speculate on just how much of an age it may have been. “Thought you two might want something to drink while you wait.”
“Thank you. I could use a drink. This is mortifying,” Elaine said. “To have my old jalopy die in front of your house.”
“Mom,” Felicity said, looking embarrassed.
Looking at them both now, Chris realized something. He had always thought Felicity was white. She was very fair and pin-straight chestnut hair. But he hadn’t looked at her for very long, nor very closely, apparently. Her mother, Elaine, was probably biracial, but her heritage was more apparent because her hair was thick and curly, and her skin slightly darker. Her eyes, dark-brown and slightly feline were set wide apart on her face, and she had a small snub of a nose. Part Black and part Asian was Chris’ guess. And Felicity, from the look of her, had a father who was white.
None of that data helped Chris recall having met Elaine before, however.
“You want a glass of wine?” Chris offered. “We can definitely do that if …”
“No, thank you, Mr. Scaife. We’ll both have just a Coke or Sprite or something like that if you’ve got it.”
Chris headed over to the outdoor bar while Felicity and Elaine took seats and turned to look at the garden once again.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” Elaine said as he handed her her Sprite.
“If we’re neighbors, I’m sure we’ve met,” Chris said, to avoid having to say ‘no’,
“David, my ex and I had just moved in I guess about six months before you, so I guess that had to be what? Almost fifteen years ago?”
Chris looked at her more closely then, trying to place her.
“Felicity was only about four years old, and we got this flyer in our mailbox inviting us to your housewarming party.”
Chris remembered a party alright. Housewarming was probably being kind, though. It hadn’t been anything nearly so urbane.
“David and some of the other neighbors were all freaked out, having a rapper move in, I’ll tell you that.” Elaine laughed. “I was beyond excited. Something to wake up our sleepy little town. And you sure did that night.” She laughed again.
Wearing capri-length leggings and a stretchy tank top with sneakers, she reminded Chris of the women he saw at morning drop off at Jasmin and Kaden’s school on the rare occasion he’d been able to do that fatherly duty. High ponytails to keep hair out of their faces, they wore pricey workout gear, all the better to run off to barre class after dropping off little Connor or Dakota.
Most of them didn’t work, and some, like his ex, Karen, probably had household help. So, they had plenty of time for expensive classes like barre in the morning and didn’t have to rush home to do laundry or clean or cook. As much as he had challenges with Robyn’s ambition, Chris was grateful every day his wife wasn’t one of these suburban American creatures.
“Did you come?” Chris asked out of curiosity.
“To the party?” Elaine asked. “God yes. With one of my girlfriends. Because David was too much of a s … a cornball to come.”
Snob. She had been planning to say ‘too much of a snob’ to come. I really enjoyed the girls with the micro-bikinis in the pool.”
“Mom!” Felicity now sounded not just embarrassed but mortified.
At the mention of the girls in the pool, Chris smiled. “So, you did come.”
There had been some girl-on-girl action as he recalled it. Groupies egged on by some of his boys to tongue-kiss each other for their entertainment and arousal. As he recalled it, a couple of the girls had even gone above and beyond the call of duty, slipping hands into each other’s bathing suits and pleasuring each other while dozens of people looked on.
Those had been the days. Crazy shit. Dumb shit.
“I’m back! Sorry about that Elaine. I just wanted to get comfortable. Any luck reaching the service people?”
“Yes.” Elaine lifted her phone as if offering evidence. “They’re on their way and we should be out of your hair in not too long.”
“If you need a lift home, we can have our driver take you,” Chris suggested, as he turned to leave.
“That would be great. If the tow service guys can’t let us ride in their truck, that’d be a great option.”
“No problem,” Chris said. “Good to see you again, Elaine.”
“Yes,” she said, smiling. “Very good to see you.”
Chris wondered if he’d imagined the emphasis on the word ‘very’ but didn’t hang around enough to look her in the eye and investigate.
3
Frank is so out of there, I think he’s barely even tolerating this farewell party,” Robyn said, lowering her voice and leaning in closer to Chris.
Across the room, Scaife Enterprises’ longtime general counsel was being roasted by Jamal Turner to mark the occasion of his retirement. His face bore a strained smile as he listened and tried to be a good sport about the playful mocking. Frank had come to SE from a plush law practice and entered the world of entertainment law probably thinking it would be equally cushy—parties with celebrities, short workdays and comped tickets to sold-out concerts. Instead, Robyn knew, he had been constantly challenged and sometimes even shocked by the breadth of legal matters that arose during his stint at the company.
On an average day at SE, there were artists facing paternity suits, tax evasion charges, restraining orders, and even the occasional illegal gun possession case along with the usual, pedestrian contract negotiations. Frank, a Connecticut blue-blood had never had the appetite for some of that work. His strategy as general counsel had been to farm out
the messier matters, finding outside counsel to handle anything that smelled like an actual crime.
We’re not the Manhattan public defenders, for chrissakes, he complained, when Robyn suggested they broaden their practice.
Despite being offended at the implication about their artists, Robyn had seen his point. A record company ideally should not be in the business of handling complex civil and criminal matters, just recording contracts. But as his deputy, she advocated a different approach—keep everything in-house; hire attorneys with specializations in a variety of areas of the law, so that whether an SE artist had unpaid parking tickets, or god forbid assaulted someone at a nightclub, it would all be kept in the family, so to speak.
It builds artist loyalty, Robyn had argued. We look after them in their time of need and when contract renegotiation comes around, they’ll remember it.
Frank had been reticent, but allowed her the latitude to do some of the lower-end work, with the understanding that they would not, as he put it “get sucked in.”
“You’re thinking about taking his place, aren’t you?”
Robyn almost jumped at the sound of Chris’ baritone close to her ear. Not just because it was unexpected that he would say something, but because what he said was accurate.
“I think I could do a good job,” she said, coyly. She twirled her champagne glass by the stem between her thumb and forefinger.
“And you will. As acting general counsel,” Chris said. “And then you’ll turn over the helm to whoever Jamal finds after the executive search.”
“I think it’s a disgusting waste of money. They’re going to spend twenty-five thousand dollars just to find someone who might be sitting right under their noses.”
Four: Stories of Marriage Page 39