“S.E.C.R.E.T.,” she said, “introduced me to part of myself I had never known before. In your case, I think it’s more about reigniting a part of you that’s just been dormant—am I right?”
“Yeah, for about eight years,” I said.
“Oh. That’s a long time. I didn’t have sex for five years and I thought that was bad!”
“What? No! No no no no. I’ve had sex since then, just not very good sex, and not with very good men. I meant that it’s been about eight years since I felt any real passion, any connection with a man.”
Cassie winced and nodded. Then she described exactly how this group of women went about reigniting passion.
“We orchestrate sex fantasies. Yours. Nine of them, which take place over the course of a year, a charm for every step,” she said, holding up her bracelet. “The tenth is also a decision—to remain in S.E.C.R.E.T., as I did, or to go out on your own, maybe try a real relationship if you’re ready. See this?”
She flipped through her charms until she came to one that said Step Ten on one side Liberation on the other.
“I completed my steps, which liberated me from so many things, mainly fear and self-doubt. And staying in S.E.C.R.E.T. was a free choice, and it remains so.”
“Secret sex fantasies? In New Orleans?” I asked, barely stifling a giggle. “Forgive me, Cassie, but it’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
Part of me wanted to stand up, call the police and escort her out of the store. The other part was welded to my seat, my eyes, ears and heart wide open.
“I know it sounds ludicrous. But I’m telling you, it’s the best thing that has ever happened to me. All that’s required of you is to either accept or decline the offer.”
“And you did this?”
She nodded.
“Last year?”
She nodded again, this time a smile turning up the corners of her mouth.
“You experienced nine different sex fantasies with nine different men?”
“I did,” she said, looking almost as astonished with herself as I was with her.
“And you made the decision to stay in this … group, and to help other women?”
Her features fell slightly and her eyes darkened. “Actually, no. I made the decision to leave S.E.C.R.E.T. because I thought … well, I fell in love. With an old friend. But timing is everything, as they say, and ours was disastrous, really. Things fell apart. Being a member of S.E.C.R.E.T. is really the only thing getting me through.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
The silence that followed was heavy in the room, both of us contemplating the strange words just spoken.
“Holy shit” was all I could eventually mutter. “Why me?”
“Timing. We saw you and met you. And, well, I think we might be right—that you need this.”
I looked around my over-stocked, over-organized office.
“I guess I do,” I admitted. “But why do you think experiencing wild sex fantasies will fix everything?”
“It won’t fix everything. But it does the trick of fixing one thing, which creates a sort of cascade effect in your life. At least, that’s how it has worked for me. I shouldn’t tell you much more than that. You’ll hear more at the Committee meeting, if this intrigues. A year ago, I was barely able to make eye contact with anyone, let alone chat up some cute random guy. And now here I am sharing one of my most intimate secrets with a total stranger.”
She glanced at her watch. “I have to get to work.”
I felt suddenly panicked, like if she left I might never see her again. “Now what? What do I do?”
“Are you interested?”
“Yes! No! A little. Oh … I need to think about it.”
“Take your time. If you decide to accept the offer, call me. I’ll arrange everything. And then … it’ll all begin.”
What would begin, and how, and with whom, and where? And how often? And what time of day? The control freak in me needed to map this out carefully. I had to have all the exits covered and the downsides discussed, everything measured and weighed and balanced out. As a kid I stood on the end of every dock and pool for much longer than the other kids, brow knitted in deep contemplation. Could I see the bottom? Could I touch it? If not, I didn’t leap. And now, here was an offer from this confident, assured woman who claimed to once have been as lost and confused as I was now.
We went to the cash register, passing a flustered Elizabeth, who was manning the floor alone. I mouthed I’m sorry, pointing theatrically to Cassie as she walked in front of me.
“I’m glad you liked the bracelet and earrings, Cassie,” I said, a little too loud, while punching in the purchase. What was I trying to camouflage?
“Think about everything I said,” Cassie whispered, handing me her credit card along with her personal card, her name and number beneath the word S.E.C.R.E.T. At the door, she gave me a quick wave, then disappeared down Magazine Street towards the French Quarter. I pulled my sweater in a tight hug around me.
Did I want to continue working seven days a week, opening up then closing an empty store to go home to an empty apartment and an empty fridge? Did I want to live life with nothing to look forward to? I looked down at her card. For once, I wasn’t going to make an easy decision difficult. First thing tomorrow, I’d call her. Right after I finished with the estate-sale boxes. But before the lunch crowd. Or maybe later, when the store was quieter. Or maybe when Elizabeth started her shift. Or before I opened the store. Yeah. That’s when I’d do it. I’d call her then.
5
CASSIE
WE DIDN’T GET a lot of customers in that quiet time between lunch and dinner, when the staff was whittled down to just me waiting for Tracina to spell me off. And we definitely didn’t get a lot of handsome six-foot six-inch African-American district attorneys in three-thousand-dollar suits coming into the Café Rose at that hour. But Carruthers Johnstone was campaigning for re-election, his face on billboards all over town. I told myself he was probably there to drop off pamphlets. But when he asked if a “pretty little black gal, long legs, about ye high”—he held his hand at his chest—worked at the Café, my brain started humming.
I knew exactly who he was: the guy I’d seen Tracina straddling in that dark garage after the Revitalization Ball, the night I fell under Pierre Castille’s charms. While nearly naked in the back of Pierre’s limo, I spotted Tracina, her arms and legs around this man, kissing him against a big white Escalade. Ever since, I’d tried to put that scene out of my mind, filing it under “absolutely none of my business.” But now this “business” was standing right in front of me, wiping his brow and looking around the Café uneasily.
“Tracina’s not in. May I mention who is looking for her?” I played dumb, afraid of becoming somehow complicit in whatever drama he had brought through those doors.
“Yes … uh, tell her Carr came by. Give her this,” he said, handing me a card.
Carr? She called him Carr?
Oh, I will, I wanted to say, but instead muttered, “Sure,” slipping his card into my pouch. As tempting as it was to pry further, the less I involved myself with Tracina’s problems, the easier my life would be.
But now “Carr’s” card was sharing space with Mark Drury’s phone number, which had been burning a hole in my apron for four days. I had written it out on a little piece of paper because Will didn’t like us to carry around our cell phones on shift. But now it was becoming faded with all the folding and unfolding. I kicked myself for not insisting he take my number too. But I wanted to make the first move for the first time in my life. I had asked him for his number, hadn’t I? One whole week had gone by since I’d met him on the patio at Ignatius’s. That was also the day I first met Dauphine, and it had taken her a day to call me and accept the life-changing offer of joining S.E.C.R.E.T.