I punched in Mark Drury’s number with a new vigor.
“Hello?” he said in a voice that sounded like it had been stored in an oak barrel in a damp basement.
“I woke you up, didn’t I.” Oh shit.
“Yes, you did.”
“But it’s four in the afternoon.”
“Is that you, Mom? I thought you passed away eleven years ago. This is such a nice surprise,” he said, yawning.
“No, it’s not your—It’s the girl you met on the patio a few days ago. Cassie. Though, I am sorry about your mother.”
“I’m just messing with you. I know who you are, and for the record, my mother’s alive.”
Okay, I’m dealing with a jokester. I can do this.
“Wait till I tell her what you did.”
“That’s very presumptuous, assuming you’ll meet my mom before you’ve even gone out on one date with me. Where are you?”
“In the Garden District, leaving … a friend’s house,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at the Mansion, now in the distance.
“So?” I said.
“So what?”
“So … wanna hook up?”
“Right now?” he asked, choking a little on his words. “Yeah. Right now.”
“Yeah!” he said, fully awake now.
He suggested Schiro’s in a half hour. That meant no time to change, I thought, looking down at my T-shirt and jeans. And no time to change my mind. I was going to “hook up” with a guy I had just met.
A wave of nausea overcame me. Could I do this? That was what my year of S.E.C.R.E.T. was for, wasn’t it? To act as a set of sexual training wheels? It was high time they came off. I knew what my needs were. Time to get them met.
Of course Mark Drury was late. Of course he knew the cute waitress, the hot girl eating alone, the androgynous sous chef who he stopped to high-five, and the curvy bartender from whom he ordered a pitcher of beer before taking a seat opposite me at the last empty table. Schiro’s was popular with locals, the musicians and restaurant folks who ate at odd hours. It was almost 5 p.m., lunchtime for this crowd. The place was a study in plaid and piercings, and with a B & B upstairs it also had its share of international visitors. It was like a waiting room for heaven’s misfits. I suddenly felt old.
“Hi,” he said, grinning, pouring himself a glass of draft, then one for me.
I almost hadn’t recognized him at first. He’d shaved, showing off his great face to full effect.
“Hi.”
“I assume you like beer.”
“Live for it.”
He looked sleepy, his hair flattened and his green T-shirt—which set off his light blue eyes—was inside out. I had had butterflies in my stomach before he arrived, but curiously they began to calm down as soon as he sat. He’s just a guy. With needs. Like you. He snatched a menu from the table stand and studied it, stealing a glance at me every few seconds.
“Let’s get some burgers. They’re great here.”
“I haven’t been here in ages,” I said. “My ex and I used to come here for brunch when we first moved to New Orleans.”
Why did I mention Scott?
“Your ex, huh?” He snapped the menu shut. “Would that be ex-husband or ex-boyfriend?”
“Husband. But he passed away a while ago.”
“You’re not messing with me now, right? Because I really was only kidding about my mom.”
“No, I’m not kidding,” I said.
He pried no further about that.
“How have you thusly fared in our Crescent City?”
“You mean, dating-wise?” I followed that question with a big gulp of beer.
“Yeah.”
“Um. Hit and miss. You?” I asked, wiping my mouth.
“It’s hard to meet someone who likes musicians’ hours, you know?”
“And what about this? Is this a date?”
“You can call it whatever you want as long as you’re naked by the end of it.”
So bold! I tried not to register my shock. He was even bolder than my fantasy men, who all had helped me ease into things. But this was real life, as Matilda said. It was a lot riskier and messier and trickier than fantasy. In S.E.C.R.E.T., I couldn’t be rejected, I couldn’t screw up. In life those negative results were possibles, maybe even probables. But I still had S.E.C.R.E.T.’s support, and Matilda’s guidance while navigating this new terrain.
Now here was someone.
He was cute, funny and bratty. And what I had in mind was exactly what he had in mind. You can do this, Cassie.
I refilled my beer glass.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight,” he said.
I choked on my beer.
“You’re almost ten years younger than me! That’s disgusting.”
“To you maybe.”
The waitress came by. He ordered burgers for both of us.
“What if I was a vegetarian?”
“I didn’t expect you to be perfect.”
I used that moment to change the subject. I needed to catch my breath.
“So you’re a musician …”
He shrugged, playing coy at first. Then he started chatting about his band, the Careless Ones. There were four of them in the group; they’d all grown up together in Metarie. And though they started as a Dixieland punk band, whatever that was, they were veering more into blues and country.
“But half of us want to go in one direction,” he continued. “The other half in the opposite. And I’m the lead singer. Some days I feel like I’m in the middle of a custody battle for the soul of the band …”
He held his draft glass by the rim instead of its waist. His hair was damp and he smelled like apples. And his hands. Did I mention his hands? His fingers were lean, his forearms sinewy from holding guitars or microphones or signing autographs. Then he continued talking—about himself, his music, his band, his dreams, his aspirations, his influences, his inspirations. And I was spellbound. Not by his story, but by his total self-involvement. Rather than making me feel agitated, his youthful self-obsession suddenly, completely relaxed me. Maybe he was looking for my approval, but I wasn’t looking for his. I just wanted two things from him. His mouth on my mouth. His hands on my body. I just wanted with him what I’d had with my fantasy men: sex, no strings attached.
Our burgers arrived and he popped a fry in his remarkable mouth. I took a bite of my burger. Then another one. I thought the silence was a cue for him to ask about me, but he started talking again.
“I mean I didn’t, like, study music. For me it’s all about the effect on the audience. That’s the only way you measure music, by—”
“Stop talking.”
“—the way it feels when it rushes over the—”
“Stop talking.”
“—crowd.”
This time he heard me.
It was my turn to talk.
“It’s sweet how passionate you are about music, Mark. But if you want me to come upstairs with you, you’ve got to promise you’re going to use that beautiful mouth of yours for something other than talking.”
I watched his Adam’s apple rise and fall. He dipped a fry in ketchup and took a bite. Then he signaled for the bill.
Up I went, landing on the laminate counter between a tiny fridge and a tinier stove, his lean torso wedged between my thighs. Off came my T-shirt. Then he grabbed my sneakers by the heels, pulling them off too, one then the other, tossing them over his shoulders. My jeans came off next, leaving me in a black lace bra and thong. It wasn’t planned. These were lucky picks.