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“How are you feeling?”
That was the only thing I could ever think to ask her these days.
“The first three months were a bitch, but I’m heading into my second trimester and I’m feeling great now.”
“Someone came by to see you today. A Carson Johnstone or something,” I said, intentionally mangling his name while avoiding her eye contact. I handed her his card. “Big guy. Expensive suit.”
Tracina’s face tried very hard to stay placid. I whipped off my dirty T-shirt and pulled a clean one out of my locker. We faced each other, both in our bras.
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing. I said you weren’t in.”
“What did he say? Did he say he was coming back?” She spoke slowly, but her voice was pitched high; she was either very happy or very sad. I couldn’t tell which.
“He just said, ‘Tell her Carr came by.’”
She blinked for several seconds, shook her head and then changed the subject back to me, her voice normal again.
“So, Cassie, how are you doing these days? We never get a chance to talk. It’s like we’re ships in the night or something.”
She was being friendly, eerily so.
“Fine. I’m fine. And you’re fine. And Will seems fine too, which is great. We’re all fine, I guess,” I said, reapplying deodorant.
“I guess we are. And you’re right, Will is super happy. That’s for sure. But he’s also very anxious about the baby. Worrying about my health. So much so he’s, like …” She stepped closer to me and lowered her voice, cupping her hand around her mouth. “He’s … afraid to have sex with me. I mean it’s not like we don’t have sex. We do. But not as much as I would like, and—”
“Okay!” I held up a hand to stop this information from coming any closer to my brain.
“He thinks it’s going to hurt the baby—”
“Whoa. I don’t need to know that either. I mean … he’s my boss.”
“But you’re my friend, Cassie. Friends tell each other everything,” she said, plucking her waitressing pouch off the top shelf of her locker.
Friends? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. We were many things—colleagues, co-workers, rivals—but the last thing I ever would have expected was for Tracina to consider me a friend.
“Don’t friends keep each other’s secrets?” she went on, securing her pouch below her belly. “Sometimes my friends tell me other people’s secrets. But it’s by accident, of course. Have you ever done that?”
Her tone chilled me. Who were her friends? Angela Rejean and Kit DeMarco, to name a couple. They had danced together for several years in a row in Les Filles de Frenchmen Revue. I knew Kit babysat Tracina’s brother Trey now and again, and Angela offered to host Tracina’s baby shower. These three women had history. Lots of it. And though Kit, Angela and I shared S.E.C.R.E.T., who’s to say the bond Tracina shared with these woman was any less sacred?
Tracina cocked her head. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Cassie. What’s on your mind?”
Wanna know what’s on my mind? I wanted to scream. The endless ways in which I’d like your boyfriend to fuck me.
“Nothing.”
I applied some lip-gloss in the mirror next to her.
“Hot date?” she asked.
“Actually … yes,” I said, lying. But in a way not lying. I would call Mark. I would have a date with him. That wasn’t a lie.
“Ooh, with who?”
“Just some guy I met.”
“Anyone special?”
