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“I don’t have time for this. I have customers.”
He brought the rod even. When I gave him the go-ahead, he quickly drilled a screw to hold it in place and stomped down the ladder.
“Okay. Are you going to stay mad at me forever?” he asked, stepping towards me. “I’m just trying to do the right thing, Cassie. But I’m at a loss when it comes to you.”
“You’re at a loss?” I hissed. “Let’s talk about loss, shall we? You lost nothing. Me? I lost everything.”
Matilda would have slapped my mouth shut. Have you learned nothing? she’d have said. Why do you paint your
self as the loser?
“You didn’t lose anything,” Will whispered. His eyes met mine, and my heart stopped beating for three whole seconds. I picked you and you picked me. “I am still here. We are still us.”
“There is no us, Will.”
“Cassie, we were friends for years. I miss that so much.”
“Me too, but … I’m just your employee now. That’s how it’s got to be. I will come to work and I will do my job and I will go home,” I said, avoiding his eyes. “I can’t be your friend, Will. And I can’t be that girl either, the one who … who hovers on the sidelines, waiting like some buzzard circling overhead, to see if your relationship with Tracina dies and turns cold.”
“Wow. Is that what you think I’m asking you to do?”
He brought the back of hand to his forehead and wiped his brow with it. His face was lined with sadness, exhaustion and maybe even resignation. A tense silence fell between us, one that made me question whether I could continue to work at the Café while my heart’s pain still existed. But I also knew this was my problem, not his.
“Cassie. I’m sorry for everything.”
Our eyes met, seemingly for the first time in weeks.
“For everything?” I asked.
“No. Not everything,” he said, quietly placing the hammer on the sawhorse and tugging his T-shirt from his belt to wipe his whole face. The sun began setting over Frenchman Street, urging me to get back downstairs and close up shop.
“Okay. You’re busy. So am I. Curtain rod looks good. My job here is done,” I said. “I’ll be downstairs cashing out if you need anything from me.”
“It’s not a matter of if I need you. You know I do.”
I’ll never know what my face looked like in that exact moment, but I imagine the flash of hope was impossible to conceal.
I went home and made a solid set of promises to myself. No more pining. No more pouting. That was yesterday.
Today was my birthday. I was meeting Matilda to talk about my new role in S.E.C.R.E.T. When you’re fresh off your own fantasies, it’s a tricky year. You’re not on the Committee. Not yet. You have to earn your spot. But you’re given a choice of three roles, and I was eager to plunge in, to have something else to do, someplace else to be, someone to think about other than Will or myself.
One of the roles was Fantasy Facilitator, a S.E.C.R.E.T. member who helped make fantasies happen, by booking travel, acting as a background player or participating in scenarios like Kit and Angela had the night of the burlesque show. Without Kit faking her injury, I wouldn’t have danced on that stage. And without Angela’s help with the sexy choreography, I would have made a complete fool of myself up there. This year they were becoming full Committee members, so those two slots were open.
I could also be a Recruiter like Pauline, the woman whose misplaced diary had originally led me to S.E.C.R.E.T. She was married, but her husband wasn’t threatened by her role as a recruiter of the men who’d participate in the fantasies, because, well, he’d once been one of them. Recruiting men for S.E.C.R.E.T. was different from training them; Pauline merely enticed them into the fold. Full-on training, or fine-tuning a recruit’s sexual skills, that was reserved for full Committee members, as was participating sexually in the fantasies—not that I was ready for that anyway. The third role was Guide, providing encouragement and support to a new S.E.C.R.E.T. candidate. There was no way I could have navigated the strange terrain of my crazy, sexy year without my Guide, Matilda. So I chose Guide, the least daunting of the three roles, though Matilda’s advice was to keep an open mind. “The most surprising opportunities could come up,” she said. Last thing left was to sign my S.E.C.R.E.T. pledge and bring it to our lunch.
I, Cassie Robichaud, pledge to serve S.E.C.R.E.T as a Guide for one term, doing whatever is within my power to ensure that all sexual fantasies are:
Safe
Erotic
Compelling
Romantic
Ecstatic
Transformative
