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S.E.C.R.E.T. cordially invites you to a public unveiling of our Major New Charity Initiative, Benefiting Underprivileged Women and Children in NOLA
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Latrobe’s on Royal
Black Tie
I was shocked to see S.E.C.R.E.T. written in that familiar curly font on a public invitation.
“Matilda! That’s the group’s name. I mean, you put S.E.C.R.E.T. out there so boldly! I couldn’t bring Will to this. He’d start asking questions. He’d be all What’s this stand for, Cassie?”
“Oh, that. Don’t worry. We’re giving away the money we raise under S.E.C.R.E.T.’s official name, the one that’s on the books: The Society for the Encouragement of Civic Responsibility and Equal Treatment. See? You can surely belong to that group, can’t you?”
She turned around one of the ledgers to show me where official invoices and receipts indicated its full name, not the one I was used to.
“We pay our taxes. We have a mortgage. We’re good citizens. And when people ask us what we do, we say we improve the lives of women in need. You’re safe to bring someone like Will to a public event like this; we take our anonymity very seriously. And of course, there’d be none of these concerns if you chose to bring Jesse instead.”
“That kind of sums up my predicament.”
“Indeed. But what a wonderful predicament. I’d call it progress,” she said. “Wouldn’t you?”
Indeed.
CASSIE
AFTER MY MEETING with Matilda, I was bone-weary, but I knew Dell was probably a walking corpse by now, having closed the Café the night before and opened it today. So instead of crawling into bed, I showered, changed and took the long way to work to check up on Will.
His truck wasn’t at his place in Bywater or parked in front of or behind the Café, and he wasn’t answering his phone, so I assumed he had taken a drive somewhere to clear his head—or to cry openly, for longer than he was able to with me.
The restaurant was empty. Claire burst out of the kitchen in an artfully placed hairnet that did little to contain her blond dreadlocks, her hands coated in oil and bits of kale. I liked her open, guileless face, and how a few weeks living at Will’s had removed her sullenness, turning her into a full-blown chatty teen. She was growing on Dell too, who taught her food prep right away, something that had taken her months to show me.
“Where’s that disinfectant hand soap? The pink stuff Dell uses.”
“I’ll show you,” I said. “Are you by yourself?”
“Yeah. Dell was of no use to me after the lunch rush and went home.”
For seventeen, she was mature beyond her years, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing, I decided. Sure I was sexually stunted (well into my thirties), but Claire and her new friends from school were unsettlingly accelerated. They scared me a little when they came into the Café with their smoking and piercings, their seductive “selfies” and their casual “sexting.”
A week ago I had asked Claire how she could be a vegan and smoke.
“For the same reason you can be nosy and nice,” she teased.
I felt around on the shelf above the sink, found the bottle of pink disinfectant soap lying on its side and squirted some on her hands.
“Has Will been by?”
“Haven’t seen him,” she said, drying her hands on her legs and immediately checking her vibrating phone.
Will let her carry it around in her waitress pouch. His reasoning was that she didn’t talk on it, only checked texts, so it wasn’t as rude. I told him if she worked upstairs that wouldn’t be allowed.
“Nor the piercings,” I said to him.
“Fine, you’ll be the boss. You’ll make the rules,” he had said.
Still, Claire was a hard worker, so I didn’t complain. And she was a natural in the kitchen.
“I got a head-start on salad prep,” she said. “Kale’s done. I’ll tackle the carrots next.”
