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I stalled. “There’s a new candidate?”
“Not yet,” she said, “but I met someone intriguing at the charity event last night.”
“Who?”
“I haven’t approached her yet. But Jesse’s rejoined, so I’m sure that—”
“Jesse’s back in S.E.C.R.E.T.?” Why did this slightly sicken me?
“Yes, he is.”
“When did that happen? I thought he quit too.”
“He did. But then he was also feeling at loose ends after you two ended it, and he decided to come back to a place that gave him comfort and distraction and a little joy. S.E.C.R.E.T. helped you get over lost love, didn’t it?”
“It did.”
“And it can help you again, if you let it. Besides, this is our last go-around. I’m afraid we’ve run out of money, and after our next candidate S.E.C.R.E.T. must shut its doors.”
I glanced around my tiny attic apartment in the Spinster Hotel and at Dixie now lazily pawing dust motes in the sun.
“I don’t have much to give,” I said.
“Think about it,” Matilda advised. “Meanwhile, don’t quit a good job over a bad relationship. Never give any man that much power. There are opportunities buried in all this heartbreak. You just have to look for them.”
SOLANGE
I had spent that lazy Sunday morning with the papers, sipping coffee in bed while Gus lay splayed at my feet, playing video games, something I never let him do on my TV. I even joined him for a round of Wii Tennis.
“You’re holding the thing wrong,” he said, adjusting my paddle. “But that’s okay. Everybody does it different.”
What can I say? We lost track of time, something I don’t normally do, so when noon rolled around I found myself tearing through my closet, plucking shoes and blouses and throwing them on my bed in a big colorful pile. I was late! Again!
The news network had scheduled our billboard photos that afternoon, citing that appointment as the only one the fancy new photographer had available. I was bitter about having to work on a Sunday, even though posing for pictures was hardly the most difficult part of my job. Luckily the shoot was in the Warehouse District where Julius lived, so I planned to drop off Gus on the way. Julius offered to keep him overnight and take him to school the next day, something I usually balked at. But this time I let him do a little extra. Why not? I told myself. He wants to. Let him.
In the weeks that followed that sexy afternoon with the handyman, I’d slacked off more than I had my whole life. Now and again I’d get lost in a daydream, but the kind that happened to my whole body, not just in my head. I also caught myself strutting, walking the halls and edit suites at the TV station like there was a pulsing, sexy soundtrack playing in my head. My heels clacked, my hips swayed. I felt a new sense of rhythm taking root in my body, a feeling I remembered from my singing days in college.
I found myself in elevators, alone, holding on to the rail behind me, singing to myself, rocking slightly while I flashed back to the tub, the water, the steam, the sweaty wineglass, the suds dripping down Dominic’s arms and thighs, my arms and thighs. Good lord. I’d had good sex, and I was to have more sex, any time now, an idea that filled me with tingly anticipation. Best part? I didn’t have to work for it. I didn’t have to primp and flirt; I didn’t have to endure agonizing dates or jeopardize my public reputation; and I didn’t have to court rejection. Most important, I didn’t have to introduce anyone new to my son. This was just for me, the Formidable Solange Faraday—
“Mom! You’re gonna be late.” It was Gus puncturing another daydream.
“Almost ready, baby!” I said, taking a fistful of blouses out of my closet and throwing them on the bed.
The Warehouse District was one of my favorite neighborhoods in New Orleans. I’d always thought that after Gus went off to college (assuming he didn’t go to Loyola or Tulane), I’d sell the house and move into some kind of cool loft, but Julius beat me to it. Four years ago, he renovated a twenty-five-hundred-square-foot space on the fourth floor of an old rope factory. At first I was worried that there was no yard or green space where Gus could play. Then I worried about big windows with old sashes, the kind that can come crashing down on a curious child’s little body. But I got over my fears when I saw what Julius had built in that wide-open space: an indoor jungle gym with climbing ropes and mats. Plus the place was big enough that Gus could actually learn how to cycle upright on a bike, indoors. After conquering circles on the floor of his dad’s loft, Gus felt confident enough to take to the bike paths in the park. I was grateful Julius had done the hard part of running behind the bike at a clip before launching him. My job was now to walk behind him clutching my sweater, yelling at him to be careful.
I surveyed the pile of clothes on my bed. Jewel tones and bright colors look best on camera, so my closet looked like a storage locker for UN flags. I had to come up with six looks for the staged and awkward group shot of the network’s four anchors, Jeff, Tad, Bill Rink, the weather guy (and resident asshole), Marsha Lang, and me.
Marsha was the network’s star, and also my mentor and friend. As the first female African-American news anchor in New Orleans, she had won a Peabody for her editorials on Anita Hill’s testimony in the Clarence Thomas hearings. But she was well into her sixties now, and claimed to be hearing the clock tick on her career. But far from treati
ng me like her competition, she took me under her wing and considered me her successor.
Every year I wore a black skirt and black heels, from which I had no less than eleven pairs to choose, all varying heights and toe curves, some rounded, some pointed, each with a purpose. The four-inch stilettos were for when I anchored at the glass-bottomed weekend desk, the three-inch platforms for my stand-ups in front of official buildings, and the two-inch heels with the rounded toes for running after indicted members of city council or the Louisiana state legislature.
“Mom!” Gus said again.
“Listen, guy, I know!” I yelled back. “Why don’t you come help me pick out my clothes for work pictures?”
Why was he so worried about my being late? He was an anxious kid. Was it because of the divorce? Julius said he had been like that as a kid, which I found a little comforting. But one of Gus’s teachers once said he was a “too-serious little boy,” to which I replied, “What does that even mean? Maybe that’s just his character.”
