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“Thank you. Though I’m beginning to worry that maybe opening on New Year’s wasn’t the best idea.”
Just then more guests crowded the top of the stairs. Before I had a chance to break from Matilda to greet them, Will was upon then, instructing some guests where to hang their coats, showing others to the bar.
“Well, judging from the turnout, it was the best idea ever.”
Matilda paused for a moment to marvel over the mint juleps placed before us on a tray. I grabbed one, sucking it back so fast I gave myself an instant headache.
“You drank that like a thirsty trucker,” she said, carefully lifting a glass off the tray.
“I’m a nervous wreck,” I said.
“Well, you don’t look rattled.”
“Tracina’s here too,” I said. “She’s downstairs. With the baby.”
“Wonderful. I just love to start a new year with a bit of forgiveness for old transgressions. It’s very good for the skin. Speaking of flesh, there is an interesting opportunity coming up in S.E.C.R.E.T. I thought I’d offer it to you first.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “We can talk about it tomorrow,” she said. “But I think it will be great fun.”
Angela bounded up to us, wearing a chic pantsuit, her hair scalloped and pinned like a flapper’s.
“Were you just talking about fun?” she asked, plucking the olive out of her drink. “Because it is here.”
After a few minutes, I left Matilda chatting with Angela and went to poke around downstairs. I found Tracina in the kitchen marveling over Dell’s delicious dishes, and Dell and Maureen marveling over the delicious baby. I smiled at the scene. Everything felt so right, so good, so full of love and promise after all those secrets and lies. I had a sudden desperate urge to be at Will’s side, and when I left them to go back upstairs, I was kind of shocked to find a party in full, pre-midnight countdown. Couples began to pair off in the dark. I looked around and finally spotted Will, who was wildly gesturing to me.
Had he been looking for me?
I took a deep breath and made that long, anxious walk across the room, cursing the crowds, remembering back when it was just us, that first time on the old ratty mattress after the burlesque show, and again, not so long ago on a different mattress in this same room …
“… TEN, NINE …”
To say that brief walk towards him was an out-of-body experience would not be an exaggeration.
“… FIVE, FOUR …”
His face looked so expectant, his smile so open to me.
“… THREE, TWO …”
“… ONE!”
I landed next to Will just as a flood of lights hit us, so bright and intense I had to use my hand as a visor to protect my eyes. What the hell? Oh! Right! The camera’s spotlight. This was the interview. Will had been calling me over not for a new year’s kiss but for an interview with an impossibly young, impossibly cute female TV producer.
“Cassie, happy new year! So nice to meet you!” the producer said, pushing back her thick, hipster grandpa glasses.
Will and I stood next to each other with the stiffness of the couple in American Gothic as the camera panned over the dark crowd to us.
“Get close!” the producer yelled over the jubilation in the background.
Will threw an awkward arm around me. I looked up at his face, but his eyes remained firmly fixed on the producer. I pulled my lips into a tense smile.
“So … we’re rolling. Tell us where we are tonight, Will!” she yelled.
“We’re at the opening of our new restaurant, Cassie’s, an upscale comfort food experience on Frenchmen!”
“I hear you named the restaurant after this lovely woman standing next to you. She must be very special.”
“Cassie’s my business partner!” he said, giving me a jocular jolt, like you would a sister or a classmate. “She owns half the place, so it’s not like I had a choice!”
