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She started sobbing anew, her head bowed forward, the weight of her dreads pulling it low. Dell poked her head out back, ignoring the sadness coming off our little scene.
“Meat delivery’s here. They want a check,” Dell said, eyeing Claire with concern.
“Okay. Be right there.”
I turned back to Claire and placed both my hands on her arms, centering her in front of me so she would listen clearly.
“Go home, Claire. We’ll figure this out. But you have to tell your uncle Will.”
“I can’t.”
“Then let me talk to him tomorrow when he comes in. What’s being done and said about you, we have to find a way to let these girls know they can’t do that. It’s the only way.”
She nodded, her mouth and nose now covered by her apron. I wanted to fold her up and put her in my pocket forever. I wanted to protect her from the world’s cruelty. Instead, I kissed her on the temple and went back inside, leaving her alone to smoke another cigarette and pull herself together. I had never wanted kids of my own, yet mothering this one seemed to come to me so easily and felt so good.
Later that night, mid-shift, after carting up plates for busy waiters who were in the weeds and stirring sauces while Dell plated some beautiful langoustines, I had a moment of clarity. I used to let people bully me, too, for years. I never believed that I had a say or a voice. I thought bullying was something to be tolerated, first from my sad, repressed family, then from my drunk of a husband. But I got over that kind of thinking and Claire would too. I had found a purpose and a meaning in my life, and I could help her find that too. She would come to see that life was bigger and brighter than the shit she was going through in high school. If I couldn’t stop the bullying she was being subjected to, at least I would help her see that things could get better later. She had to believe a better world was waiting for her.
At the end of our busiest, craziest shift yet, Dell and I perched on bar stools, brandy snifters in hand, panting a little at what we’d accomplished.
“I think that was the best night we’ve had,” I said, clinking her glass. “And it’s not even Mardi Gras.”
“When you dropped that beautiful langoustine—I know you were thinking about wiping it on your apron and putting it back on that plate.”
“I was not! I would never do that, Dell!”
She gave me a sidelong look and we both burst out laughing.
“I did almost do that. I panicked!”
“You did great tonight, Cassie. A real restaurateur,” she said, exaggerating the Frenchness of the word.
I almost cried.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. When I saw it was a text from Will, my heart leapt from my rib cage. I wished he had been there that night, had seen me handling everything so calmly and competently.
He wrote: You still at work?
Oh dear. What was this? A booty call?
I am. We had a great night tonight! Best yet. What’s up?
I stared at the screen, heart racing, waiting for a reply. The phone rang instead. It was him.
“Cassie,” Will said, not sounding like Will. “I’m at the hospital. Can you come? It’s Claire. Something happened.”
SOLANGE
I was always happy when Mardi Gras was over, though one never said that out loud in New Orleans. There were a few of us closeted haters, Marsha being the only one in the newsroom who was out and proud of her disdain.
“Mardi Gras gives me a month-long ice cream headache of the soul,” she said, checking her teeth for parsley. We often ate lunch in her corner office, mostly to avoid listening to Bill Rink bleat on and on about his post-divorce sex life.
Mardi Gras meant more stories to report on, most of them nasty, most happening after midnight, at the tail end of our twelve-hour days. That’s why, for the first time, Matilda sent my Step Five card to work instead of home. The courier found me in Marsha’s office. As I signed for the thick envelope, I felt my face redden.
“Did you win the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes?” Marsha asked.
“With my luck it’s probably a subpoena,” I said, ducking out to avoid giving a straight answer.
Behind the closed door of my office, I opened the envelope. Inside was a sturdy card inviting me to the “Mansion after Dark.” There was also a heavy glove box wrapped in silver paper with a black bow. It wasn’t a pair of gloves inside, but rather a set of brushed silver handcuffs. Holy shit. Looking through the glass at the bustling newsroom, I discreetly shoved the box onto my lap. Keeping my head down, I poked through the tissue to better examine the cuffs. My assistant, Denise, stuck her head through my door and I dropped the cuffs on the carpet beneath me like they were on fire. Luckily my desk hid whatever it was that made that metallic thud.
