Talk to him, I thought to myself. Just go up to him after the show and tap him on the shoulder and say, Hey Mark, when I feel like drinking alone, I watch you.
Smack. I’d sound like a crazy person.
I love watching you in the dark when I’m by myself.
Ew.
I like to watch you move.
Wrong. All wrong. I truly was turning peculiar.
I tried not to stare through the glass too long as Mark Drury took a seat at the bar inside. I cursed Elizabeth for telling me to leave the store. I cursed myself for wearing a dark blue dress on a hot spring day. But my gumbo had arrived, so I was committed. Plus, what if he had a girlfriend? You’re just talking to him. You’re just saying, Hey, love your work.
A few minutes later, the bartender handed him a takeout coffee and a wrapped sandwich. Bag pinned between his lips, newspaper held in his armpit, he pulled several napkins from a stainless steel dispenser near the door and headed straight for me. In my head, I was screaming, Here! Sit with me! But my eyes were shaded by my giant sunglasses. I was like a fish, mouth opening and closing, pressed up against the silencing aquarium glass.
Then, before I knew it, he was sitting at the table next to me, joining some dark-haired woman who had an empty seat at her table. They introduced themselves and fell into an easy banter as they ate. Watching him grin at her, making her laugh, hurt my stomach. I regarded my imaginary rival as discreetly as I could. She was pretty and fit, but I bet she didn’t know that Mark had chosen the band name the Careless Ones from The Great Gatsby, a book she’d probably never read, having cribbed notes in junior high from people like me. Bet she wouldn’t even like Mark’s music. Minutes later I watched him say goodbye to her by punching his number into her phone, imagining that he was giving it to me.
What happened to me? Where did I go?
“Are you okay?”
Had I said that out loud? I had said it out loud … directly to the dark-haired woman who’d been talking to Mark Drury and was now sitting alone. She stood, picked up a glass of water from her table and moved in slow motion towards me. She placed the glass in front of me, a concerned look on her face.
“Are you okay?” she asked again.
To this day, I have no idea why I said yes when she asked if she could join me; I so rarely spoke to strangers. But as my mother would say, “Some things are fatefully divine and some are just divinely fated.”
3
CASSIE
IT WAS INEVITABLE. Will and I both tried to avoid being alone, but the Café Rose was small with narrow hallways and dark corners.
“Thanks for staying late, Cassie,” Will said, the night the drywall got delivered. He’d asked me to watch for the truck.
“I wanted to.”
“Wonder if you could do me one more favor.”
“Sure,” I said. “What is it?”
“You know what it is,” he answered, his voice barely above a whisper. Crossing his arms, he leaned back on the cool glass door of the fridge.
“Is it this?” I asked, loosening the clasp on my apron and letting it fall to the floor.
“Yes. That’s it. Can you do me another favor?”
“I can,” I said, my voice so choked with longing I sounded underwater. I slowly lifted my shirt over my head, my hair cascading through the neck hole. I threw it down to the tiles. I wasn’t wearing a bra.
“Is it this?”
“Yes … you are … so beautiful,” he murmured. My skin had that effect on him and I knew it.
“Your turn,” I whispered.
Without hesitating, he whipped off his shirt and threw it near mine, his hair shocked upwards. Then he shoved off his jeans, leaving his white boxers on. This was our game.
“I won’t touch you. I promise,” he said. “I just want to look at you. That’s not wrong.”
I undid my jeans and stepped out of them, hooking my thumbs in the strings of my bikini underwear. He nodded slightly, aching for me to take those off too. I hesitated, looking out at the pitch-black street. What time was it? How long had we been alone in here like this? I inched my underwear down around my thighs and brought them to the floor. I was now naked.
“Come closer, Cassie. I want to smell your skin.”
“No touching.”
“I know.”
I took a few steps towards him. Six inches from his bare chest, I stopped. At that distance I could feel our body heat mingling, his hot breath on my skin.
I let my hand travel up to my breast, cupping it for him, letting my thumb circle my nipple. A moan escaped his throat as he extended a hand. I stepped back.
“You promised,” I whispered.
“I won’t touch you. But you can touch yourself, Cassie. That’s not against the rules.”
True. I let my other hand travel down across my stomach, the muscle in my forearm flinching as I tentatively felt myself, how wet he was making me, relishing how insanely excited this was making him.
“This is too much, I can’t,” he said.
He was crazed. That’s the only way to explain why, with one deft forearm, he swept the condiment table next to us clean of the bowls and utensils, the trays of salt and pepper shakers, the ashtrays that hold sugar packets, the napkin holders—it all went crashing to the floor. Any other time I would have been pissed. But that night I was thrilled by his impatience, his ferocity. He spun me around and urged me down onto the table, my arms stretched to hold the edges.
“You said you weren’t going to touch me, Will.”
“I’m not going to touch you. I’m going to fuck you,” he groaned, pulling my knees apart and standing naked between my spread thighs. He now held his heavy erection in his hand, stroking it, his fierce eyes on me as he prodded into my wetness, a hesitant inch, then another one, teasing, making me yearn and reach, asking, begging for him to fuck me, to fuck me hard, Oh, Will, my quivering thighs bracketing his narrow hips, my nails digging into his forearms as he—
“Excuse me. Is this seat taken?”
Oh shit, my fantasy broke like a bubble. A man—a real one—now stood looming over my metal patio table at Ignatius’s, his face shadowed from behind by the high, hot sun.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “The patio’s full and I noticed you have a table for four all to yourself. Very selfish.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry. Yes, of course,” I said, plucking my purse from one of the chairs at my table. I must have looked like a dozy ape, chomping on an ice cube and staring into the middle distance, fantasizing about Will—again. This bad habit had to stop or I would drive myself mad.
“I’ll just eat my sandwich and drink my coffee and read my paper,” he said. “And we can pretend we’re not sharing a table for lunch.”
“Good plan.”
He had mischievous blue eyes, and though normally I didn’t like beards, even short, groomed ones, his was sexy.
“We wouldn’t want to speak or make eye contact over food. That would be weird.”
“And awkward,” I continued. “Not to mention rude.”
“Disgusting.”
“The way people eat together and talk to each other. Over meals!” I added with a shudder.
There was a beat, and then we both broke character, laughing.
“I’m Cassie,” I said, extending my hand. The thought occurred to me that I never would have been capable of such banter just a few months earlier, before I’d been introduced to S.E.C.R.E.T. I had changed.
“Mark. Mark Drury.”
Flaky hipsters have never been my type. But this one had a nice smile and a great Cajun accent. Add those blue eyes and strong, lean hands …
“Lunch break?” he asked, folding his long legs under the table.
“Kind of. You?”
“Breakfast time for me.”
“Late night?”
“Occupational hazard. I’m a musician.”
“Get out! In New Orleans?”
“Strange, I know. And you?�
�
“I’m a waitress.”
“What are the odds?”
There was that smile again.
Naturally, easily, we carried on the conversation, about the instruments he played (he was a singer, played bass, taught a little piano on the side) and the Café, where I worked (he knew it, hadn’t been in a while). The next stage when talking to someone who relies on tourism in this town was to discuss the awful necessity of the awful tourists, before exchanging information about the places these awful tourists don’t really know about. We accomplished that in about twenty minutes, enough time for Mark, who looked a little younger than me, maybe thirty on account of his messy brown hair and his beige leather Vans and his fitted jeans and his faded red T-shirt with the name and number of an auto body shop, to eat his sandwich and drink half his coffee, then wipe his hands on his napkin and get up to leave. Musicians do have the nicest hands. I’ve heard it said that the hand is part of the instrument …
“Wait,” I said, “do you want to try having lunch together sometime? We can do like today, no talking, no eye contact, just two strangers not eating a meal together.” Holy shit. Did I say those words?
“Um. Sure,” he said, laughing. “You seem harmless enough.”
Yes, harmless, unless you count the fact that almost two months ago I danced nearly naked on a stage for strangers, had sex with my boss, was gut-checked in the morning by his pregnant girlfriend, then joined a secret organization dedicated to helping women realize their sex fantasies with total strangers. Yes. Harmless.
“Okay, well … give me your number,” I said, digging in my purse for my phone. He took it from me and punched in his number.
“Okay. Nice not really meeting you, Cassie, and not eating lunch with you or talking to or knowing anything about you,” he said, extending a hand towards me.
I laughed as he turned to leave, glancing at me over his shoulder once. Wow. That was so … easy. Is this what recruiting is like? I basked for a moment in my newfound courage. I did that. I actually asked a man out for the first time in my life, a cute one at that. But why was that almost as hard as half the things I did last year, naked, in front of men I’d never met before? This is the sort of thing—men, dating, sex—that required practice. My year of fantasies had helped me understand that, though it might also have been the fantasy I was having when Mark sat down that prompted me to do what I did.
I was leaning back in my chair feeling proud, when I heard murmuring next to me. I looked around to see a red-haired young woman, wearing giant bug-eyed sunglasses, staring at me from the next table.
“What happened to me? Where did I go?” she mumbled, looking completely stunned.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Maybe she was having a stroke, I thought, picking up a glass of water and making a motion to join her. She nodded, rubbing the back of her neck. She couldn’t have been more than thirty, but she was wearing a heavy blue dress, despite the heat, and it made her look older.
“Here,” I said, placing the glass in front of her.
She gulped the water back and wiped her mouth, regaining her composure.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s never happened to me before. Maybe it’s the heat.”
“It is quite hot for early April,” I said.
“Maybe.” She took another gulp of water. “Sorry, I don’t mean to intrude, but that thing you did with that guy—asking him out? Very impressive.”
“You saw that?”
“I swear I am never this nosy. But that was hard to ignore.”
A strange compliment from a strange … stranger, but I’d take it.
“It was impressive, wasn’t it?” I said, sounding surprisingly pleased with myself.
“Well … thank you for the water and for your concern. But I’m feeling better. So I’ll just head back to work.”
She pushed up her sunglasses, grabbed her purse, and just at the moment she stood to leave, Matilda arrived. They awkwardly engaged in the “you first, no, you first” dance around the crowded patio table. The woman smashed into Matilda’s left shoulder, then her right. Finally free, it seemed she couldn’t get away from us fast enough.
Matilda and I watched her as she headed into the Funky Monkey next door. Matilda lowered herself into her chair, patting down her hair as though she’d just survived a small tornado.
“Who was that? Or what was that?”
My eyes stayed glued to the door of the store.
“I don’t know. Just a woman … I thought she was ill, so I checked on her,” I said. “But guess what?” I changed the subject with a grin. “I just asked a guy out. And the best part? He said yes!”
“Well, Happy Birthday to you, indeed!”
“Yeah, and that woman, she treated me like I was some kind of celebrity just for asking a guy for his number. It was weird. She looks nothing like me, yet she reminded me a little of me last year. Kind of timid. Kind of sad. Anyway, I feel like my confidence is really growing. I think I am ready to be a Guide. Here,” I said, reaching in my bag for my pledge. “Signed, sealed and delivered.”
“Thank you for this,” she said, putting away my pledge. Her expression was suddenly thoughtful. “I wonder if perhaps we’re looking at a possible S.E.C.R.E.T. candidate.”
“You mean that woman?”
Matilda nodded.
“I don’t even know if she’s single.”
“That’s easy to find out.”
I felt my nerves fire up. “You think I should approach her? What if she thinks I’m crazy?”
“Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. You look great, by the way.”
I looked down at my outfit, nothing too “out there”—slim jeans that rested on my hips and a grey tank top under a cream corduroy jacket. I was never going to be one of those dolled-up babes who crammed Frenchmen on a Thursday night, drunkenly navigating the pocked street in treacherous heels. And I couldn’t for the life of me understand why I should put on mascara to go grocery shopping. But a year of being told I was beautiful and desirable by some of the best-looking men I’d ever laid eyes on made me want to put my best face forward.
“After lunch let’s go next door, talk a bit with that woman.”
“Today? Now?—” It was happening so fast. Why was I so nervous?
“Don’t worry, Cassie, I’ll take the lead, you follow,” Matilda said, scanning the menu.
Oh dear. Here we go.
4
DAUPHINE
I COULD NOT get away from Ignatius’s fast enough. Back at the store, I darted past Elizabeth to my office and slammed the door behind me, lifting my sunglasses to peer into the makeup mirror on my desk. My cheeks were red from my encounter with that dark-haired woman on the patio. For the first time, I spotted tiny wrinkles forming around my eyes, my mother’s frown lines etching into my cheeks. Was I fading? Was my desirability leaving me for good? Mark had sat with her, not me. He had flirted with her, given his number to her, not me.
“You merely have the ‘sads,’ darling. They’re from your father’s side of the family,” I could hear my mother drawl. This was a particularly Southern take on depression, one that felt more like the burden of inheritance than anything to do with serotonin levels.
I fell into my chair and looked around my office. I had too much stuff, I knew that. But I told myself that because I was obsessively neat and obsessively organized I couldn’t be a hoarder. Everything was in its place, everything had a label, right down to the paper punch. And yet I couldn’t let go of a thing. What if I lost weight and finally fit into that one-of-a-kind purple pantsuit? What if I put together the perfect outfit for a customer but didn’t have that owl pendant that would pull it together? What if I absolutely needed something and it was longer there? Hence the six filing cabinets and wall-length closets, all filled with “marvelous finds” I could neither bring myself to wear nor bear to sell.
Shake it off, Dauphine. Shake it off.
Elizabeth stuck her head
into the office.
“Okay. Store’s empty. I quickly threw it on. Be honest,” she said, walking into the frame to reveal her long body in a black jumpsuit and white go-go boots that I had set aside for her anniversary date. “So?”
She was a teenager when I hired her part-time on weekends. She was twenty-four now, studying psychology part-time at Tulane, practicing some of her theories on me. She told me I was fear-based and rigid. I told her, while picking up five sugar grains on the glass countertop with the very tip of my index finger, that she sounded a lot like my mother.
She stood now in front of the mirror looking absolutely lovely, head to toe.
“Amazing,” I said.
“You think?”
“I do. You need a Pucci scarf. And pale lipstick,” I said, fetching both. And I was right. We moved towards the full-length mirror behind the door. I stood behind her, my chin on her shoulder. “Yes. A home run.”
“Are you sure I don’t look like a go-go dancer?”
“No! You’re breathtaking.”
“You should be the one wearing this, Dauphine,” she said, squirming. “You put it away for so long, and you have the curves for it. You keep talking about getting back out there. When is that going to happen?”
“I’m fine. And you are almost set,” I said, pulling out a lint brush from a drawer labeled “Lint Brushes.”
“I’ll wear it for the rest of the day, if that’s okay,” she said, while I finished rolling over her legs.
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