Marie Adeline - Secret Shared

I want Jesse. I want Will. Do I want Will? And who’s to say Will even wants me after all this drama, or that he’ll want any woman, for that matter? Besides, he probably thinks I’m now swimming in men. First, a lanky musician comes by the restaurant, and now some other punk drops coffee off for me. I had to laugh right then and there. Imagine if Will thought I was a “player,” or worse, a “slut,” a word that Matilda banned … but still. There was something in his eyes just now that had sent a chill my way.

So I did what I always did when I couldn’t think about a thing straight. I started walking. I walked the ten blocks towards the Mansion and the only person who’d ever offered me clarity.

It was a Sunday, but Matilda was there. And she was alone.

“Know anything about corporate charitable tax deductions?” she said instead of hello.

I followed her into her office, where half a dozen ledgers lay spread out on her desk.

“’Fraid not. Are you in the middle of something?”

“Oh, just cooking the books. Trying to figure out operating costs. How much longer we can stay afloat. How’s the baby? Is she just dreamy?”

“Tiny and cute, yes.”

“Has Dauphine called you yet?”

“My phone was off, the battery’s dead. Oh my god! Her Mark fantasy was last night! I completely forgot! How did it go? Did you talk to her?”

“She left here about an hour ago.”

I noted the time. Almost two in the afternoon.

“An eighteen-hour fantasy? So … I take it went well?”

“Maybe a little too well.”

She filled me in on all the juicy details, and I had to admit I was envious. And though I had known Mark was her type, I had no idea they were both so ripe for something deeper, and so soon.

“It happened to Pauline two years ago with a recruit,” Matilda said. “Same sort of thing. But Pauline stayed. Dauphine’s out, I’m sad to say. Mark too. They both seem very happy … And now I have a feeling we’re going to lose you too. Am I right?”

“You mean to Jesse? We’re not there. Not yet. Or do you mean with Will? With Will, that would be a non-starter.”

“Are you sure?”

I filled her in on the paternity drama and the strange conundrum I faced. Will or Jesse? I couldn’t have both.

“Has Will asked you to be with him?”

“No.”

“Has Jesse?”

“Kind of. I mean, he’s, we’re … it’s good, you know? I really like Jesse and the sex is amazing. But I think … I think I love Will.”

“Have you told Will this?”

“No.”

She steepled her fingers in thought.

“Well, what are you waiting for? You can’t keep catching him between women, Cassie.”

“But what about Jesse?”

“Something tells me Jesse will survive. And he always has a home here.”

My stomach dropped at the thought of him with anyone else. Matilda had a soft spot for him, that I knew. What have I done? What do I do?

“When you have it sorted, let us know. I was hoping you’d join the Committee next. At least with your vote we might finally get a redheaded man past the initial selection round. Meanwhile, these were just mailed to the press and other important guests,” she said, sliding open a drawer. She handed me an invitation. “I hope you can make it. And be sure to bring a date. Either one of them.”

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

at

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.

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.”

“Thanks. I can probably handle the floor on my own tonight,” I said.

“Oh good. I want to go see the baby.”

I almost blurted out everything that had happened at the hospital between her uncle and her almost-aunt, but this was officially now a family issue, something she’d have to navigate with Will.

While helping Claire prep and blanche the carrots, I thought about Dauphine and Mark, probably passed out somewhere, arms and legs entwined. I envied their seeming certainty, Dauphine’s decisiveness to just grab this man and go with it. But sometimes people just know; it’s in their nature. When that option was available to me, to test the waters with Jesse outside of S.E.C.R.E.T., I was only on my third Step. I was certain of a connection with him, but I hadn’t yet made one with myself.

Had I now? How well did I know myself: my body, my mind and my heart? Maybe the better questions were, where did these three things overlap and where did they remain separate? S.E.C.R.E.T. dealt in pleasures of the body, an area of my life I’d always ignored. I had lived so far in my head I had also let my heart atrophy. Mark and I had definitely made a physical connection. Jesse and I had too. Plus, he was making quiet inroads into my heart. But Will had long ago conquered all three. I loved his body, his mind and his heart, never more so than today, when his absence not only preoccupied me but pained me physically, as I imagined him somewhere sad and alone.