SECRET Revealed (26 page)

The room was so quiet I might as well have been completely alone with my screaming thoughts. When I went to open my mouth, the only thing that came out was a strangled word that sounded like “No.”

“Let me see that,” Angela said, snatching the photo from my fingers. Seconds later, she slapped a hand over her mouth, her wide eyes meeting mine. She mutely passed the photo to Kit, who did the same thing. The game stopped at Pauline, who had never met Will and didn’t know why everyone was so shocked.

“Who’s this?” she asked.

“This recruit’s name is Will,” Matilda explained to Pauline. “He is … a friend of Cassie’s.”

“Friend?”
I said, altogether too loudly. “He’s my
ex-boyfriend
. And my current business partner.”

Oh my god, am I going to faint? I’m going to faint
.

“He’s also a man,” Matilda said to me, evenly, “who I think would suit our Solange perfectly.”

Is this really happening?

“Well, this
is
interesting,” Pauline said, spinning the photo into the center of the table.

“He came to me a few days ago,” Matilda continued.

Will? Came to her?

Matilda proceeded to tell the story of one man’s awakening, Will’s, which had happened after he almost lost someone he loved because of certain conscious and unconscious prejudices some people held about women and sex. I thought she was talking about Will losing me, but he had meant Claire, whose vicious slut-shaming had been equal parts baffling and infuriating to him. Matilda described how Claire’s victimization had left Will feeling utterly powerless. And it also exposed attitudes he hoped to correct in himself. He came to Matilda, she said, because he wanted help. He wanted to do something constructive, maybe make a donation to some of the charities highlighted at the event at Latrobe’s, the very venue he had stormed out of after fighting with me.

“And that’s when I suggested that he become a recruit, as a way to open his mind and to change his attitudes about women and sex.”

“
You
suggested this to Will?”

“I did, Cassie. I explained that our organization works to remove sexual stigmas from women, one interlude at a time. And we do that with one another’s help, but also with the help of a few good men who are also changed for the better by their involvement with us.”

“
You
asked Will to become a
recruit
?” I repeated, trying really hard to contain my anger.

“Yes, Cassie,” she said, matching my near-hysteria with an enormous amount of gentleness. “I asked him to consider it. And he said yes. If we’d have him.”

I harrumphed, my arms wrapped tightly around my torso, my chin down. I was the physical embodiment of teenaged poutiness.

“He does know that I’d find out, right?”

“Of course. I told him that in order to be considered he’d have to pass muster with the entire group, including you.”

“And he didn’t care?”

“Of course he cares, Cassie. Trust me when I say this, he cares a great deal. Especially about you.”

“Ha!” I said. That outburst was followed by the sickening sense of my own emotional limitations. But it was hard to see the altruism in all this.

And yet, the more Matilda talked about recruiting Will for S.E.C.R.E.T., the more the rational part of my brain began to light up and take over.

“Will made it very clear that if you were against this idea, he’d decline,” Matilda said. “He feels that this might
be a way to make … amends. To us, to you, to women in general, I guess. That’s how he put it.”

I had to laugh. And so I did.

“The way he makes amends to me is by fucking some other woman? That is amazing.”

The approbation came swift and sure.

“Cassie Robichaud, that is not a reaction befitting a member of S.E.C.R.E.T. The ‘some other woman’ you speak of is our Solange, our sister in S.E.C.R.E.T. And last I checked, your romantic and sexual ties with Will were no more. And you, my dear, seem to be enjoying the many benefits of S.E.C.R.E.T. membership. Are you not? Besides, Will is going to start having sex again with other women regardless. What’s wrong with him starting here, where it’s just his body in the game and not his heart?”

I kept looking around the table for someone to side with me, but Kit, Pauline, Angela and the rest of them had slowly sunk in their seats, watching this like it was a tennis match on a big screen. My mind spun wildly, careening from anger to fear, to those darker places where rancid jealously brewed. Then clouds began parting on reason and a different thought occurred to me: If Will participated in S.E.C.R.E.T., saw all the wonderful things this crazy little institution offered, maybe he’d see that he’d been acting like a knucklehead all along. He’d see what sexual expression and liberation could mean to the soul. To be angry with Will was to be the hypocrite I accused him of being. To prevent his participation in S.E.C.R.E.T. because of some old fears was to admit I’d
learned nothing. And it would be tantamount to admitting I still held out hope that there was a future for us. In fact, allowing him entry into S.E.C.R.E.T. fixed so many things between us: it evened out the playing field, it gave us a common experience, and it acknowledged that S.E.C.R.E.T. was a place that helped, even healed, not just women, but men as well.

I gathered up Will’s photo in my hand.

“Matilda. Everyone … I won’t, I
can’t
offer any objections to this recruit. This recruit is, in fact, ideal for S.E.C.R.E.T. He’s a good man. He’s incredibly sexy. He is an amazing lover. And he truly adores women. So if there are no other concerns, then I see no reason to prevent moving this to a vote. You have mine.”

“Wonderful. I knew you’d see reason. Any other objections? Can I get a vote?” Matilda said.

One by one, hands shot up in a counterclockwise display of yes.

“Great. We will move forward with this recruit,” Matilda said.

That wave of nausea had barely subsided when another potent question surfaced, this time from Pauline.

“Who’s going to
train
Will?”

The room fell silent again.

“Any suggestions?” Matilda asked.

Crazy how a good idea can quickly become a bad one. Angela’s hand rose. Of
course
she would volunteer! And Will would find out what great sex really was! My blood roiled beneath the surface of my skin.

“Um,” said Angela, “I would like to excuse myself from volunteering.”

What? Did I hear her correctly?

“Why is that, Angela?” Matilda asked.

“Well, like, I
know
Will. And also, because … 
Cassie
.” She winced.

“I can’t do it either!” Kit blurted.

“Me neither!” said Michelle, Brenda adding, “I really can’t.”

Maria, Pauline and Amani’s tight expressions said everything.

“So, let me get this straight,” Matilda said. “We
all
agree Will is a perfect recruit. We are overwhelmingly unanimous on that front. And yet
no one
wants to train him?”

More silence. I felt my nails dig into the tops of my thighs. Were they exhibiting loyalty or fear?

“Well, in that case, I guess we can’t go forward with—”

“I will!” I said, a little too loudly. “I’ll do it. I’ll train him.”

Matilda looked at me. “Pardon me?”

“I can do it, Matilda,” I said.

Matilda glanced around the table once more. Everyone had turned into owls, sitting still, eyes wide.

“Will might object, Cassie.”

“I’ll deal with that then.”

Matilda eyed me carefully. “You can’t keep him, Cassie. After you train him, you have to let him go.”

“I know. I’ve done it before. I can do it again.”

Matilda sighed. “Okay then. Will Foret is our unanimous choice. And Cassie Robichaud will be his trainer.
We’ll discuss the scenario at a later date,” she said, placing the folder back into her bag.

I glanced around the table. The women looked variously impressed, worried and a little stunned. Of course it was risky; isn’t it always when it comes to sex? But deep down in the most secret part of my heart, the part I wouldn’t even reveal to myself, I hoped that by giving Will permission to join S.E.C.R.E.T., by showing him how to please another woman, then setting him free to do just that, maybe, just maybe, it would bring him back to me.

T
he guilt I felt when I said good-bye to my sweet boy in front of his dad’s building was especially potent. I had left him before, for more than a few days, but never for such an odd, decadent reason. I had told Julius the truth, kind of. I told him I had landed a coveted interview with Pierre Castille and had secured a promise from
New Orleans Magazine
for a cover story. The magazine was thrilled and even offered to cover expenses.

“Pierre Castille? You mean that rich dude who owns my building?”

“He does?” I said, forgetting momentarily that the Castilles owned half of the Warehouse District.

“I have a question for him,” Julius said. “Ask him when he’s going to upgrade our elevator system.”

“I’ll be sure to put that on my list.”

Watching Julius with Gus on the sidewalk, the both of them waving good-bye through my driver’s side window,
I felt that pang again, that awful mother’s guilt that struck me like a low-grade fever.

Later that night, while packing, I burst into tears before finally pulling myself together.
It’s just for a week! You deserve this little break! This is an adventure. You’ve snagged the mother of all interviews. Be … brave. It’s Paris! In the springtime!

And indeed, when I arrived, big, fat buds were bursting pink and white from the tiny trees outside the window of my unbearably plush suite at the Hotel George V. I glanced around the room in disbelief. With its dense red carpet, upholstered walls covered in gold damask and four-poster king-size bed, it might have been the nicest hotel I’d ever seen, let alone stayed in.

The first thing I did after checking in was to call Gus. It was late at night for me, but dusk for my boy. Julius answered from the eighth hole at the Audubon golf course.

“Hey there, just a sec,” he whispered. I could hear a
whoosh
in the background and some gleeful high-fiving. “Oh man, you should have seen that
swing
. The boy’s a natural!”

“You think we have a Tiger Woods on our hands?” I said, choking up. I missed them. I missed them
both
just then.

“Let’s hope. Then we can both retire in style, right, Gus? You got in okay?”

“Yeah, I did. It’s really beautiful here,” I said, playing with the curly phone cord, staving off the guilt.

“I bet. I’ve been picturing you there,” he said. “Walking the streets. The light on your skin …”

Things got quiet for a second, oddly so.

“Put Gus on for me?” I asked. Gus’s ebullience helped break the potent little spell that hung over his dad and me for a second.

“Mom! I sunk the ball in four shots! Dad says that’s amazing for my first time. Can I take golf lessons? It’s so cool you’re in Paris! I want to go next time. Maybe I should learn French. I know, I know, Spanish is important, but it’s not so different and besides …”

Gus always seemed charged with a special kind of energy when he got to spend long stretches with his dad. Boy energy. I loved it. After a good talk, we hung up, my heart a little less heavy.

Everything came to a quiet halt for a second as I sat on the edge of the downy bed.
Be here
, I told myself.
Don’t be in New Orleans, be here. Gus is fine. He’s with his dad. Let it go. It’s only temporary
.

I was wrapped in a towel waiting for the bath to fill. I would soon be eating mussels in wine with a nice Chablis, my feet encased in slippers. Matilda had told me whatever I needed was on the other end of a phone, answered by someone who would say, “
Bonsoir
, Madame Faraday!” (I didn’t have the heart to correct them; it was
Mademoiselle
.) What if I knew exactly what I needed but just couldn’t articulate it yet?

I padded to the marble bathroom and shut off the taps, stripping down to my skin. I turned to take in my body in the full-length mirror behind the door. There I was, my whole story staring at me through the mirror—my barely perceptible yet strangely symmetrical stretch marks just
below my rib cage, my smooth, firm thighs from my jock days. My arms were good arms, my breasts were beautiful breasts. My hair was shiny; it was a good cut. In a few months I would be forty-two, and I had never felt more alluring. S.E.C.R.E.T. had given me that. It had quieted that internal critic, giving me this newfound sense of my womanhood, even adding dimensions to it. I was grateful and too tired to soak in a bath for long, so I got out, wrapping my damp body in one of the comfiest bathrobes I had ever completely passed out in.

A knock on the door woke me from what I thought was a brief nap. It was the bellhop bringing me pastries and coffee, for
breakfast
! Turned out I had slept the night. A thick card was perched on the tray between the butter and the sugar. I opened it like it was a Christmas gift to see the word
Curiosity
carved in elaborate scroll on one side and underneath, a handwritten query:
Curious about what it would be like to go back in time?