S.E.C.R.E.T. (Secret 1)

I did so and felt him press a small round coin—my Step Seven charm, Curiosity—into my damp palm. It felt more delicate and fragile when I couldn’t see it, like the slightest squeeze would crush it.

“Thank you,” I said, my body still vibrating. I listened to him pad away towards the exit.

Seconds later, he whispered his goodbye.

“Bye,” I said.

After he shut the door quietly behind him, I pulled off the blindfold and looked around the room. It was stunning, masculine, a big oak desk in the middle and wall-to-wall books on three sides. The thick sandalwood candles flickered on the table, where a big bowl of oranges rested. I sat there naked, fingers combing through the hairs of the plush bearskin rug on which I lay. The fire gradually dwindled.

As I secured my Step Seven charm to my bracelet, I wondered what he had looked like, my new, mysterious man, the one who had gone just moments before, leaving me sated and curious, and fully alive to myself.

After my blindfold fantasy, life seemed more vivid. All of my senses were alive. I paid greater attention to the things and people I used to ignore. As I walked, I’d let my hands trail the gates in the Garden District, noticing the cornhusks or the little birds carved into the wrought iron, imagining the artist creating those ornamental touches. It used to irritate me when our regulars at the Café would take up a table outside, order one coffee and spend the morning chatting with everyone walking by, clogging the narrow sidewalk with dogs and bikes. Now I marveled at the early morning intimacy of Frenchmen Street, how people from different races and ages all convened around the same table at the Café. I felt lucky to be a part of this community. I began, in fact, to feel at home.

Instead of just plopping his coffee in front of him, I asked the chatty old man with the fancy carved walking stick some questions about his life. He told me about a wife who ran off with his lawyer and the three daughters he rarely saw. I began to understand that this man’s eccentricities were probably meant to draw people to him, so he could talk and feel less lonely. And with a little encouragement, Tim from Michael’s bike shop a few doors down told me some harrowing tales about surviving the hurricanes, and about some friends who didn’t make it. “Many survived the hurricane only to die of heartbreak after it,” he said.

And I believed him, knowing that loss and disappointment can create such pain.

New Orleans was experiencing one of the warmest winters on record, so when a volunteer called to tell me I had won the Revitalization Ball’s raffle for a trip for two to Whistler, British Columbia, for the weekend, I was excited. I wanted to ski again, but mostly I needed to feel a real winter on my skin. Though I embraced the South and was beginning to know the city in my bones, I was a Northern girl at heart.

Before leaving for my trip, I asked Anna to keep Dixie for the week in her apartment downstairs. I didn’t want to give her access to my place in case she snooped around and found my fantasy journal, or any other evidence that explained those mysterious limo rides. When I told Matilda about my prize and that I’d be away, beyond telling me to have fun and to get in touch when I was back, she didn’t say much.

Will was a little reluctant to give me the time off, but there was always a short post-holiday lull before Mardi Gras kicked in. I reminded him that this was the perfect time for me to take vacation days.

“I guess,” he said after I told him. He’d joined me outside for a quick coffee after the breakfast crowd left. “Are you going alone?”

“I don’t really have anyone I could go with.”

“What about Pierre Castille?” He practically spat out the name.

“Oh, please,” I said, hopefully camouflaging the shudder I felt at hearing “Pierre” spoken out loud. “That was nothing. In every sense of the word.”

“You cast a spell on him, Cassie. Has he been in touch?” Will made no attempt to hide his jealousy, which now hovered over our metal patio table like a bit of sullen weather.

“No, Will, he has not. Nor do I expect him to,” I said, meaning it. I ran the hem of my apron through my fingers, thinking how wildly curious I was about Will’s connection to Pierre. I finally got up the nerve to ask.

“So, how well do you know Pierre exactly? And why had you never mentioned him before?”

“Holy Cross,” he said, referring to a private school for boys. “I went on scholarship. His dad pulled some strings to get me in.”

“So you were friends as kids?”

“Best friends. For years. But time and temperament pulled us apart. Then this place put a nail in the coffin,” he said, pointing to the condominium across the street. “His father built Castille Development, and the Castilles built that monstrosity. I fought against it. I lost. Don’t know why it had to be nine stories. Four, maybe five, but they built a fucking high-rise on Frenchmen. How can city council allow that but not allow me to have a couple dozen people eating dinner and having drinks upstairs at Café Rose?”

“Well, there is the matter of the aging beams. And also the sixty-year-old electrical wiring.”

“I would fix those things, Cassie, I would,” he said, then took a sip of his coffee.

“With the money you were going to donate when you bid on me at the ball?” I said.

He winced at the memory, and I was sorry to have brought it up.

“I was momentarily swept up in the proceedings.” Then, quickly changing the subject, he added, “I’d take out a loan to do the renos. I might even qualify for an improvement grant. Or one of those hurricane funds, maybe. I need to figure out a way to earn more money from this goddamn building.”

I glanced across the street at the nine-story, blond-brick building, thinking that every time Will looked at it, he probably thought of Pierre.

“I’ll miss you, Cassie.”

I couldn’t believe I’d heard what I just heard. “It’s just four days.”