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

“How are they not going to know it’s me?”

She reached into her purse and pulled out a Veronica Lake–style platinum blond wig. She spun it around on her fist.

“First, you’re going to be wearing this,” she said. Reaching back into the bag, she added, “And one of these.” She pulled out a sleek, black cat’s-eye Mardi Gras mask.

“Remember, Cassie. You’re playing a part,” she said, speaking slowly and deliberately while expertly fastening the wig over my hair. “You can be nervous up there. The old Cassie might have thought she’s not worthy of the attention, or that she’s not beautiful or sexy enough to pull it off. But the woman wearing this wig and this mask would never think that. And the men watching her would never believe it. Because she knows not only that she can captivate a man, but also that she’s got the whole room in the palm of her hand. There,” she said, carefully placing the mask over my eyes and stretching the elastic around the back of my head and releasing it.

“Gorgeous. Now, go be this woman!”

What woman was she talking about? I wondered—until moments later I smacked into her in the backstage mirror.

The girls were gathered in front of it, making last-minute adjustments to their costumes, hair and makeup. I stood among them, equal to them, I thought, no better or worse, just someone taking joy in my body. Just then, Steamboat Betty muscled her way to the front of the pack to aggressively adjust her breasts in her bodice.

“The girls are restless tonight,” she said, probably not referring to Les Filles de Frenchmen.

Kit and Angela beamed at me like proud mothers. Then they raised their braceleted wrists at me and gave them a shake. I shook my charms back at them, the collective tinkling like music to my ears.

The band started up. I could hear the MC announce this year’s Les Filles de Frenchmen Revue, reminding the men to “give generously” but to “behave respectfully or you’re out on your ass.”

Angela yelled, “Hurry, Cassie, we’re on!”

I took one last deep breath and looked around at my fellow performers, all of us beautiful in our own way, with our wigs and moles and falsies. Each of us was playing a version of ourselves, an exaggerated, alternative and riskier version. Maybe that’s what all women do, from time to time. Beneath our everyday costumes, we’re all filled with the same fears and anxieties. Angela must have them, and Kit too. But looking at them now, I couldn’t picture them hesitating at the red door of the coach house, frozen in fear. The feeling flooding my heart at this moment was gratitude, and some hope that if they were able to step through their fears, I could do it too. I just had to believe I could.

I took my first steps. I found the tempo, counting out the beats audibly, until the line forward-kicked in unison out of the wings and onto the stage, shaking our gloved hands like Fosse dancers. The crowd, darkened behind the bright floodlights, went crazy, which injected us with a kind of performance adrenaline that transferred from one girl to the next, hitting me full force.

“See?” whispered Angela. “I told you they’d love you!”

The first few minutes of the dance were a blur as I adjusted my eyes to the lights and continued to remind myself that no one knew it was me, mousy Cassie from Café Rose. We broke off in our dance pairings onstage, my disguise making it easier to turn my back to the crowd and slowly bump back and forth, following Angela’s lead, as the snare drum beat in time to our choreographed gyrations. She was my partner and it was so thrilling to be boldly in tune with the raunchy music and the beautiful Angela Rejean that I began to relax into my body and improvise a little. At one point I was shaking my butt so fast it caused Angela to throw her head back and let out a whoop. When Angela turned and pranced off the stage right into the crowd, I followed her without thinking, mimicking the way she’d grab a tie and fling it behind a man’s head, or mess up his hair, and maybe his wife’s too. The women in the audience were having as much fun as the men, our exuberance inspiring them to stand and deliver their own shimmy to the enthusiastic crowd. Some of them were tourists, lucky to stumble upon this local celebration. But I recognized a lot of Café regulars, the musicians, shopkeepers and eccentrics out to cheer on this little pocket of beauty in our bruised and troubled city.

Angela and I performed our choreographed kick-step for the crowd. Then she winked and whispered, “Go along with me, Cass,” before she spun, tossed her pink boa around my neck and yanked me into a full-on kiss.

An explosion of clapping and yelling followed as Angela’s mouth lingered on mine, and then she finished the kiss with a flourish, nudging me back to my own space. My knees quivering, I tried to continue my choreographed two-step, showing off the garters high on my thighs, but her kiss had thrown me off, bringing the crazed crowd to their feet. I spotted Kit and Matilda sitting together near the bar, clapping and whistling like proud dance moms.

When I turned to blow a kiss to the audience, my eyes rested on a familiar gaze. It was Jesse, occupying a prime table near the front, with a grin on his face that would melt an iceberg.

“Well, hello,” he said, leaning back into the chair, taking in the full length of me with a tilt of his head.

How had I forgotten how sexy this man was? This time he wore a snug plaid shirt and jeans, a white undershirt peeking underneath. That undershirt. His lean concave stomach, his casual hand resting on the hair that leads to … “Oh my God,” I said, standing in front of his table. His confuse

d expression reminded me he didn’t know who was beneath the wig and mask. I glanced nervously around the room. All eyes were on us. I smiled at Jesse again and froze. Angela took my arm and turned me around for our dual butt-shimmy move. I glanced over my shoulder at him. He was clearly thrilled to be on the edge of the spotlight, a front-row spectator. When we’d finished our little number, he and everyone else in the room erupted into hoots and hollers.

Emboldened by my anonymity, I turned around and leaned forward, placing both hands on his shoulders, and giving him a good long look at the impressive cleavage my dress had enhanced. To any onlooker, it would have seemed we knew each other and were exchanging pleasantries, but when I leaned in, I whispered, “The things I’d like to do to you.”

“Whoa, right back at you, baby,” he whispered, his hot breath in my ear.

So this is how it works, I thought, taking a finger and placing it under Jesse’s stubbled chin. When I brought his eyes to meet mine, I thought I saw a flash of recognition cross his face. I pulled away quickly, and he threw his head back, laughing, loving the flirty attention. Who was this bold woman doing these bold things? This wasn’t me. But it was me! And Jesse had had a hand in liberating me.

By this point, all the girls had made their way down from the stage and were working the crowd into a frenzy. Two were now hovering directly over Jesse, who had an expression of pained pleasure on his gorgeous face. Suddenly the girl with the corkscrew curls threw her boa around his neck. I watched her tug him to his feet. While the crowd screamed, he willingly trailed behind her and out the door, the whole time wearing the grin of the luckiest guy in the room. I had had my chance and I hadn’t picked him. I smiled and said a silent, wistful goodbye to my lovely intruder.

I followed my duet partner, Angela, farther into the audience. When she moved behind a wide post, I lost sight of her, and moments later locked eyes with another ardent audience member, Pierre Castille, who was leaning cross-armed against the wall, regarding me with a bemused expression, his bodyguard next to him. Here was my choice. What power you have when you’re fully in command of your own body, I thought. With my hands on my hips, my chin lowered and my shoulders thrust forward, I strutted towards Pierre in rhythm with the drummer’s beat. I closed the distance between us, reminding myself I was the girl in the platinum wig and black mask. I could see his Adam’s apple bob. At three feet away, I placed a gloved finger between my teeth and pulled off my glove with one tug. I tossed it over my shoulder as the crowd behind me erupted. Then I pulled off the other glove, this time spinning it in my hand. Inches from Pierre, who was now grinning, I reached out and gently slapped him with it, once, twice.

“I hear you’re a bad, bad boy,” I whispered, in that same breathy voice I had used on Jesse.

“You heard right,” he said. He hungrily took me in and then reached out for my waist, as though I belonged to him. As my Prince Charming, when he had claimed me it was part of the role, the fantasy. But his grasp now felt brutish, unkind.

Angela stepped in and scolded him. “Ah, ah, ah. She’s not yours, mister. Remember that.”

All eyes were on me, even though the other girls had reassembled in a line and were tapping out a goofy number on their way back to the stage. I broke the spell by turning around. With my back to Pierre, I did a little burlesque wiggle, curling my body like smoke in front of him for the edification of the audience. Finally, the spotlight moved away from us and back to the action onstage, giving Pierre the opportunity to gather the strings of my bodice as though he had me on a leash. With a yank, he tugged me backwards to him, his mouth hovering at my ear.