S.E.C.R.E.T. Revealed (Secret 3)

But that fear of being a “bad mother” was always there, hovering in the wings of motherhood, a show everyone watched and felt entitled to comment on.

Gus poked his head into my room. “You said noon and it’s, like, quarter to.”

The last time Julius took him for a haircut, the barber had cut it too short. It was just starting to grow out and was still unsure of what it wanted to be. An afro? Something more stylized, as his crowd became more sophisticated, more attuned to pop culture and all its awful, wonderful influences? I’d leave that to Julius to sort out.

“What do you think?” I asked, holding up the red blouse with the bow next to the low-cut gold one.

“Um, the red, I think.”

“But I wore red last year.”

“Then the gold,” he said, his words edged with his dad’s impatience.

“I’ll bring all of them,” I said, throwing a dozen tops into a zippered wardrobe bag, followed by a few pairs of black shoes.

“I’ll carry it down,” he said.

“It’s heavy.”

“It’s fine,” he said, hefting it over his shoulder.

Damn, the back of my ten-year-old boy’s neck could still make my heart hurt, it was so vulnerable, so thin and bony. I imagined it coiled with muscle, strong enough to hold not just a wardrobe bag, but a head full of the thoughts and worries typical of the average young black man in this city. But those worries were nothing compared to his parents’, I thought. Nothing.

When I pulled up in front of Julius’s loft, Gus sprang out of my car, yelling over his shoulder, “Bye, Mom.” Used to be I covered his somber face in a thousand kisses before letting him go. But he was beginning to push back, and I had to let him. He wasn’t a tickle-monster anymore, and I couldn’t remember the last time he absently grabbed my hand in the street. Contemplating my boy growing up could put me in a day-long funk, so I shook it off and sped away.

The photographer’s loft was only two blocks away, but you could tell from its tinted windows and Art Deco–styled double doors that this building was a next-level posh conversion. This was the first time the network had veered from using its regular commercial photographer. They’d hired a guy named Erik Bando, an award-winning portrait photographer who also worked for National Geographic. Marsha and I had Googled his photos a week before the shoot and we were both impressed. She thought it was a sign that the affiliate was upping its game; we were currently third in the local ratings.

“Not sure how edgy photos will fix our ratings,” I said.

“Ours is not to question why,” she replied. “Ours is only to pose and smile.”

A cool, blond assistant with big, red glasses greeted me in the lobby of the photographer’s building and took my wardrobe bag from my hands.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said.

“Oh, don’t worry, you have all day,” she said, punching the elevator button.

I looked at her. “Really? I thought I was scheduled for three hours.”

“Well, I mean, you can … take your time.”

Okay then. On the ride up, she was quiet, staring straight ahead.

At the top, the doors slid open to a spectacular studio, twice the size of Julius’s. This was at least five thousand square feet of exposed brick and wide plank floors. Most of the walls were painted white, with small partitions carving out thematic spaces like a maze, some areas with wide, low-slung couches, some with large colorful backdrops suspended from the ceiling and unspooling to the floor. I could hear a buzz of activity in the brightly lit corner where a green-screen backdrop lay near the wall-to-wall windows. Along the outside walls were photos of bleakly beautiful landscapes, and of the awful things war does to places and people, shot after riveting shot, and a few stunning nature panoramas that no doubt required death-defying feats to capture.

The same blond now directed my attention away from the pictures to an empty director’s chair next to where another makeup artist seemed to be fussing with Marsha’s foundation. I took the vacant seat.

“Afternoon, my dear,” Marsha said without looking up from her smart phone. “Have you heard? Apparently Madonna has been outfitted with a set of ‘grillz.’ Also she is learning how to ‘booty pop,’ whatever the hell that is.”

Marsha proffered a screenshot of the pop star’s gold mouth accessory.

“I see. Well … now that it’s big with middle-aged white women, at least Gus isn’t going to want one.”

She smiled, placing her glasses on her face.

“Well, I’m off,” she said, pushing up from her chair. “See you tomorrow.”

“Wait! I thought … aren’t we getting our pictures done together? Where’s Jeff and Tad? Where the hell’s Rink?”