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

“I just need to know where I can plug in my lights,” the crew guy said, impatient with us, probably pissed he was working New Years’ Eve.

Will pointed to an outlet by the bar.

I looked at my watch. “Holy shit! It’s time! I’ll go unlock the front doors.”

“It’s time. Wow,” Will said. “Oh, and Cassie?”

At the top of the stairs, I turned to face Will.

“You look … spectacular,” he said, placing a hand over his heart, feigning weak knees.

My smile was involuntary, and probably so goofily big it undid everything sexy about my outfit. But there you go. I’d wanted and needed to hear that, and he’d come through.

I headed downstairs with renewed vigor and propped open the main door. Within a minute, the first guests arrived, mostly local restaurateurs here to check out the competition, try Dell’s food. Between bites and small talk, I kept an eye on Will, who was never very good at the meet-and-greet. But tonight, there was something new about him, a swagger, a determined pride. We both had it, I think, and we worked the room separately, coming together after the first hour of schmoozing to give a brief report.

“I think it’s going well,” he said, nodding.

“Yes. And the food? The shrimp skewers are flying off the platters.”

“I knew they’d be a hit.”

“Dell’s a genius.”

“No, you are for insisting we make her lead chef.”

I smiled at him again, instinctively wanting to reach out for his hand, when his face went from looking at me adoringly to slack at the sight of something over my left shoulder. I turned around to see Tracina enter, holding baby Neko, followed by her fiancé, the one and only Carruthers Johnstone.

Here we go.

“Go. Say hi, Will. Get it over with.”

“Gimme a second,” he said, turning away from them.

He hadn’t seen either Carruthers or Tracina since the night their daughter, Neko, was born. Inviting her hadn’t been a new idea. I’d brought it up months ago, back when we were in the throes of our own reunion, while in bed one night, our legs and arms entwined.

Will was unequivocal. “No. Can’t we just have our own fresh start without the past coming in to haunt us? Why does our future have to involve forgiving Tracina?”

“You don’t have to forgive her, but you do have to be okay with her coming to the Café. We all want to see the baby. After all, she’s named after the place!”

The baby’s name was Rose Nicaud, like the Café, which itself was named after the first African-American female entrepreneur in New Orleans, a slave who sold coffee from a cart she pushed up and down Frenchmen Street. She saved enough money eventually to buy her freedom. The story of her feat was on the back of every menu.

“The Café matters to Tracina. Her friends work here, Will. It’s time to make amends. Then we can all move forward.”

“Since when do you care about Tracina? When did she become your friend?”

It was a good question, and one I had a hard time answering. “I don’t know. It just happened.”

It was true. We were friends. It started with checking in on her right after the baby was born. Babies are magnets; they pull people to them, and this little girl had a particularly strong pull. Tracina and I had gone for walks in Audubon Park, chatting like girlfriends do, and no one was happier than Tracina when I told her Will and I were finally together, in no small part because it assuaged some of her guilt about leaving him for the man she really loved, the father of her child.

But when I told her a short while later that Will and I had broken up, she was angry. Angier still when I told her why.

“What double-standard man bullshit is that? That you can’t have a bunch of sex without making him feel all threatened? If he didn’t hate my guts, I’d march over there and hit him over the head with my grandma’s cast-iron fry pan.”

Tracina had long guessed at my involvement in this “sexy little group” to which her best friends Kit and Angela belonged.

“Why else would Kit and Ange hang out with y’all?” she said with no malice, just pure Tracina-style bluntness. Tracina also admitted that after Kit and Angela told her about their participation in S.E.C.R.E.T., she begged to be included, at least in the fantasy parts.

They told her she didn’t qualify.