“We are good friends,” he said, as though newly noticing something new and interesting about me.
“Always,” I said, smiling.
He leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. “S.E.C.R.E.T. makes some damn good women,” he said.
As he stood up and left, closing the door behind him, I fell back onto the floor, throwing my arms wide, blinking into the living room ceiling for a few minutes. Dixie padded over to me, tapping her nose on mine. When she realized I was perfectly happy lying there, completely surrendered, she curled into my armpit and went to sleep.
Whenever I felt like I was in the middle of a transition, unsure of my next step, I did what I always did, what always worked. That night I got up off the floor, took a hot shower and made the hour-long trek across the city to the Coach House to talk to the one person who knew me well, who would know what to do, who’d always tell me the truth: Matilda. My training session with Will was a few days away. I needed to go into it with a clear head and an uncluttered heart.
It was late, almost nine o’clock, but sure enough the lights were on in Matilda’s office, though it was odd to see the red door ajar. I stepped inside, preparing to scold her for leaving it unlocked. The Garden District was a pretty safe neighborhood, but still. I heard a male voice coming from inside her office. This wasn’t terribly odd. Though training always happened at the Mansion, we interviewed and tested recruits here all the time, well into the night. A few steps closer and I could make out Matilda’s voice sounding more emotional than I think I’d ever heard her. I was about to make myself known when I heard the male voice speaking again, this time loud enough for me to recognize that it was Jesse.
Make yourself known, Cassie. Now’s the time. But my feet felt suddenly welded to the oak floors. I was trapped between two horrible options. If I left now, I’d risk getting caught running away. If I stayed, I might hear something not meant for my ears. By the time I heard Jesse yell with genuine ache in his voice, “Of course I adore her! But it’s you I love,” it was too late.
“Why won’t you just let me in?” he continued. “I don’t care about age, for fuck’s sake! How many times do I have to tell you, Matty? I just want to be with you. I miss you. Finn misses you.”
Matty? Finn? The closest I’d come to meeting Jesse’s son was watching him sleep that night.
“You don’t care about our age difference now, Jesse, but I do. I care. When I’m seventy, you’re going to be in your fifties. It’s ludicrous. And I told you I won’t have sex with you so long as you and Cassie are still involved. It’s wrong and unfair. I love you both. In fact, you should not even be here—”
“We’re done. Cassie and me. We’re just friends. That’s all we ever were, really. That’s all we were ever meant to be.”
Before I heard anything else, I quietly, calmly, regained the strength in my legs and staggered out and back to the sidewalk. The facts followed after me. Jesse adores me. Jesse loves Matilda. Jesse is my friend. Jesse wants to be Matilda’s partner. I thought back to his drunken little tantrum on Christmas Eve, and of all the ways Matilda had probably thwarted Jesse’s plans to be with her by placing me in their path, hoping I’d go from being an obstacle to a ge
nuine reason they couldn’t be together. I thought of what he’d just said to me that night, how people from our past were in the way of anything we might have in the future. I was so arrogant to think that Jesse wasn’t carrying around his own burdens. Oh, the hearts we break to avoid heartbreak.
What a crazy, sad little circle, I thought, warm tears flooding my eyes. I searched for my anger because it had to be there somewhere, but strangely, as soon as it surfaced, it disappeared. Then fear rose up. But fear of what? Of rejection? Fear couldn’t find any purchase either, and it drifted away. It seemed like there was nothing for these old, bad feelings to cling to. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and made my way down Third. At Magazine I flagged a cab, too tired to walk back home.
After a good cry, I slept better that night than I had in a long, long time.
SOLANGE
I got out of the car and stood at the foot of Rue Foucault in the Trocadéro, holding my Step Eight card between shaky fingers. Poking my head out of the back of the limousine, I double-checked the directions, noting the word Bravery etched into the heavy paper, and beneath that, a note from Matilda.
Even if you decide not to accept this Step today, know you’ve already earned your Bravery charm. With great admiration, Matilda. P.S. The car has been instructed to wait for you. Please proceed with caution. And call me when you get back to the hotel.
I walked up to the imposing Moorish door of the four-story mansion, a dozen Juliet balconies above facing the street. Technically it was a townhouse located at the end of a stretch of sumptuous buildings dating back to at least the 1700s. Before my knuckle could strike the ancient wood, the door eased opened and a very tall, very old butler bowed deeply before me. He straightened and his arm swept me into an all-white marble foyer almost as big as the one at the New Orleans Museum of Art.
“Nous vous attendions, Mademoiselle Faraday. Puis-je prendre votre manteau?” he said.
Manteau. I knew that much French. I wasn’t sure what to wear to an interview-masquerading-as-a-sex-fantasy, so I had just dressed the part of a reporter—cream slacks, silk scarf and fitted navy blazer over a white blouse. As I handed him my blazer, my arms suddenly felt chilled.
The butler led me down another long, white hall, the gallery of windows to one side framing the Eiffel Tower in the distance. My god. This is his view. We traipsed through two more sets of fourteen-foot double doors before the white walls gave way to dark brown paneling surrounding a stand-up stone fireplace with lion heads on the cornices. It was clearly the den or the library; books covered one wall, and on the other were large black casement windows, burgundy velvet curtains on either side cascading to a pile on the marble floor. In the middle of the room was a long mahogany desk centered over a beautiful oriental rug, behind which was a black high-back chair and another spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower. I was just catching my breath when a man behind me cleared his throat.
I spun to face Pierre Castille himself. Plain and simple, this was a handsome man.
“Solange Faraday. How nice to see a familiar face. You’ve certainly come a long way, from my TV set in New Orleans to my little place in Paris. I hope you didn’t have any trouble finding me,” he said, his smile genuinely warm, his hands extending to clasp one of mine in both of his. He had the barest of Bayou accents and was dressed casually in faded jeans and a light blue linen shirt, half tucked, the color setting off his intense green eyes. His hair was darker, shorter too, than the last time I’d seen him. And he was sober, maybe even somber. But that didn’t take away from his incredible presence; he had the kind of sexiness that, dare I say, even rivaled the MMS’s.
“Thank you for agreeing to … meet with me,” I said, surprised at my sudden butterflies.
“You have been very persistent. And I was very curious,” he said, walking past me to the bar. “What can I make you?”
“Scotch, neat. Please,” I said.
“Hmm, a grown-up’s drink.”
As he made our drinks, I looked around. “You have a beautiful home.”
“I’m glad you like it.”