Still, a blood test was administered, and the results were immediate. If Will, head hung low, could have dragged a dirty ”blankie” behind him through the maternity ward, Tracina told me later, it wouldn’t have made the scene any sadder.
She tried to get him to stay and talk. Even Carruthers offered to go for a walk around the block with him. But Will kept walking.
I almost missed him while checking messages at the pay phones, my cell phone long run out of batteries.
“Will! Wait!” I yelled, leaving the receiver dangling, unsure of what went down, though it was pretty easy to glean from his face what the test results must have showed.
I called his name three, four times through the parking lot before he finally stopped and turned, and by that time his key was stuck in the lock of his door, again.
“Do you want me to drive? Let me drive you home, Will,” I said, bending over with my hands on my knees to catch my breath. It was officially fall, but the noonday sun was hot as mid-summer hell. We’d both been at the hospital for a full twenty-four hours, taking turns sleeping in the cab of his truck.
Will turned around slowly, leaving the keys dangling.
“Know what the worst part is?” he said, not meeting my eyes, still searching the air around me for answers. “I never wanted kids. I don’t think I ever told you that. All my friends had them—my brother, cousins, all of them—but I was like, Nope, there are just too many of ’em in the world. And I work too hard, and I don’t make enough money to do it the way it’s supposed to be done. My dad owned that café. He was never around. And he was always broke. But I tell you what,” he said, pointing to the whole hospital, “I wanted that baby. Ah … fuck.”
His emotions overcame him, everything he’d been bottling up over the past nine months, all of his doubts and fears about becoming a good enough father for a child whose mother he struggled to love, let alone like, all the while expanding his business on precarious loans and his own blood and sweat, all of it—it came out and he cried. But not for long. In fact, less than fifteen sharp seconds. I threw my arms around him, inhaling the smell of hospital in his hair. He didn’t embrace me back. Instead, he kept his paint-spattered hands tightly covering his face. And when I let him go, reluctantly, he stepped far away from me and shook off the pain, so all you might have gleaned from our body language if you drove into the empty parking spot at that exact moment (which, in fact, Jesse Turnbull had) was that two acquaintances had just had a quick catch-up and were now saying their goodbyes.
That’s why Jesse leaned out the window of his own truck (a newer, better one, of course, than Will’s) and said, “Hey, babe. Thought I’d bring you a coffee on my way to work,” handing me a medium takeout with soy.
He wouldn’t have said “babe” if he knew who I’d been hugging and what Will had just been through—what we’d been through. He wasn’t that kind of guy; he wasn’t boastful, territorial, dickish. And Will was rarely impolite. But in that moment, his skin so thin, his heart so bruised, all Will could do was ignore Jesse, shoot me a pained look, rip the keys out of the lock of his stupid busted truck, whip around to the passenger side and enter the damn thing from there. It was awful and awkward watching him slowly inch from the spot next to us, only to fishtail out of the lot like those idiot show-off teenagers testing their wheels in a WalMart parking lot.
“That your boss?” Jesse asked, handing me the coffee.
I nodded.
“He okay?”
“You know what? No.”
“Sorry to hear that. Can I drop you somewhere?”
“Nah, I’m way out of your way. And I feel like I need a good long walk. Then a good long nap. It’s been that kind of night, and morning.”
“Everything all right?”
“Baby’s fine, mom’s fine … the dad’s fine. It’s Will I’m worried about.”
“I thought … So he’s not the father?”
I winced by way of an answer.
“Ho boy. How about you? You okay?”
I said I was fine, just tired, but I hadn’t really taken my own personal temperature just yet. Hospitals have a way of taking the focus off anyone not on a gurney or bed. But what else could I say to Jesse in that moment? I couldn’t tell him I was happy to see him but that I was also harboring a darker, deeper joy at this sudden turn of events that had left Will free. I was happy to see his face, Jesse with his blue-tinted sunglasses, his hands with their rugged backs, and smooth, soft palms from being elbow deep in coco butter and marzipan all day, the same hands that had begun to make their brilliant acquaintance with every inch of my body. I wanted him even now, my body automatically drawn towards the door of his truck like a big magnet, my face inches from his. He put his hand on the back of my head and pulled me in for a long kiss that tasted like good coffee.
“Okay, babe. I’ll call you later,” he said, and drove off, leaving me with a new round of thoughts now buzzing to life.
I want Jesse. I want Will. Do I want Will? And who’s to say Will even wants me after all this drama, or that he’ll want any woman, for that matter? Besides, he probably thinks I’m now swimming in men. First, a lanky musician comes by the restaurant, and now some other punk drops coffee off for me. I had to laugh right then and there. Imagine if Will thought I was a “player,” or worse, a “slut,” a word that Matilda banned … but still. There was something in his eyes just now that had sent a chill my way.
So I did what I always did when I couldn’t think about a thing straight. I started walking. I walked the ten blocks towards the Mansion and the only person who’d ever offered me clarity.
It was a Sunday, but Matilda was there. And she was alone.
“Know anything about corporate charitable tax deductions?” she said instead of hello.
I followed her into her office, where half a dozen ledgers lay spread out on her desk.
“’Fraid not. Are you in the middle of something?”
“Oh, just cooking the books. Trying to figure out operating costs. How much longer we can stay afloat. How’s the baby? Is she just dreamy?”
“Tiny and cute, yes.”
“Has Dauphine called you yet?”
“My phone was off, the battery’s dead. Oh my god! Her Mark fantasy was last night! I completely forgot! How did it go? Did you talk to her?”
“She left here about an hour ago.”
I noted the time. Almost two in the afternoon.
“An eighteen-hour fantasy? So … I take it went well?”
“Maybe a little too well.”
She filled me in on all the juicy details, and I had to admit I was envious. And though I had known Mark was her type, I had no idea they were both so ripe for something deeper, and so soon.
“It happened to Pauline two years ago with a recruit,” Matilda said. “Same sort of thing. But Pauline stayed. Dauphine’s out, I’m sad to say. Mark too. They both seem very happy … And now I have a feeling we’re going to lose you too. Am I right?”
“You mean to Jesse? We’re not there. Not yet. Or do you mean with Will? With Will, that would be a non-starter.”
“Are you sure?”
I filled her in on the paternity drama and the strange conundrum I faced. Will or Jesse? I couldn’t have both.
“Has Will asked you to be with him?”
“No.”
“Has Jesse?”
“Kind of. I mean, he’s, we’re … it’s good, you know? I really like Jesse and the sex is amazing. But I think … I think I love Will.”
“Have you told Will this?”
“No.”
She steepled her fingers in thought.
“Well, what are you waiting for? You can’t keep catching him between women, Cassie.”
“But what about Jesse?”
“Something tells me Jesse will survive. And he always has a home here.”
My stomach dropped at the thought of him with anyone else. Matilda had a soft spot for him, that I knew. What have I done? What do I do
?
“When you have it sorted, let us know. I was hoping you’d join the Committee next. At least with your vote we might finally get a redheaded man past the initial selection round. Meanwhile, these were just mailed to the press and other important guests,” she said, sliding open a drawer. She handed me an invitation. “I hope you can make it. And be sure to bring a date. Either one of them.”
S.E.C.R.E.T. cordially invites you to a public unveiling of our Major New Charity Initiative, Benefiting Underprivileged Women and Children in NOLA
at
Latrobe’s on Royal
Black Tie
I was shocked to see S.E.C.R.E.T. written in that familiar curly font on a public invitation.
“Matilda! That’s the group’s name. I mean, you put S.E.C.R.E.T. out there so boldly! I couldn’t bring Will to this. He’d start asking questions. He’d be all What’s this stand for, Cassie?”
“Oh, that. Don’t worry. We’re giving away the money we raise under S.E.C.R.E.T.’s official name, the one that’s on the books: The Society for the Encouragement of Civic Responsibility and Equal Treatment. See? You can surely belong to that group, can’t you?”
She turned around one of the ledgers to show me where official invoices and receipts indicated its full name, not the one I was used to.
“We pay our taxes. We have a mortgage. We’re good citizens. And when people ask us what we do, we say we improve the lives of women in need. You’re safe to bring someone like Will to a public event like this; we take our anonymity very seriously. And of course, there’d be none of these concerns if you chose to bring Jesse instead.”
“That kind of sums up my predicament.”
“Indeed. But what a wonderful predicament. I’d call it progress,” she said. “Wouldn’t you?”
Indeed.
20
CASSIE
AFTER MY MEETING with Matilda, I was bone-weary, but I knew Dell was probably a walking corpse by now, having closed the Café the night before and opened it today. So instead of crawling into bed, I showered, changed and took the long way to work to check up on Will.
His truck wasn’t at his place in Bywater or parked in front of or behind the Café, and he wasn’t answering his phone, so I assumed he had taken a drive somewhere to clear his head—or to cry openly, for longer than he was able to with me.
The restaurant was empty. Claire burst out of the kitchen in an artfully placed hairnet that did little to contain her blond dreadlocks, her hands coated in oil and bits of kale. I liked her open, guileless face, and how a few weeks living at Will’s had removed her sullenness, turning her into a full-blown chatty teen. She was growing on Dell too, who taught her food prep right away, something that had taken her months to show me.
“Where’s that disinfectant hand soap? The pink stuff Dell uses.”
“I’ll show you,” I said. “Are you by yourself?”
“Yeah. Dell was of no use to me after the lunch rush and went home.”
For seventeen, she was mature beyond her years, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing, I decided. Sure I was sexually stunted (well into my thirties), but Claire and her new friends from school were unsettlingly accelerated. They scared me a little when they came into the Café with their smoking and piercings, their seductive “selfies” and their casual “sexting.”
A week ago I had asked Claire how she could be a vegan and smoke.
“For the same reason you can be nosy and nice,” she teased.
I felt around on the shelf above the sink, found the bottle of pink disinfectant soap lying on its side and squirted some on her hands.
“Has Will been by?”
“Haven’t seen him,” she said, drying her hands on her legs and immediately checking her vibrating phone.
Will let her carry it around in her waitress pouch. His reasoning was that she didn’t talk on it, only checked texts, so it wasn’t as rude. I told him if she worked upstairs that wouldn’t be allowed.
“Nor the piercings,” I said to him.
“Fine, you’ll be the boss. You’ll make the rules,” he had said.
Still, Claire was a hard worker, so I didn’t complain. And she was a natural in the kitchen.
“I got a head-start on salad prep,” she said. “Kale’s done. I’ll tackle the carrots next.”
“Thanks. I can probably handle the floor on my own tonight,” I said.
“Oh good. I want to go see the baby.”
I almost blurted out everything that had happened at the hospital between her uncle and her almost-aunt, but this was officially now a family issue, something she’d have to navigate with Will.
While helping Claire prep and blanche the carrots, I thought about Dauphine and Mark, probably passed out somewhere, arms and legs entwined. I envied their seeming certainty, Dauphine’s decisiveness to just grab this man and go with it. But sometimes people just know; it’s in their nature. When that option was available to me, to test the waters with Jesse outside of S.E.C.R.E.T., I was only on my third Step. I was certain of a connection with him, but I hadn’t yet made one with myself.
Had I now? How well did I know myself: my body, my mind and my heart? Maybe the better questions were, where did these three things overlap and where did they remain separate? S.E.C.R.E.T. dealt in pleasures of the body, an area of my life I’d always ignored. I had lived so far in my head I had also let my heart atrophy. Mark and I had definitely made a physical connection. Jesse and I had too. Plus, he was making quiet inroads into my heart. But Will had long ago conquered all three. I loved his body, his mind and his heart, never more so than today, when his absence not only preoccupied me but pained me physically, as I imagined him somewhere sad and alone.
So even before I was sure about Will’s feelings for me, I took my cell phone out back into the alley while Claire manned the floor, the last favor I’d ask before sending her home.
Jesse picked up on the first ring.
“Hey, babe, you still at the hospital?”
“No, I’m at work. You?”
He told me he was about to go into a meeting with clients who wanted a five-tiered wedding cake.
“You must be exhausted,” he said. “So I take it plans tonight are out too.”
“Yeah … I have to stay here, Jesse.”
The silence that followed had mass; I could feel it actually weighing down the phone. Maybe it was the way I had said his name, like it was punctuation, with a hint of gentle finality.
“Okay … I’m getting the feeling that tomorrow’s not going to be good for you either.”
Inhale.
“Jesse, I think … no, I know … I’m in love with someone else.”
More silence, this time lighter, now that I’d injected it with a bit of truth.
“I see. Huh. Who’s the lucky guy?” he asked, a hint of sourness in his tone.
I told him it was Will, my boss and my friend of many years. I didn’t go into the details; Jesse didn’t need to hear about our eight-year mostly platonic odyssey, the pining, the fears, the insecurities, the jealousies, the betrayals, all the drama that had conspired to keep us apart.
“Does he love you back?”
“I don’t know, Jesse, but I need to find out. And I don’t want to string you along or use you as some kind of net in case he does reject me. And he might. But I need to be all in on this one. After what he’s been through, I want to be able to be honest if he asks me about you. And you deserve that too. You’re a good man, Jesse. So so good.”
“Wow. You sound so … I hate to say you sound really fucking sexy, because I’m getting my heart ripped out, but I really wish I were the other guy right now.”
What more was there to say? Tender well-wishes followed on both our parts. They felt genuine and necessary.
“I don’t like the phrase ‘I hope we can still be friends,’ Jesse. It sounds so lame. But I really do hope we can be … something to each other.”
“Cassie, don’t take this the wrong way
, but I’m not great at being friends with women I want to sleep with.”
The silence widened; there was little left to say.
“I understand.”
We said gentle goodbyes and hung up. I kissed the screen on my phone. I’d been blessed by such good men in S.E.C.R.E.T., men who, beyond awakening me sexually, also helped me forget the not-so-good ones I’d experienced before. And then there was Will. I hoped I was letting go of something good in hopes of getting something great, but for all I knew Will was done with me.
Still, it was unusual for him to disappear like this. I looked at my watch, then up and down the quiet alley, worry setting in. The news of the baby was a devastating blow, but what if he really had been in love with Tracina? What if he was feeling this only now, now that he not only couldn’t have her but was learning she had never really been his?
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a curtain flutter out from one of the open upstairs windows of the Café. Will was still waiting for the custom screens. And that’s when I knew. I burst in through the door, back through the kitchen and into the dining area, where two customers had grabbed a window table next to where Claire was bent over her phone, flanked by two new friends from school who were also looking at something on her screen.
“Claire!” They leapt like I’d interrupted delicate surgery. “Can you stick around for a little while longer? And please get those people some menus. I’ll pay you double overtime. I have to check something upstairs. I won’t be long.”
I didn’t even wait for her to answer. I would have been a crappy, bossy mother, I decided, as I quietly took the stairs. The knob for the new oak door was on back order, so I had to gently nudge it open with my shoulder. The door would eventually separate the old Café from the new space, once the stairs leading directly outside were complete, but right now Will kept it shut to keep the construction dust from wafting into Café Rose.
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