I shut the book again. It was wrong to read this. It was so raw. This was none of my business. I had to stop.
After one more Step. Then I’d stop. Then I would most definitely put this book away.
I opened it randomly to the middle, flashing forward, I assumed, through pages of sexy words:
Wow. First off, it was weird! I won’t lie. But yet it had this incredible filling effect. That’s the only way to describe it. Like I had it all inside me. Like I couldn’t go any further and then I found I could. I didn’t care how loud I was being. His hands were working me over all the while. It felt so incredible! Thank God the Mansion is soundproof, or so I’m told. It must be; otherwise everyone would know what was happening in each of these rooms. But I’ll tell you, the best sensation came from the other guy, Olivier, who lay beneath me, my lovely dark-haired stranger with a full arm of tattoos, who was sucking on my …
I snapped the book closed. Okay, I had to stop. This was too much. Two men? At once? I looked to the top of the page. This was Step Five: Fearlessness. I was shocked that I felt damp between the legs. I didn’t normally read erotic stuff, and when I came across pornography by accident, I rarely found it arousing. But this? This was all about desire. I wanted to read the whole thing, but no, I wouldn’t. I held the book shut tight in my lap.
She didn’t seem the type, Pauline, with her short hair and her clean looks. But what’s “the type”? What’s the furthest I’d ever gone with a man? The riskiest? A giggly handjob in a movie theater in high school with a boy I dated when Scott and I were on a “break.” I’d given blowjobs. Maybe not well, and not always to completion. Sexually speaking, I was sorely inexperienced. Dixie had rolled onto her back in a posture that was appropriately lewd.
“Oh, kitty, you’ve probably had more fun in the streets than I’ve had in my bedroom.”
I had to put the notebook away. To read any more of it would be to violate Pauline’s privacy irrevocably, and to drive myself to distraction. I got up and almost angrily shoved the book deep into the drawer of the telephone table by my front door. After ten minutes, I moved it to a pocket of an old ski jacket I had brought from Michigan and left hanging in the back of the closet. Still, the book called for me. Then I put it in the broiler beneath the gas stove. But what if the pilot light ignited it?
I decided to put the notebook in my purse so I wouldn’t forget to bring it to work the next day, in case Pauline came back to retrieve it. Oh God, what if she thinks I read it? But how could I not? Well, at least I didn’t read all of it, I thought, taking the notebook out of my purse and finally locking it in the trunk of my car.
Two days later, after the lunch rush died down, the door chimes signaled the arrival of Pauline. My stomach lurched, like she was coming to arrest me. This time she wasn’t with her sexy man but with a beautiful older woman, perhaps fifty or a well-preserved sixty with red wavy hair, wearing a pale coral tunic. They were both a little grim-faced as they made their way to an empty table by the window. I smoothed down my T-shirt and steeled myself as I approached the table. Try not to look at her too long. Try to appear nonchalant, normal. You don’t know anything because you never read the notebook.
“Hi there. Start with coffee?” I asked, my lips pulled tight across my teeth, my heart bashing against my rib cage.
“Yes, please,” said Pauline, avoiding eye contact with me and looking directly at the red-haired woman. “You?”
“I’ll have green tea. And a couple of menus, please,” she replied, staring back at Pauline.
I felt a rush of shame. They knew something. They knew I knew something.
“O-of course,” I stammered, turning to the table.
“Wait. I was wondering …”
My heart leapt to my mouth.
“Yes?” I said, turning back, hands shoved deep in my front pouch, shoulders up at my ears.
It was Pauline who’d spoken. She was as nervous as I was. Her companion’s face, however, was serene, supportive. I sensed a slight nod urging her on. I noticed the redhead also wore one of those beautiful gold bracelets, the same brushed pale finish and dangling charms.
“Did I forget something here the other day? A small booklet. About the size of this napkin. Burgundy. It has my initials on it, P. D. Did you find it?” Her voice was quivering. She looked on the verge of tears.
My eyes darted from hers to the calm face of her companion.
“Um. I don’t know, but let me check with Dell,” I said, way too brightly. “I’ll be right back.”
I walked stiffly back to the kitchen, punched the door open and stood with my back against the cool tile wall. All the air was gone from my lungs. I looked over at old Dell, who was cleaning the big pot that she’d used for the chili special. Though she kept her nearly white afro shorn close to her skull, she always wore a hairnet and a professional waitressing uniform. I had a lightning bolt of an idea.
“Dell! You have to do me a favor.”
“I have to do no such thing, Cassie,” she said with her slight lisp. “Use your manners.”
“Okay. Really fast. These customers out there. One of them left something here, a small notebook, and I don’t want her to think I read it. Because I did. I mean, not all of it. But I had to read some of it. How else would I know whose it was, right? But it was like a diary, and I might have read too much of it. And it was personal. Very. But I don’t want them to know I read any of it. Can I say you found it? Please?”
“You want me to lie.”
“No, no, I’ll do all the lying.”
“God, girl, sometimes I don’t understand young women today with all your dramas and stories and such. You can’t just say, ‘Here, I found this’?”
“Not this time, no. I can’t.”
I stood in front of Dell, hands clasped pleadingly.
“Fine,” Dell said, waving me away like a fly. “So long as I don’t have to say anything. Jesus didn’t raise me to lie.”
“I could kiss you.”
“You could not,” she said.
I ran to my locker, plucked the book from the top of a pile of dirty T-shirts and made a mental note to do laundry. I was breathless when I got to the table. The faces of both women turned towards me at the same time, expectant.
“So! I asked Dell. She’s the other waitress who works days, too, right over there …” At this point, Dell dutifully came out of the kitchen and waved a tired arm our way to legitimize my total lie. “It turns out she found this,” I said, triumphantly pulling the notebook out of my pouch. “Is this what you—?”
Before I could finish that sentence, Pauline plucked the book from my fingers and deposited it into her purse.
“That is it. And thank you so much,” she said to me, exhaling. Then she turned to the other woman. “You know what? I have to go now, Matilda. So sad, but turns out I don’t have time for lunch after all today, is that okay?”
“That’s fine. Call me later. But I’m famished,” Matilda said. She stood to hug her harried companion goodbye.
I could feel the relief and the vexation coursing through Pauline. She had gotten the booklet back, but she knew that it had released some of its secrets somewhere, to someone, and it seemed she couldn’t wait to leave. After their quick embrace, she made a dash for the door.
Matilda folded back down into her chair, as relaxed as a cat settling into a sun patch. I looked around the restaurant. It was about three o’clock, and the place was almost empty. My shift would be over soon.
“Be right back with your green tea,” I said. “Menu’s on the wall there.”
“Thank you, Cassie,” she said as I walked away.
I felt gut-punched. She knew my name. How did she know my name? I did sign my bills. And Pauline was a regular. That’s how. Surely.
The rest of my shift was uneventful. Matilda sipped her tea, looking out the window. She ordered the egg salad sandwich, pickle on the side, half of which she ate. We didn’t say much beyond the pleasantries of a waitress s
erving a customer. I gave her the bill and she left a nice tip.
That’s why I was shocked the next day to see Matilda come in after the lunch rush died down, this time alone. She waved at me and pointed to a table. I nodded, noticing that my hands shook a little as I made my way over to her. What I was so nervous about? Even if she knew I’d lied, what was so bad about what I had done? How could any normal person have resisted reading a notebook with such compelling content? Besides, it was Pauline who might feel wronged, her privacy a little violated, not this woman.
“Hello, Cassie,” she said, smiling a genuine smile.
This time I noticed her face. She had bright wide eyes, dark brown, with flawless skin. She wore little makeup, which had the added effect of making her look younger than what she probably was, which I now suspected was closer to sixty than fifty. She had a heart-shaped face, which drew to an acute point at her chin, and she was, frankly, extraordinarily beautiful, in the way women with unusual features can sometimes be. She wore all black—tight pants that outlined a very fit body and a knit black top that twisted around her in an alluring way. And that gold charm bracelet, now glinting against the black sleeve of her top.
“Hello again,” I said, sliding a menu onto the table.
“I’ll have exactly what I had yesterday.”
“Green tea, egg salad?”
“Right.”
I brought the tea and sandwich a few minutes later, and later still refilled her hot water when I was asked. When she had finished and I went to clear her plate, she invited me to join her at the table. I froze.
“Just for a second,” she said, nudging the chair across from her.
“I’m working,” I said, feeling clenched and a little cornered. I could see Dell in the kitchen through the cutout window behind the bar. What if this woman asked me questions about the notebook?
“I’m sure Will won’t mind if you sit a bit,” Matilda said. “Besides, the place is empty.”
“You know Will?” I said, sinking slowly into the chair.
“I know a lot of people, Cassie. But I don’t know you.”
“Well, I’m not that interesting. I’m just me. I’m just a waitress and … that’s it, really.”
“No woman’s just a waitress, or just a teacher, or just a mother.”
“I am just a waitress. I guess I’m a widow too. But mostly I am just a waitress.”
“A widow? I’m sorry to hear that. You’re not originally from New Orleans. I detect a slight Midwestern accent. Illinois?”
“Close. Michigan. We moved here about six years ago. My husband and I. Before he died. Obviously. Um, how do you know Will?”
“I knew his dad. He owned this place before—it’s twenty years ago now that he died, I think. Probably the last time I was a regular here. It hasn’t changed much,” she said, looking around.
“Will says he’s going to renovate. Expand upstairs. But it’s expensive. And right now it’s all any restaurant can do in this city to stay open.”
“That’s true.”
She glanced down at her hands and I got a better look at her bracelet, which seemed to have a lot more charms than Pauline’s. I was going to comment on its beauty, but Matilda spoke again.
“So, Cassie, I need to ask you something. That book that … Dell found. My friend is a little worried that someone might have read it. It’s a diary of sorts with lots of very personal stuff in it. Do you think Dell would have read it?”
“Oh God, no!” I said, with a little too much conviction. “Dell’s not the type.”
“The type? What do you mean by that?”
“Well, I mean, she’s not nosy. She’s not really interested in other people’s lives. Just this place, the Bible, maybe her grandkids.”
“Do you think it would be odd to ask Dell? To see if she read the book or showed it to anyone? It’s important that we know.”
Oh God! Why didn’t we get a story straight? How Dell found the booklet, and how she stored it in her work locker until its rightful owner was found? Because I never thought there’d be an interrogation, that’s why. Just a grateful owner making a beeline out of the restaurant, never to be seen again. Now this Matilda woman had my guts in a vise grip.
“She’s super busy right now, but why don’t I go back there and ask her?”
“Oh, I don’t mind asking her myself,” she said, rising from the table. “I’ll just go poke my head in the back—”
“Wait!”
Matilda slowly sat back down, her eyes homing in on me.
“I found the journal.”
Matilda’s face relaxed a little, but she made no reply. She just clasped her hands on the table and leaned in a little closer.
I looked around the empty Café and continued. “I’m sorry I lied. I just, I read a little bit of it—but only to find a name, some sort of contact information. But I swear, you can tell Pauline I stopped after a page … or two. And, well, I was … embarrassed, I guess. I didn’t want her to be any more uncomfortable than she already seemed. So I lied. I’m sorry. I feel like such an idiot.”
“Don’t feel bad. On Pauline’s behalf, I thank you for returning the book to her. Our only request is that you say nothing about what you read, to anyone. Absolutely nothing. Can I trust you to do that?”
“Of course. I would never. You have nothing to worry about.”
“Cassie, you don’t understand how important this is. You must keep this secret.” Matilda pulled a twenty from her wallet. “Here’s for lunch. Keep the change.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Then she proffered a card with her name on it. “If you have any questions about what you read in that book, I urge you to call me. I mean it. Otherwise I won’t be back here. Nor will Pauline. This is how to reach me. Day or night.”
“Oh. Okay,” I said, holding the card cautiously as if it were radioactive. Matilda Greene, and her phone number. On the back was an acronym, S.E.C.R.E.T., and three sentences: No Judgments. No Limits. No Shame. “Are you, like, a therapist or something?”
“You could say that. I work with women who reach a crossroads in life. Usually midlife, but not always.”
“Like a life coach?”
“Kind of. More like a guide.”
“Do you work with Pauline?”
“I don’t talk about my clients.”
“I could probably use some guidance.” Had I said that out loud? “But I can’t afford it.” Yes, I had.
“Well, this might surprise you, but you can afford what I charge because I work for free. The catch is I get to choose my clients.”
“What do those letters stand for?”
“You mean S.E.C.R.E.T.? That, my dear, is a secret,” she said, a sly smile playing across her lips. “But if you meet with me again, I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Okay.”
“You’re someone I’d like to hear from. And I mean that.”
I knew I was wearing my skeptical expression, the one that made me look a lot like my father, the man who had told me that nothing in life’s free, nor is it ever fair.
Matilda stood up from the table. When she put out her hand for me to shake, her bracelet glinted in the sun.
“Cassie, it was quite lovely to meet you. And now you have my card. Thank you for your honesty.”
“Thank you for … not thinking I’m a complete idiot.”
She let go of my hand and cupped my chin like a mother would. I could hear the charms tinkle against each other, they were so close to my ears.
“I hope we meet again.”
The door chime signaled her goodbye. I knew that if I didn’t call her, I’d never see her again, which made me feel unaccountably sad. I placed the card carefully in my front pouch.
“Making new friends, I see,” Will said from behind the bar. He was emptying a case of sparkling water into the refrigerator.
“What’s wrong with that? I could use a few friends.”
“That woman’s a little off. She�
��s like a Wiccan-hippy-vegan or something. My dad knew her back in the day.”
“Yeah, she told me.”
Will began a long diatribe about stocking more nonalcoholic beverages because people are drinking a lot less, but that we could charge more for sparkling water and those special sodas and ciders and probably still make good margins, but all I was thinking about was Pauline’s journal, and the two men, the one behind her and the one beneath her, and the way her sexy boyfriend traced his firm hands down her forearm and how he pulled her into his embrace on the street in front of everyone—
“Cassie!”
“What? What is it?” I said, shaking my head. “Jesus, you scared me.”
“Where did you go just now?”
“Nowhere, I’m here. I’ve been here all along,” I said.
“Well, go home, then. You look tired.”
“I’m not tired,” I said, and it was true. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been more awake.”
It took me a week to call Matilda. A week of the same old thing, of walking to work and of walking home, of not shaving my legs, of yanking my hair into a ponytail, of feeding Dixie, of watering the plants, of ordering takeout, of drying dishes, of sleeping, and then of waking and doing it all over again. It was a week of looking out over Marigny at dusk from my third-story window, realizing that loneliness had blotted out any other feeling. It had become to me like water to a fish.
If I had to describe what propelled me to call Matilda, I guess I could say it felt as if my body was having none of this anymore. Even as my mind was reeling with the idea of asking for help, my body forced me to pick up the kitchen phone at the Café and dial.
“Hello, Matilda? This is Cassie Robichaud, from Café Rose?”
Five Years pricked up its ears.
She didn’t seem at all surprised to hear from me. We had a brief conversation about work and the weather, and then I made an appointment for the next afternoon at her office in the Lower Garden District, on Third, near Coliseum.
“It’s the small white coach house next to the big mansion on the corner,” she said, as though I’d know exactly where that was. In fact I always avoided the tourist spots, crowds, people in general, but I said I’d have no trouble finding it. “There’s a buzzer at the gate. Give yourself a couple of hours. The first consultation’s always the longest.”
S.E.C.R.E.T.: An Erotic Novel Page 3
