L. Marie Adeline- S.E.C.R.E.T

Frenchmen.
Kit and Angela beamed at me like proud mothers. Then they raised their braceleted
wrists at me and gave them a shake. I shook my charms back at them, the collective
tinkling like music to my ears.
The band started up. I could hear the MC announce this year’s Les Filles de Frenchmen
Revue, reminding the men to “give generously” but to “behave respectfully or you’re out
on your ass.”
Angela yelled, “Hurry, Cassie, we’re on!”
I took one last deep breath and looked around at my fellow performers, all of us
beautiful in our own way, with our wigs and moles and falsies. Each of us was playing a
version of ourselves, an exaggerated, alternative and riskier version. Maybe that’s what
all women do, from time to time. Beneath our everyday costumes, we’re all lled with
the same fears and anxieties. Angela must have them, and Kit too. But looking at them
now, I couldn’t picture them hesitating at the red door of the coach house, frozen in fear.
The feeling ooding my heart at this moment was gratitude, and some hope that if they
were able to step through their fears, I could do it too. I just had to believe I could.
I took my rst steps. I found the tempo, counting out the beats audibly, until the line
forward-kicked in unison out of the wings and onto the stage, shaking our gloved hands
like Fosse dancers. The crowd, darkened behind the bright oodlights, went crazy, which
injected us with a kind of performance adrenaline that transferred from one girl to the
next, hitting me full force.
“See?” whispered Angela. “I told you they’d love you!”
The rst few minutes of the dance were a blur as I adjusted my eyes to the lights and
continued to remind myself that no one knew it was me, mousy Cassie from Café Rose.
We broke o in our dance pairings onstage, my disguise making it easier to turn my
back to the crowd and slowly bump back and forth, following Angela’s lead, as the snare
drum beat in time to our choreographed gyrations. She was my partner and it was so
thrilling to be boldly in tune with the raunchy music and the beautiful Angela Rejean
that I began to relax into my body and improvise a little. At one point I was shaking my
butt so fast it caused Angela to throw her head back and let out a whoop. When Angela
turned and pranced o the stage right into the crowd, I followed her without thinking,
mimicking the way she’d grab a tie and fling it behind a man’s head, or mess up his hair,
and maybe his wife’s too. The women in the audience were having as much fun as the
men, our exuberance inspiring them to stand and deliver their own shimmy to the
enthusiastic crowd. Some of them were tourists, lucky to stumble upon this local
celebration. But I recognized a lot of Café regulars, the musicians, shopkeepers and
eccentrics out to cheer on this little pocket of beauty in our bruised and troubled city.
Angela and I performed our choreographed kick-step for the crowd. Then she winked
and whispered, “Go along with me, Cass,” before she spun, tossed her pink boa around
my neck and yanked me into a full-on kiss.
An explosion of clapping and yelling followed as Angela’s mouth lingered on mine,
and then she nished the kiss with a ourish, nudging me back to my own space. My
knees quivering, I tried to continue my choreographed two-step, showing o the garters