Cat In A Hot Pink Pursuit

“Anyone decent would be. It’s not that I would have wanted anything more than some legitimate child support. The two-flat did help but it wasn’t a substitute for a simple acknowledgment. So how did you find this man with a conscience?”

“A paralegal dropped a name she shouldn’t have.”

“What would that have to do with it?”

“It was my father’s name.”

“Why would that mean anything to you?”

“Because I saw a man who had that name. And he looked like me.”

“Oh, Matt.” Her celebratory air crumbled. “That must have been so … shocking for you. I didn’t think that might happen. That any relatives would still be associated with that law firm. What … was he? To you.” She bit her lip, reached out a hand to his. “I’m so sorry, honey. I didn’t think what sending you there might mean. I was so selfish.”

The old apologizing-for-existing Mira was back. As much as her concern touched him, her regression chilled him. Maybe this was a very bad idea, even though it had been hers. He could still head this off.

“It was rough. I was way angrier than I thought I’d be. Then I found out that … members of the … other family had been duped too. It was the parents. Your parents. His parents. They took over and managed their errant kids, the hell with what the ones actually involved needed or wanted. Or what it would mean to me.”

“You shouldn’t swear,” old Mira said primly, falling back on the party line.

“I should do a lot more than that. I should dig up all those dead grandparents who decided what was best for my parents and hit them.”

She looked shocked, then smiled nervously. “Berating the dead is a waste of time. You know that. If they’d have known you, they’d have been proud of you. My parents couldn’t quite get past your … manner of birth but they didn’t dislike you.”

“Not a positive relationship, Mom. I was tolerated but I don’t remember them much.”

She sighed and sipped her drink.

“So,” he said, “given what a shock it was for me to meet a … relative, I’m thinking maybe you don’t need to go back like this. Maybe it’s enough to know not everybody in the family would have disowned us. That it was a Romeo and Juliet thing, where the older generation controlled the younger at a horrible cost.”

“Romeo and Juliet.” Her smile softened her features to a girl’s dewy promise. “That’s right. That was the way it was. Have you ever glimpsed that connection so right the whole world fades away?”

He wanted to temporize, as he always did on this one thorny subject but … his mother needed the truth, from everyone.

“Yes.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Someday you’ll tell me more about that. Or maybe not. Someday maybe I’ll meet her.”

“Mom, I’ve met yours.”

“My what.”

“Your person who made the world fade.”

“You can’t have.”

“I did.”

“Someone close … a brother? Is that who we’re meeting here? I don’t know if I can stand to meet a brother.”

“Mom.” He stretched both his hands across the table to cover hers, which were fanning and fidgeting with panic. “I’ve met him.”

“He’s dead. Are you crazy?”

“He’s not dead. That was a lie.”

She stood, despite the heavy chair, pushing it back with her legs as if she didn’t feel the effort.

“What are you saying?”

“You know what I said. But it doesn’t have to go further. I have a cell phone number. He can go away and never see us again at all.”

Her hand covered her mouth as if choking off a terrible cry.

“Not … dead? But—”

“He was … is from a wealthy family. Mistakes weren’t welcome in it. That’s all. He was told you were impossible to find.”

“The lawyers found me fine! He believed them?”

“They were convincing. Private detectives reported that they could find no girl named Mira in St. Stanislaus’s parish.”

“There were three in my high school class!”

“No right girl named Mira.”

“He believed them.”

“He’d been wounded. He was tired, confused. I can’t blame him, and, believe me, I wanted to more than I knew.”

“So. You’ve sorted it out. You two. You men. And now it’s up to me if I want to see him again.”

“Yes.”

“Does he want to see me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because he hates that he was deceived. He would have done the right thing.”

“But he doesn’t love me.”

“He’s married.”

“With children?”

“Yes.”

She folded her lips. “I’m sorry, Matt. You’re the real victim of this. I’m sorry you had to learn what cold people you came from, partly. I’m sorry, sorry, sorry I asked you to look into this. You have a very stupid mother.”

“I have a very stubborn mother and I’m not sorry.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Swearing, Mom?”

Her lips twisted into an unwilling smile, despite the tears in her eyes. “Sometimes it’s called for. Why aren’t you sorry?”

“I’d rather know my father was lied to as well. That he wouldn’t have turned his back on us.”

“So he says now, seeing you face to face.”

“I believe him.”

“Well, fine. Can we go now?”

“Let me pay the tab first.”

“Tab? You expected a long night of drinking and reminiscences maybe?”

“I don’t know what I expected. You’re the one. Whatever you want or need. We agreed on that.”

“You and your … father. Why do I feel it’s always a conspiracy of men?”

“There are so many of us? Really. Take your time. You can always change your mind.”

“No, Matt. I can’t. I haven’t been able to act according to my own mind since that night that changed everything. Let’s leave. Your cousin Krys gets moody when I monopolize you too much. That girl! All hormones. No shame. Wish I’d been like her. Nothing would have mattered as much.”

“You underestimate Krys. Everything matters too much with her. And I like you just the way you are.”

“You can’t fool me. That’s a Billy Joel song. ‘Just the Way You Are.’ The Muzak at the restaurant plays it all the time.”

He sighed, signed the credit card slip, and left a generous tip.

They walked out of the bar’s calculated dimness into the glaring brightness of the hotel lobby, all slick marble floors and walls and glittering oversize chandeliers.

At the bank of house phones, he saw Winslow and nodded imperceptibly.

He thought.

His mother wrenched her neck in that direction, stared for a long moment, then took his arm and drew him toward the rank of glass doors leading to the hotel porte cochere.

He saw her into a cab and sent her to work at Poland-ski’s Restaurant.

Then he turned and went back in to have a postmortem with his father.

“So how did it go?” Krys asked when he got back to his mother’s apartment way too late.

“You didn’t have to wait up for me.”

“Mira won’t be off her shift until midnight. How did it go?”

“It didn’t.”

“You look horrible.”

“From you, that’s a new one.”

“I mean you look like you’ve been through it.”

“Imagine brokering a truce between Israel and Palestine.”

“That bad? I made some hot tea.”

“Like I need caffeine.”

“I’ve never seen you testy before.”

“She didn’t want to see him and I had to tell him afterward.”

“Testy on you is not bad, mind you.”

Matt wasn’t too emotionally exhausted to smile, which she’d wanted to make him do. Among other things. He couldn’t encourage her hopeless crush, but he knew a lot more about longing and forbidden love and all that sticky emotional stuff now than he’d known the first time they’d met last Christmas. He had to respect her feelings even as he had to discourage them. Had to clear the decks for the real guy who was waiting for her somewhere down the road to maturity.

“Krys. Mom’s going to be coming home very soon and I don’t want to go into anything deep now. I’d like to be safe in my room, totally out of it.”

“That could be arranged.”

“Krys. No. You’re a sweet, funny girl but not my girl. This is way out of your league.”

“No, it isn’t. It looks like it’s about them—him and her—but it’s about you. You’re in the middle. I don’t care how smart you are, or how cool you act, or how … shrinky. It’s gotta be awful.”

He took the cup of tea she held out. “Herbal,” she told him, sounding like a nurse. “Won’t get on your nerves, like I do.”

He had to smile. Again.

But he was glad to be leaving Chicago tomorrow.

Chapter 58

Showdown

Mariah searched the audience. The spotlights had panned earlier on Molina and escort in row five, beaming. Well, Molina was actually smiling. The guy with her had the quizzical expression of a classic observer.

“Mom!” Mariah ran to join her in the audience now that the swirl of excitement was over. Mariah had lost but so had Elvis. Not bad company.

A vapid blonde had won Temple’s erstwhile division, and a younger vapid blonde had won Mariah’s. They’d both applauded politely, and whispered “wicked” at each other, then giggled.

Temple glanced out of the corner of her eye at Rafi Nadir. He was watching the Molina family reunion with the slow-mo reaction of Tommy Smothers trying to come up with the right answer for his brother, Dick. Wheels turning, mired in alternatives, searching for the one, the right answer.

With the Smothers Brothers it was high comedy. With Rafi Nadir and Carmen and Mariah Molina it could be high tragedy.

Temple felt her neck and shoulder muscles clench. Nothing a knowledgeable PR ace could do about this kind of crisis.

Molina never acknowledged Nadir’s presence, existence, anything about him.

Temple could read the pantomime in the impromptu family vignette arranged for the cameras: Larry, the new guy, scooted down so Mariah could sit by her mother, who was making all the proud and proper maternal motions. Larry was leaving the spotlight—and the television coverage, Temple noticed—to mother and daughter. Was that sensitivity … or a need to avoid being recognized?

She eyed Nadir again. Still mentally doing the math, trying to figure out when Mariah must have been born … impossible to calculate without her birth date.

Temple bet he would get it somehow, as soon as possible. Molina had ducked the inevitable tonight, partly through the strategy of her new male escort … was he hired muscle? Something about him read “professional” along with “don’t tread on me.”

Temple waited until the spotlight and camera lens had moved on to the next performer before skittering over to congratulate Mariah in a whisper.”..

.great,” Molina was whispering to Mariah. “Listen. I think you’re old enough now. There’s something you should know.”

Molina spied Temple and stopped talking, darn it! Temple leaned down and hugged Mariah. “Great job on the song. Sony you didn’t win.”

“Wow. I feel like I have. Mom, Temple has been just the best roomie in the whole world.”

“Apparently, you’re not the only one who thinks so,” Molina responded. Mariah missed the sardonic tone, andthe veiled reference to Max Kinsella. “She certainly delivered when it came to crisis control. Let’s all go out and celebrate. No, don’t slink away, Miss Barr. You too, `roomie.’ Larry can take you girls in his car and I’ll run ahead and get things ready.

“First I have to settle the hash of the creep behind all the nasty pranks on the set.”

“You’ve got him?” Temple asked.

“My excellent undercover officers.” Molina looked a bit uneasy. “They found incriminating materials in his camera bag but it seems he hated cats as well as women.”

“Often goes together,” Temple said. “Both can be independent.”

Molina sighed at her political comment.

“Whatever.” She paused, then grimaced and plunged ahead with the apparently galling facts. “Seemed he tried to kick a couple of Persians out of his way during the mass exodus. My guys were already looking to grab him, but they found him pinned to the latticework wall beside the pool by a pair of rabid black cats and Savannah Ashleigh. I think she broke every artificial nail on her fingers clawing tread marks into his face. The arresting black cats, being shorter, went for tender parts lower down. We don’t have to worry about getting a confession.”

“Gross. But what’s the big secret about tonight?” Mariah was finally coming down from her performance afterglow and tuning into her mother’s strange comment.

“You’ll find out soon,” Molina said. “If Hollywood doesn’t come calling right away, we can leave.”

“Oh, Mom. I knew I wasn’t gonna win. But who needs to?”

“That’s a very mature attitude, Mariah.”

“Who needs to be a stupid ‘Tween Queen? I’m going for American Idol next.”

Molina speechless was a sight to behold. “We’ll see,” was all she could come up with Temple tried to slip away. “Stay,” Molina said. “Sit,” Molina said next.

They were commands you gave to a dog, but Temple decided she would be magnanimous and not ruin Mariah’s big night. Poor kid. She was about to learn the bodyguard at the competition was her daddy.

Molina had more guts than Temple gave her credit for.

Larry winked as he moved over to give Temple his seat, as if guessing every turn of her internal debate.

After the closing hoopla was over, Kit came running up to them.

“Fabulous job, girls! Of course you both earned my top honors and should have won your divisions but that cretin Dexter was fixated on boob size and that tipped the balance, excuse the expression. I am so disgusted. The other judges and I are making protests but frankly without Elvis—I mean just by the numbers—we’re not likely to make anybody listen. The cameramen and producers are fixated on boob size too.”

Her effusions stopped as she regarded Temple. “Ah, a limo service has arrived to convey me back to my hotel, but the vehicle seems rather crowded by individuals and accessories of purely Italian manufacture. Am I going to get ‘taken for a ride’ out into the desert, or what?”

Temple grinned. “I see the fabulous Fontana Brothers have arrived. You may recall my mentioning them to you.”

“Yes, I do. And they are as collectively cute as a silencer on a Beretta, but is going with them safe?”

“I don’t know, Aunt. Do you particularly care?”

“You’re so right. I’ll take two aspirin and call you in the morning.” She was off on her high-heeled Blahnik slides. Off to see the Wizards of Las Vegas. Wicked!

“I don’t get it,” Mariah said. “They sent her multiple limousine drivers?”

“It’s a very long stretch limo. Let’s blow this crooked contest, kid.”

Mariah and Temple/Xoe left in turn as the crowd shuffled out. No easy way for Rafi Nadir to fight the flow and reach them, though Temple knew he could if he wanted to.

But she never saw him again, not even when she and Mariah stood under the porte cochere and waited for Larry and whatever kind of car he was driving.

“Good job,” she told Mariah again. “Your mother nearly flipped when you sang that song.”

“She liked it? I couldn’t see with all those lights.”

“She loved it. And I did too.”

“It didn’t win me anything though.”

“How about your mother’s confidence? That’s a hard thing to get when you’re thirteen to nineteen. Trust me. Been there, haven’t done that yet.”

“Your mother doesn’t have faith in you?”

“Yeah, sure, in a general way. But mothers have a hard time trusting that you’ll hang with a decent crowd at school, or wear non-slutty makeup and clothes, or lock your car doors when you’re driving alone at night.”

“I don’t have to worry about that driving thing for three years, remember. You’re the one who harped on it.”

“Right.”

“So your mother still doesn’t really trust you. And you’re … ancient.”

“That’s true. My mother doesn’t entirely trust my judgment and I’m ancient.”

“It’s not us then, it’s our ‘judgment.”’

“Right. They think any hunky guy can send it out the window.”

“My mom thinks your hunky guy should go out the window. I know that.”

“She’s not my mom, thank goodness. The one I have already is enough.”

“What do you think of that Larry guy?”

“Too soon to tell. What do you think of him?”

“I can’t believe she’s, like, dating him. I’ve never seen her date anyone. Is that what she wants to tell me, the secret, do you suppose?”

“Too soon to tell.” Temple felt like a skunk for ducking the issue, but this really was just between mother and daughter.

A black Jeep Cherokee pulled up. Larry’s angular face caught the wall-mounted torch light as he leaned over to open the passenger door.

Mariah hopped into the back seat, leaving Temple to scramble up into the SUV passenger seat in her tight skirt and heels.

Larry gave her one of those quick assessing male looks that said he wasn’t displeased but not personally interested. Maybe Molina had hit paydirt.

Temple looked around, hard, before they took off. Rafi Nadir was nowhere in sight.

Now why did that scare the living shih tzu out of her?

They ended up in the Blue Dahlia parking lot.

Temple gave Larry a warning look when he came around to help her and Mariah out of the Jeep.

He shrugged at Temple and gave Mariah a reassuring grin. “That was a world-class performance, kiddo. You’ve got a ripe set of pipes.”

Temple scanned the parking lot for signs of Rafi Nadir. That was the trouble. If he was here, there would be some.

“You always this nervous?” Larry asked with a quick whisper.

“We did just come from a murderer-grabbing scene.”

“History. I have a feeling you don’t dwell on it. Neither do I. What else is bothering you?”

“Nothing.”

He laughed. “Women are the best little stonewallers in the business. And we guys call you the weaker sex.”

Temple eyed Mariah nervously. She’d been through a lot, plus the poor kid was half-starved.

“It’s their business,” Larry warned.

“True, but why do I feel you’re butting into it?”

He laughed again. “You’re one sharp cookie, aren’t you?” His hand on her elbow was custodial as he steered her inside behind Mariah’s happy jazz steps as she took in the artsy neon and the bluesy adult façade of the Blue Dahlia.

It was the kind of place Travis McGee would boogie into without a regret.

Temple hoped that more modern folk of the female persuasion wouldn’t regard it as a hothouse of worse things than mere regret.

“‘This place is so cool!”

Mariah eyed the cocktails on the surrounding tables, the all-adult clientele.

She was feeling thirteen-going-on-thirty tonight, an emotion Temple remembered well.

So this was the secret Molina was going to unveil. A small, glamorous secret to start with, before the main course, which was large, hard to swallow, and indigestible.

Temple had become close enough to Mariah during their days as faux roommates to feel her stomach churning with anxiety. What if her own mother had revealed a hidden past as a … belly dancer! How would Temple, age thirteen, have reacted?

She couldn’t be certain, but not with unbridled joy, for sure. Oh, Mother! The breed was so embarrassing to begin with. What if Mariah found Carmen laughable? Temple felt herself cringing for the risk Molina was taking, then thought of the bigger one she’d have to take later.

“How long have you known Molina?” Larry asked her after ordering a Shirley Temple for Mariah and a half-bottle of pink zinfandel for them.

“Too long and not enough.”

“My feelings exactly. She isn’t easy.”

“Why should she be?”

“Right. I’m not either.”

“What are you, then?”

He glanced at Mariah to make sure that she was busy eavesdropping on the sophisticated blues lovers at the other tables, and the sophisticated lovers, period. The Blue Dahlia was a favorite trysting place. Carmen’s torch songs were music to make semipublic love by.

“I carry a shield, like you didn’t know,” Larry said, way too laidback for a man in blue.

Temple didn’t doubt him. This was a cop but an unconventional cop. The combination was intriguing and, she sensed, dangerous. She hoped Molina knew what she was doing.

The jazz trio ended a riff. There was a moment of transition. Were they going to take a break? Or not? Not. Carmen merged with the narrow velvet curtains behind the instrumentalists, then passed through, blue velvet fog in motion.

She was at the lone stool, mike in hand, like smoke in a mirror. Not there, and then there, etched irrevocably. Mariah’s jaw dropped before the first low, minor notes of “The Man I Love” escaped her mother’s lips. Everything about Molina that was larger than life and downright intimidating in reality became cinematic and dramatic on a musical club set.

It was intimacy writ large. The microphone seemed an accessory after the fact to her true, husky voice, both bel canto and hip.

She wove a vocal spell. The dignified sheen of vintage forties blue velvet that made femininity into a sculpted, strong icon was part of that spell. Women had seemedboth sturdy and sexy then, part of the war effort maybe. Rosie the Riveter as Venus de Milo.

It was hard for Temple to credit this view of womanhood, her being so small and so often underestimated because of it. But … hey, the goddess/Amazon type never died.

“That’s my mom,” Mariah breathed.

“Yup.” Larry.

Boy, men were inarticulate about feelings!

“Yeah,” Temple told Mariah. “Quite a set of pipes. I don’t think anyone knows about this now, besides us.”

Mariah sat back, a troubled expression on her face. “Why’d she keep it a secret?”

“Imagine what the guys at work would say? What would the boys at school say about you? Miss ‘Tween Queen singer/hip-hop heroine/beauty queen?”

“Oh. Not good. I don’t get it. We’re supposed to be pretty and talented and we’re supposed to be … no competition.”

“You got it. That’s right. Doesn’t make sense. Guys often don’t.”

“Then why do we bother with them?”

“You gotta answer that one for yourself.”

Mariah regarded Larry.

“What?” He sounded defensive.

“You don’t look worth much.”

“Appearances are deceiving. Look. I’m your mother’s biggest fan. She’s good, isn’t she?”

“Yeah. She is. Is that why you like her?”

“Right.” He high-fived her.

Temple watched Mariah ratchet another puzzle piece of life into place. This had been a busy week for her.

Something was disturbing here though. Molina had left the real secret, Mariah’s father, securely closeted. Temple had assumed that was the thing Mariah was “old enough to know” now. Apparently not. Apparently Molina could be as much of a coward as the next woman, if the right stakes were involved.

And then, at the mike, Molina/Carmen sat back on the stool. She nodded at the instrumentalists and segued, a capella, into “Mariah.”

She sang it low and slow. It wasn’t nightclub fodder. It was a musical-stage number, dramatic and mock Western. It wasn’t urban, it wasn’t hip but it was powerful and it was pure torch song in its dark, contralto melody, meant for a man to sing, with unexpected hints of tenor, or tender soprano in this case.

The song started “way out here.” The frontier. The urban edge. The selvage of self. The rain had a name. Tess. It hissed. The fire had a name. Jo. It spat. The wind was something else. More than monosyllabic. The wind was a woman named Mariah. Mah-rye-ah. This woman turned the stars around and made the trees sigh and whine. This woman wind was an icon for “only” and “lonely.”

Molina’s voice made the wind mourn, made loss a sustained note, made the word “Mariah” into the most beautiful elongated three syllables in the English language.

Temple, caught up in the exquisite beauty of the styling, still managed to gauge the reactions around her. She was a PR woman; she always took a room’s ambient temperature.

Mariah, herself, was enraptured by the poetry of her name, which she really understood for the first time.

Larry. Larry was no doubt enamored by the artistry of the woman he escorted, but was there more than that to his sudden pursuit of Molina?

Temple sat by herself, moved but measuring, sensing, understanding. A siren had sung, momentarily throwing off her human guise. Each person here had heard a different song.

Temple—cursed by the gift of Cassandra, the prophetno one would believe—could see that some good, and a lot of bad, would probably come from this night, this siren song, this guarded family of two that was being inexorably circled by unpredictable outside forces.

Chapter 59

An Invitation She

Can’t Refuse

“Temple.”

Matt stood speechless when she answered his knock. It wasn’t just the longish straight blonde hair

“Don’t worry. I’ll get rid of it.”

“Your eyes will wash out? Temple, they’re green. Is it some strange dietetic reaction?”

“Don’t mention dietetic reactions! One of those was murder on my last case.”

“Have I got the right unit?”

“I just forgot about the green contacts. Let me go change them. The hair will have to be redyed to my natural color, then grow out. Come in. Sit down. Hang on. I’ll be right back.”

Matt did as instructed, which left him confronting Midnight Louie and his thoroughly natural green eyes over the flimsy barrier of a throw pillow.

Other than Temple’s radical change of appearance,everything else around her place seemed the same. Seemed … normal.

She came clattering back over the hardwood floors on a pair of feminine and creative shoes. That was the same, thank goodness.

“So. How was Chicago?” she asked.

He was still speechless.

“Well?”

“I found my father.”

“Matt! No. I can’t believe it. You found out who he was, finally?”

“No. I found out who he is. Found him.”

“Found his grave, you mean?”

“No. Him. The Jonathan my mother only knew by his first name. I had to stake out the Winslow family lawyer’s office to do it. You’d have been proud of me, undercover detective.”

“But, Matt, wasn’t he supposed to be dead? My God! You’re so calm.”

“His family told my mother he was dead to get rid of her, and me. It’s all over. We met and talked. It’s pretty disconcerting to meet someone you resemble for the first time, but he’s a stranger, after all. It wasn’t his fault. His family was wealthy and controlling, which goes together all too often. They high-handedly rearranged his life too.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“It’s pretty amazing. My mother wanted to find out who he was. The family had told her, via their attorney, that he’d died overseas and they gave her a two-flat, a Chicago-style duplex, as a sort of settlement. So she never expected to see him again on this planet. When it happened, when I discovered him while badgering the attorney’s office—”

“‘Badgering’? You?”

“When some high-end attorney starts brushing you off with obvious evasions it makes you pretty darn mad. I thought I might find his parents. My grandparents. I wanted no more to do with them than they had wanted to do with me thirty-five years ago. I only did it because my mother wanted closure and I thought that would be healthy for her. She’s never really tried for a real life of her own. So … I find him. And she wanted nothing more to do with it. Or him. Funny. I couldn’t have cared less until it happened.”

“So, what’s the story?”

“Ancient history. His family kept them apart, kept him ignorant of her, and me. He’s got a whole new family, and life. Seems like a decent guy. He feels pretty cheated too. My mother’s … not happy. I’m okay with it. I’m here.”

Temple plopped down next to him, forcing Louie to scramble for new high ground: the cushion tops behind them.

“Amazing. You’re so calm.”

“What does it change? It was Romeo and Juliet from two different classes instead of clans. Their families imposed their own priorities on their wayward kids. I feel for my mother but it’s too late to change anything. Except,” he added, “the present. So what kind of tangle have you been involved with while I was gone?”

She told him, including her reservations about the Molina/Nadir/ Larry/Mariah quadrangle.

“Wow. Carmen is ratcheting up the stakes on all fronts, isn’t she?”

“Carmen? You call her that? Since when?”

“Occasionally. When I really want her attention. Her name is the key to her background. That’s why she doesn’t use it professionally. Carmen Regina. Regina means ‘Queen of Heaven.’ All very Hispanic and very Catholic.”

“I’m not very Catholic.”

“That’s what I like about you.”

“Why?”

“I get to keep the guilt concession all to myself when I’m with you.”

She looked a little nervous. He discovered he loved being able to make her nervous.

“Guilt isn’t a Unitarian thing,” she said finally. “Fine. Leave it up to me.”

“Have you something guilty in mind?”

“Maybe. Let’s go out.”

“The Bellagio, you said.”

“The new you deserves it.”

“You won’t be ashamed to be seen with my blatantly blonde hair?”

“I wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen with you with chartreuse hair. I’ve still got a couple days left on my vacation from the radio station. They’re running `Mr. Midnight’s Classic Moments’ this week.” Matt shrugged an apology at the corniness of his employer. “Okay if I pick you up tomorrow at eight? I’m thinking of that purple taffeta dress you wore once.”

“You want me to wear it again?”

“It wasn’t too shabby.”

“You want me to dress a certain way?”

“Catholic guilt.”

She hesitated before answering. “That’s kinda … erotic.”

“The best kind of guilt.”

“Not the black with the buttons—?”

“Not this time.”

She swallowed. She was right. This conversation was getting incredibly erotic. “‘This time’?”

“I hope so.”

“Matt—?”

“Temple.”

“You are way too … confident.”

“You like dithering?”

“Maybe.”

“Tomorrow. Eight.”

Her eyes were wide, blue-gray. Looked incredible with the blonde hair. The Teen Queen people had remade her into somebody beyond her current persona. For the first time, Matt felt that Max Kinsella could be a name in a history book. For the first time, he felt like he was writing his own life, and maybe Temple’s life too.

“I think you’re saying yes,” he said.

“Yes.”

He left, feeling something in his core that was deep and tender and strong, stronger than anything anyone had ever taken away from him. Strong beyond weakening. Love, surely.

Sex. Maybe.

Chapter 60

Caught in the Crossfire

Temple wasn’t usually nervous before a dinner date. Dinner dates were the most formal form of coupling, easily written off as exploratory and way too public to offer anything more than mild flirtation.

She wasn’t stepping out on Max. Just socializing, right? Besides, Max was pretty hard to step out on since he’d hardly been around lately. He’d never noticed she’d been away from the Circle Ritz. Had left her high and dry in the hot tub, his hot tub. This had nothing to do with Max and their long monogamous relationship. Right. The relationship that was turning into a monologue instead of a dialogue, with Temple asking the leading questions and Max ducking them like she was an obnoxious insurance agent. This was not about Max. No. It was about Matt, who had been ducking her for good and scary reasons but was definitely over that now.

Maybe digging out her old purple taffeta prom dress and trying it on in the bedroom mirror was putting her on edge. At least the Teen Queen diet ensured she could easily pull up the back zipper.

Temple surveyed her past self in the full-length mirror, ignoring the bizarre hair color above the neck. This dress was so twelve years ago. Strapless, close-fitting ruched princess torso. Sheer chic then, today it felt like wearing curtain from an Austrian whorehouse. Belled skirt like an exotic blossom with her legs the stem. This dress had been selected after she’d been invited to the prom by a dorkish date. Temple, too soft-hearted to just say no, had chosen the full crackling skirt so she wouldn’t be afflicted during slow dances by knowledge of the casual date in homo erectus state. It was icky to think of oneself as a blowup doll for the socially challenged set. Poor guys, hormones will … well, out. That didn’t mean she had to be the scene of the crime.

Back to now and a definitely nondorky guy. Being a vintage-everything lover, Temple wasn’t bothered by the dress’s dated look. But something bothered her. Maybe it was her unadorned chest and neck. She couldn’t remember what she’d worn with the dress to her real prom back in Minnesota, which showed how unmemorable that had been. In fact, it had been the usual night of uneasy embarrassment, having been asked by someone she wouldn’t have asked to the prom if girls could do the selecting.

So … she needed a fresh necklace anyway. Her three-tier costume jewelry chest didn’t offer anything right. And then she remembered … Should she? It would be a nice gesture. Maybe it would be too nice a gesture. Take a look, she told herself. If it goes with the dress and the Gamier hair .. .

She pawed through her scarf drawer, a repository of all the gifts she’d never used because she couldn’t tie an attractive knot to save her soul. A little round box. Whatwas that? She opened it and found the old gold ring of a dragon biting its tail she had been mistakenly given at the women’s exhibition. Way too big to wear and way too clunky and not-her.

Her fingers found the shape of another box. She opened the velvet case and pulled out the black cat necklace of crushed black opal Matt had given to her months and months ago. She had given it to her scarf drawer in turn because she was an almost-married woman. In her own mind. Then.

Now … if he wanted her to wear this dress, he’d want her to wear his present. She fought the tiny clasp to a TKO and went to the mirror to adjust the lay of the delicate centerpiece on her collarbones.

Maybe a bit subdued for the dress but not bad. She shook her head. The curl was creeping back into her colored hair but she still looked so radically different to herself. Max wouldn’t believe it. Maybe she’d keep the color. It made what she’d always considered her lukewarm blue-gray eyes look startlingly strong. Why be a Lucille Ball redhead forever, even if hers was natural?

Temple scavenged among the shoe racks in her wall-long closet, rejecting several candidates before finding the pair of purple satin sandals she’d got on sale at Designer Shoe Warehouse.

Perfect, the mirror said. You look way too hot, the voice in Temple’s head warned the blonde in the mirror. So? Her date had just faced a huge personal shock. Might as well take his mind off of it. He seemed to be in the mood. Besides, what could happen at the Bellagio that they couldn’t backtrack from … which they’d gotten very good at … in a heartbeat?

“Wow. You look like a movie star,” Temple greeted Matt at her door.

He was wearing a cream blazer over an open-necked cocoa silk shirt that showcased his unusual brown-eyed blond coloring.

“You took the words right out of my mouth.”

“Then we’ll really wow them at the Bellagio.”

“Not that I want to obscure your glory but do you have some sort of wrap? Could get chilly later.”

“Oh.” She’d figured they’d use valet parking but maybe not. “Just a sec.”

She darted back into the bedroom to raid her scarf drawer for an airy lavender and silver-thread stole-thing.

Midnight Louie, stretched out on the bed, opened one green eye to watch her swing the stole over her bare shoulders. He looked like he was winking approval.

“Back before midnight, boy,” she reassured him, as if he cared.

When she returned to the foyer and grabbed her tiny silver evening purse again, Matt opened the door. Before she could glide through, his finger touched the necklace in recognition.

Temple stopped as if hitting an invisible wall. “Looks even nicer on,” he said.

“It’s lovely. I I… just needed the right occasion to wear it.”

“This is the right occasion.”

When his finger dropped away from her skin, she felt like someone who had been released from a spell and hurried out into the short hall leading to the elevator.

The one-floor elevator ride was a study in awkward silence.

When the door slid back, Electra Lark was waiting for them. Mega-awkward.

Actually, she’d been waiting for the elevator.

Electra stepped back in mock awe, clutching her hands over the terminally floral muumuu covering her buxom body in the region symbolizing her heart.

“I’m stunned. Don’t you two look like escapees from the top of a wedding cake; good enough to eat! What’s the occasion?’ There was nothing to do but step out into lobby and explain themselves.

“Dinner at the Bellagio,” Temple said.

“That’ll set you back! Must be a big celebration.”

“I wrapped up a big account,” Temple said, just as Matt said, “A family reunion.”

“Well.” Electra looked from one to the other, speculative, surprised, and pleased at the same time. “Temple, love the hair! Nice to have such snazzy tenants add class to my lobby. Enjoy yourselves.”

“We will,” Matt promised in farewell, ushering Temple down the side hall to the parking lot at the rear.

She giggled as they left the landlady behind. “Suppose that reaction means she’s used to seeing us in our scruffies.”

“And separately.”

The parking lot was only half full.

Temple came to a full halt again as they emerged into the still-warm night air. “That’s right! I get to ride in the Crossfire.”

“The Hesketh Vampire would hardly do for that get-up.”

“Guess not.” Mention of the silver vintage motorcycle that had been Max’s, then Electra’s, and now was Matt’s to borrow when he pleased drew a thin curtain of what Temple would from now on consider “Catholic guilt” over her mood.

Matt established her in the passenger seat of the low silver car. She oohed over the leather interior and futuristic dashboard until they were well underway.

“Regret not waiting to buy until the convertible model came out?” she asked.

“Not really, given both our needs to avoid too much exposure to the sun.”

“I suppose my Miata ragtop was a dopey purchase but it’s great to tool around town in, and I wear a vintage straw hat with a built-in scarf I can tie on. So forties.”

“Risk taking is good for the soul,” he said, while Temple decided to reparse his last comment about the Crossfire convertible being dangerous to their skin types.

It was true. Natural blondes and redheads were sun-sensitive. Skin cancer was an ugly reality in a sunshine state like Nevada. So why should Matt be thinking of the Crossfire in relation to her skin tones as well as his?

Hmmm.

The Circle Ritz building, dating from the fifties, had been erected amazingly close to the Strip. Nowadays, it couldn’t afford the location, had it not already snatched it. In moments, they were cruising the Strip’s overheated neon length. The Paris Hotel’s festive balloon floated above the traffic like a tattooed moon fallen to earth. The Mirage’s volcano flashed fire and outroared the MGM-Grand lion. The Hilton’s chorus line of neon flamingos pulsed their hot-pink plumage.

They were heading south.

“The Bellagio—” Temple was about to point out that the hotel was north from where they were now. They were heading away, toward the Crystal Phoenix Hotel’s neon namesake looming large on the right. It vanished into their wake.

“I decided someplace off the beaten tourist path would be better,” Matt said. “That all right?”

“Uh, sure. All the restaurants in the Bellagio cost an arm and a leg and a first-born child, anyway.”

He just smiled at her. The dashboard lights made his features look, not eerie, as that kind of theatrical uplighting usually did, but gilded.

For some reason, Temple felt that the tiny metal purse on her lap required the tight custody of both hands.

In moments, the Strip was glittering history in the rearview mirror. Oceans of bedroom communities twinkled across the broad valley floor.

Max’s place was somewhere out there.

And then the desert darkness swallowed even that, leaving only the Crossfire’s headlight beams sweeping the deserted highway ahead. From the darkness all around came the intermittent rhythm of the one mysterious light glimpsed now and then. Who lived way out there alone, you wondered. What were they doing now?

What were they doing now?

Temple racked her brain for some new chichi restaurant out in the boonies but she could only think of Three O’Clock Louie’s at Temple Bar on Lake Mead. That was definitely not chichi and not in the direction they were heading.

An antsy little spasm started in the pit of her stomach. This was ridiculous! She was with Matt. He wouldn’t take her anywhere she didn’t want to go.

He wouldn’t take her anywhere she didn’t want to go. Oh.

When he reached a break in some barbed wire (all this land was owned, no matter how deserted looking), she glimpsed another of those cryptic highway mile markers. Fifty-one, it read.

Fifty-one! Area 51. But, no, that was farther north than this.

Temple cringed as the Crossfire jolted over a winding sandy road. Hard on the brand-new suspension. “Where are we—?”

“The horses know the way,” Matt said. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried.” Liar.

He’d had such a huge shock back in Chicago. Finding a father he’d never known and thought was dead. She remembered the Matt who’d been obsessed about tracking down his stepfather. He’d been relentless, angry, explosive sometimes. She hadn’t glimpsed that side of him for a long time. Still .. .

The headlights finally revealed another sign.

Salt Cedar Springs.

For a moment, Temple had thought it read “Saltpeter Springs.” She giggled to herself. Nervously. “I didn’t know there was a restaurant way out here.”

Matt turned off the engine. Turned to her. “It’s Alice’s restaurant. You can get anything you want.”

Then he came around and opened the door. She stepped out onto sand.

The car’s headlights revealed an expanse of water. The surface was so gently riffled by the wind that it resembled the tiny ridges of sand dunes in the uncertain light. Silk moiré.

Temple peered around for a source of light. There was none but the sickle moon and the shimmer of headlights on the water. And, if she turned around to look back, the distant ground-bound aurora that was Las Vegas.

“Matt—?”

“You remember. Isn’t this familiar?”

“Yes and no.”

“It’s a natural spring in the desert. Been here for centuries. That salt cedar tree, the giant weeping willowlike one there, is maybe five hundred years old.”

“It’s spectacular, but—”

But … Matt was leaning back into the car. Music started pouring into the empty desert night. “Sometimes When We Touch.”

He came around the open door, carrying a white box. “You still don’t get it, do you?”

Temple nodded. “Call me incomprehensible.”

He took something out of the box and slid it around her left wrist. Scent exploded on the dry desert air, intense, sweet as syrup, yet amazingly delicate.

A white moonflower blossomed on her arm. Three of them. Gardenias.

“Matt. We did that prom night thing, way back months ago.”

“That was you taking me to my high school prom, the one I never went to. This is me taking you to yours, the one you went to but never liked.”

Temple brought the gardenias to her nose. Did any scent in the world pack such an intense emotional punch? “I had a prom night,” she said. “You didn’t.”

“That’s the single nicest thing anyone ever did for me. Thought I’d return the favor.”

“You don’t have to. I’m a veteran. Been there, done that.”

“Not the right way. You asked why I bought the Crossfire. I bought it to take you to the prom.”

“Me? Your car? Why?”

“Don’t you remember? Curtis Dixstrom and his father’s dweeby Volvo station wagon?”

“Oh, yeah. I told you that so long ago and you remember every detail? No, the most handsome popular guy in school didn’t ask me to the prom. Yes, I was humiliated going with some fourth-tier guy who wanted an excuse to get a lot closer to me than I ever did to him. But … that’s life. That’s high school. I’m ashamed I was ever so stupid and shallow. If I ran into some Mr. Hot Stuff Who Didn’t Ask Me today I’d be bored to tears in two minutes. I bet my actual date would be a lot more interesting. I grew up. He grew up. The guys and girls who had it all in high school never did. You don’t have to make up one damn thing to me.”

“But I want to.”

He’d bought a thirty-five-thousand-dollar car just to take her back on a sentimental journey! Should she just say no? Hell, no!

“Oh. Well. The wrist corsage is—”

“I remembered that dress didn’t allow for anything pinned onto it.”

“So … gardenias. Thank you. I’ve always looked for a perfume that duplicated their scent but everything artificial overpowers reality.”

“Overpowering reality. That’s what this is about.”

Matt brought out a crystal plate of hors d’oeuvres, an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne, and two crystal flutes.

Temple recognized the products of the best caterer in town.

“Um, this is a big cut above the prom buffet table of Ritz Crackers and Cheese Whiz and seriously nonalcoholic punch.”

“The past can be improved upon; that’s what this is all about. Have a seat.”

Just as Temple was about to ask where, he picked her up by the purple taffeta waist and set her atop the Crossfire’s warm hood.

“A rough road trip out into the deep desert,” she observed. “Serving as an impromptu buffet table. That’s a heck of a way to treat an expensive new car, Devine.”

He sat on the other side of the hood, so they were facing in opposite directions, like on those old Victorian seating pieces. Courting sofas.

She held her flute up for a bubbly infusion. The music on the CD pulsed softly.

“Won’t the battery die?”

“I put the headlights on parking. They’ll last for hours. Long enough, I hope.”

Long enough for what?

But the shrimp and salmon and cream cheese and all the chilled appetizers were a piquant contrast with the thick soupy warm desert air. And the dry champagne went down like very sophisticated Sprite.

Temple was swinging her feet against the front tire tothe rhythm of Rod Stewart’s romantic anthem “The Rhythm of My Heart.”

“Great soundtrack,” she said when the edge was off her hunger and the champagne flute was on its third refill. “To whom do we owe the pleasure?”

“Ambrosia of WCOO-AM.”

“Your boss? The Queen of Late Nite Music to Sigh By?”

“Yeah. I asked her for the appropriate background music. Some of it’s thirteen years old and some of it’s today.”

“And all of it’s classic.” Temple set her flute on the Crossfire hood, mellow enough not to worry about maltreating a hot car.

“Shall we dance?” Matt asked.

She was ready to jump off to the ground herself but he was there to catch her, and before you could say “Canadian Sunset” they were slow dancing, swaying to the music.

No. That was on the radio. The car CD, rather. Temple’s corsage-bearing left hand (with Max’s emerald ring on the middle, not the third, finger) was resting on Matt’s shoulder. She and Max had danced around the marriage question a few times, but that was two years ago, when their romance was as fresh as a daisy and as hot as a hibiscus and anything seemed possible. Not lately. Max was married to the mob lately. The counterterrorism mob. Danger was his sole dancing partner. Temple had defended him to Molina and every other corner, excused his absences to herself, accepted his apologies, and understood and understood and understood until she took the word for her middle name.

Suddenly, she couldn’t see or touch the past. Only the present. She could see only Matt. Feel only him. And nothing about that seemed wrong, only absolutely, infectiously, incontestably right.

The gardenia scent enveloped her, enveloped him. It swirled on the dry night air like a drug.

Something brushed her temple. An insect. No. Someone’s lips.

Her cheek. Her chin. Her lips.

They were kissing. And kissing. Separating and touching. Tilted this way. That way. Again. Scent and sound. Feet stepping together. Apart. Lips together apart. Always new. Testing. Tasting. Slow dancing on the desert. Surprise and collusion. Collaboration in rhythm. No missteps. Perfect harmony.

Slow dancing.

Just me …

And my .. .

He lifted her up on top of the car hood again. Better.

Liquid gardenia moonlight. Radio at the midnight hour.

Temple knew better. But she couldn’t think of a better way to be. Matt matched her. Motion for motion. Surrender for surrender. She thought of hovering humming birds darting at blossoms. So swift. so graceful in their elegant hunger.

Separation. Intermission. When it came, it seemed unnatural.

“I’ve thought about it,” Matt whispered.

Whispering in a desert was ludicrous but it was the only appropriate response to this infinitely delicate, devastating situation.

“I want it to go fast. I want it to go slow.”

Seconded. Jimmy Buffet was singing about a slow boat to China. He knew sailing ships.

“I decided slow.”

“Slow,” she repeated. Dutifully. Running a very slow tongue tip along his upper lip.

And she had to wear this balloon of a dress meant to keep her from feeling anything below the waist. That was then, this was now.

She pushed her upper teeth into his lower lip and felt his hands convulse on her waist.

A finger, or thumb, ran down the long zipper at the back. Desert air struck her spine with the shock of hot water. His hand was hotter.

“Slow,” he said.

Oh, yes. Oh, no. Vive la difference!

“So,” she said, remembering certain concerns, very remote. “What about your religious whatever?”

He let them pull apart.

“I am not going to mention you in confession.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.”

“No. I’m serious. I won’t deny what happens with us. But—”

But. Always but. Temple opened her eyes. She was staring up at a lot more stars than she’d ever glimpsed in the overlit city she called home. Because Matt’s hair was brushing her cheek, and his lips were on her throat, her shoulder, her small claim to cleavage.

“So I’ve figured it out,” he said, lifting his face to hers. She breathed softly onto his mouth. “How? You still can’t sleep with anyone outside of marriage.”

“We get married.”

“Married?” That snapped her out of Foreplay 101.

“Yes. Civilly. Electra could do it. Would love to. I finally realized: this is Nevada. People marry instantly here. If you’re not satisfied—”

“Shut your mouth. On me.”

“We can divorce.”

“Divorce?”

“Or … if not, we marry again. Church ceremony. Catholic. Unitarians are easy when it comes to ecumenical. In the Twin Cities or Chicago or Milwaukee halfway in between. White gown, ring bearer, relatives, everything.”

“You’d marry me civilly first so I can have a test run?”

“Right. No strings, no obligation. You said modern women needed free samples. Of sexual compatibility, I assume. I can’t blame them. I am something of a freak.”

“Freaking nuts. In a very sweet way.”

And having said the word sweet, Temple needed to taste it again.

“What about your Catholic conscience?” she asked finally.

“We’d be married in the eyes of the law. I think I can fudge a bit. I spent so many years not fudging.”

“Matt.” She pushed him away. That was against her religion, which was easy, he said, but she pushed him away with a surge of self-control.

“I’m on the pill. That’s against your religion, right?”

“Right. But your religion isn’t my religion. I suppose in the name of ecumenical tolerance … You’re on the pill?”

This appeared to give him either pause or an infusion of fresh motivation.

“We have a lot of issues, Matt. Children. Like I may not be ready. Or … not.”

“I may never be ready. People work that out. Forget the this or that. That’s what had me all screwed up. You want to be my mother and father in thirty-some years? Afraid to face each other because they can’t admit that what they had was lost? That it was really something?”

“You want to marry a bottle blonde?”

“I want to marry you, whatever shade you’re wearing.”

“Then this is a proposal.”

He thought for a moment. “No, this is a free trial offer. A proposal would be much better than this.”

“Can’t believe it could be,” she said, curling her fingers into the lapels of his jacket.

That ended discussions for a while.

Temple’s heart was beating like the Rod Stewart—advertised drum but her mind was racing too, from the moon to the dizzying scent on her wrist that blended with the champagne and the music into an altered state.

To a low-profile emerald ring on her hand and a wrench of regret in her heart.

To a certain knowledge that there was no going back from here, no slipping away into separate Edens.

To a growing realization that she didn’t want to go back from here. She wanted to go forward.

She so much wanted to go forward that it would have taken one finger pushing on the delicate necklace so near the pulse in her throat and she’d have been lying back on the Crossfire hood.

Maybe he knew that. Maybe that was what he meant by going slow (although it might be what she considered going crazy).

His parents had followed the moment and the magic and couldn’t bear to face each other, and perhaps him, now. Not for them.

They necked for another extremely overheated ten minutes, then packed up their salt-cedar picnic.

And left.

Chapter 61

The World His Oyster

I am waiting up for my Miss Temple, my tail thumping with impatience. It is not right for a roommate to announce a midnight return from a social engagement and then to be three hours late!

Normally, I am content to let others come and go at their pleasure and their leisure, since I do not want anyone dictating hours to me.

However, time and again I have proved to be my Miss Temple’s muscle. Although I know Mr. Matt Devine to be such a straight arrow that he could aim his fancy new car at the town of Reno hundreds of miles to the north and hit it dead on, I have to wonder what he could be doing to keep my roomie up so late?

Could it be a breakdown of the Crossfire? Flat tire? Gas tank leak? An attempted hijacking? Kidnapping? Encounter with terrorists? UFOs?

Perhaps I have become a teensy bit too attached to my Miss Temple.

I should have hitchhiked a ride in the Crossfire. Then I would not be worrying now. I pace like a Big Cat. Hey! I am a Big Cat.

I chew my nails. I will certainly raise a ruckus when the truants come home safe and sound at—I eye the clock on the VCR. Three-thirty! What are they thinking of? Certainly not me!

But … now I hear voices. In the short hallway leading to our domicile.

Very low voices. Nice of them to worry about not keeping anyone up when I have been wearing out my pads with pacing!

A key in the door. I go to sit by it, assuming a stern, accusing posture. She could have left a note.

The door swings open a hair but no further.

I still hear murmurs.

I insert my head silently into the opening, assuming a put-upon look. I have not had a treat spooned over my Free-to-beFeline since we left for the Teen Queen Castle. I am hungry!

My Miss Temple is leaning against the door frame with her hands braced behind her like she has all the time in the world. She looks half asleep. Correction: she looks like she is half dreaming.

Mr. Matt has leaned a hand on the doorjamb above her head. At least he is not neglecting her.

Miss Temple jams the toe of her purple silk sandal into the wooden hall floor, looking down. He is looking down on her shockingly blonde head.

“You could come in,” she says, a strange slow, reluctant, warm, inviting tone in her voice, like she means it and is afraid she does mean it.

No! I am waiting impatiently for a long-delayed spread of oysters and shrimp over my Free-to-beFeline! Enough palaver!

Apparently, Mr. Matt agrees, for he drops his hand from the door frame and catches her hands tight behind her back and … well, his other hand lifts up her face and he does something totally unfeline and quite unfit for the youthful eyes of my species.

It is a good thing I have been around humans during mating season, for I shut my eyes in time to avoid witnessing something we would all prefer that I did not.

And then my Miss Temple is in the room at last, a silly sort of shawl trailing off of one shoulder, bringing with her a suffocating floral scent as well as the dreamy attitude.

The door is closed and we are alone at last! I howl my anxiety and indignation.

“Louie! So glad you made it home safe,” she says. So I could say.

“I will get you something,” she adds.

But she doesn’t. She turns back to the closed door and presses against it. Almost pulls it open again. Stops. Paces in the tiny hall. Goes to the living room and picks up her cell phone. Holds it to her mouth as if it were a flower.

Speaking of which, I wish she’d ditch the wrist corsage, which I have determined is the source of the noxiously sweet odor. I have had enough of them in this case.

She paces some more. Counts to fifty under her breath, then dials a number. And listens. And paces. And listens.

“What?” she demands of the room in general. “He has to be there by now!” Pacing.

And I thought my species had that down.

She kicks off the high heels. And paces some more. And then redials.

She stops suddenly to regard me as if seeing me for the first time. But not to proffer food or even a welcoming caress.

“Cold shower?” she asks me.

She hurls the cell phone to the sofa. Why is she mad? She is like, really angry.

She retrieves the phone and hits the redial button again.

People are so predictable with their toys. I suppose it is somewhat entertaining to watch them cavort with technology.

Then she stares at me again and bends down to swoop me up in her arms.

First of all, I do not “swoop.”

Second of all, I weight almost twenty pounds so I am quite a bundle of bones for her to hoist.

Third of all, she is wearing this dress with only a halter top, so I have nothing but warm bare flesh to wrap my legs around. Ick! It takes all my considerable self-control to keep from latching on to her with my shiv tips.

Perhaps that is why she has goose bumps on her arms.

She carries me to the French doors leading to her petite balcony, opens one, and walks out into the finally cooling night.

Below us lies the serene blue rectangle of the pool and, on the other side, the parking lot.

She gazes out, idly stroking my chin and throat.

All right. This is better. I think about rewarding her diligence with a slight purr.

Suddenly, she stiffens. All over. Her hand on my throat almost throttles me.

I look down to see that Mr. Matt has strolled out tc the pool. He is far more clothed than usual in that area. and he too begins pacing!

My Miss Temple’s grip tightens.

Mr. Matt sits on one of the lounge chairs and proceeds to remove his shoes and stockings! Well, I have always felt that humans were way overdressed. He looks like Tom Sawyer by the riverbank, I think, having lounged on a lot of library books in my time. (One does pick up things.) Miss Temple edges, barefoot too, to the edge of the balcony.

I, of course, am carried along with her, unwilling. I have definitely revoked the purr.

He stands up, lays his jacket on the lounge chair, and starts unbuttoning his shirt.

My Miss Temple is as still as a stalking cat. I did not know she had such skills in her. She watches. I can practically feel her whiskers twitching, her pupils slitting. (These are figures of speech. She is not so elegantly accoutered as me and my kind, alas.) But she is as alert as any alley cat, which is high praise from me.

Mr. Matt’s instincts are nothing to spit at tonight either. He suddenly looks up.

They see each other.

My Miss Temple does not move a muscle, except that her heart revs up.

He looks at her. She looks at him.

He keeps undoing buttons on his shirt. Then it is on the lounge chair.

He begins on the trousers—silly convention! He stops at the underwear, which is dark and understated, at least.

My Miss Temple’s fingernails are starting to seriously impinge on my musculature, which is almost in as admirable a state as Mr. Matt’s.

What is the big deal? She has seen him in his swim trunks before.

All I can say is the night is strangely charged until hedives into the deep end of the lit aquamarine pool and begins swimming laps back and forth.

Some spell is broken. Miss Temple mutters under her breath, and incidentally into my ear, “Well, I suppose it’s the equivalent of a cold shower. For him.”

She sounds terminally angry with our esteemed neighbor and I chance a small merow in her ear.

“Poor Louie!” she says, back to normal and paying attention to me again. “Are you hungry? Was bad mommy away too long? Bad, bad mommy.”

Well, I loathe the “mommy” stuff, which my MissTemple has never resorted to before, but I cannot complain about the tins of sardines, shrimp, and oysters she piles over the ugly green, dry foundation of Free-to-beFeline in my bowl.

I settle on my haunches to dispense with it bite by delicious bite.

Thank goodness things are back to normal around here and I can lie back, digest everything, and relax for a while_

Tailpiece

Midnight Louie ,

Paterfamilias

People! They are forever fixating on fatherhood. I suppose that is because of capitalistic materialism. They not only have territory to defend but property to inherit along with genetic traits.

Me, I find fatherhood incontinent, irrelevant, and immaterial.

I am like that Greek goddess who gave Zeus such a headache that she was born from his brain. She never had a mother and therefore gave Orestes his walking papers when he was up for Murder One for offing his mother. Mother offing is a big no-no even in the natural world but this Athena chick did not see it as any big deal, as she never had a mother, only a very powerful father with a headache.

Anyway, we street cats only know our mothers and they are pretty darn good to us until the hormones wear off and we are on our own. So fathers are no bigdeal. Even if we did run into one we would probably have to fight him anyway.

So I am mystified by all this brouhaha about Mr. Matt finding his father and little Miss Mariah’s father finding out he is one. Miss Midnight Louise appears to have been infected by this human obsession also. She should understand that the way of our kind is serial fatherhood. It is not that lady cats are what humans would call promiscuous. They are just designed to enter the sublime state of heat, unable to say no. Naturally, there are all sorts of dudes out there with the same problem. So a single litter may have four different fathers. And who knows which kit is due to which father?

So why sweat it? In my case, Ma Barker made it clear to me that Three O’Clock Louie was my sire. And that is fine with both of us. We do not need to tread on each other’s toenails but neither do we need to hang out and sing sentimental songs together once upon a midnight clear, or drear.

Humans are also ridiculous about the mating game. Here they have the option to have all the fun and pretty much ensure that no unforeseen consequences come along later causing them to look up innocent dudes as if they were criminals. Yet they keep subjecting their most basic instincts to intense negotiation, not to mention recrimination. Why bother!

I muse on these matters because it is clear to me that my MissTemple is contemplating wandering in the congenial feline direction when it comes to matters of the heart and other organs.

I cannot say I am surprised. Mr. Matt was bound to outgrow his artificially extended adolescence one of these days and become a young tom with a lot of wasted time to make up for.

I cannot agree with those who do not much like Mr.Max Kinsella. He is one cool cat in the street or between the sheets, from my observation, with obligations to protect the world at large that few can understand. Rather like myself. But he has other territory to guard at the moment and when the cat’s away … the mice will play. And someone will pay. This is Las Vegas. Bet on it.

Very best fishes,

Midnight Louie, Esq

P.S. For information about getting Midnight Louie’s free newsletter and/or buying his T-shirt, contact him at Midnight Louie’s Scratching Post-Intelligencer, PO Box 331555, Fort Worth, TX 76163-1555, or by e-mail at cdouglas@catwriter.com. Or visit Midnight Louie’s Web pages at www.carolenelsondouglas.com or www.cat writer.com.

Tailpiece Carole Nelson Douglas Makes Room for Daddy You’re a tine one to philosophize about fatherhood, Louie.

You’ve only just now barely acknowledged the delightful Midnight Louise as your daughter.

But you’re right that the feline kingdom is a matriarchy when it comes to family life. A lot of human households are becoming more like that, since some human fathers are also likely to slip away from the confines of a domestic life.

Still, humans are hooked on relationships. They have a sense of history about where their forebears have been and where they and the whole human family might be going.

So when blood relations are missing, they find unrelated people to fill in for the absent father, or mother, or brother or sister, or child. Sometimes even your kind do the job, Louie.

As for your speculations on the uniquely human condition known as “romance,” you are about as expert there as a lapdog would be at bloodhound work.

You’re just lucky to have an alternate source of affection and support when your rambling and gambling days are over: all of those human females who don’t mind a roguish ladies’ man around the house … if he’s of another species.