Cat In A Quicksilver Caper

Crystal Shoe Persuasion

“I thought and I thought about where to go,” Matt said, looking around the elegant dining room. “I know you’ve been through a lot lately at the New Millennium. So I decided this place might have the most resonance for you.”

Matt had insisted (he was doing a lot of that lately) on taking Temple out to celebrate when he telephoned and heard that the Czar Alexander scepter had been restored to its proper place (unlike her significant other of long standing).

Temple had swallowed that pang and passed on more happy news to Matt.

“Not only is the scepter back, but I scored a Vanity Fair piece, maybe even by Dominic Dunne, on the disappearing and reappearing scepter, the sad death of the little Chinese defector girl, and the would-be greedy Russian thieves and thugs. The exhibition deaths have made the Las Vegas papers and are going to dog the exhibition anyway, so I figured a Big Negative can equal a Positive sometimes in the publicity business. Everyone went for it. It lends, they said, ‘mystique’ to the collection.”

“Not to mention the mystique of all those dead Romanovs. Gore sells, I guess.”

“Especially if you can add some glitz. A sad reality of the media biz.”

“Enough sad reality! This Vanity Fair thing is big?”

“This is huge! The New Millennium’s paying me a bonus.”

“Then we’ll really have lots to celebrate.”

It was only after Matt hung up that Temple wondered what else they would be celebrating.

Kit was out again with Aldo that night, so much for a related buffer zone, and Temple was both angry and sad about Max’s midnight descent into hail and farewell, so she’d agreed.

This was what Max wanted, right? She’d pulled out her purple prom dress/Crossfire hood ornament dress, again dusted off her Midnight Louie shoes—even he had seemed to desert her lately—and decided to celebrate by letting herself wallow in everything about Matt she liked, which was a lot.

Now, Temple gazed around the glittering Crystal Phoenix dining room. When Matt had asked her out to dinner, she’d been too distracted by recent events to wonder why, or even where he’d take her.

“The Phoenix is sort of home base for me,” she said, “although not lately.” Lately, nothing was. “But I’ve never eaten in this restaurant before.”

“Good. I’d like to dedicate this evening to things never done before.”

Temple couldn’t stop the heat from rising to her face. There was One Big Thing neither had ever done before: Temple with Matt, Matt with anybody else in the whole wide world.

The waiter chose that perfect cue to arrive with a silver-plated champagne stand and a bottle of Perrier-Jouët.

“Perrier-Jouët! I should have worn something better than my old prom dress.”

“You look good in purple.”

“Even as a bottle blonde?”

“Even as whatever color your hair happens to be.”

Temple glanced down at the now-vintage taffeta gown with its halter top and huge, blooming skirt. She did love it. “This is my desert-dancing dress.”

She knew she evoked their most romantic moments, even as her heart twisted for other times, other places.

Matt lifted his glass of champagne in a toast. “To desert dancing then.”

Temple raised her glass, feeling suddenly bold. “To . . . moonlighting as a hood ornament on a Crossfire.”

It was his turn to color, but it was only a faint, passing flush on his fair Polish skin slightly toasted by a Las Vegas tan. Matt was getting way too hard to embarrass, Temple decided. Which was both intriguing and worrisome.

“Did you have designs on a desert ride for dessert?” she asked.

“No. All the dessert I want is right here.”

Oh. “You have something to tell me?”

“More like ask you.”

Oh.

Thank God. The waiter swooped away their salad plates and assured them their main courses would be “up” very soon.

“Would you like to dance?” he asked.

Oh. That. Sure. She’d taught him the name of that tune, after all.

The dance floor was a tiny peninsula of parquet off the bandstand. The band was mellow, soothing, dedicated to old standards: gonna take a Sentimental Journey into a Canadian Sunset. Corny. Safe.

Temple put her left hand on the shoulder of the brandy velvet dinner jacket she had talked Matt into buying many moons ago.

Thinking of which, the full moon hung like a Christmas tree ornament outside the sweep of windows framing the night. Pale, huge, opaque but gleaming. The full moon always looked like Bing Crosby’s crooning face to her. Ba-ba-ba-ba-boo. Boo! Was a surprise on the menu tonight?

Her right hand folded into Matt’s as they swayed together with a half dozen other couples, some silver haired, some . . . good grief! . . . with gelled hair spikes and visible tattoos.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Who comes to Vegas, is part of Vegas.

“Frank Bucek told me about your takedown at the New Millennium,” Matt said.

“Oh. That. It was the Fontana brothers’ takedown.”

Matt nodded.

Temple felt the gesture to the bottom of her soles. Solid.

They were close, not tentative, and she liked it.

“He gave me some advice,” Matt added a minute later.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. He said ex-priests were hard on their wives.”

“Oh. Really? How?”

Matt shrugged. Temple shivered. “We’ve been little tin gods in our parishes or wherever. Catered to. By housekeepers. Soccer moms. Looked up to by kids. We can be a tad self-centered, never meaning to be.”

“All in the name of serving mankind?”

“Right. The grandiose big picture, not the intimate small picture. I wouldn’t want to be that way.”

“Of course not. What does Frank’s wife do?”

“Keeps him down to earth.”

“Sounds like . . . fun.”

“And then there’s . . . you know, sex.”

“Oh. I suppose that would be an issue for anyone who’s been celibate for a long time.”

“Right. We tend to be overly . . . intense.”

“Really?”

He nodded, which brought her cheek in contact with his cheek.

Matt led her back to their table before the heat of his hand had quite branded itself onto her taffeta-clad back.

How many years since her high school prom night? Twelve. Was it possible? Thirty-one looming? And just yesterday she’d been sweet, dumb sixteen, before high school kids had even thought of “friends with benefits.”

“You can dance on wood as well as sand,” she said approvingly as he pulled out her chair so she could gather the full skirt under herself and sit. Sometimes vintage was awkward.

A lot of times life was awkward.

Matt sat opposite her. The Crystal Phoenix avoided the usual flickering candle under glass on its table. Instead a Murano blown-glass phoenix spread its tail feathers in a series of fairy-size floating flames.

The flickering uplight made every man and woman look like a soft-spotlit movie star. Matt was a floating, glittering image of himself. Temple hoped she was too. No wrinkles. No worry, just radiant points of light.

The waiter wafted plates before them as if presenting canna lily leaves bearing manna from Fairyland. Divine scents lilted upward.

“How wonderful,” Temple said. “Chef Song has outdone himself.”

“Even Louie might approve,” Matt said, eyeing her.

Even Louie might approve . . . what? The menu? A delicate fish dish for her, medallions of beef for Matt? The two of them together, dining at Louie’s old stomping grounds, the Crystal Phoenix? The chef? The place? The atmosphere? The pheromones?

They were silent during dinner, every bite of which was . . . divine.

Temple patted her lips with the heavy linen napkin, thinking about when to refresh her pale lipstick, thinking about the beaded lipstick holder in her teeny-tiny purse on the tabletop. About whether to excuse herself and flee to the ladies’ room. Or to reapply her going-out mouth at the table, as etiquette said one could, in front of one’s escort.

Matt beat her to it by abstracting a small, black satin box from somewhere. It was almost as magical a manifestation as some paper bouquet from Max.

He held it under the flickering crystal gaze of the mythical bird that had died in flame and ashes and risen from them hard, diamond-bright, invincible. Reborn. New. Fresh. Real.

Temple took the box in her hand. Licked her lips.

Opened it.

Glanced away from the laserlike fire.

Lasers healed, lasers struck dead. Lasers dazzled.

“Matt.”

She finally focused past the blinding glitter. The bling. A ring of diamonds massed in the mechanically graceful assemblage of curves and angles that screamed Art Deco. Art Deckle. Not even a dead man could push himself between this view and her understanding of it. “Fred Leighton,” the inside of the satin lining declared in subtle letters. Estate jewelry. True vintage. Amazing beauty of shape and line, of time and history. Of understanding what called to her.

“This,” she said, “is truly Red Carpet bling. It’s exquisite. My God, I’m Julia Roberts!

“This is a ring,” he said. Corrected. “You’re you. It’s really two guard rings. It comes apart, see? The band is rubies, for . . . later. I saw it and saw you. That’s all.”

Temple was agape at the clever way the two halves of the ring separated to admit a band. A band of rubies for a wedding ring. What an exquisite thought, an exquisite execution, the epitome of every reason she loved vintage things, but Fred Leighton, jeweler to movie stars . . . that was way too much.

She said so.

“Listen. I’ve given triple that to African famine and Gulf Coast flood relief. You can wear it in good conscience.”

Of course he would have; that was why she’d always had to spur him into springing for the basic little comforts of American consumer life. But for her, he needed no encouragement. He went big.

Temple bit her lower lip (on which she should have reinstalled lipstick for this truly Kodak moment).

Beauty, the poet had said, is truth. Truth, beauty.

Who was she to deny the perfection of a beautiful gift, a beautiful moment, a beautiful mind, a beautiful heart, a beautiful hope?

“I don’t know quite what to say,” she said. Anyway.

She held up the corona of light, in her right hand, poised somewhere over her left third finger. Apparently, it was a Kodak moment to someone other than Matt and herself.

A flash exploded around them both, an aurora, a star going nova.

“Photo, folks? Visiting Las Vegas to celebrate an engagement and tie the knot? Your friends and family will treasure this moment as much as you do.”

Temple rather doubted that.

“Just twelve dollars.”

Matt didn’t doubt that at all but reached for his wallet. It was his night to pay, all the way. To pave the way.

The tiny elevator at the Circle Ritz was all theirs at this hour. The Midnight Hour. Monday night. Matt’s one night off from his late-night radio shrink show.

The shrink was in.

His finger was poised over the round black buttons with the white floor numbers mostly polished away by other fingers over many more years than they’d been on this planet.

“Floor two or three?” he said lightly. Temple still heard the strain in his voice. It was a momentous decision and it was all hers.

“Three,” Temple said. “I’ve got an aunt cluttering up my living room and a cat claiming my bedroom.”

“I’ve got a brand-new bed and no aunts or cats.”

“I know.”

“Is there a reason you’re huddling in the corner of the elevator?”

“I’m scared?”

“You’re scared?

“It’s a lot of responsibility.”

“Don’t I know?”

He took her elbow, steered her out of the small elevator car into the deserted hallway and down the short cul-de-sac to his door. Where he got lukewarm feet.

“Maybe some place more . . . unusual. Without a past. A hotel?”

“This is fine,” Temple said, trying not to zone out on the way the sidelight fell on his hair, making a blond halo of it.

Angels. They didn’t do carnal things like sex.

“Are you—?” he asked.

“Protected? Yes. Is that a sin?”

“That’s the way you are. You’re perfect. I’m not. Remember? I don’t want to hurt you. For what you are or for what you aren’t. You’re all I want.”

“Funny, I feel the exact same way about you.”

Inside the apartment, there wasn’t a soul around. Not even a cat.

Temple eyed the sculptural red fifties designer sofa she’d found for Matt at Goodwill. Danny was right that it had cost something to give it up to him, to insist he have it. She’d always kinda maybe thought in her wildest dreams they’d make it someday on that sleek suede surface. She’d always kinda maybe thought a lot of inadmissible things, inadmissible evidence, about Matt Devine. Before she’d known he’d been a priest.

And, heck, even after.

She sat on the red sofa knowing her peony of a purple taffeta skirt made her look like a human mushroom. She looked at her left hand with the movie-star-level estate diamond ring on it.

“I don’t know if I’m ready for this,” she told him.

She didn’t tell him that the day after the black dress interlude she’d hied herself off for testing. A small card that declared her free of HIV and other STDs now lay hidden in her seldom-used scarf drawer. She knew Matt came shrinkwrapped, so to speak, and didn’t want her virgin would-be bridegroom thinking about ugly realities on such a momentous occasion as first sex. She’d figured she was safe and had sniffled a bit when she read the results, pretty solid proof of her conviction that Max had never been unfaithful.

Matt was still trying to be supremely accommodating. He sat beside her. “If the ring’s too much or too much pressure, forget it.”

Temple knew that visible symbol of commitment would mean a lot to his conscience.

She stroked his forearm with that hand, watching the diamonds throw out serious sparks. “No, it’s beautiful. It just should be our secret for a while.”

She touched his lips with a forefinger.

He was watching everything she did with such dreamy pleasure she thought she could die happy right that moment. She’d forgotten what first love was like, but Matt was bringing it all back to her.

“I feel responsible,” she said.

“For what? Yourself? Me?”

“I’m the one who knows. I’m the brazen hussy. You’re the innocent virgin. I can take. You can only give. It’s not fair.”

He stood, took her hand, the right one, and drew her up against him as if they were dancing.

“Frank Bucek called me. I didn’t know he was in town.”

“I ran into him when he was here for crime business at the New Millennium.”

“He told me that you’d talked.”

“He told you we’d talked? I thought he had to abide by some confessional binding thing or something.”

“He only mentioned you in passing.”

“What I said . . . oh, no!”

Matt smiled. “Now I’ll really wonder. No, he just gave me two words of advice.”

“And—?”

“Nobody’s perfect.” Matt was looking down at her as if he didn’t believe that, as if he believed she was really, really perfect.

“I know I’m not. I’m confused. I’m a . . . worldly woman. I’d have an ex, that isn’t an easy, cut-and-dried thing, Matt. It’d be messy.”

“He wasn’t talking about you, Temple. He was talking about me. And I suddenly realized, in all my twisting and turning to do the one right thing, that I didn’t have to be perfect or do the perfect thing. That thinking like that was a kind of hubris. Selfish. That I only had to love you, as I have since almost the minute I met you, that I only had to want you, as I have since almost the day I met you.”

“What took you so long on the ‘want’ part?”

“So you were faster?”

“Oh, yeah. It was simultaneous, on my part.”

“Really.” He pulled her closer. “From my book, I understand that that’s the best way. Simultaneous.”

“Oh, Matt. There are so many ‘best ways.’ ”

“I want to have them all, with you.”

“Even if I’m not ready for marriage right out of the box?”

“I figured something else out, brilliant solver of other people’s problems that I am. If I do what’s best for you, I can’t hurt myself. I’ve been searching for some overarching spiritual love all my life. And it’s there. In other people. Person. Don’t be guilty, Temple. I’ve wasted way too much of my life on that.”

He pulled her close enough that she could tug his tie loose.

He was undoing her back zipper, short as it was on her halter-top prom dress.

She was back there again, in Jon Bon Jovi prom night country, two American kids in the Heartland. A virgin again. Feeling true love again.

And having it all.

“I’ve always,” Matt said, his voice husky, “pictured us on this sofa.”

He swooped her down like a pirate, stripped her as slowly as a Latin lover, and took her to passionate heights she’d never imagined even in those wildest dreams. She hadn’t hardly to do a thing to aid and abet in unleashing years of self-denial, just be there and be willing to be swept away. The resulting emotional and sensual tsunami took their breaths away. He was the most perfect imperfect lover in the world and she wept with the joy of it.

They lay in Matt’s new bed in the heart of darkness inside the Circle Ritz.

“This is just us, isn’t it?” he asked.

Temple pillowed her head on his shoulder. His bare shoulder.

“Yes.”

“No . . . interference from what I was, you were?”

“No.”

“What we’ve figured out we want, what we need?”

“Yes.”

“Only us. Only tonight?”

“Yes.”

“And tomorrow?”

“Only us, only tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?”

Temple took a deep breath. Midnight Louie was the only sure creature she knew on the planet. People were a lot more handicapped. But she and Matt had come damn close to feline certainty.

“Yes.”

No wonder Scarlett had swooned before being swept up that fateful staircase, Temple thought. No way was tomorrow going to be just another day after a night like this.