Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

Family Circle

Temple and Kit clasped hands before leaving the Circle Ritz for their dinner date at the Crystal Phoenix.

“My mom is going to flake out,” Temple said.

“My sister is going to go ballistic.”

They took a deep, simultaneous breath.

“Do you think,” Temple asked, “it’s all right to have the guys waiting in the wings?”

“We can always cancel the introductions in case things look too . . . dreadful.”

“Leave them waiting in the bar all evening, deny them dinner, and then brush them off at the last moment?”

“That would be rather tacky,” Kit agreed. “But better tacky than homicide victims.”

“My parents would never overreact so badly.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, maybe so. So you think we’re better off not wearing our rings?”

“Absolutely not. Karen would spot them instantly. We want to ease the Old Folks at Home into the current realities, not give them strokes.”

“She’s your sister. Almost your age.”

“I’m almost her age,” Kit said icily, “were I about to give such privileged information out hither and yon. I’m sorry, Temple, but you do not look like a hither or a yon to me.” Kit thought for a moment. “They probably don’t even have sex anymore.”

“Kit! These are my parents. I don’t want to think about such things, the lack or presence of them. Please!”

“Why not? That’s all they’re going to think about us. About you deflowering that nice ex-priest and me succumbing in the vulnerability of my ‘certain age’ to a sleek Italian gigolo.”

Temple paused to think. “Actually, those scenarios sound rather hot to me.”

“Me too,” Kit said with a giggle. “Wanta trade? Just kidding, kid! Only a good sense of humor is going to see us through tonight. Why do my sister and her husband seem like parents, even to me?”

“Because that’s all they’ve ever been to me. Parents.” Temple swung Kit’s hand. “I feel naked without my ring.”

“Me too, but we must not feel naked in front of your parents. Parents sense that kind of vulnerability and exploit it like cardsharps. We are independent women of the world and no one tells us who to sleep with.”

“Right. My latest bed partner has been a big black cat.”

“Do not go there. Parents will immediately think bestiality. Trust me.”

“Come on! How bad can it be, Kit?”

“Worse than we can imagine. Look. We arrive. We chitchat, we idly mention our significant others. . . . ”

“Nothing ‘idly’ about that for me. They’re sure to think I’m still being hoodwinked by that rat, Max.”

“Are you?”

“Only when I stop to think about it.”

“Oh, Temple,” Kit said, squeezing her hand. “I’m sure he would never have left you if he’d had a choice.”

“You mean dead or alive?”

“I mean dead or alive. But you’d never leave Matt standing forever in the wings, waiting for an interrogation by your parents, would you? They can be soooo Midwestern.”

“So can we. Sometimes. Let’s go do it. Maybe we can make them feel guilty for a change.”

“Excellent plan. We are women of the world.”

“We live in Manhattan and Vegas. They live in the Grain Belt.”

“We drink martinis and absinthe, they drink—”

“Absinthe?” Temple asked. “Isn’t that illegal?”

“It was banned, but one or two brands are now allowed on sale, and I also do smoke the occasional cigar.”

“No!”

“That’s very hot in Manhattan. Cigar bars. A girl has to adapt.”

“Let’s adapt our way into the worst shock and awesome disapproval Karen and Roger Barr can deliver.”

“Right.” Kit linked arms with Temple in a Yellow Brick Road sort of way. “Off we go.”

Of course, Nicky and Van had seen to it that the Barr party had the best table in the house, overlooking the Strip shooting due north far below on a shimmer of glitter and neon and fairy dust.

Temple was wearing her solid Austrian crystal pumps with a black cat on the heels with a silver knit two-piece suit. Kit was electric in a teal satin dressy suit.

Temple choked when she saw them sitting at the table, eyeing the Strip, Dad in a navy sport coat, Mom in a lightweight blazer.

“Just think American Gothic,” Kit whispered, tightening her grip on Temple’s hand.

Temple had to laugh. She hadn’t seen her parents since leaving Minneapolis with Max to come to Las Vegas more than two years ago. She’d left under a blue-black cloud of parental skepticism and dismay, but she was almost nine years past twenty-one and had the right to follow her heart.

They surprised the Barrs, who turned to see them standing there, smiling, thanks to Kit’s little joke.

Karen gave a little cry and stood up to hug Temple. “Your hair! It’s. . . faded. But otherwise, of course, you look wonderful.”

“A cosmetological accident,” Temple murmured, not mentioning she liked the lighter strawberry blond-red so much she might keep it. An engaged woman had a right to change her hair color.

Her dad gave her the awkward fatherly hug perfected in the Midwest for occasions from weddings to funerals. Next it was Kit’s turn to be embraced by Karen and shake hands with Roger.

“This is a fairly subdued hotel,” Karen said after they’d all seated themselves again. First, Temple and Kit insisted the Barrs keep their seats facing the view. They’d been set on giving them up. “For Las Vegas.”

“It’s a client of mine,” Temple said.

Her mother was gazing at the padded closed menu as if it needed dusting. “That’s nice, dear. Roger, I hope you brought your bifocals, this menu is as thick as a phone book.”

“I know what I want,” he said, pushing the glasses in question up his nose. “I always get a New York strip steak and a baked potato.”

Kit and Temple exchanged agonized teenage glances. Too bad they were both so far past the teen years.

Temple eyed her mother. She wore a figured silk blouse and rose slacks under the beige blazer. Her father wore a sport coat and long-sleeve shirt, no tie. Their clothes were perfectly suitable for a fine restaurant in casual Las Vegas.

Why, then, did they look so stuffed shirt?

“I see,” Temple’s mother said, “you’ve opted for going barelegged.”

“It’s always hot here, outside at least, and I hate pantyhose. And this is a desert climate. . . .” Templelet her apologia trickle off.

“Me too,” Kit said. Karen eyed her over the menu. “I never wear hose in Las Vegas. This is the West.”

“But in Manhattan,” Karen began.

“Oh, in Manhattan. Yes, of course. All the time. Sliding into the hot, broken-down cab seats, out of the hot, broken-down cab seats; panty hose, every second. Racing crosstown on the crowded sidewalks, all of us women in panty hose. Every minute.”

“You chose to live there,” Karen said. “What is this cerviche stuff?”

“Spanish,” Temple said hastily. “Undercooked and overex-pensive. Not that we have to worry. Our meal is on the house.” She didn’t add that it was raw fish in lime or lemon juice. Min-nesotans didn’t eat anything but vegetables raw.

Her father frowned over his glasses frames. “We’re perfectly capable of paying.”

“I have a permanent free pass to all the Phoenix’s restaurants.”

“Food is very cheap here, Roger,” Karen explained. “They practically give it away.”

Temple took a deep, deep breath. Not these high-end days. A dinner for four here could run close to three hundred dollars. If they had cocktails and wine with the meal, it would be more. Temple desperately wanted cocktails and wine with the meal.

She met Kit’s eyes as the waiter breezed by with a question. “Cocktails?”

“A green apple martini for me,” Kit said smartly. “Temple will have one too. Karen? Roger?”

“Do you have beer?” Roger asked.

“A hundred and forty varieties, sir. What would be your pleasure?”

“Schlitz would be fine.”

The waiter was momentarily tongue-tied.

“Anything Scandinavian,” Temple offered.

“Certainly,” the waiter said.

“I’ll have a daiquiri,” Karen said.

The waiter blanched and asked, “And wine for dinner?”

“A nice Chablis,” Roger said decidedly.

“Very good, sir,” the waiter boomed, as if just asked to deliver a jeroboam of champagne.

Roger beamed. “Nice fella.”

“This is a hospitality industry,” Temple said cheerily.

“Are you eating enough?” her mother asked. “You’re not drinking too much?”

“Green apple martinis are a health food,” Kit said. “No nasty salty olives or onions, just fresh Granny Smith apples and a touch of vermouth.”

And a few jiggers of gin.

“They do have a strip steak,” Karen told Roger encouragingly. Then she smiled at Temple. “I’m glad we managed to come for Kit’s wedding. It’s so good to see you. You haven’t been managing any visits home.”

“It’s been so busy—” she began, sounding lame even to herself. Her mother certainly wouldn’t want news of Max Kin-sella. Even if it was bad, which it was, as there was still no news of Max Kinsella. Which would be good news to Karen Barr, so Temple was going to be very vague about how and when Max split, and they split up.

“I can’t believe it,” Karen went on, eyeing Kit. “You, getting married! After all this time single. And you had to leave that miserable New York City madness and come to Las Vegas to visit Temple to find Mr. Right. Is he . . . retired here? I understand a lot of people do that.”

Aldo? Retired? Temple was glad her martini had arrived and she could take a tart sip and cough slightly. Only in a circular water bed.

“No,” Kit said. “He’s in business with his brothers.” She sipped, savored, and added, “One of whom owns this hotel-casino.”

Minnesota eyebrows raised in tandem.

“The Fontanas are an old Las Vegas Family,” Kit added demurely.

Roger folded away his reading glasses. “How ‘old’ can a Las Vegas family be,” he joked. “They didn’t start up the place until the 1940s.”

“If that’s when you arrived here, then you’re an old Las Vegas family,” Temple explained. “They also call this end of the country the ‘New West.’ It’s all spin.”

“Is it exciting,” Karen wanted to know from Temple, “to be doing public relations work in a tourist destination like Las Vegas?”

“Oh, yes. Sometimes too exciting.”

“And cultural too,” Kit said. “Temple handled the opening of the Treasures of the Czars exhibition here just last month. Fabulous Imperial artifacts and stacks of uplifting, interesting information about the new order in modern-day Russia.”

“And, then,” Temple added, “I do PR for a lot of conventions that come to town. My most recent was for the Red Hat Sisterhood. They’re—”

“I know who they are,” Karen said excitedly. “Some of my friends belong and have been trying to talk me into joining, since Roger’s retired and you’re gone and your brothers are all busy with young, growing families.”

Temple counted two possible digs: her moving away and her not producing children. Her brothers were in their forties, as Temple had been either an accident or an afterthought, and coming from a family with five kids, they had gone forth and had three each, defying statistics of the times. Not that her brothers had done the actual having, which made it a lot easier to do.

Karen was watching Temple closely, no doubt with Max in mind.

Luckily, the waiter buzzed by, recited the evening’s specials, and they spent the next ten minutes oohing and ordering.

“Won’t tournedos of beef be a little rich for your stomach?” Karen asked Roger in an undertone once the waiter had left.

Temple was proud of him for venturing beyond the usual New York strip steak.

“That’s what seltzers are made for,” he answered. The red-gold beer in the iced glass must be mellowing him. “When is your fiancé joining us?” he asked Kit.

She lifted her small evening bag from the tabletop. “As soon as I call him on my cell phone. I wanted us to have some time to relax and chat first.”

“Kit,” Karen said, “we won’t bite. I’m just so tickled you finally found the right man.”

Kit tried not to squirm. Temple knew that her getting married had just happened. It wasn’t a lifelong search. Aldo was there, feeling a bit burned out after the loss of his longtime girlfriend, and along came Kit, full of postmenopausal zest and a tad of hormone replacements.

“Oh, now isn’t this something?” Roger asked as the waiter lofted the appetizer tray Temple had ordered for them to share. One of the four delicacies was fried in batter, which she knew her dad would go for.

He grinned at the women and, after a glance at the many plates and pieces of silverware, moved half the batter-fried items to his plate.

Kit flashed Temple a happy smile. Papa had his beer and batter and would be cool from now on in. Mama, on the other hand . . .

“That looks fatty,” Karen said.

“They only use olive oil here,” Temple said. “That’s the kind that’s good for your heart.”

“Oh? I thought that cheap food was oilier in general.”

Temple was glad they’d never see the bill. Her mother was thinking of the days of cheap three-dollar buffets laden with sugary, greasy comfort food, back in the unenlightened eighties. Las Vegas was a class, and costly, act these days. Sure, there were always economical fast-food places in every Strip hotel, but even those menus were healthier and more palatable.

Temple sipped her sweetly tart martini, feeling a little mellow herself.

“So,” said Karen to Kit, sipping her daiquiri, a vintage cocktail with a funny little hazelnut bobbling in it, “how did you meet this Aldo?”

“Through Temple,” Kit said brightly. “She introduced us.”

“Oh, that’s nice, dear. Meeting through family is always best.”

“Yeah,” said Kit, thinking, no doubt, of the whole, big, slightly mobbish Fontana family, from Uncle Macho Mario on down to Nicky.

Speaking of which, at that moment Temple was surprised to see Nicky and Van stroll over, a very handsome couple blending dark and light looks.

“Everything all right here, folks?” Nicky asked, his bright white teeth flashing against his smooth olive skin.

Van, always the elegant Hitchcock blonde, merely smiled.

After introductions, Roger took the beef tournedos by the horns. “So it’s your brother that’s stolen our Kit away.”

“My eldest brother,” Nicky said, grinning.

“You must be just a baby,” Karen suggested.

“The youngest, yes.”

“Your mother must be quite an interesting woman.”

Temple could see her mother calculating thirty years of childbearing. If she only knew how many brothers there were, she’d be really impressed. Unlike Mama Fontana, Karen had ended her streak of four sons with a lone girl. That family position left Temple cosseted and fussed over and bullied and controlled way too much.

It was nice to be from Las Vegas now, on her own, making her solo choices. One of which . . .

“Is Matt coming along for dinner too?” Nicky asked, turning to Temple as if giving her a cue.

He didn’t mean it that way, but it gave Temple the perfect opening. She looked at her parents in explanation. “I have a significant other coming to dinner too. Matt Devine is a local celebrity. He hosts a syndicated radio advice show.”

There!

Karen dropped her fork, which had been attacking the remaining battered items that she’d appropriated to her appetizer plate. She might inveigh against fatty foods, but a Minnesota blizzard-ridden winter made them a number-one crave. “Matt, not Max?”

“Max has left Las Vegas.”

Karen just stared.

“They drifted apart,” Kit said, “and Matt drifted into view. Quite a nice view he is too. Shall I call the boys now?” She pulled her cell phone from her purse as Nicky and Van eased away.

“Boys?” Karen said weakly, still numbed by the fact that Temple as well as Kit was producing a new beau.

Kit dialed. “Hi, handsome. Yeah, you can steer your Italian tailoring up to the restaurant. The waiter knows you’ll be ordering a bit late.”

Karen’s jaw was again agape. She glanced to Temple, then at the two empty place settings. Two, not one. Her jaw moved as if she was going to speak. But her first question would have been about Max, and even Karen Barr knew that would be a fatal move.

She sipped her daiquiri. “This is very good. I haven’t had one in years.”

“Then have another,” Kit urged. “You don’t often meet a new prospective s on-in-law and brother-in-law on the same day.”

“Temple?” Karen gazed accusingly at Temple’s ringless left hand, and then Kit’s.

“We’re letting the gentlemen install our engagement rings again tonight,” Kit said, “for your viewing pleasure. We’re very sorry about surprising you with two engagements, but we thought it would be better to do in person instead of over the phone.”

“But we haven’t met this Matt person,” Karen said.

“That’ll be taken care of tonight,” Kit answered. “Don’t worry. He’s a matinee idol dreamboat. Smart and rich too. What mother wouldn’t be over the moon about it?”

“Has he been married before?” Karen asked. “After a certain age, it’s hard to find . . . uh . . . ”

“Non-preowned models?” Temple asked. “Nope. Never married.”

“And he’s how old?”

“Thirty-four.”

“Never-married men that age can be . . . difficult.”

“Nope,” Temple answered. “See for yourself.”

“He makes all this money from just talking on the radio?” her dad asked.

“Think Garrison Keillor,” Temple said, “but cute.”

She wanted to avoid the ex-priest part until her parents had gotten used to the idea of an Unknown Quantity in Temple’s life. Max had not been welcomed, but at least they’d met him.

Kit had been playing lookout while Temple fended off her parents’ questions and now she grabbed Temple’s hand. “Here they come, our Greek gods.”

The attractive hostess strutted across the floor with the guys in tow, the tall and dark Aldo in his usual yummy pastel silken Italian suit, shirt, and tie; Matt wearing less formal clothes, but relaxed and pale for the climate, enhancing his blond good looks.

Barr Pere and Mére were satisfyingly speechless as Temple and Kit stood for the greeting pecks on the cheek . . . as the men were introduced and took their seats . . . as the waiter breezed by to take the newcomers’ drink orders. Then they spoke.

“I’ll have another daiquiri,” said Karen.

“Very good.”

“And I’ll—” Roger gazed at his empty beer glass. “I’ll have a scotch on the rocks.”

Kit and Temple crossed glances. Yes!

After the drinks had been delivered and the new entree orders had been taken, the sixsome was alone at the table and the conversational ice was as solid as on Lake Minnehaha in mid-January.

“I guess we should toast the happy couples,” Roger said finally, looking eagerly at his lowball glass gleaming gold with Johnnie Walker.

“First,” Aldo said with a smile, “we must repeat the ring ceremony for our honored guests.” He flourished a velvet box from his side jacket pocket. Matt’s was produced from his inside jacket pocket, on the heart side, a detail Temple didn’t miss.

The small boxes opened, dispensing major glitz. Rings slipped onto fingers they had previously fit like a dream.

Roger raised his glass and everyone followed suit, Karen last. “To our loved ones, and their loved ones.”

It was a darn good toast. Temple stared at her father. He winked. “Drink up, Karen, you don’t want to miss the Love Boat.”

And then the chatter started. Man-to-man. Woman-to-woman. Cross-gender, cross-table. Aldo, incredibly, knew about broomball, that skating-rink sport Roger got a kick out of. Hockey with brooms. Aldo said bocci ball was a lot like it. Temple doubted it, but gave him high marks for creativity.

Matt explained Temple’s important public relations coups to her mother, without mentioning any stray murder-solving or neck-risking. Karen became fascinated by the people and issues that surfaced on Matt’s “Midnight Hour” counseling program and his Chicago appearances on The Amanda Show. She watched that program, liked Amanda better than Oprah, who was getting to be “too much Oprah everywhere all the time.” She wanted Matt to e-mail her when his next appearance was coming up.

E-mail? Her mother?

“We’ve got a phone-Internet-TV setup now,” Karen told Temple when she spied her daughter’s amazement. “Roger is going to set me up with an e-mail identity and a Web page.”

They asked Matt about his own parents.

They lived, he said, in Chicago, not mentioning that it was separately and had been that way forever.

Chicago! Great city. Just four hundred miles from the Twin Cities. Where would Kit and Aldo be living?

Las Vegas and Manhattan. No way was Kit giving up her Greenwich Village redone condo. It was a very profitable investment. She was still writing a new novel now, but the industry wasn’t what it used to be and she was considering herself not so much semiretired as having a long ongoing narrative to write with Aldo. A trip to his native Italy, maybe some cruises. They’d both worked hard and it was time to enjoy leisure time.

“We should take a cruise,” Karen told Roger, resting her hand on his.

“We could go together,” Aldo said. “For a honeymoon, a second honeymoon for you two. Temple and Matt could come.”

Karen looked hopefully at Temple. She hadn’t seen much of her daughter for more than a year, and maybe now she realized that it was her fault for being so negative about Max.

Temple felt her throat closing up again. She was happy this evening was going so well for everyone, but Max hadn’t deserved her parents’ disapproval. She’d never regret a moment with him. And if he was dead now, with no one to know where or to mourn him, she always would.

Matt put his hand over hers and leaned close. “We’ll do what we want about the wedding and honeymoon,” he assured her. “Your way.”

She just nodded, not trusting herself to speak quite yet. It was nice to bask in astounded parental approval, but she’d never disown her own past. And Matt would never expect her to, as he could never renounce his past either.

They sat quietly for a while, listening to the others talk and discover common ground, content to be by their unspoken selves. Just . . . content.