Cat In A Topaz Tango

Rapid Recovery

Luckily, there was no time to think.

Temple was on camera clutching a mike before you could say “Midnight Louie.”

The two kids were standing behind each other in the wings off-camera.

The floor director hissed a last instruction to her, and then backed away, holding onto his headphones and pointing a silent, demanding finger at . . . Temple. Counting down with his four fingers.

Oops.

Zoe Chloe was on!

She strutted over so the camera could pan on the judges behind her.

“Here we are all in our places wearing shiny dance-mad faces. Keith Salter is doing well backstage. It looks like a touch of stomach flu for the famous chef, folks. All that hip-hopping about is hard on the duodenum.

“Meanwhile, we have to ask . . . just what can a pair of these junior dancers do with that most fabulous, flying squirrel of a dance called the foxtrot? So here we have the youngest and, oh my, cutest—an eleven on the Zoe Chloe one-to-ten hot guy meter—Los Hermanos Brother, Adam. We have the lightest-on-her-feet girl squirrel and you have a heap of hype and entertainment comin’ your way . . . Miss Ekaterina and the Sole Brother Hipster on the q.t. doing the quickest hot crossed biscuit step you ever saw. Gentlemen, waggle your Adam’s apples, and ladies, put your hands together for Adam and EK!”

Temple breathed her relief to see the red light of the active camera wink out, taking her out of the picture.

Crawford sidled up. “That bastard judge stole my thunder, but I see that you still have a little lightning left, ZC. Now give me that mike.”

“Not until somebody else tells me to,” ZC. gritted between smiling teeth.

You never knew what camera might be on, and on you, on a panic-stricken set.

Behind the curtained area, she heard the flurry of Keith Salter being loaded onto a gurney and rolled out by EMTs. Not a good sign.

Who would have it in for a chef, for heaven’s sake? Crawford Buchanan she could get. Uh, get that someone might have it in for him. Not “get” personally, as take revenge on.

Although . . .

Meanwhile, Adam and EK were tripping the foxtrot fantastic, as only lightweight teens could, with dazzling, show-must-go-on desperation. Wispy Ekaterina had pulled out a bundle of endless energy. The pair mimicked their elders’ skill and sophistication so perfectly that the crowd was standing and applauding them even before their dance was over.

Talk about the perfect distraction!

Temple heard the music peak triumphantly, then end as the pair stood holding hands, panting and grinning and bowing. Innocent youth was sure the ideal distraction.

EK was radiant, a performer whose charisma couldn’t be measured until the dance began. Adam made an ideal partner. They both seemed stunned by their own success.

Temple didn’t even notice when the mike was gently pulled through her hands.

“A truly rare performance,” Danny Dove told the audience, who knew it, with a calm smile. “I’m sure everyone is also eager to know that Mr. Salter is fine and being attended to. Check www.dancingwiththecelebs.com for a progress report on his condition. Of course, the judges must score only on what they saw of the full dance, and so must the audience.”

Behind them, Crawford was leaping and capering, trying to regain center stage.

Zoe Chloe let Danny Dove pull her close, like a coconspirator, like a cohost.

“Meanwhile, this is Danny Dove and the effervescent Zoe Chloe Ozone pulling the curtain closed on another episode of Dancing With the Celebs. And wasn’t that Matt Devine and Olivia Phillips quickstep, well, divine?” he finished with a totally inappropriate plug.

Temple could only nod and grin.

The camera’s bleary red eye winked out as the floor director pantomimed brushing a hand over a sweaty brow.

Staff and judges, and the other adult and child dancers, came pouring from the backstage area to gather around, congratulating the shell-shocked kid dancers, chattering, and asking how Keith Salter really was.

Danny called for quiet.

“He’ll be all right, we think, but for now we don’t know what hit him, possibly . . . food poisoning.”

The buzz all around them only heated up.

“Yes,” Danny said. “The hotel contracted to keep a buffet going for our performers and staff, and everybody used it. If any of you feel the least bit queasy, call the hotel doctor immediately. The Oasis has three more on call now, in case we’re dealing with something more than a quirk here. Meanwhile, I’d suggest you patronize the hotel restaurants from now on.”

Temple spied Mama Molina with Mariah in tow and Rafi Nadir on the fringes.

Having the whole ruptured family Molina-Nadir together was awkward with a capital AWK. Not to mention EK as a fourth wheel.

Temple frowned, mind back on the poisoning problem.

It was possible that Keith Salter had eaten something too exotic or heavy for bouncing over the dance floor. He was built like an opera singer, as in a sack of cement.

Who would poison the food of a cook? Okay, a chef, not just a common cook. A celebrity chef with the airs and chutzpah and tummy roll to prove it.

A chef who’d made a media name for himself by descending on unalerted restaurants and totally trashing their food, their preparation, their reputation, and their house chefs.

There was a whole country full of suspects primed to slip some E. coli in Keith Salter’s personal appetizers. Especially before he made a public appearance on TV.

It couldn’t have been in the buffet food, or several people would be tossing their cookies by now.

Then she remembered glimpsing Salter in the men’s dressing room with his own special tray.

He was too snobbish to eat hotel food from a buffet.

And in a dressing room, his tray could be quickly doctored by almost anybody.

It was time Zoe Chloe had another tête-à-tête with her new hottie hero, Matt Devine.