Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit (53 page)

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 im
posed their own priorities on their wayward kids. I feel
for my mother but it's too late to change anything. Ex
cept," 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 char
treuse 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 af
flicted 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 em
barrassment, 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.