Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

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.”