Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

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.

Nuptial Nuances

From the May 12, 2008, Las Vegas Review-Journal

The wedding of the spring season was not a big-time celebrity do, or a shocking film-star wedding-chapel prank that became tabloid fodder for a week.

No, it was a lavish yet tasteful affair involving some less spectacular, but intrinsically Las Vegas names.

The Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino’s Crystal Court main floor reception area was a wilderness of ivory roses, tiger lilies, and bronze, mauve, and orange orchids. Baby’s breath floated like the airy spray from the plinths of freestanding metallic wall fountains where low-lit sheets of water shimmied over the textured surface like silk moire come to life.