Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Quicksilver Caper

“Not to mention the mystique of all those dead Romanovs. Gore sells, I guess.”

“Especially if you can add some glitz. A sad reality of the media biz.”

“Enough sad reality! This Vanity Fair thing is big?”

“This is huge! The New Millennium’s paying me a bonus.”

“Then we’ll really have lots to celebrate.”

It was only after Matt hung up that Temple wondered what else they would be celebrating.

Kit was out again with Aldo that night, so much for a related buffer zone, and Temple was both angry and sad about Max’s midnight descent into hail and farewell, so she’d agreed.

This was what Max wanted, right? She’d pulled out her purple prom dress/Crossfire hood ornament dress, again dusted off her Midnight Louie shoes—even he had seemed to desert her lately—and decided to celebrate by letting herself wallow in everything about Matt she liked, which was a lot.

Now, Temple gazed around the glittering Crystal Phoenix dining room. When Matt had asked her out to dinner, she’d been too distracted by recent events to wonder why, or even where he’d take her.

“The Phoenix is sort of home base for me,” she said, “although not lately.” Lately, nothing was. “But I’ve never eaten in this restaurant before.”

“Good. I’d like to dedicate this evening to things never done before.”

Temple couldn’t stop the heat from rising to her face. There was One Big Thing neither had ever done before: Temple with Matt, Matt with anybody else in the whole wide world.

The waiter chose that perfect cue to arrive with a silver-plated champagne stand and a bottle of Perrier-Jouët.

“Perrier-Jouët! I should have worn something better than my old prom dress.”

“You look good in purple.”

“Even as a bottle blonde?”

“Even as whatever color your hair happens to be.”

Temple glanced down at the now-vintage taffeta gown with its halter top and huge, blooming skirt. She did love it. “This is my desert-dancing dress.”

She knew she evoked their most romantic moments, even as her heart twisted for other times, other places.

Matt lifted his glass of champagne in a toast. “To desert dancing then.”

Temple raised her glass, feeling suddenly bold. “To . . . moonlighting as a hood ornament on a Crossfire.”

It was his turn to color, but it was only a faint, passing flush on his fair Polish skin slightly toasted by a Las Vegas tan. Matt was getting way too hard to embarrass, Temple decided. Which was both intriguing and worrisome.

“Did you have designs on a desert ride for dessert?” she asked.

“No. All the dessert I want is right here.”

Oh. “You have something to tell me?”

“More like ask you.”

Oh.

Thank God. The waiter swooped away their salad plates and assured them their main courses would be “up” very soon.

“Would you like to dance?” he asked.

Oh. That. Sure. She’d taught him the name of that tune, after all.

The dance floor was a tiny peninsula of parquet off the bandstand. The band was mellow, soothing, dedicated to old standards: gonna take a Sentimental Journey into a Canadian Sunset. Corny. Safe.

Temple put her left hand on the shoulder of the brandy velvet dinner jacket she had talked Matt into buying many moons ago.

Thinking of which, the full moon hung like a Christmas tree ornament outside the sweep of windows framing the night. Pale, huge, opaque but gleaming. The full moon always looked like Bing Crosby’s crooning face to her. Ba-ba-ba-ba-boo . Boo! Was a surprise on the menu tonight?

Her right hand folded into Matt’s as they swayed together with a half dozen other couples, some silver haired, some . . . good grief! . . . with gelled hair spikes and visible tattoos.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Who comes to Vegas, is part of Vegas.

“Frank Bucek told me about your takedown at the New Millennium,” Matt said.

“Oh. That. It was the Fontana brothers’ takedown.”

Matt nodded.

Temple felt the gesture to the bottom of her soles. Solid.

They were close, not tentative, and she liked it.

“He gave me some advice,” Matt added a minute later.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. He said ex-priests were hard on their wives.”

“Oh. Really? How?”

Matt shrugged. Temple shivered. “We’ve been little tin gods in our parishes or wherever. Catered to. By housekeepers. Soccer moms. Looked up to by kids. We can be a tad self-centered, never meaning to be.”

“All in the name of serving mankind?”

“Right. The grandiose big picture, not the intimate small picture. I wouldn’t want to be that way.”

“Of course not. What does Frank’s wife do?”

“Keeps him down to earth.”

“Sounds like . . . fun.”

“And then there’s . . . you know, sex.”

“Oh. I suppose that would be an issue for anyone who’s been celibate for a long time.”

“Right. We tend to be overly . . . intense.”

“Really?”

He nodded, which brought her cheek in contact with his cheek.

Matt led her back to their table before the heat of his hand had quite branded itself onto her taffeta-clad back.

How many years since her high school prom night? Twelve. Was it possible? Thirty-one looming? And just yesterday she’d been sweet, dumb sixteen, before high school kids had even thought of “friends with benefits.”

“You can dance on wood as well as sand,” she said approvingly as he pulled out her chair so she could gather the full skirt under herself and sit. Sometimes vintage was awkward.

A lot of times life was awkward.

Matt sat opposite her. The Crystal Phoenix avoided the usual flickering candle under glass on its table. Instead a Murano blown-glass phoenix spread its tail feathers in a series of fairy-size floating flames.

The flickering uplight made every man and woman look like a soft-spotlit movie star. Matt was a floating, glittering image of himself. Temple hoped she was too. No wrinkles. No worry, just radiant points of light.

The waiter wafted plates before them as if presenting canna lily leaves bearing manna from Fairyland. Divine scents lilted upward.

“How wonderful,” Temple said. “Chef Song has outdone himself.”

“Even Louie might approve,” Matt said, eyeing her.

Even Louie might approve . . . what? The menu? A delicate fish dish for her, medallions of beef for Matt? The two of them together, dining at Louie’s old stomping grounds, the Crystal Phoenix? The chef? The place? The atmosphere? The pheromones?

They were silent during dinner, every bite of which was . . . divine.

Temple patted her lips with the heavy linen napkin, thinking about when to refresh her pale lipstick, thinking about the beaded lipstick holder in her teeny-tiny purse on the tabletop. About whether to excuse herself and flee to the ladies’ room. Or to reapply her going-out mouth at the table, as etiquette said one could, in front of one’s escort.

Matt beat her to it by abstracting a small, black satin box from somewhere. It was almost as magical a manifestation as some paper bouquet from Max.

He held it under the flickering crystal gaze of the mythical bird that had died in flame and ashes and risen from them hard, diamond-bright, invincible. Reborn. New. Fresh. Real.

Temple took the box in her hand. Licked her lips.

Opened it.

Glanced away from the laserlike fire.

Lasers healed, lasers struck dead. Lasers dazzled.

“Matt.”

She finally focused past the blinding glitter. The bling. A ring of diamonds massed in the mechanically graceful assemblage of curves and angles that screamed Art Deco. Art Deckle. Not even a dead man could push himself between this view and her understanding of it. “Fred Leighton,” the inside of the satin lining declared in subtle letters. Estate jewelry. True vintage. Amazing beauty of shape and line, of time and history. Of understanding what called to her.