Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Quicksilver Caper

Everyone wanted to be part of something.

He wanted to be part of Temple’s world. Part of that was Danny. A bigger part of that was what he felt for her, no matter what.

“So . . . Temple,” Danny said as if reading his mind. “You like her.”

“You could say that.”

“I can help you with that.”

And then Matt understood that the best thing for Danny right now was helping someone, in his view, worse off than he was. Like Matt himself. “How?”

“Lord! You don’t have the slightest idea about dealing with women.”

And a gay guy did? Maybe.

“So how far has it gone?” Danny was asking.

“I’m up against the great Max Kinsella.”

“Know about him. True love . . . and then love on the run. Temple’s a girl who likes to set her spikes into a groove and stay there.”

Matt sipped the expensive Scotch from the expensive glass. It tasted sharp and stung him.

“She’s loyal beyond belief,” he said.

Danny nodded. “You didn’t get what I said. She’s loyal. She’d go to the wall for me. Did.” He looked down so Matt wouldn’t see the tears in his eyes. “But she’s like a lot of women. Stability, security is Job One. She’s not getting that from Max anymore.”

“It’s not his fault,” Matt the ever honest heard himself say.

Danny laughed a little. “You do need a Cyrano de Bergerac to speak for you, pal, if you’re going to keep apologizing for your romantic rival.”

“I’m only trying to be fair.”

“You know the old saying: nothing’s fair in love and war.”

“Then neither of them should be that way.”

Danny rolled his eyes. He was looking decidedly perkier. “ ‘Shouldn’t’ is a delusion. ‘Is’ is. That’s what you mean by the word ‘is.’ ”

“What should I do?”

“Depends on what you’ve done.”

Matt sat back. Took a real sip of Scotch, then leaned back on the white leather couch, which was actually quite comfortable, and told him.

“I took her out on a surprise dinner date. The dinner wasn’t a surprise, the date part was.”

“Sounds good. Someplace expensive?”

“Someplace very cheap.”

Even as Danny frowned, Matt went on. He described the drive to the desert. The corsage; the taped dance music from the era of Temple’s prom night. The lights of Las Vegas like an aurora borealis in the distance.

Danny kept nodding so often he forgot to drink. “Outstanding. You don’t look that inspired.”

“Temple did the same thing for me, months ago. I was just a copycat.”

“Hmmm . Your relationship goes back that far?’

“I wouldn’t call it a ‘relationship.’ ”

“The hell it isn’t! Where have you been all your life? In a seminary, that’s right. So, it went . . . well?”

Matt steeled himself for candor. “Yeah. I guess you could say we . . . made out. I proposed—”

“Oh, my God! Too soon. Disaster.”

“I proposed,” Matt repeated a bit stiffly, “that we could have a civil marriage.”

“Why on earth would an ex-priest do that? That’s a mortal sin anyway. Totally unrecognized by the church. Almost as bad as that horrible religious-political-social bugaboo ‘gay marriage.’ ”

“Temple had said that—modern women, and I suppose non-Catholic women, want—she did say this, but it’s not as hard-bitten as it sounds . . . ‘free samples.’ ”

It had been hard for Matt to report this, but if he was going to do any good as a counselor he had to reveal his own feet of clay.

Danny practically rolled on the floor laughing.

Matt sat stunned.

“Oh, my God!” The tears welling in Danny’s eyes now had been undammed by laughter, not sorrow. “What a magnificently naive counterplay. You made the girl put her money where her mouth was. What’d she say?”

“That she’d have to think about it.”

“Blessed are the pure of heart. They will drive you crazy.”

“Are you saying I blew it? Or not?”

“Not! Temple is not stupid. She realizes what a risk you’re taking to offer her that out. So . . . where are you two star-crossed lovebirds now?”

“I don’t know,” Matt said. “I haven’t seen her since.”

“Why not?”

“It’s only been a couple of days. Our paths haven’t crossed, and I don’t feel right about pressuring her.”

“Pressure her.” Danny set his drink, half-drunk, aside. His blue eyes were clear now, not blurred, and he leaped up, like someone who thought best on his feet. Which a choreographer did.

“You’re right,” he told Matt. “Max Kinsella is one hell of a rival. He could be frozen in a block of ice in a river, like some Arctic Houdini, and no one would take their eyes off him or take any bets on him not coming out of the coffin and walking on water and eloping with the girl to Monte Carlo.”

Matt didn’t see how that was supposed to make him feel better, but Danny apparently thought this was a pep talk.

“Okay,” Danny said. “You grooved in the desert. What’s the next step?”

“She tells me what she thinks about my offer?”

“No! You’re right not to approach her. Next. You make her wonder what you’re up to. Next.”

“Talking to you?”

“No. Wait! Right! Yes. That’s brilliant.” Danny was directing a show now: Romeo and Juliet at the Rialto. “Keep her guessing. You’re neighbors at the Circle Ritz, right?”

“Right. Actually, I rent the unit above hers. And Max’s.”

“Forget Max! If you can’t, she can’t. That’s a highly cool place. She must be aware of you right on top of her, excuse the expression.”

Matt blushed. Must have been the alcohol.

“So. What’s your place like?” Danny alit on the couch again.

Matt eyed the palatial surroundings. “Plain. I haven’t had much time or inclination to buy stuff. Decorating wasn’t necessary in the rectory.”

“You have anything the slightest bit hip in your place?”

“Only the red suede Vladimir Kagan sofa Temple found at the Goodwill and browbeat me into buying.”

“Vladimir Kagan? Fifties suede? Simon would have killed for that.”

Neither could find any right words to say for a couple of minutes.

Then Danny lifted his head, assuming the dancer’s ramrod posture even though he was only sitting, not standing on a stage.

“And the bedroom? Don’t blush, my boy, this is serious business.”

“A disaster. Empty. What I was used to.”

“Tsk, tsk!” Danny was looking Puckish again. “You clearly need Queer Eye help. You do know what that is?”

“I do have a television set in there.”

“A feeble beginning, but well-intended. I must see this Disaster Zone. I must . . . choreograph a more positive future from your rather bleak past.”

“It didn’t feel bleak when I was in it.”

“It never does. Let me help you. I’m afraid my dear Temple isn’t happy anymore, and I desperately want someone to be happy just now.” Danny looked down, mumbled. “I was . . . am . . . one of those unsung subjects of newspaper stories these days. The perfect altar boy. So perfect that my parish priest molested me.”

“My God, Danny, I am so sorry.”

“We are all sorry.” Danny invoked his dancer’s posture again, as much a ritual as any religious rite.

Matt knew the bitter truth that what he had spent half his life believing in had been twisted to serve carnal self-interest. It made him doubt his vocation, his gender, his past.

“Let me help you,” Danny was saying. “It restores my faith a little, to see a nice naive virginal heterosexual ex-priest like you flailing around trying to be both honest and sexual. You don’t know what a rare bird you are.”