Douglas Nelson - Cat On A Blue Monday

To tell the truth and speaking from my own experience around here, l cannot understand why a ny dude in his right mind would walk out on Miss Temple Barr, who has hardly any faults except f or her addiction to certain health foods, including a preparation called Free-to-be-Feline. That is h er only lapse in taste, and the Mystifying M ax could have put up with it. Af ter all, he did not have to eat anything worse than granola. I have managed to ignore the Free-to-b e-Feline for nearly a month now, with the result tha t I am getting a superb class of delicacies Iadl ed over the top as a temptation: smoked oysters, baby shrimp in Creole sauce and other appetizers that add up to a full-meal deal, a s they say on the television.

Perhaps there is one tiny inciden t I am not fond of, although it is understandable. After the att ack on Miss Temple, her helpful neighbor, Mr. Matt Devine, stayed the night. I hung around long enough to see him ensconced on the living-room hide abed ; then I comforted my little doll in the bedroom until she drifted off to a Tylenol-3 sleep before l skedad dled on errands of an investiga tive nature. All right, in this particular case I had a personal interest ----my lost ladylove, the Divine Yvette, had witnessed the first stripper murder.

All that is history as I sit here drowsing, humming along with the bees circling the calla lilies. The Goliath killer is in an institution for the criminally insane, and I am the victim of a criminally frustrated romantic entangl ement. The Divine Yvette has re tur ned to Malibu with her mistress, a so-called actress named Savannah Ashleigh.

Chapter 2

Nancy Ninja Strikes Again

"Where's Louie?" Temple stared toward the calla lilies', red and yellow blooms bright against large green leaves. "He was there just a minute ago."

"Probably got bored by how long it was taking us to get going," Matt said pointedly. "I thought you didn't want any witnesses."

"Right, I'm still not sure I'm cut out for this." Temple savagely jerked her waistline sas h tight. "I feel like Dopey the Dwarf in this outfi t."

She stared down at herse lf drowning in loose, white cot ton pajamas she wouldn't have worn to a junior-high slumber party.

The most disconcerting sigh t was her bare feet, flour-white against the blindingly blu e-vinyl mat they both stood on. Matt's feet were lightly tanned, at least, and therefore interesting instead of pasty, of course. Temple found everything about tall, blond and ha ndsome Matt Devine interesting, darn it. Matt remained o blivious to all but his lesson.

"This outfi t is called a 'gi'," he said, pronouncing t he word with a hard "g." Gee, Temple thought. Okay. She plucked unhappily at a gigantic sleeve.

"You'll get used to it," Matt said, "and it shouldn't feel too big. I got a child's size, after all."

Temple watched his w arm brown eyes grow dismayed as he realized that his intended reassurance had gone right for a sore spot with Temple: h er height, or--more precisely-- the lack thereof.

She shrugged fabric-swaddled arms, not used to making a hissing rustle with her every move. "Great. Teach Shirley Temple to do this, then; not me. She'd probably even sing something."

"This won't be so bad. I 'm not going to give you chapter and verse of any particular discipline, just some tricks that you can use if anyone attacks you again. Jack Ree showed m e the short-form women's defense stuff. Anyone can do it."

Temple eyed Ma tt, who looked as right in his g i as Robert Redford would, if ever RR would descend to doing a martial-arts movie. Maybe Matt's light tan and sun-gilded hai r made his gi look less like a fl our sack with a rubber band in the middle.

"I still don't know if I want to do it," she said. "I've never been good at athletic things. Balls always went over my head and team c aptains always picked me last." "That's the beauty of the martial arts," Matt insisted with an enthusiast's seriousness. "They all grew out of the peas ants' need to defend the mselves without the weapons the nobility took for granted. And Asians are a small people; any martial art is based on discip line and skill, not on size and brute force."

The last two words made Temple wince in memory . "Those two guys were brute force, all right, up close and personal."

Matt stepped nearer and lowered his voice. "Are you going to group?"

"Going to group! That's so California, Matthew." Temple looked up at Matt in the sh ade. This was defi nitely one way to get closer to Matt Devine, and she certainly wanted to do that, didn't she?

"Group therapy is not exclusive to California, and my name isn't short for Matthew." He sounded a little stiff, even a little miffed. Temple's sur prised silence forced a further revelation. "My name is . . . Matthias."

"Oh." Matthias was an odd name; was that why it both ered him? Temple decided to move past the issue. "It still shortens to 'Matt ' and couldn't I see a counselor solo?"

"Sure ." Matt relaxed into his usual good humor once back on neutral ground. ''But then y ou wouldn't hear the stories of people who've been through the same thing as you have."

"Most of them haven't ." Matt's smooth face roughened as he began to object. "I know they've been attacked," Temple said quickly, "but by muggers or husbands and significant others, however nasty. How many other people in 'group' are going to have to own up to getting creamed by a couple of professional thugs intent on beating information out of them? They won't bel ieve me. In fact, I have a hard time believing me."

Matt's smile was rueful. "I've never known anyone who was so outright embarrassed at being the target of a crime, but I 'l l bet there are a couple just li ke you in that group therapy session. That's why you need to put your own expe rience in perspective. And this is an all-women's group."

"I'll look like a crybaby compared to people who've been really abused. Rape victi m s--"

"Survivors," Matt corrected. "We're trying to get away from reinforcing the victim feeling. You're a survivor."

"Survivor, I guess if I can survive interrogations by Lieutenant Molina, I can survi ve playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle with you. Okay, Coun selor. I'm ready. Let the games begin."

Matt's manner became all business, as if a screw at the top of his head had tightened. Temple, still sheepish about what she was trying to do and the costume she had to wear to do it, realized that the martial arts were serious stuff to him.

"First." he said. " Are you pretty much recovered physi cally? No sore spots?"

Temp le nodded. "Amazingly recovered, I can see how abused women keep hoping the abuse will stop."

"You don't have any old injuries, say, from high school , a broken wrist or anything?"

Temple shook out her arms in the long sleeves. "Not yet."

"You won't break anything here. That's why the pads. You said you wer en't at hletic in school. What about at home, in your family? Did you have any brothers and sist ers to tussle with?"

"Not in the physical way ." Temple let her head wag from side to side in resignation . "You sound like Molina during an interrogation. Yes, Officer , I had brothers and sisters; two each. And, no, we didn't go at it much, for fun or for fu ry, becau se I was--naturally--the youngest, and the littlest.

With eight years between me and the next youngest, obviously my siblings were too grown-up to have much to do with me --other than providi ng endless icky clothes to hand down."

"So you were almost an only child; that's interesting."

"To a counselor, maybe, to me, no, you know how they say parents over control the fi rst child and loosen up for the later ones? Well, I was such a tail on the dragon that my parents got neurotic all ove r again. In fact, my brothers and sisters all joined in, when th ey weren't bequeathing me cloth ing in lousy taste. Everybody knew what was best for me, except me."