Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

"What did you really resent about that, Temple? That he thought you were cute?"

"Aha, that's just it. I didn't have to be cute, I didn't have to be me, I just had to be female and to be there."

"So if Darren Cooke had fallen instantly in love with you, it would have been all right."

"Well, better. But he didn't, and it wasn't."

"How do you know he wasn't genuinely attracted to you?"

It was an honest question. Temple thought about it. "His reputation. His lack of constancy."

"But that can change."

"Not for him. He's a confirmed womanizer. Woman, generic term. Not me, not Savannah, not his lovely wife. Who, by the way, is a famous model."

"How do you know? How do you know what someone is feeling, and why and how genuine the emotion is?"

Temple spread her hands. "From living and watching, and trying to sort out the fake from the real in yourself as well as in others. From being a fool sometimes, and being too afraid to be a fool other times."

Matt nodded at his portrait. "You think she liked me."

Temple studied it more intently. "I think she was attracted to you. That's why you shy away from the evidence. She made you look a little too sexy for your own peace of mind."

"But not yours."

Temple grinned. "Never. So who, or what, is she? And what did she do to you?"

"Nothing, I imagine, which only makes it worse. Do I get any of that cocoa or not?"

That sent Temple to the kitchen to warm up her now-cold cup and make a second mug. By the time she came back, the two drawings were rolled together, both safely out of sight.

"I mean it, Matt. I don't want you abusing that drawing. Most of us never get captured in pen and ink."

"Maybe it's just as well. It's funny. You know what she said her business consisted of? Family portraits and criminal reconstructions. Pretty extreme, huh?"

"It's like Chekhov said about happy families: they're all alike. I bet she enjoys putting criminals on paper more."

Matt looked at the rolled drawings. "Speaking of extremes, we both have had similar reactions to extremely different situations. Maybe you should tell me about life and love and sex in the secular world. I think I'm ready."

Temple tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. "It'll be what I think, what I've seen, and there won't be anything religious about it."

Matt nodded. He knew what prescription he needed when he heard it.

Temple grinned. "You're not really ready, but you never will be if you don't figure this out.

Okay."

She sat forward in her usual presentation posture: outwardly composed, professional, possibly even a tad perky. Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show had hated perky almost as much as he had hated spunky, but what was a single working woman to do but put a bright face on an uphill struggle?

Recalling that show brought back memories of her and Max, bad ghosts to haunt a serious discussion with another man in another place and time.

Temple took a deep breath. "Look at us. We're both unmarried, relatively young--will you grant attractive? Me, at least?"

"Oh, yeah! You're fine .. . you're ah--"

"And you're searching for words other than 'cute.' "

He made a defeated face. "You are pretty cute."

"Okay, but I don't have a face that would launch a thousand magazine ads, that makes people stop dead in their tracks. On a scale of one to ten, maybe a seven. You, whether you like it or not, are a nine and a half."

He made another distasteful face, but waited for her point.

"So here we sit, free to be anything but celibate, and what are we whining about? Being surprised by unexpected sexual overtures. Why? We ought to be at least flattered. And maybe tempted. We certainly shouldn't be surprised. What is the matter with us?"

Matt frowned as if trying to get a tough test answer right. "These were ... spur-of-the-moment situations with virtual strangers. We're not that casual."

"Why not?"

"My background, religious and social."

"Obviously. But I don't have your background. So ignore yours for a moment. You said you liked this artist. You admit you found her attractive. You almost admitted that you might have liked the idea if you hadn't been so shocked."

"I can't ignore the fact that it doesn't seem right--"

"But it did seem a little exciting?"

He was silent for a while. "It showed me a world I'd never thought about. Nice people meeting and moving right to the bedroom. Ordinary people. For a moment that looked easier, maybe even more romantic than going through all the stumbling steps of building a relationship."

"Instant attraction. Instant love affairs. It's in all the movies. And it's out there. You haven't seen it because your vocation was a shield."

"Not from everything. Women were always trying to flirt with me."

"But. . . now you're noticing that you can flirt back."

"You mean, before I never would have noticed what she was implying? No, I'm just a vain fool. I must have imagined the undertones."

"No. Darren Cooke only had to say, 'You could stay,' in a certain way, and I saw the whole scenario from beginning to end. You can't build a court case on body language, or tone of voice or unsaid messages. But anyone who's been around a while, who's available, will notice them.

It's only natural."

"I've never thought of myself as available. But you were going to make a point about being available and not being available."

"Yes. Anyone who's really committed to someone--or something--else won't hear or see the signals. You won't be looking, so people will sense that and won't look at you that way. Even if they still indicate an interest, you'll deny it, dismiss it, show surprise. Because you really aren't in the market. Happy longtime paired couples are like that. Priests and nuns make vows to be like that. And then there's everyone else."

"So why were you as surprised as I was, even offended?"

"Were you offended?"

"No." He thought again. "Scared."

Temple laughed. "Someday you won't be scared anymore, and then what will you do?"

"You're dodging the issue of Darren Cooke."

"I suppose. Maybe it's because girls are hit on by guys they'd never date, much less sleep with, at an early age. Maybe it's because in the working world, women are still considered fair game. We get touchy. We demand sincerity. We just want to do our jobs and not get hassled.

Most of us tune out to sexual feelings on the job.

"I have to admit that I was flattered to be invited to Darren Cooke's Beautiful People brunch, that I was flattered to be consulted by him. I thought I was being taken at face value, not Face value. So I was angry at his sexual suggestion, and the fact that his way of life relies on using women like facial tissues, one snatched from the box after another, then discarded.

"If he's your caller, and even if he isn't, he's a sexual addict. Anyone involved with suc h a person becomes a victim. I don't like being singled out as a potential victim. He's a sick man, and part of his sickness is that he's so charming about it."

"You don't criticize Janice like that."

Temple shrugged. "That's different. Personally, it annoys me, but what happened, or what you think almost happened, is understandable."

"Understandable? You walk into a woman's house, and two hours later she's ready to sleep with you?"

Temple sipped cold cocoa. It was hard to give sex-education talks to a man you were attracted to. It made her feel like a big sister, at least. She could see where parents went white at the idea. Ethics and realism had to blend, and the result couldn't help but be confusing.

"Look at what you told me about her. She's divorced, probably had a decent financial situation before, but now is struggling to keep up the house and take care of the kids she got custody of in the divorce. Maybe her husband was well-off, but a jerk. Maybe he was a nice guy but they changed in different ways. Maybe he abused her. You can't know. But she's attractive and spending all her time being Mama and Artist. Maybe she can't consider a serious relationship because of the kids and the ex-husband and bad examples. So the kids are away at computer camp for once, right? And in walks this nice guy, nice-looking too, and maybe the physical type that pushes her buttons, which are getting a little rusty. So ... she could do worse; what would it hurt?"