Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

The bellman is so startled he forgets about his own anatomy for perhaps two seconds.

That is all the time I need, especially with the made-to-order camouflage I see before me. I dart through the door as the envelope exchanges hands above me, and dash into the shady shelter of Miss Savannah Ashleigh's floor-dusting negligee. In my haste I allow my tail to brush her leg, but she merely twitches a bit, no doubt assuming that the tickling marabou has wafted against her epidermis. That is the trouble with wearing clothes trimmed in the fur and feathers of animals and birds. The wearer grows accustomed to the feel of foreign bodies, and cannot discriminate between the lifeless outerwear and the real thing.

Now I must navigate the area in perfect tune with the Ashleigh doll's high-heeled baby steps. (I notice that she is wearing satin pumps with more marabou on the toes.) Tickling her gams with whiskers or tail is not my biggest problem now; I will have to be nimble to avoid being speared by those lethal satin heels. Miss Savannah minces over to a desk, where she sits to slit open the envelope.

I sit beside her, naturally, trying to make myself as small as I can, which is akin to compressing twenty pounds of muscle and bone into a five-pound bag of liquid litter.

At this juncture, when things are very cozy under her skirts, Miss Savannah Ashleigh commences to tap her dainty foot.

"Of all the nerve," she huffs, tapping the other toe.

I switch my tail from side to side like a metronome, trying to avoid a painful pinning to the floor. Unfortunately, Miss Savannah Ashleigh has not a rhythmic bone in her body. There is no rhyme or reason to her toe taps. I decide to make a break for the far wall under the desk and whisk through a fragile curtain of see-through chiffon.

"Ooh! Yvette! Is that you, sweetums?"

Any expert would never confuse the coarser, shinier texture of my black topcoat with the airy, fluffy feel of the Divine One's silver fur. But I fear that Miss Savannah Ashleigh has the sensitivity of a sponge, not to mention its capacity to retain water.

I slip along the wall while she is lifting her skirt to hunt for a phantom Yvette. Soon I am patting open the door to the boudoir. My pulse races. Here the Divine Yvette must lie. Lay?

Languish? Sure enough, I spot the familiar pink carrier and race for it. Empty! Has my lovely flown the coop before I could play the hero and release her?

I survey the fringes of the room, then leap atop the dressing-table stool for a better look. On the king-size bed, smack dab in the middle, the Divine Yvette reclines in a faint pucker of coverlet.

My heart leaps up and so do I. Despite the treacherous footing on the down comforter, I wade my way toward the feline of my dreams. Those round, aqua e yes widen at my approach.

The Divine Yvette rolls onto her back and draws her curled dainty forefeet up to her chin. What a pose! I would even buy Free-to-be-Feline from the little doll.

She yawns, exposing tiny sharp white teeth and rosy tongue and palate.

"Louie! What are you doing here so late?"

"It is never too late for us, my love," I tell her. "I have come to free you for a night on the town."

The Divine Yvette puckers up her adorable face. "I would so love a few hours of frolic and sight-seeing, but my mistress is exceedingly distraught, and I dare not leave her at this critical moment."

"You will excuse me for saying so, but Miss Savannah Ashleigh is often distraught about this or that. If one were to put off one's own pleasures to wait for her to experience a few of her own, I am sure that one's whiskers would go white and drop off in the interim."

'That may be true, Louie, but this is a genuine crisis. My mistress visited her Las Vegas plastic surgeon yesterday and apparently the news is rather dire. I believe that he found it too soon for another laser wrinkle lift, but gravity and the desert sun wait for no woman." The Divine Yvette sighs. "These are the times I thank Bast that I was born in furs, not flesh. I would have to be shaved for any wrinkles to be visible."

"Do not speak of such a travesty! I have heard of a case where a cat was shaved, and the result was not a pretty sight."

Yvette's plumed tail pats the down comforter beside her. "But stay and talk awhile, Louie.

My mistress is drowning her wrinkles in the astringent called alcohol, which must be taken internally. She gets even more boring than usual at such a time. I do long for a good bit of street gossip."

I leap into plavr beside her, letting my tail entwine with hers. She stretches out long front gams and bats her eyelashes. I know that I would be getting the blue-green light if the rotten Miss Savannah were not in the adjacent chamber. I wish on her the sudden explosion of a nasty zit--

that ought to have her sprinting to the hotel health club for a facial.

"So," asks the Divine Yvette, "where would we have gone if we could have escaped for a few precious hours together?"

"Nothing earth-shaking," I reply.

"Good." The Devine Yvette's ruff shakes wholeheartedly. "I spend most of my time with my mistress in the better neighborhoods of Los Angeles. I face a good deal of earth-shaking there, and prefer a more quiet climate."

"Exactly, my dear. I thought we could take another peaceful ride on the Love Moat. I could show you the spot where my signature shoes were found. Then we could trot around to the Crystal Phoenix, where I have an in, and we could nibble on steak tartare fresh from the meat cleaver of Chef Song. For dessert, we could hie to the Desert Inn, to relax in there A-one spa are, where we could give each other body massages and finish up with a tongue-bath."

"Sounds divine! Perhaps my mistress's unhappiness is somewhat catching, but I find myself out of sorts too, and evincing strange, obsessive behaviors, like sudden headaches and a cettain mental restlessness. I cannot think what is the matter with me!"

"Nothing is the matter with you," I pronounce confidently. "You are perfect! And you would be even more perfect were you able to slip away for some feline-to-feline resuscitation."

"Your confidence is so inspiring, Louie. I do not doubt that I am being infected by my mistress's discontent. Does your mistress not transfer her burdens to you?"

"Not really, but then I am not around long enough to function as a transferee. And Miss Temple's burdens are pretty small stuff, just like her, though she would be furious to hear me say it. Fortunately, we do not speak the same language."

"Yes, it is a comfort not to have to speak to humans. Imagine how they would burden us with their troubles if they thought we could understand them. It is bad enough that they sniffle into our freshly washed fur on occasion."

"Indeed. But their weakness is part of their charm."

We are thus contemplating human behavior in perfect harmony, each emitting a gentle, back-of-the-throat purr, when we hear a clatter and crash and our ears flatten as one. I leap to the floor in one cheetah-size bound.

I am not a second too late. The bedroom door is flung fully open to frame the black-draped figure of Miss Savannah Ashleigh. She stamps her foot on the thick carpeting, nearly breaking off a heel on her satin slides.

"Imagine!" she tells the room and the Divine Yvette (and me). 'That rat had the nerve to turn me down. What an ego! Who does he think he is? Who does he think he can get, at his age and with his track record? We go way back, but I'm not about to forgive a snub on the grounds of old times."

She stomps her way to the bedside table that holds a clock, and picks it up to squint at the tiny dial inside double rings of blue rhinestones. "However, the night is young yet," she snarls.

"When Mr. Darren Big Deal finds out how hard it is for an aging Romeo to find the proper Juliet in Las Vegas nowadays, perhaps he'll settle for Hamlet's mother!"