Douglas, Nelson - Midnight Louie 05-Cat in a Diamond Dazzle

When the lady of the house returns, I am not prepared for the general air of celebration. Those of my kind do not celebrate, except internally.

This does not stop Miss Temple Barr from thrusting me into the midst of her excitement.

"Louie!" she cries even before she has entered our bedroom to see if I am still there.

"Louie!" She stands in the doorway, dropping her totebag to the floor and extending her arms wide.

She is obviously prepared for a swoop. If there is anything I loathe more than a swoop, I would be hard-pressed to name it.

Before I can shift my weight to my pins and escape, she is on me like a tomato-red tornado. You would think that she would have learned by now that it is impossible to hug a dude of my persuasion, not to mention dimensions. But she does so anyway, resting her rusty curls on my velvet-tailored shoulders. I just hope that she does not shed.

"Oh, Louie," she sighs. "You should see your shoes."

I should indeed see my shoes; that would be some news worth getting on the Internet. What, pray tell, are they? Two-tone wingtips? High-heeled sneakers, now that they make such a thing? Perhaps they are fuzzy-wuzzy slippers. As if I would trade my hardy, super-sensitive foot-leather for such clumsy accoutrements!

The emotional stress caused by the sudden return of the gentleman known as Max has tipped poor Miss Temple over the edge. Naturally, her delusion would be in the area of fancy footwear, since she was a teensy bit nuts on the subject even when she was sane.

But she need not try to involve a plain-and-simple shoeless schmoe from Idaho in her mental breakdown. Pretty soon she will be buying me little red sweaters and rubber galoshes for my tootsy-wootsies. No thank you! I have always been a free soul, and spurn clothes of any kind, including collars and ties.

My aloof reaction to her less-than-joyous news has not penetrated the euphoric fog that Miss Temple Barr's illness has wrapped around her.

She insists on confiding more mania to my twitching ears.

"Oh, Louie, they are sooo gorgeous. Entirely covered in teeny, tiny Austrian crystals, and white like diamonds, except when the rainbow reflections are dancing off them. And, then, on the back of the heel, on each shoe, a darling figure of a black cat, reaching up, who knows for what? Maybe for Free-to-be-Feline, do you think?

I think, all right, and I do not like what I am thinking one itsy bit. Darling? Teeny, tiny? I have not heard Miss Temple resort to such nauseating descriptives in the entire time we have shared more than a roof. What has come over her?

"They're called 'Halloween Jinx' and I can win a pair free!"

Win a pair free. Normally, Miss Temple eschews redundancy. I am truly concerned for her well-being, not to mention my own.

"All I have to do is find a shoe like these hidden somewhere in semi-plain sight in Las Vegas. And, then ... Mama's gonna get a brand-new pair of shoes, Louie, oh, yes!

Mama? Spare me! I remember my maternal parent well, and she in no way resembled Miss Temple Barr by any stretch of my imagination or Miss Temple's.

"Hey, don't squirm away!" she pleads, crawling along on her knees beside the bed to keep me pinned to the coverlet. You would think I was a dude named Max, or Matt. "You're my lucky charm, Louie.

Those shoes don't know it yet, but they have your name on them, and they are going to end up on my feet. It was meant to be."

I do not want my name bandied about on any pair of shoes, no matter how luxurious. However, I flop over on my side and allow her to massage my back and shoulders. When they get these little fits upon them, there is no containing them. At least they can apply that manic energy for my betterment.

Mmmmm, not bad. Miss Temple is an A-one masseuse when she puts her mind to it, and those long, red nails ... well, I am mollified after the previous hysterics.

"Oh, Louie," she says again. I am beginning to think that I am Irish. "Oh, Louie. Why is life always so complicated?"

I can tell by her tone that we are no longer discussing prize shoes, but deep matters of philosophy.

She sighs again. I do not know why humans are given such puny means of expressing themselves. If they could release their tensions, fears and pleasures with a long, deep purring session, they would not need psychiatrists and such.

But they are deficient in this area as well, and I am forced to do Miss Temple's purring for her.

She leans her head on my broad stomach, ear down, all the better to hear my masculine roaring and rumbling. I was not born to be a pillow, but there are times when I serve as such.

"I am not going to think about anything for the next five days, except finding those shoes. Do not tell anyone that I am going with Electra to a romance convention, though. That could ruin my reputation.

Here I am, with two men in my life, and no life, except getting away from it all at a romance-novel convention full of cover hunks!"

Hey, I am a coverlet hunk.

She must have grasped the picture, because she leans closer to whisper a tender something in my ear. What she murmurs is the hush-hush retail price of the prize shoes.

I pause in mid-purr. That is no small patch of cabbage that she is talking about. Of course, any shoes bearing my always-elegant image would be worth a pretty penny.

I conclude that Miss Temple should lose the lukewarm dudes and go after the cool cat shoes.

Chapter 7

Boys Town

"What are you going to wear to the ball, dear?"

The words were sweetly intoned, yet Electra Lark looked like a fairy godmother who'd been kidnapped by MTV and forced to work in music videos.

Temple eyed Electra's puce/chartreuse muumuu and post-punk snare-do. "Nothing pumpkin-colored, though it may be appropriate to the season. It clashes with my hair. What ball?"

"The Midsummer Night's Dream Dance. Every G.R.O.W.L. convention has a big costume ball one evening. I thought you'd want to avoid looking out of place."

"Costumes! Can't I just wear my usual rags, Godmother? With, of course, a stunning pair of crystal shoes. In fact, I might have exactly the pair in a couple of weeks."

"Two weeks is too late. And, sure, some people wear ordinary evening clothes." Electra sniffed, as if black tie were too, to tawdry. "I guess you could, too."

Temple threw up her hands, then the hairbrush she was packing. It landed among her lingerie on the bed.

"And what, Godmother dear, does one wear to a Midsummer Night's Dream ball in mid-October?"

"I'm going as Puck's grandmother," Electra said, "floaty silver lame and gray chiffon, with genuine woodland camouflage in iridescent glue-on glitter. And trifocals."

"You don't wear trifocals yet."

"No, but Puck's grandmother would be awfully old by now. Haven't you got something kicky, dear?"

"You've seen my shoe collection."

"Oh, my yes." Electra turned to the gaping closet doors. "Awesome. But I've never seen a long gown in your closet, come to think of it."

"Come to think of it, I haven't got one. The hems always have to be taken up for me, so I don't bother. Plus long skirts obscure the important stuff, like my shoes."

"And your svelte little ankles and dimpled knees. Very wise. But nothing formal and floor-sweeping. A pity." Electra looked vaguely disappointed, as if she might burst into a tearful "bibbity bobbity boo-hoo."

"Oh, for heaven sakes, Electra! I do have a Lucretia Borgia getup I bought at a Guthrie Theatre costume sale years ago, thinking it might be useful for a Renaissance Fair sometime. It came with these knee-length, beribboned tresses of red hair that matched mine, so I couldn't resist. Real human hair, too."

"Rapunzel. Perfect! Now, you'll need a welcome wagon outfit, something vaguely Western would work nicely; a dressy man-eating ensemble for the cover hunk pageant; and an awards banquet outfit--