Unknown - Cat_In_A_Hot_Pink_Pursuit

Molina checked her watch.

“Done with still an hour’s time,” Temple chimed in, shooting a conspiratory glance at her pal Mariah. “Shoes, maybe?”

“Actually, I need to make a stop,” Molina said. “Ladies’ room?” Temple asked.

How heedlessly insulting. TempleBarr would make a fab teen queen. “No. Family members appear in the audience on the final show. I need something … less casual.”

Temple eyed Molina’s jeans, moccasins, gauze cotton top, and suede bag. “I guess! Your cop shop pantsuits won’t cut it either. And I don’t suppose you want to trot out Carmen”—she cut off as Molina glared from Mariah to her—“a Carmen Miranda ensemble.”

“Who’s Carmen Miranda?” Mariah wanted to know. Trust kids to sense when adults were getting their lies and deceptions in a wad.

Temple vamped expertly into a diversionary path. “Oh, an old-time performer. Wore these tall, tall headdresses of tropical fruits. Sang, danced. One hot Hispanic cha-cha chick. The movies in the forties were big on Latin music and performers.”

“The forties?”

“During World War II.”

“Latin was in?”

“Ole! There were some great, fun movies, all black and white. You should rent a couple.”

“Sounds coolio.”

“As coolio as Julio Iglesias.”

Mariah frowned. “Don’t you mean Enrique?” she said, mentioning Julio’s cleft-chinned singer-son in the sexy chip commercial. “To die for!” Nauseating sigh.

“Right,” Templebackpeddled. “Enrique.”

Molina feared that Temple’s love of vintage anything was giving away her age. This was definitely not an Iglesias, Sr. crowd. Molina would have to warn her about that.

Temple turned a sharply focused eye on her. “Now. What does Mama Bear need? Something not too casual, not too formal but just right. For what reuse once the show is over?”

“I don’t know.” Molina did know but she wouldn’t say that. “Something suitable for dinner at one of the big hotels. Maybe.”

Temple reared back, obviously daunted by the challenge. “Let’s hit Ladies’ Dresses.”

“I’m not much for dresses,” Molina objected. “They’re always too short.”

“Not with long skirts so hot right now.” Temple did the teen eyeroll like an expert. “If I don’t buy petite sizes I have to roll up the waistbands until I look like I’m pregnant.”

Mariah giggled hard at this notion that her mother had hoped would never cross her mind under any circumstances, except when saying no to boys, until she was in college.

What have I done!

The stroll through Better Dresses was agonizing. Molina understood for the first time her Jekyll/Hyde clothing philosophy: slacks and jackets, jeans and tops for on-and off-duty. Vintage velvet for Carmen, a distant star who was seldom coming out at nights to sing these days. And in between these two extremes lurked a jungle of fussy, expensive clothing that did not scream “date” with a maybe man.

Temple Barr, however, obviously relished the extreme challenge of making over Molina. TempleBarr thrived in the messy middle ground. She and Mariah ravaged the racks, then pushed Molina into the dressing room with armloads of improbable clothing.

She ended up with an outfit chosen by their mutual consent.

“Car-wash skirt, definitely,” Temple told Mariah. “Very cool,” Mariah concurred.

“It looks like Jack the Ripper’s been at my hem from the knees down,” Molina grumbled.

“Dangerous,” Temple said. “Ideal for a law-enforcement type. And not black. Deep, dark plum. Good contrast for your eyes.”

“My eyes don’t need contrast.”

“Absolutely right,” Temple said. “Just a little mascara—you do use mascara? No! Makeup counter’s on the way out, Mariah. Take that down. Lash Out, just the thing.”

Mariah meekly wrote that at the bottom of her clothes sheet.

“An eyebrow waxing would be a gift from heaven,” Temple mused.

“I’m not going to go through that sort of ridiculous assault in the name of female exploitation.”

“Too timid for a little pain in the name of self-improvement, Mariah. So like a guy! Add a Tweezerman to the cosmetic counter list. You might be able to sneak up on her when she’s asleep and pluck.”

“Scratch that!” Molina ordered. “Or I cancel the credit card charges.”

Mariah did as told.

But Molina had been conned into the skirt with the shredded hem, $128.00. A black sleeveless top shaped from bands of ribbons. And a net shawl of purple, black, and turquoise iridescent beads.

“That is so cool, Mom,” said Mariah, who was sold on the outfit. Mariah had never seen Carmen.

“This may be a little dressy,” Molina said with a frown, eyeing herself grudgingly in the mirror. Short, tiny Temple had a feel for supermodel togs.

“You’ll need heels,” Temple decreed.

“No. You do heels. I don’t do heels.”

What, Temple had been about to say, about those vintage forties platform heels Carmen wears?

Molina could read the entire sentence as it formed in her mind and her eyes. But Carmen did not exist here, and besides she stood solo on stage and sang. She didn’t have to worry about dwarfing some insecure man from the stage.

Not that she had an insecure man in mind when she rejected heels. She just had an insecure woman in mind, who had minded these things since the eighth grade.

“Shoe department:’ Temple said in a threatening tone.

Actually, it had been an anticipating tone but Molina found that threatening.

There, Molina held her ground. She would not wear so much as an inch-and-a-half-high heel.

Mariah, trying on every tarty spike she could find, pled with her. It was sad to see how much a teen girl wanted a glamorous mother. Molina almost caved.

Except that Temple, of all people, gently praised and prodded Mariah into demure slides with small, low heels.

“She’s too heavy for those spikes,” Temple commented as Mariah pranced before the mirrors in her petite princess shoes, feminine to the max. “Maybe later, when the baby fat goes.”

“You don’t want me to wear them?”

“Carmen’s vintage platform forties heels, with all those industrial-strength straps, scream sturdy as much as sexy. They’re fine on someone of your height. But these stilettos aren’t. You’d wobble. And I bet you’d hate to wobble. High heels should look able to support their wearer.”

“I’m amazed. You make shoe selection sound like an art form.”

“It is.” Temple frowned at Molina’s size nine feet. “I’d like to see a tiny heel, but since you won’t have it… .”

She darted away like a dragonfly with no credit card limit.

Moments later she returned with an utterly flat shoe, a thong sandal with a beaded triangle over the instep that perfectly matched the shawl.

Like a dragonfly, the improbable sandal reflected the light.

“Oh, Mom, that’s perfect,” Mariah pleaded.

Mariah wanted her to sparkle because then that meant she could too. Like mother, like daughter.

Molina bought the dragonfly sandals, not sure whom they would remind her of more—Mariah the would-be Cinderella, or TempleBarr, the reluctant fairy godmother.

Later, she and her daughter celebrated their first mutual girly occasion (for Molina, it was her very first girly occasion): they whisked out their purchases in the living room, while Caterina and Tabitha gamboled on fallen pieces of colorful tissue.

“This is so cool, Mom. Thank you! I know I can win.”

“It doesn’t matter if you win. It matters if you have fun, keep your head, and … stay safe.”

“Temple is so cool.” Mariah, head bent, held up some ridiculous glitzy top to her underdeveloped breasts. “She hardly acts like an old person at all.”