Unknown - Cat_In_A_Hot_Pink_Pursuit

Matt wasn’t too emotionally exhausted to smile, which she’d wanted to make him do. Among other things. He couldn’t encourage her hopeless crush, but he knew a lot more about longing and forbidden love and all that sticky emotional stuff now than he’d known the first time they’d met last Christmas. He had to respect her feelings even as he had to discourage them. Had to clear the decks for the real guy who was waiting for her somewhere down the road to maturity.

“Krys. Mom’s going to be coming home very soon and I don’t want to go into anything deep now. I’d like to be safe in my room, totally out of it.”

“That could be arranged.”

“Krys. No. You’re a sweet, funny girl but not my girl. This is way out of your league.”

“No, it isn’t. It looks like it’s about them—him and her—but it’s about you. You’re in the middle. I don’t care how smart you are, or how cool you act, or how … shrinky. It’s gotta be awful.”

He took the cup of tea she held out. “Herbal,” she told him, sounding like a nurse. “Won’t get on your nerves, like I do.”

He had to smile. Again.

But he was glad to be leaving Chicago tomorrow.

Chapter 58

Showdown

Mariah searched the audience. The spotlights had panned earlier on Molina and escort in row five, beaming. Well, Molina was actually smiling. The guy with her had the quizzical expression of a classic observer.

“Mom!” Mariah ran to join her in the audience now that the swirl of excitement was over. Mariah had lost but so had Elvis. Not bad company.

A vapid blonde had won Temple’s erstwhile division, and a younger vapid blonde had won Mariah’s. They’d both applauded politely, and whispered “wicked” at each other, then giggled.

Temple glanced out of the corner of her eye at Rafi Nadir. He was watching the Molina family reunion with the slow-mo reaction of Tommy Smothers trying to come up with the right answer for his brother, Dick. Wheels turning, mired in alternatives, searching for the one, the right answer.

With the Smothers Brothers it was high comedy. With Rafi Nadir and Carmen and Mariah Molina it could be high tragedy.

Temple felt her neck and shoulder muscles clench. Nothing a knowledgeable PR ace could do about this kind of crisis.

Molina never acknowledged Nadir’s presence, existence, anything about him.

Temple could read the pantomime in the impromptu family vignette arranged for the cameras: Larry, the new guy, scooted down so Mariah could sit by her mother, who was making all the proud and proper maternal motions. Larry was leaving the spotlight—and the television coverage, Temple noticed—to mother and daughter. Was that sensitivity … or a need to avoid being recognized?

She eyed Nadir again. Still mentally doing the math, trying to figure out when Mariah must have been born … impossible to calculate without her birth date.

Temple bet he would get it somehow, as soon as possible. Molina had ducked the inevitable tonight, partly through the strategy of her new male escort … was he hired muscle? Something about him read “professional” along with “don’t tread on me.”

Temple waited until the spotlight and camera lens had moved on to the next performer before skittering over to congratulate Mariah in a whisper.”..

.great,” Molina was whispering to Mariah. “Listen. I think you’re old enough now. There’s something you should know.”

Molina spied Temple and stopped talking, darn it! Temple leaned down and hugged Mariah. “Great job on the song. Sony you didn’t win.”

“Wow. I feel like I have. Mom, Temple has been just the best roomie in the whole world.”

“Apparently, you’re not the only one who thinks so,” Molina responded. Mariah missed the sardonic tone, andthe veiled reference to Max Kinsella. “She certainly delivered when it came to crisis control. Let’s all go out and celebrate. No, don’t slink away, Miss Barr. You too, `roomie.’ Larry can take you girls in his car and I’ll run ahead and get things ready.

“First I have to settle the hash of the creep behind all the nasty pranks on the set.”

“You’ve got him?” Temple asked.

“My excellent undercover officers.” Molina looked a bit uneasy. “They found incriminating materials in his camera bag but it seems he hated cats as well as women.”

“Often goes together,” Temple said. “Both can be independent.”

Molina sighed at her political comment.

“Whatever.” She paused, then grimaced and plunged ahead with the apparently galling facts. “Seemed he tried to kick a couple of Persians out of his way during the mass exodus. My guys were already looking to grab him, but they found him pinned to the latticework wall beside the pool by a pair of rabid black cats and Savannah Ashleigh. I think she broke every artificial nail on her fingers clawing tread marks into his face. The arresting black cats, being shorter, went for tender parts lower down. We don’t have to worry about getting a confession.”

“Gross. But what’s the big secret about tonight?” Mariah was finally coming down from her performance afterglow and tuning into her mother’s strange comment.

“You’ll find out soon,” Molina said. “If Hollywood doesn’t come calling right away, we can leave.”

“Oh, Mom. I knew I wasn’t gonna win. But who needs to?”

“That’s a very mature attitude, Mariah.”

“Who needs to be a stupid ‘Tween Queen? I’m going for American Idol next.”

Molina speechless was a sight to behold. “We’ll see,” was all she could come up with Temple tried to slip away. “Stay,” Molina said. “Sit,” Molina said next.

They were commands you gave to a dog, but Temple decided she would be magnanimous and not ruin Mariah’s big night. Poor kid. She was about to learn the bodyguard at the competition was her daddy.

Molina had more guts than Temple gave her credit for.

Larry winked as he moved over to give Temple his seat, as if guessing every turn of her internal debate.

After the closing hoopla was over, Kit came running up to them.

“Fabulous job, girls! Of course you both earned my top honors and should have won your divisions but that cretin Dexter was fixated on boob size and that tipped the balance, excuse the expression. I am so disgusted. The other judges and I are making protests but frankly without Elvis—I mean just by the numbers—we’re not likely to make anybody listen. The cameramen and producers are fixated on boob size too.”

Her effusions stopped as she regarded Temple. “Ah, a limo service has arrived to convey me back to my hotel, but the vehicle seems rather crowded by individuals and accessories of purely Italian manufacture. Am I going to get ‘taken for a ride’ out into the desert, or what?”

Temple grinned. “I see the fabulous Fontana Brothers have arrived. You may recall my mentioning them to you.”

“Yes, I do. And they are as collectively cute as a silencer on a Beretta, but is going with them safe?”

“I don’t know, Aunt. Do you particularly care?”

“You’re so right. I’ll take two aspirin and call you in the morning.” She was off on her high-heeled Blahnik slides. Off to see the Wizards of Las Vegas. Wicked!

“I don’t get it,” Mariah said. “They sent her multiple limousine drivers?”

“It’s a very long stretch limo. Let’s blow this crooked contest, kid.”

Mariah and Temple/Xoe left in turn as the crowd shuffled out. No easy way for Rafi Nadir to fight the flow and reach them, though Temple knew he could if he wanted to.

But she never saw him again, not even when she and Mariah stood under the porte cochere and waited for Larry and whatever kind of car he was driving.