Unknown - Cat_In_A_Hot_Pink_Pursuit

And then, at the mike, Molina/Carmen sat back on the stool. She nodded at the instrumentalists and segued, a capella, into “Mariah.”

She sang it low and slow. It wasn’t nightclub fodder. It was a musical-stage number, dramatic and mock Western. It wasn’t urban, it wasn’t hip but it was powerful and it was pure torch song in its dark, contralto melody, meant for a man to sing, with unexpected hints of tenor, or tender soprano in this case.

The song started “way out here.” The frontier. The urban edge. The selvage of self. The rain had a name. Tess. It hissed. The fire had a name. Jo. It spat. The wind was something else. More than monosyllabic. The wind was a woman named Mariah. Mah-rye-ah. This woman turned the stars around and made the trees sigh and whine. This woman wind was an icon for “only” and “lonely.”

Molina’s voice made the wind mourn, made loss a sustained note, made the word “Mariah” into the most beautiful elongated three syllables in the English language.

Temple, caught up in the exquisite beauty of the styling, still managed to gauge the reactions around her. She was a PR woman; she always took a room’s ambient temperature.

Mariah, herself, was enraptured by the poetry of her name, which she really understood for the first time.

Larry. Larry was no doubt enamored by the artistry of the woman he escorted, but was there more than that to his sudden pursuit of Molina?

Temple sat by herself, moved but measuring, sensing, understanding. A siren had sung, momentarily throwing off her human guise. Each person here had heard a different song.

Temple—cursed by the gift of Cassandra, the prophetno one would believe—could see that some good, and a lot of bad, would probably come from this night, this siren song, this guarded family of two that was being inexorably circled by unpredictable outside forces.

Chapter 59

An Invitation She

Can’t Refuse

“Temple.”

Matt stood speechless when she answered his knock. It wasn’t just the longish straight blonde hair

“Don’t worry. I’ll get rid of it.”

“Your eyes will wash out? Temple, they’re green. Is it some strange dietetic reaction?”

“Don’t mention dietetic reactions! One of those was murder on my last case.”

“Have I got the right unit?”

“I just forgot about the green contacts. Let me go change them. The hair will have to be redyed to my natural color, then grow out. Come in. Sit down. Hang on. I’ll be right back.”

Matt did as instructed, which left him confronting Midnight Louie and his thoroughly natural green eyes over the flimsy barrier of a throw pillow.

Other than Temple’s radical change of appearance,everything else around her place seemed the same. Seemed … normal.

She came clattering back over the hardwood floors on a pair of feminine and creative shoes. That was the same, thank goodness.

“So. How was Chicago?” she asked.

He was still speechless.

“Well?”

“I found my father.”

“Matt! No. I can’t believe it. You found out who he was, finally?”

“No. I found out who he is. Found him.”

“Found his grave, you mean?”

“No. Him. The Jonathan my mother only knew by his first name. I had to stake out the Winslow family lawyer’s office to do it. You’d have been proud of me, undercover detective.”

“But, Matt, wasn’t he supposed to be dead? My God! You’re so calm.”

“His family told my mother he was dead to get rid of her, and me. It’s all over. We met and talked. It’s pretty disconcerting to meet someone you resemble for the first time, but he’s a stranger, after all. It wasn’t his fault. His family was wealthy and controlling, which goes together all too often. They high-handedly rearranged his life too.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“It’s pretty amazing. My mother wanted to find out who he was. The family had told her, via their attorney, that he’d died overseas and they gave her a two-flat, a Chicago-style duplex, as a sort of settlement. So she never expected to see him again on this planet. When it happened, when I discovered him while badgering the attorney’s office—”

“‘Badgering’? You?”

“When some high-end attorney starts brushing you off with obvious evasions it makes you pretty darn mad. I thought I might find his parents. My grandparents. I wanted no more to do with them than they had wanted to do with me thirty-five years ago. I only did it because my mother wanted closure and I thought that would be healthy for her. She’s never really tried for a real life of her own. So … I find him. And she wanted nothing more to do with it. Or him. Funny. I couldn’t have cared less until it happened.”

“So, what’s the story?”

“Ancient history. His family kept them apart, kept him ignorant of her, and me. He’s got a whole new family, and life. Seems like a decent guy. He feels pretty cheated too. My mother’s … not happy. I’m okay with it. I’m here.”

Temple plopped down next to him, forcing Louie to scramble for new high ground: the cushion tops behind them.

“Amazing. You’re so calm.”

“What does it change? It was Romeo and Juliet from two different classes instead of clans. Their families imposed their own priorities on their wayward kids. I feel for my mother but it’s too late to change anything. Except,” he added, “the present. So what kind of tangle have you been involved with while I was gone?”

She told him, including her reservations about the Molina/Nadir/ Larry/Mariah quadrangle.

“Wow. Carmen is ratcheting up the stakes on all fronts, isn’t she?”

“Carmen? You call her that? Since when?”

“Occasionally. When I really want her attention. Her name is the key to her background. That’s why she doesn’t use it professionally. Carmen Regina. Regina means ‘Queen of Heaven.’ All very Hispanic and very Catholic.”

“I’m not very Catholic.”

“That’s what I like about you.”

“Why?”

“I get to keep the guilt concession all to myself when I’m with you.”

She looked a little nervous. He discovered he loved being able to make her nervous.

“Guilt isn’t a Unitarian thing,” she said finally. “Fine. Leave it up to me.”

“Have you something guilty in mind?”

“Maybe. Let’s go out.”

“The Bellagio, you said.”

“The new you deserves it.”

“You won’t be ashamed to be seen with my blatantly blonde hair?”

“I wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen with you with chartreuse hair. I’ve still got a couple days left on my vacation from the radio station. They’re running `Mr. Midnight’s Classic Moments’ this week.” Matt shrugged an apology at the corniness of his employer. “Okay if I pick you up tomorrow at eight? I’m thinking of that purple taffeta dress you wore once.”

“You want me to wear it again?”

“It wasn’t too shabby.”

“You want me to dress a certain way?”

“Catholic guilt.”

She hesitated before answering. “That’s kinda … erotic.”

“The best kind of guilt.”

“Not the black with the buttons—?”

“Not this time.”

She swallowed. She was right. This conversation was getting incredibly erotic. “‘This time’?”

“I hope so.”

“Matt—?”

“Temple.”

“You are way too … confident.”

“You like dithering?”

“Maybe.”

“Tomorrow. Eight.”

Her eyes were wide, blue-gray. Looked incredible with the blonde hair. The Teen Queen people had remade her into somebody beyond her current persona. For the first time, Matt felt that Max Kinsella could be a name in a history book. For the first time, he felt like he was writing his own life, and maybe Temple’s life too.