Unknown - 16_Cat_In_An_Orange_Twist

“In Chicago?”

He looked surprised. “No. In Indiana. At St. Vincent’s.” That name rang a bell in the temple of her memory. But she was a Unitarian Universalist by birth, and they didn’t sling saints’ names on every place of worship. Maybe they thought it was devisive, pitting one holy figure against another. “The seminary,” Jerome said, noticing her confusion. Well, confuse her some more. She knew it was where priests and ministers-in-training went before they were ordained. Yet the word always reminded her of female seminaries, the genteel nineteenth-century academies that made girls into ladies. Call her Incongruous. It fit.

“You’re not Catholic, are you?” Jerome smiled for the first time. “I assumed wrong.” “I’m not even religious.”

“Wow.”

“Wow?”

“I’m surprised Matt has escaped the religious culture so completely. You seem to be a good friend of his.”

“Pretty good,” she said, wary.

“Look. I’ve heard enough around Maylords to know you’re trying to put two and two together about the operation, and

Simon. Well, you can’t.”

“I can’t?”

He smiled again, looking more relaxed, looking more like someone human she wouldn’t mind spending time with.

“Maylords doesn’t add up to four. It adds up to three. Or five.”

“Jerome, you’re losing me.”

“Oh, I was lost a long time ago. Back at St. Vincent’s. I don’t know how much you suspect, or how much you even want to suspect.”

“Here’s what you need to know about me, Jerome. Simon is dead. I’d just met him, but he meant the world to a friend who means a lot to me. I have this … affinity for figuring out things. Maybe I can help. That’s why I need to know what you know.” “I don’t want to betray Matt’s confidence.”

“Neither do I.”

“How much do you know about him?”

“How much does anybody?”

He nodded. “Right answer. Matt’s reticence is understandable. Flunk out of Catholic school, and you go into life minus a high school diploma. Flunk out of seminary, and you go out scarred for life.”

“I don’t believe that. Matt’s pretty okay, except he’s a little obsessive-compulsive about right and wrong. That’s better than the other extreme, which is the Hell’s Angels.”

“He’s got nothing to be worried about; you’re right. Me, that’s a different story, and I don’t know how to tell it.”

“For starters, why didn’t you want to talk to me at Maylords?”

Jerome looked at her as if she was finally demonstrating her complete state of nuttiness. “The place is bugged.”

“Bugged? Like where?”

“Like the employee’s ‘lounge.’ And ears are everywhere. That layout is a maze and you never know who’s unseen, one vignette over, hanging on everything you say, everything you might think about saying. Everyone will know you and Beth Blanchard had a spat Sunday by four P.M. today.”

“So what did ‘everyone’ know about Simon?”

Jerome sucked air and then water through his straw. Around them the din cranked up.

“Simon was there and not there. He had a celebrityboyfriend. He was untouchable … and more vulnerable at one and the same time.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You ever been anyplace that encourages a secret society?”

She thought of the Synth, the supposedly ancient conspiracy of magicians, but that was Max’s area of expertise. She knew next to nothing about it.

“I’ve been where some people are underhanded, but that’s any workplace … a theater, a TV station. That’s why I like working for myself.”

Jerome shook his head at her, assuming a strange superiority. “I don’t know how much I should tell you, how much I dare

tell you.”

“Someone at Maylords will be out to get you if you do?”

“Matt won’t like it.”

“Matt? He has nothing to do with Maylords. Except he … knows a couple employees. Me and”-Temple bit back her reluctance-“Janice Flanders.”

“You’re temporary at Maylords,” Jerome said quickly. Dismissively. “Janice too. It’s not a game women can play.”

“What? The old ‘golf’ excuse? Women can’t move up in management because they don’t play golf and they can’t play golf because the most exclusive clubs deny them membership?”

“This is a way bigger barrier than golf.”

Temple opened her mouth to object to that clearly sexist assumption, just as Miss Pierced Pout arrived to slam a steaming tray of tomato sauce-spattered cheese down between them.

“Incredible Hulk,” she announced. “Peppers? Parmesan?”

“Uh, sure,” Temple said, eager for her to leave. “The works.”

A curtain of steam and heat rose between her and Jerome. This was hardly the environment Temple would have chosen for a confidential conversation, but it was the only place she would learn what she needed to hear.

Glass-bottomed containers hit the table like automatic rifle fire. Hot sauce, dried red peppers, milled Parmesan, and other uncertain condiments.

Though the server was soon gone, the question remained, and Temple asked it.

“Why can’t women play the Maylords game? Most of the interior designers are women. Granted, the sales force and management are almost all male, now that I think about it.”

“It’s seminary all over again! All men, and a few women who aren’t ever going to get anywhere and will move on without knowing why.”

“What about Beth Blanchard? She doesn’t look like someone who’d move on if a semi came at her head-on. I’m surprised she wasn’t found dead in that crossover SUV. Why does management put up with her abusiveness? Why do you?”

Jerome tried to pull a triangle of pizza free of the gooey strings of cheese that held it captive to the tin. Without much success.

While he struggled he eyed her uneasily. “You’re more than a friend of Matt’s.” It was a question, despite lacking an upswing in tone.

“Sure. We’re neighbors.”

He shrugged his disbelief. “How long has he known Janice?”

“I don’t know.” Temple carved a pizza slab free with her fork edge while she calculated. “Since early last fall sometime.”

“Is it serious, do you think?”

“Gee, I should ask you that. You’re the one who works with Janice. And I’ve hardly seen Matt at all lately, he’s been so busy.”

“Yeah. I could see you and Janice hadn’t expected to encounter each other at the Maylords opening.”

They chewed in silence for a while, Temple glad she didn’t wear dentures. A Chunk-a-Cheez pizza would have extracted them with a single attempted bite.

“Why are you so interested?” she finally asked.

Jerome flushed a little, but the pizza was still steaming. “We were in seminary together, and both left. I just wondered how much Matt has … resocialized.” -

“Well, I know Janice is a divorced single mother, but she’s not Catholic, is she? From what I can figure out, Catholics can’t marry each other if they’re divorced, but since marriages among non-Catholics don’t count, they can marry any old divorced

Protestant, or Muslim, or Mormon, or atheist they want to. As long as they do it in a Catholic ceremony.”

Jerome’s deepening flush matched the dried red peppers Temple sprinkled on her congealing cheese.

“That’s not exactly the way I’d put it.”

“You’ll have to excuse me. I’m an unwashed Unitarian.”

“Unitarianism. I hesitate to call it a religion … more like a social philosophy.”

“Do you hesitate to call it a religion because it’s light on fiats and proscriptions?”

“Well, no. I mean, obviously it’s not very demanding.”

“You mean it’s way too tolerant of human needs and weaknesses, like Jesus in the New Testament?”