Parallel frown lines made sudden quote marks above the bridge of her glasses. She peered sharply at Temple's face, then looked at her hair. For the first time, the woman sounded uncertain.
"Temple?" She drew back as if denying her own suspicions. "You can't be. .. Little Temple."
"I am not little!" Temple's knee-jerk denial had even more kick, since she'd just seen a woman named Little misbehave. She did not want to be associated with that creature in any way.
The woman behind her in line laughed until her glasses gleamed from the shockwaves. "You are Temple, all right. Said the same thing twenty years ago. Don't you remember me?"
"No. Should I?"
"Maybe not. I'm your aunt, but I haven't been around since you were . .. well, little. Sorry."
"Aunt? I don't have any missing aunts. Except . . . Aunt Ursula!" she shrieked.
"Shhh!" Her aunt cast nervous glances around. "I don't go by that name anymore."
"You went to New York to become an actress," Temple said, not so much recalling as accusing.
"Mother said you would starve."
"Well, I didn't, did I? But I didn't miss that prophecy by much. You got my Christmas cards, didn't you?"
"When I lived at home, but I haven't lived at home for nine years."
Ursula shrugged. "Good for you. Let's get our paperwork, and then I'll buy you a drink. We've got a lot to talk about."
Temple hesitated. Given her current emotional quandary, she really didn't want to delve into ancient family matters at the same time, and anything involving her parents' generation had to be old news Still, it gave her something besides Crawford Buchanan, the Great Fabrizio and Shannon Little to think about while shuffling forward six inches at a time.
When she reached the long table, the harried woman behind it had her sign a computer listing for Electra Lark and Guest, then handed her two heavy canvas bags fat with folders, flyers, giveaways and free books.
She stepped out of line as best she could to wait for her aunt-- imagine that, her long-lost Aunt Ursula who was now going under another name, apparently. Temple watched the woman conduct her business, searching for comparisons with her mother and her Minnesota aunts. None came. The ex-Ursula greeted, signed, sympathized and bore away the ear-marked bag in such a charming, efficient manner that Temple writhed in envy and lusted for reaching a certain age, when no one would mistake her for a girl.
"Now." Her aunt used a long, elegant middle finger to thrust the bridge of her glasses more firmly on her aquiline nose. Maybe that autocratic nose gave her the air of authority. "I'm dying for a martini.
Come on."
Or maybe it was her deep, textured voice. Temple's had a slight rasp that some considered endearing, but Auntie Whoever's voice held a true froggy dew reminiscent of Tallulah Bankhead or Tammy Grimes.
Bemused, Temple followed the authoritative tap of her aunt's conservative but expensive heels--
Bally, she would guess. But then why wouldn't her aunt be authoritative in every respect? She had said she was an author, hadn't she? But a romance author? Why hadn't Mom said anything about that?
Soon they were ensconced at a tiny round marble-topped table beside the Phoenix's meandering indoor stream, overhung by thriving tropical plants and crowded at foot-level by the sagging weight of their convention bags. A waitress buzzed by with the usual round brown tray. Her aunt ordered a Gibson, cocked her eyebrows and waited while Temple dithered.
"A Bloody Mary, I guess."
The waitress swooped away on her rounds.
"Who's your friend?" her aunt asked, looking down.
Temple fully expected to follow her gaze and find Midnight Louie blinking up at her, so well-trained was she to his uncat-like comings and goings. All she saw was three black canvas bags full of words, woo and woe, not wool.
"Oh. The other bag's for my landlady, Electra. She's the romance buff. I just came along for the ride."
"Yes, I saw you mounted on the human roller coaster. Awesome, isn't he?"
"Fabrizio? More like paw-some."
Her aunt's contralto laugh would have been a whoop if it weren't so basso. "Breezy, they call him for short. Say, do you mind if I smoke? I'll keep the fumes aimed in a neutral direction."
"I do, but I guess relatives have an escape clause."
"Terrible habit." Her aunt lit a Virginia Slim with a match from a--yup--Sardi's box. "I try to quit once a month. But at least I don't bite babies."
Temple blinked as her aunt finished her lighting-up ritual by smiling expectantly, then went back to something that intrigued her. "Tell me what you meant about not using 'Ursula' anymore."
"Well, it's a godawful name."
"I know."
"That's right! Sis stuck that on you as a middle name, didn't she? Probably thought making me your godmother would be a good influence on me. It wasn't."
"You're my godmother! I'd forgotten that. You've been gone for such a long time, and have been strangely out of touch."
"Strangely out of touch." Her aunt gazed up at the twinkling fairy lights entwining the greenery. "An off-Broadway director said that about me once, in less innocuous tones."
She leaned away from the tiny table as the waitress bent to set their drinks down, then produced a fan of bills that earned an especially deep departing dip from the server.
"Ah, Temple dear," her flowing delivery went on, not missing a beat, "my life's long story is not worth even a short retelling. In fact, one picture is worth a thousand words."
She reached into the bag at her feet, then slapped something to the marble tabletop.
After Temple finished recoiling, she pulled the object, a fat paperback book, to her side of the table.
The smooth raised surface of its title lettering felt like gigantic Braille beneath her fingertips. "Sulah Savage . . . Night of a Thousand Stars, " she read aloud. "You? You're Sulah Savage?"
Aunt Ursula sipped and inhaled in happy sequence. "You've heard of her!"
"Not until now."
"Oh. She's doing quite well. I considered using 'Sue,' but it didn't have the proper ring. Much too Buddy Holly. Certainly 'Ursula Carlson' wasn't going to sell books, or anything else. Why on earth did they name me that?"
"Why on earth did they pass it on to me?" Temple leaned across the table. "There's this odious man in town--"
"Only one? That's not the Las Vegas I expected."
"The only one I know. He's always calling me by my initials, like I was a disease."
"Ah. T.B."
"Right. I live in absolute dread that he'll learn my middle name."
"T.U.B. Not the image a forward-looking young woman wants to cultivate in this age of low-fat everything, including, one presumes, initials. What is your line of work, anyway?"
"I used to be a local TV reporter."
"Thespian blood, I knew it!"
"Then I became PR director for the Guthrie Theatre."
"Good old Guth! Sir Tyrone would be so proud. And see how the Thespian blood continues to seep out?"
"Please, less gory imagery. Now I do freelance PR around town. In fact, I just landed this hotel, which is doing a total makeover."
"Whatever brought an artless Minnesota babe-in-the-North-Woods to Vegas?"
Temple winced. "A traveling magician named Max."
"A magician. Another theatrical link. Temple, you were obviously born to trod the boards."
"What about you? Didn't you leave home at some absurdly young age to act in New York?"
"Yes. One tends to do that sort of thing at absurdly young ages."
"And?"
"I did act in New York, and did a lot of other things in New York. Couldn't model, too short. So I sold perfume at Saks, and worked for an answering service and dog-walked, acting every now and again. And then, one day almost twenty years ago, I discovered Sulah."
"Youve been publishing novels for twenty years and the family never knew?"
"The family never wanted to know. You know them. Rooted in Midwestern conservatism. I could never stand a life of Thou Shalt Nots. Thou shalt not move more than a mile from thy birth home. Thou shalt not ever leave the first job or husband thou hast. Thou shalt not express thyself. Thou shalt not smoke."