"I'm absolutely crazy," he said deadpan.
Her face fell, but even in defeat a new argument was marshaling in the back of her mind. He saved her the trouble.
"But I'm going to get it, okay? Sold by the lady in the leopard-skin pillbox hat. Almost."
"You know, maybe we should swing by afterward and get that--"
He took her elbow and hustled her to the checkout table.
"I'll take the sofa. The one the size of Godzilla's grandmother, but first I have to see about arranging to have it picked up."
The clerk was in seventh heaven. "We have a list. Check, credit card or cash?"
"How about half now and half on pickup?" He pulled out his new Discover card.
The clerk snapped it up like a gator grabbing a guppy.
Beside him, Temple writhed in swallowed agony. "Matt, you didn't deal," she whispered when the clerk was absorbed by punching in numbers.
"It's already a good deal, so you swore. Besides, it's almost Christmas. Consider it a donation."
"Donations are donations. Dealing is dealing. You could have always sent them the donation later. Paying sticker price like a rube ruins it for everyone else."
"I'm getting it, right? Aren't you happy?"
She took a deep breath. "I'm ecstatic. It really is... wonderful. It deserves a good home. I'm so glad you got it."
"It's not a living thing, Temple. It doesn't know it'll be the star of the Circle Ritz."
"Yes it does," she answered fiercely. "Yes it does."
Chapter 3
Escape from New York - Please!
Temple sat in her aisle airline seat, as queasy as Midnight Louie probably was feeling right now.
Louie was invisible. All Temple could see was his new airline -approved Kit-Karrier, tucked under the seat ahead. Temple herself was all too visible in the getup she decided was necessary for this hasty jaunt to New York. Looking down in disenchantment, she saw clunky, well-padded high-top tennis shoes. Black leggings. (She expected to be doing a lot of bending over to tend to Louie. And black wouldn't show cat hair. Much.) A loose, almost knee-length sweater over a heavy turtleneck. All black, so as not to show Midnight Louie hair.
Her usual tote bag was stowed overhead. Her valuables--wallet, ID, credit cards and the directions to Kit's place on Cornelia Street, plus sundries--were crammed into a weensy boxy patent-leather purse, also black, that made Temple feel like an eight-year-old showing off her new Easter bag. She loathed impractical purses almost as much as she despised practical shoes. Inconsistency, she believed, is the hallmark of a discriminating mind.
But . . . anything for Louie.
At least he was being quiet. Ominously quiet. Too-angry-to-spit quiet. Wait until he saw the new CatAboard Seat Temple had purchased at the pet store before they left. It even came with one of those despised diamond-shaped yellow signs first used to announce "Baby on Board," now adapted for anything portable, including "Cat on Board." Temple had tried to peel it off, but the glue proved too tough and too disfiguring. She had considered covering the noxious sign with a real "Baby on Board" badge. She figured she might get more respect in transit, but doubted it. Especially when she shoved the carrier under the seat. Pride of portage didn't count for anything anymore. Not even "My Cat is an Honor Student."
"How about 'My Cat is a Star'?" she bent down to ask Louie in a whisper.
The businessman in the adjoining seat flashed a look that was half annoyance and half alarm. He had arrived after she and Louie were installed, and had whipped out a laptop computer as soon as the pilot announced passengers could get plugged in and turned on.
Everybody talked to their under seat luggage, Temple told herself with a haughty shrug. Mr. Laptop was clucking away on the small keyboard, grim and concentrated.
Since her feet seldom reached any floor, Temple usually propped them on her underseat bag. But the lightweight Kit-Karrier was too flimsy to support a pair of massive high-tops. She
wrestled her paperback book from under the carrier strap and sighed. This was a four-hour flight, with nothing to munch on but an air-swollen bag or two of pretzels as dry and appetizing as matchsticks.
She opened the guide to New York City and began reading.
More than three droning hours later, Laptop Man had absconded to the rear restrooms. Temple shook her wristwatch, moved the dial ahead three hours and wriggled her legs. Landing soon. She lifted the middle armrest in the tandem seats, then cozied up to the window and railed the shade Laptop Man had kept drawn tight all through the flight. It was sixish in Manhattan, winter twilight time when the sun takes its own sweet time in letting. The whole visible world basked in a bruised burnt-orange afterglow.
She caught her breath. Below the plane was the East River, a glitter of beaten copper ripples in the dying light. Manhattan landmarks, strove to stab the pale sky in the twilight's last gleaming. The Statue of Liberty, a tiny dot in the black water, flashed the slow-moving plane overhead, the lit torch flaming like a match head. Temple could just make out the wakes of tiny boats wrinkling the water like irons gone amok.
The World Trade Center's twin towers, wrapped in glass, reflected the sunset in a plaid of windows lit from within and without. Dozens of other modern building-block towers also resembled glitter-wrapped packages under some cosmic Christmas tree. Accidental autumn warmth sparkled everywhere like gold foil. The sun's tangerine lightning galvanized the Empire State Building's familiar spire. The Chrysler Building's graceful fluted cap shone as silver leaf turned gold. From up here, the Chrysler Building was undeniably much lower than the Empire State Building. Temple had pictured them as non-identical twins, matched in size if not style. Now she saw that the Chrysler Building was a squirt. An illusion about New York City shattered already, and she hadn't even landed!
The plane, an ocean liner of the air, dropped altitude at a dignified rate.
"Excuse me."
She looked up to find Laptop Man standing beside her empty seat, managing to look both impassive and annoyed. Oops.
Temple scrambled back to her seat and out into the narrow aisle to let him enter.
He replaced the retracted armrest as if reinstalling a security system, glanced out the window at the shimmering scene, then snapped down the shade. Under the reading light's singularly narrow, yellow stare, he jotted figures onto a notepad.
Temple preferred a taciturn traveling partner. With landing imminent, she felt like a marathoner about to enter a race. Mentally, she ran the rush to retrieve her bags and the dash for the terminal, then the rapid, long walk to the baggage area, with a ladies' room stop for her (and Louie too). Then she would have to wrestle her huge bag off the luggage return and get out to the cab area without being waylaid by a gypsy cab driver. Kit had warned her against those con men. Then would come a traffic-choked entry into downtown Manhattan during rush hour. Lord, she hoped she got one of the few cab drivers who still spoke English so she could tell him where to go.
After that came seeing Kit, meeting all the ad agency people and the pet-food company executives . . .
Temple leaned her head against the seat, concentrating for a moment on what she had left behind instead of speculating on what lay ahead.
She'd told Electra Lark, her landlady, first. Gone for ten days over Christmas. Back by New Year's. Left Kit's address and phone/fax number. Asked Electra to make sure that Matt Devine wasn't alone for Christmas ... Then she had called good neighbor Matt, who still seemed stunned that she would fly off like this, on such short notice. He had promised to keep an eye on her place. She had debated calling Max Kinsella, but he was prone to drop in on her without warning, and she didn't want him to think she'd been kidnapped by the thugs who were after him for mysterious reasons he refused to explain. She'd left a message on his answering machine, which still answered in the dead Gandolph the Great's voice, wondering where he'd gone. Max the magician was like that: there and not there at the same time.