Then she'd told Van von Rhine and Nicky Fontana at the Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino, the closest thing she had to a regular employer. They thought the reason for the trip was a blast and told her to have a good time.
I will, Temple told herself.
Temple's seat back was hit from behind, suddenly.
"Oh!" She sat forward with a start.
The plane was landing. The pilot had just applied the brakes, and Temple found an irresistible force plastering her against the upholstery. Just landing.
"You must have dozed off," her seatmate finally commented. "We're here."
As soon as the seat-belt-sign light deadened, people jumped up. Temple was among them, in the rat race of the present and future, lugging, tussling, jockeying for position, inching forward, tote bag slung' over one shoulder, book and handbag stowed inside, Louie's carrier held before her with both hands, so he wouldn't jostle against the scats bracketing the narrow aisle. Better bruises on her legs than a howling dervish on her hands.
Louie gave one piercing yowl as they exited the plane. The flight attendant smiled indulgently, no less than he would have done at seeing the last of a bawling two-year-old.
Temple huffed up the exit ramp into the terminal. Laptop Man had been right behind her. Now, with only a briefcase and a small bag to carry, he sprinted ahead. Temple studied the faces that flowed past her, recognizing no one. And no one recognized her.
The entry-into-New-York-City scenario unreeled as her mind had played it.
Except for an unforeseen circumstance. In the women's restroom she attracted a circle of admirers when she heaved Louie's Kit-Karrier to the baby-diaper-changing shelf and brought him out for water and a snack. He drank the water, sniffed disdainfully at the Free-to-be-Feline and looked put-upon for the admiring ladies.
"What a handsome animal! Do you travel with him often?"
"This is the first time. If it works out, who knows? Say, could one of you watch him for a sec while I, you know--"
"Sure," said several voices.
Temple hastened to a cubicle, uneasy about leaving Louie even with his own groupies.
When she returned and pulled the CatAboard Seat out of her tote bag, they oohed with interest. Temple wriggled into the contraption and latched it shut over her chest and stomach.
"The idea is," she explained, panting, to the bemused audience, "he rides up front in this carrier, I fold away the airplane carrier and now have both hands free for the rest of my luggage."
"Marvelous," said a glossy blond career woman who at first glance had looked too cold to care.
"Like with a baby," added a Hispanic woman with grandmotherly certitude. "Much better to carry the weight in the front."
A rawboned woman with a Swedish accent actually lifted Louie into the bag. Temple winced as his weight pulled on the shoulder and waist straps. She felt like she was en route to the booby hatch, and was properly trussed up for the journey. But the Forbes woman put her expensive eelskin briefcase on the baby platform to tighten the drawstring around Louie's neck.
In the mirror Temple looked like a demon-possessed mountain climber. The nylon Cat Aboard looked like a backpack in reverse whose disembodied head had made a one-hundred-eighty-degree rotation.
The Hispanic woman chuckled.
A college girl with a glossy brown braid down her back grinned. "He looks pretty disgruntled with just his head sticking out."
"Disgruntled I can handle." Temple was still reeling from the unaccustomed weight up front that pulled her off balance. Must be what being pregnant felt like.
She thanked the fan club and reentered the slipstream of jostling people in the concourse outside.
Of course she--or Louie, rather ... or rather Louie's disembodied head--drew the kind of constant comment that becomes harder and harder to accept gracefully.
By the time they were bumping along in the back of a cab that smelled like the cockpit of a World War II troop transport plane, or what Temple thought such a locale would smell like, she was too exhausted to make sure the driver was taking the approved route: the tunnel, not the bridge. Temple didn't know which tunnel was preferable to which bridge, but Kit had sternly instructed her to recite this secret phrase, and so she did. If it cost her an arm and a leg, heck, her extremities were going numb anyway! And this was all on the advertising-agency tab.
The driver and the drive into Manhattan were as expected: curt, fast and jerky. Temple fought nausea from long, idling waits in carbon-dioxide-clogged air while the engine trembled before vaulting forward with a snort.
The driver broke a long silence finally to growl something that sounded like Kit's address followed by a question mark.
"Yes. Cornelia Street."
More lurching down side streets, wheel-well to wheel-well with parked trucks. Temple's eyes closed at every imminent collision, which meant she spent the last leg of the journey in almost total darkness. She- could have been diverted to New Jersey and would have never known the difference. Then the cab stopped in a dark, ruirrow street.
"This is it.'" Temple wondered aloud.
No comment. But the driver was looking impatiently over his shoulder at the choked tide of cars, cabs and trucks.
"Couldn't you pull up to the curb? There's an empty space."
His head shook vehemently. "Out here."
"I'll need a receipt," she called through the smudged Plexiglas between them.
She could read the meter, but not the name on the driver ID card, just a vowel-laden string of foreign syllables.
She paid and tipped him, struggled out with Louie's significant weight shifting wildly against her stomach ... he kicked her! Yup, just like being pregnant. Which she might never be able to be now, not unless aliens kidnapped her to accomplish it. She could barely tilt herself out of the low backseat. The driver had thoughtfully used the internal lever to loosen the trunk latch for Temple.
Temple trotted around the huge yellow cab, amazed to see no blatant scrapes, reached in to heave her monster bag over the high trunk lift over. Horns performed a hoarse hallelujah chorus around her, probably at her. Temple gritted her teeth. Let them honk! She hated luggage. She hated New York. She slammed the huge lid shut so hard it startled Louie into a loud growl.
"Shut up!" she told him through her teeth. "People will think my stomach is growling."
As if the people milling past on the sidewalk had time to think of anything besides where they were going and how fast.
At least the big suitcase had rollers. Temple finally wrestled it to the walk, hooked her tote bag on for the ride and began scanning the building fronts for an address.
She was aware of a carpet of crushed refuse on the sidewalk, of men who could only be described as "loungers" leaning against the buildings and closely watching her struggles, of narrow doorways that seemed to be numberless, of cramped shop fronts that looked crowded and jumbled and sleazy. Was this even the right street?
Temple hoofed it to a corner, people colliding with the bag she towed behind her, and searched for street signs. Standing and looking was not a safe activity in New York City, she decided, taking shelter against a wall herself near the entrance to a drugstore.
She finally went in, waited in line, and asked about the address.