By now Temple's face looked as empty as a deserted parking lot, but her voice had increased enough in energy and an upbeat volume with every answer to fill a Broadway house. Then suddenly that booming optimism failed. Her face crumpled.
"Bye," she whispered into the phone at last, her voice starting to shatter like a crystal metronome.
"Honey!" Kit took the phone from Temple's limp fingers, and checked for a dial tone, which there indeed was. She hung up the receiver, still warm from Temple's death grip.
"Temple, what's the matter? I've never heard such an inane half-conversation outside a post-modern play, but you look as if you'd gotten your own death notice."
Temple shook her head no, but let her aunt guide her back to the living nxnn couch.
Kit sat her down, not releasing Temple's hand until she sat beside her.
Tell me, Temple. Who was it? What was wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." Temple sighed abruptly, as a dog will sometimes do for no reason. Temple had a reason. "It was Matt, calling from Chicago."
"Something must be wrong."
Temple shook her head in a dazed way. "No. His trip home was not a cakewalk, but he resolved a lot, learned a lot. Now he's ready to go back to Las Vegas and take care of a lot, including any leftover problems with his stepfather. He feels his phone-counseling job is a dead end, that he needs to find something more in keeping with his education level, even his earning level."
"That's sensible. That's great."
"Oh, yeah. Terrific. I hardly recognized his voice. It was so sure, so happy. He sounded like another ... person. He has so much to tell me. He can hardly wait. He can hardly wait--well, I don't have to go into everything. But he can hardly wait to see me again. Tomorrow. Kit. I've never heard him so up, so high, so . . . committed."
"Committed to what?"
Temple swallowed and finally looked at her aunt with truly tragic eyes. "To . . . life. To . . . love. To . . . us."
"Oh, honey."
Kit just took her hands again, and held them.
Chapter 40
Stompin' at the Algonquin
I cannot explain it. Karma is not within three thousand miles of this place, yet my conscience is bothering me. Some may think that one of my ilk cannot have a conscience, but I assure you that mine is in exquisite working order.
Much as I am pleased that the Sublime Solange is likely to partner me in a continuing series of film endeavors, I am not pleased by the shabby treatment meted out to the Divine Yvette. Sisters they may be under the skin, but the Divine Yvette was there first, both in my heart and on the television screen. I cannot let her think that I am a party to the cowardly way she has been victimized, betrayed and cast aside in a maternal condition. A certain once-royal British princess comes to mind.
So I must leave the cozy nest Miss Kit Carlson has fashioned for herself down in the Village, and travel uptown (as far as midtown, anyway) to my love's current hostelry, the Algonquin Hotel. I have heard Miss Savannah Ashleigh boasting of her address to the advertising personnel, though how one who is about as high-brow as a Barbie doll would appreciate staying at a joint famed for hosting the Mount Olympus-browed Round Table wits of the thirties is beyond my Ken.
Such puzzles of human misbehavior aside, this small jaunt uptown is sure to be no cakewalk on a catwalk. Yet I am an intrepid as well as an inventive soul, and I figure if I can do Las Vegas blindfolded, I can certainly manage Manhattan with my eyes wide open and all four sets of shivs on intruder-alert.
Frankly, I am more concerned about traffic plain and simple than such evil elements as drug traffickers, gangs, personal electronics salesmen and predatory street people (as opposed to just plain street people, who are usually in no condition to prey on so much as a stray cat, more's the pity). I decide to make my trek at dusk, when nature conspires--even in such an urban center as New York City-- to render my natural coloring an advantage.
My escape from Miss Kit Carlson's Shangri-la in the Sky will be my first challenge.
Luckily, Miss Temple and her aunt are consumed by the problem dujour: which Las Vegas swain is the more promising for Miss Temple's future happiness? Miss Temple has also grown complacent after having successfully carted me to New York and about Madison Avenue. She now views me as a furry pouch potato. Something she can tote here and there. I can see that ground transportation in this town is hell, but I am not ready to give up locomotion for life.
So I work my way to the front door, sit down facing it, and contemplate my options.
They are "poor" and "none."
I have seen neither hide nor hair of the vaunted "super" for this building, and from what I have heard of building superintendents in New York City, they definitely have both hide and hair, and probably two-inch fangs to go with them.
Such an individual would not willingly help out one of my kind.
My entry to this residence was effected by a visitor opening the front door, an easy invitation for one of my subtle tendencies to eel in, or out, unnoticed. However, this poor bloke is as dead as Christmas's hottest gift item will be in return lines next week. I am forced to reinvent the wheel, or, in this case, the hinge.
I am so discouraged that I leap to the window ledge. I often do my best thinking while reclining artistically between two potted poinsettias. By "potted" I do not mean polluted in a liquid sense, although these two could use some watering. I gaze on the building across from me. If I could only dream up some little act that would alarm a friendly, voyeuristic neighbor and send him or her rushing over to warn the ladies of an impending danger.
Then I look up. This apartment is strangely made, with high pointed ceilings and high shelves underneath them fit only for gathering dust or holding ugly large-scale decorative objects and innumerable small spiders. In some ways Miss Kit Carlson is living in a fish bowl and I am on Candid Camera. What can I do to inspire a stranger to rush over and ring the doorbell?
Locking a leg behind my neck and conducting some delicate personal grooming in plain view might enrage a few envious pussycats, but I cannot see a human coming all unhinged at such a display.
I could knock the rather unfortunate Santa Fe vase off the upper shelf, but the noise would draw the attention of my darling ladies, the eventuality I most desire to avoid.
I study a small, star-shaped metal object embedded in the ceiling. I believe it is a sprinkler system, a precaution against fires. In my experience, that is, in Las Vegas, Nevada, such escapees from Asian martial arts films are usually to be found in major buildings, like offices or hotels, but apparently New Yorkers are unusually safety-conscious, especially in old buildings that have been renovated recently.
Is there any way Midnight Louie could start a fire other than by coming on to some new girl in town? I leap onto a countertop to paw open a drawer, though hardly anybody keeps matches around any more.
Pity. The humble matchbook cover used to solve many a crime in the olden days, especially when used as a memo pad. Now, hardly anybody at all even smokes, except oysters and herrings, of which I am exceptionally fond. Still, my groping limb overturns one of those short stubby votive candles. And where there is wax with a fuse, there is usually a matchstick to light it.
Finally I work out a matchbook, but it is not one of those cheapie, flip-cover, old-movie jobs, but a tiny little box with tiny little wooden matchsticks in it. How adorable! Nonetheless, I take this worthless object in my teeth and hop from counter to espresso-machine top to distant shelf.
Now. To add flames to the fire. It takes my sharpest shiv to break into the box, then mondo maneuvering to work out one crummy miniature match. My next problem: providing enough friction to ignite the match, and enough of the proper kindling to set off the fire alarm. The entire job might have been easier if I had cracked Miss Kit's pantry door and broken into a can of Texas chili. Power to the pepper and the pussycat!