“I don’t know.” Molina did know but she wouldn’t say that. “Something suitable for dinner at one of the big hotels. Maybe.”
Temple reared back, obviously daunted by the challenge. “Let’s hit Ladies’ Dresses.”
“I’m not much for dresses,” Molina objected. “They’re always too short.”
“Not with long skirts so hot right now.” Temple did the teen eyeroll like an expert. “If I don’t buy petite sizes I have to roll up the waistbands until I look like I’m pregnant.”
Mariah giggled hard at this notion that her mother had hoped would never cross her mind under any circumstances, except when saying no to boys, until she was in college.
What have I done!
The stroll through Better Dresses was agonizing. Molina understood for the first time her Jekyll/Hyde clothing philosophy: slacks and jackets, jeans and tops for on-and off-duty. Vintage velvet for Carmen, a distant star who was seldom coming out at nights to sing these days. And in between these two extremes lurked a jungle of fussy, expensive clothing that did not scream “date” with a maybe man.
Temple Barr, however, obviously relished the extreme challenge of making over Molina. TempleBarr thrived in the messy middle ground. She and Mariah ravaged the racks, then pushed Molina into the dressing room with armloads of improbable clothing.
She ended up with an outfit chosen by their mutual consent.
“Car-wash skirt, definitely,” Temple told Mariah. “Very cool,” Mariah concurred.
“It looks like Jack the Ripper’s been at my hem from the knees down,” Molina grumbled.
“Dangerous,” Temple said. “Ideal for a law-enforcement type. And not black. Deep, dark plum. Good contrast for your eyes.”
“My eyes don’t need contrast.”
“Absolutely right,” Temple said. “Just a little mascara—you do use mascara? No! Makeup counter’s on the way out, Mariah. Take that down. Lash Out, just the thing.”
Mariah meekly wrote that at the bottom of her clothes sheet.
“An eyebrow waxing would be a gift from heaven,” Temple mused.
“I’m not going to go through that sort of ridiculous assault in the name of female exploitation.”
“Too timid for a little pain in the name of self-improvement, Mariah. So like a guy! Add a Tweezerman to the cosmetic counter list. You might be able to sneak up on her when she’s asleep and pluck.”
“Scratch that!” Molina ordered. “Or I cancel the credit card charges.”
Mariah did as told.
But Molina had been conned into the skirt with the shredded hem, $128.00. A black sleeveless top shaped from bands of ribbons. And a net shawl of purple, black, and turquoise iridescent beads.
“That is so cool, Mom,” said Mariah, who was sold on the outfit. Mariah had never seen Carmen.
“This may be a little dressy,” Molina said with a frown, eyeing herself grudgingly in the mirror. Short, tiny Temple had a feel for supermodel togs.
“You’ll need heels,” Temple decreed.
“No. You do heels. I don’t do heels.”
What, Temple had been about to say, about those vintage forties platform heels Carmen wears?
Molina could read the entire sentence as it formed in her mind and her eyes. But Carmen did not exist here, and besides she stood solo on stage and sang. She didn’t have to worry about dwarfing some insecure man from the stage.
Not that she had an insecure man in mind when she rejected heels. She just had an insecure woman in mind, who had minded these things since the eighth grade.
“Shoe department:’ Temple said in a threatening tone.
Actually, it had been an anticipating tone but Molina found that threatening.
There, Molina held her ground. She would not wear so much as an inch-and-a-half-high heel.
Mariah, trying on every tarty spike she could find, pled with her. It was sad to see how much a teen girl wanted a glamorous mother. Molina almost caved.
Except that Temple, of all people, gently praised and prodded Mariah into demure slides with small, low heels.
“She’s too heavy for those spikes,” Temple commented as Mariah pranced before the mirrors in her petite princess shoes, feminine to the max. “Maybe later, when the baby fat goes.”
“You don’t want me to wear them?”
“Carmen’s vintage platform forties heels, with all those industrial-strength straps, scream sturdy as much as sexy. They’re fine on someone of your height. But these stilettos aren’t. You’d wobble. And I bet you’d hate to wobble. High heels should look able to support their wearer.”
“I’m amazed. You make shoe selection sound like an art form.”
“It is.” Temple frowned at Molina’s size nine feet. “I’d like to see a tiny heel, but since you won’t have it… .”
She darted away like a dragonfly with no credit card limit.
Moments later she returned with an utterly flat shoe, a thong sandal with a beaded triangle over the instep that perfectly matched the shawl.
Like a dragonfly, the improbable sandal reflected the light.
“Oh, Mom, that’s perfect,” Mariah pleaded.
Mariah wanted her to sparkle because then that meant she could too. Like mother, like daughter.
Molina bought the dragonfly sandals, not sure whom they would remind her of more—Mariah the would-be Cinderella, or TempleBarr, the reluctant fairy godmother.
Later, she and her daughter celebrated their first mutual girly occasion (for Molina, it was her very first girly occasion): they whisked out their purchases in the living room, while Caterina and Tabitha gamboled on fallen pieces of colorful tissue.
“This is so cool, Mom. Thank you! I know I can win.”
“It doesn’t matter if you win. It matters if you have fun, keep your head, and … stay safe.”
“Temple is so cool.” Mariah, head bent, held up some ridiculous glitzy top to her underdeveloped breasts. “She hardly acts like an old person at all.”
“I really hope so, honey.”
Mariah looked up, catching her change in tone. “Because we three have a secret, and it’ll be up to you to help carry it off.”
And then she told Mariah that Temple was working undercover to trap a potential perp, and Mariah would have to help her carry off the masquerade.
Mariah the cop’s kid looked even more amazed and happy than Mariah the potential ‘Tween Queen.
Chapter 10
Louie Goes Ape
What has happened to my dear little roomie, MissTemple?
She was always a spirited, happy little human.
She always got a kick out of life and having a humongous high-heel collection. She was perky but not sappy. Full of mischief but not slaphappy. Upbeat but not nauseating. Cute as a ladybug but not too girly to rock and roll.
Now she has done a complete turnaround.
I watch her upend about a zillion shopping bags on the bed I have honored with my reclining presence.
I am adrift in a blizzard of mall-style plastic … the Gap, Victoria’s Secret, The Icing, et cetera. She has been on a shopping spree wild enough to smother me had I not beaten off a rain of plastic bags with the Ginsu knife shivs so conveniently attached to my extremities.
“Oh, sorry, Louie,” she remarks offhandedly, trying on a faux-leather bustier over her faux-front gel cups in the full-length mirror on the wall.
I am used to seeing my MissTemple in a state of undress, due to our intimate relationship in the bedroom, i.e., we share my king-size bed.
I am not used to seeing assorted tattoos and rings on her upper arms, ankle, neck, and the … gasp, small of her back, which is pretty small, her being a Lilliputian human.
When did she go berserk at a piercing parlor without consulting me, I would like to know! Obviously, I have been derelict in my duty of shepherding her through life as we know it in Las Vegas.
When she pulls out the Cher wig and tugs it on over her own tortie-red curls, I know I have to take action.
She turns from the mirror, looking like something from the back of a squad car on Cops, the first and most-forgotten reality TV show.