“I thought all of us mini-teen wonders were the stars in the making.”
“You’re not the draw. No one knows you. As the show unfolds, yes, they’ll get to know the candidates and like or”—she glanced significantly at Xoe Chloe—“dislike them. And then they’ll vote for the winner. But Dexter has the right to discount an audience winner at the last moment. The final decision is his. He’s the star maker. Thus, he’s the star.”
“Thus. You learn that in Latin class forty years ago, lady? So. Dexter has audience veto power. I wonder what an enterprising girl has to do to get ole Dexter’s vote. Sleep with him?”
“No!” Aghast. “You’re almost all minors. That’s unthinkable. Such a thing would never happen.”
“Happens all the time in the halls of junior and senior high schools. Read the paper.”
Beth frowned sternly. “Not here. We have cameras all over the place. Any hanky-panky would be recorded.”
“All the better to titillate the viewers, eh? Then you must have our bathroom action on tape. Whoever wrote the hate note would have been sneaky, and pretty good at it. But no one could write in the dark, especially with something as thick and quick to run out as nail polish. It took a whole bottle, which means it took some time.”
“We aren’t allowed to record in the bathrooms, young lady.”
“What about alerting the police?”
“Oh, I don’t think we need to involve them in these malicious little pranks.”
“Do you mean that ‘these malicious little pranks’ are part of the show script?”
“We are unscripted!” Indignantly said.
“No. No, you’re not. Somebody’s pretty good at writing in a lot of ‘unauthorized’ scenes. If you figure out how my roomie and I are going to get a decent night’s sleep after this, send us a memo. Just don’t leave it unsigned on our pillowcases. We need our beauty rest, you know.”
Chapter 27
Midnight Assignation
It was during the Night of the Living Lipstick (okay, it was nail polish but that does not sound as good) that I decided I must take what they call “a proactive role” in the proceedings.
I, of course, had remained cleverly concealed, listening in with my awesome radial antennae (i.e., pointed little ears) when my Miss Temple and little Miss Mariah discussed the defacement of their bathroom mirror.
Now, I am not much for mirrors, though I long ago figured out that the suave gentleman in black I glimpsed in them was merely my own self. Many of my kind are convinced they are viewing twin littermates. These benighted sorts are not candidates for more sophisticated roles in human society, such as shamus.
As an ace gumshoe, I immediately decided I needed more inside operatives and must call on the Ashleigh girls.
I did say “girls,” did I not? I have already discovered that they are well acquainted with mirrors but are among the deluded type who mistake their own image for a rival (although a bewitchingly attractive rival) for their mistress’s affections. It is bad enough that there are the two of them. Luckily, both are inverse images of each other, so they will never mistake a sister for a twin. If that makes any sense.
I paw their bedroom door, shivs politely retracted. That subtle sound, rather like a steel brush hissing across a snare drum skin, instantly perks up the ears of my kind. It has the advantage of sounding like some leaf blowing along a sidewalk, a phenomenon universally ignored by Homo sapiens.
And speaking of Homo sapiens, surely Miss Savannah Ashleigh must be the sappiest around.
So, in a moment, a curled soot foot is pushed under the door frame and then come tempting little jiggles of the door, abetted by my leaping to apply my weight near the doorknob until the catch springs … and out through a narrow opening push the pretty-in-pink noses of the Persian sisters.
When I compliment them on their pink proboscises, they feign ignorance of the word “proboscis” and state that the breed standard for their kind’s noses is the color rose.
So a rose nose is a rose nose is a rose nose, but plain old pink in my book.
Once in the hall and over our terminology debates, I explain that what I need is not noses, of whatever shade you want to call them, but eyes and ears.
“Quite right, Louie,” Yvette says with a shaded silver brush along my side. “Noses are a canine sense: loud, snuffly, and vulgar. We can see and hear without being seen and heard, in perfect silence.”
“I agree,” say I, “especially about the perfect part.”
behind us, Solange makes discreet retching noises. It may be the common malady of a hair ball, or it may be an editorial comment.
I know better than to be caught between them. That would be like being the Jack of Spades sandwiched between the Queen of Hearts and the Queen of Diamonds. Lunch meat.
I tell my new staff about the latest Zorro attack: evil words on a bathroom mirror.
“Our mistress writes in the steam on the bathroom mirror all the time,” Solange offers.
“Indeed. You would say she is a skilled graffiti artist then?”
“I would say,” Yvette puts in, with a corrosive glance at her sister, “that family secrets are family secrets. She writes down the phone numbers of her various gentleman friends so she does not forget them.”
“Why would she not use a little black book, or a computer?” I wonder.
“Blackmail,” Solange purrs thrillingly. ‘Too easy to access. The tabloids are always stalking her.”
I do not point out that they do so because Miss Savannah Ashleigh always provides them with useful opportunities, such as sunbathing in the nude with Yvette and her litter of unwanted kittens. The tabloids got a lascivious closeup of Yvette nursing with Miss Savannah Ashleigh’s bare anklebone in the background that time.
“We could use some tabloid photographers on these crime scenes,” I point out. “The only cameras here are indentured to the producers. They will either be suppressed so the show can go on, or … even more devious, the show planned these disruptions and this is a Fear Factor pattern rather than a makeover pattern.”
“What is a makeover?” Yvette asks with touching curiosity.
“Humans,” I explain, “do not all come with luxuriouscoats of fur, airy whiskers, dainty limbs, kaleidoscope eyes, and expressive tails. Many of them are handicapped from birth. Hence their need to remake themselves in a better image.”
“Poor things!” Solange cries.
“But our own,” I point out. “I am sure you wish to serve Miss Savannah Ashleigh as much as I do my Miss Temple.”
“But, Louie.” The Divine Yvette’s voice rises to an imperious tone. “Your Miss Temple is not here.”
Ooops.
“That is correct, Yvette. As usual, your perceptions are formidable. However”—I am thinking, thinking, thinking—“however, little Miss Mariah is here, and she is not only an acquaintance of my Miss Temple, but in my own view, she and her mother, a noted law enforcement personality in this town, are to be commended for adopting a pair of”—here I gaze soulfully at Yvette—“striped homeless kittens last fall. In my own view.”
A silence holds. Yvette unwillingly bore a litter of yellow striped cats once erroneously purported to be mine. They were given up for adoption, naturally, once the tabloid interest had died down. I cannot believe that Yvette is indifferent to those who adopt striped nobodies.
She sniffs. I cannot tell if it is the usual French sniff, as is used to dismiss an inferior wine, or a snuffle, as is used to record a deep but unacknowledged emotion.
“I understand, Louie,” she says finally. “Your devotion to the underdog does you credit.”
Hmmm. This is an edged compliment at best but I let it pass.
“Yvette and I,” Solange agrees in the flash of an eyelash, “will happily aid you in protecting the Mariah kitten.”
Hallelujah! It is not easy to turn purebred Persians into legmen. Er, leg ladies. And I certainly expect a lot less back sass than I get from Midnight Louise. Having claimed to be my relative, she is therefore free to call me anything she likes.