By then he’d have relaxed, chilled out, gathered his wits so he wouldn’t blurt out his discovery before he had any hard evidence… .
The door gave and opened before the key had finished its turns. A tallish young woman stood behind it. “Matt! Come in.”
“Krystyna! Krys. You’re here.”
“Yup. Live here, off and on. Didn’t Mira tell you?”
“Uh, no.”
“Don’t you look as yummy as a caramel sundae! What’s with the bleach, dude?”
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Blond in this instance. His cousin Krystyna’s hair was a kaleidoscope of platinum-on-blonde-on-black.
He put a dismissive hand to his hair, remembering it looked different. “Photo shoot for the radio station. I’m told it’ll wash out.” Close enough. “You, on the other hand… .”
“Madonna, Evita-in-Krakow style. You like the indigo highlights?”
“Colorful. I’m surprised to see you.”
“Have I got a Mae West line for you! Never mind. Not suitable for ex-priests. I guess my job is to entertain you until Mira gets home.”
“So … you live here. Off and on. I take it the punk boyfriend is around during the off?”
“Huh? Him? Oh, history. I was young and stupid then.”
“Three months ago?”
“Yeah. Want a beer?”
She was poised on the carpet verge next to the linoleum that marked off the alley kitchen.
“Yeah.” Matt realized he needed one.
Krys. She changed like a rainbow. Since he’d first met her when he’d connected to his Chicago relatives six months ago, she’d gone from breathless teenager to rebellious young adult, heavy on young to now … assertive single chick. Cousin. Assertive single cousin.
First cousin. Like it mattered to her.
She brought a Bohemian beer, the dark brown bottle sweating goose bumps of condensation. She didn’t offer him a glass.
“So.” Leaning against the eating bar that divided kitchen and living room. Five-foot-nine of fine Polish womanhood. Blue eyes both guarded and challenging. “How’ll we kill some time until Mira gets home? Cousin clearest.”
He suggested that they sit and talk. That was his profession, after all.
Or watch some TV. The remote was front and center on the small round fruitwood coffee table.
“I watched you on The Amanda Show today,” she told him, settling beside him on the couch. Settling way too much beside him.
“Really? It’s amazing how many people in Chicago miss my golden hour.”
She sighed. “You’re really good. I studied advertisingin class. TV is a ‘cool’ medium. The cooler and more laid back you are, the hotter you come across.”
“Glad you’re learning something in college. Is Uncle Stash letting you major in art?”
“No.” She sat up from her couch-lounging position, took a long swig of beer. “He still treats me like a kid. A woman.”
“I thought you wanted to be treated like a woman.” Matt was surprised at himself for challenging this incendiary cousin with a crush on him.
She grinned. “Not that way. Like the kind of woman you write off and put down. Polish Catholic burqa anyone? Like a nobody with nothing about her that counts.”
“He’s old-fashioned. He can’t help it.”
“So I should suffer?”
“No.”
She set down the beer. Moved closer on the couch. She wore a soft black sweater that ebbed off her shoulders like ebony surf. Cashmere maybe, or just a really good acrylic.
Wow. He was really absorbing a lot from Temple. Including enough savvy to regard his high-spirited young cousin as sheer poison.
“I’m mad at you.” She sounded like an adolescent again, emotionally bipolar. Also like a Lolita.
“Why?” Might as well walk into it.
“It could have been you.” When he continued to look blank, she added. “Last Christmas.”
Matt sipped the beer, knowing he wouldn’t like where this was going.
She mirrored his gesture, eyed him sideways. “Instead it was that loser Zeke.”
“I met him. You brought him to the restaurant where my mother works. Apparently he wasn’t such a loser then.”
“If you remember him, you know I’m not lying.”
“He … like most guys his age he’s just self-involved, dead set on being too cool to care. Or too cool to appear to. He’ll civilize in a few years.”
“I wish you’d told me that before I lost my so-called innocence to him.”
“You—Krys, I don’t need to know this.”
“Are you shocked?”
“I don’t hand out moral judgments anymore. Gave that up for Lent, along with my Roman collar.”
“You’re shocked, I can tell.”
“Not shocked. Just not comfortable discussing this with you.”
“You discuss things like that all the time on TV and the radio, in front of thousands of people.”
“I don’t know them.”
“I’m just being honest.”
“You need to be honest with yourself. You don’t have to share the news with other people.”
“You’re not other people. You could have been the one.”
He shook his head. “Never would have happened. Face it; we’re first cousins. Even civil law, not just ecclesiastical law, frowns on that. I know family dynamics. First cousins are often first crushes but I’ve been too messed up myself to do unto others the same. It’s not that you’re not bright and attractive, trust me.”
“Are you still—?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“You are!” It was an accusation. “Why?”
When he didn’t answer, she shook his arm. “Are you saving yourself for someone?”
Matt thought for a long moment. She had nailed it. The question was, should he be?
“Because if you are, maybe a little preliminary practice, a dry run, would be just the thing. Cousin.”
Chapter 32
The Wig Is Up
“The show must go on” is an ancient theatrical maxim probably going back to the Greeks and the first ever chorus line on some hill in Thessaly.
It was all too evident that reality television shows still abided by the same philosophy.
Except that Temple and Mariah had been on Candid Camera much more frequently than the other candidates, so Big Brother and Sister had been watching Xoe Chloe’s every far-rambling move.
Mariah returned to their room from her morning lifestyle counseling session feeling both nervous and rebellious.
Temple had slept in, in her wig, which was now looking matted as well as lank and dispirited. In fact, it looked like the road kill of some thankfully unrecognizable species.
She awoke grudgingly from dreams of Rafi Nadir and Matt Devine escorting her and Mariah to the father-daughter dance, except that Temple got Nadir for a father!
“What a nightmare,” she muttered as Mariah shook her awake. Although, the alternate possibility of Matt as her “father” escort was even worse. And far more Freudian.
Mariah was whispering in her ear. “They say I’m missing my beauty sleep and getting into trouble. I got a big lecture about bearing down on my diet and exercise program and staying away from you.”
“Good idea.” Temple struggled up and pulled the bedside clock closer to read it in B.C. time. Before Contacts were installed for the day.
“Yikes! My lifestyle session is in eighteen minutes. Gang way!”
In fifteen minutes, Xoe Chloe was fully assembled, bedhead and all.
“The great thing about punk,” Mariah noted from her watching post on the bed, “is that you can be considered put together no matter how ragged you look.”
“Thanks, kid.” Temple dashed into the hall where she ran into the Golden Girls, advancing in a pack and sniggering at her approach. This was not a promising sendoff to her lifestyle consultation.
“Are you going to get it,” Silver predicted.
Temple’s faux-green morning eyes blinked in the glare generated by so much pink, shiny spandex in a group. Even if they were all as stick-thin as flamingos.