Oops. Another prominent brunet haunted the premises: Rafi Nadir, Mariah’s real father. Temple didn’t see him playing a role in any fairy tale ending except one of the darkest tales by the Brothers Grimm, maybe Iron John.
Meanwhile, the moment was all about her, Xoe Chloe, debunked brunette and closet redhead now transformed into a mainstream blonde bombshell. If only Max could see her now. Not Matt. He didn’t have Max’s theatrical instincts and would probably just be shocked.
“Okay, pumpkin.” Adair the Hair Guy was suddenly her best friend. “What d’ya think?”
Xoe Chloe had only one thing to say to the mirror. “It rocks, dude!” She slapped palms all around and stood up. Her sigh blew snips of hair into a small whirlwind around her.
Still in the game, Temple thought. Who knew a new hairdresser was the best disguise? Probably the eighty million women who patronized them regularly, which had not included her. Until now.
By that afternoon, the ravishing, newly conventional Xoe Chloe had instantly blossomed into the lead in the makeover sweepstakes.
Matte-black Xoe Chloe’d had so far to come that the transformation was breathtaking. Blondes of all description—tall, taller; thin, thinner—darted stiletto glances her way as Temple put in her forty minutes on the elliptical machine and her twenty-minute jog around the Hearst Castle–size pool, slathered in the sun screen recommended for her pale complexion, sweating into her extravagant dye job, which seemed up to the abuse.
It occurred to her that, having proven herself the most dramatic makeover so far, she might also be the freshest candidate for harassment.
Every cloud had its silver lining.
She was ready.
First she had to put up with reactions.
“Hey, toots! Love the paint job. Looking good. How about an interview for KREP?” Awful Crawf suggested, slinking alongside her at the pool.
She cringed. Without the wig she felt naked. Worse, recognizable. Was blonde really the best disguise? Maybe for Marilyn. But her? She easily outtrotted him, avoiding the moment of truth.
“Wow. Oh, wow.” Mariah. “Wonder what they’ll make me look like? I should be really spectacular. Well, I’m younger. Way younger. Although you look pretty teen-y for a … you know.” She glanced about for cameras and mikes. “For an older woman. Will they dye my hair too? My mother will kill me.”
Rafi Nadir was a study in skepticism when she passed him in the hall. Quickly. But he didn’t seem to recognize the “ballsy little broad” he knew now that she was a blonde. He recognized something about her though.
“You don’t look like a chick who’d go down a dark hidden passage anymore.”
Temple was annoyed to discover herself insulted.
Chapter 33
Upping the Auntie
Temple knocked on the door of room number two with her knuckles, almost hoping no one was home.
“Come in.”
Drat. Watch out for what you claim you want; you might get it.
Kit Carlson sat at a French desk, clickety-clacking away on a large-screen laptop computer, lips moving silently and eyes fixed on the text in front of her.
After a minute, Temple said in a little girl voice quite unlike her natural husky rasp, “I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”
Kit’s head finally turned, slowly, from the screen to recognize her presence.
“Just the climax of my latest book.”
“I thought you wrote romances.”
Kit’s eyes looked over the plastic rims of her glasses. “Exactly.”
“Oh, that kind of climax. It’s happening … right here?”
“You don’t suppose I compose in the bathtub?”
“I wouldn’t doubt it. I don’t know if my jet-black mascara goes with my blindingly blonde hair. You have a lighter kind of mascara?”
Kit pushed her glasses up on her nose. She was a small woman with chin-length hair that insisted on assuming large loose strawberry-gray curls. She seemed better cast as some well-aged French chanteuse in a small nightclub, gargling throaty world-weary songs sans mike, a glass of poison-green absinthe sitting on the piano beside her.
“Of course. Dead-black mascara on me makes me look like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. I have a nice warm brown shade that should compliment your new Goldilocks locks. Come into my parlor for a moment.”
Once they’d hied into the privy, Temple asked her most burning question.
“Do I still pass as undercover agent after being forcibly stripped of my wig?”
“A dreadful thing for a double agent, to lose the cover of darkness. But I must say Ken Adair did a terrific job of making the real you look utterly unlike yourself.”
“So my new look isn’t a dead giveaway?”
“Oh, no, dear. It’s a spectacular success.”
“So you’re saying I look too good to be mistaken for myself?”
“Except by a relative. Or an intimate. Any more of those here?”
“Only an enemy or two.”
“Oh, you’d fool an enemy. They tend to fixate on specifics. As long as your trademark hair is history and your eyes are an astonishing shade of green, your secret is safe.”
“So what do you think of all the scary things that have been happening?”
“Scripted,” Kit said promptly. “The producers are bent on stirring things up. Stripping the contestants to their barest emotions.”
“With this crew of exhibitionist blondes, that’s not hard.”
“Now, dear, don’t be brutal to blondes. They have so much to overcome nowadays, like Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton.”
“So you think we’re all lab rats being teased by the producers? No lurking evil-doer in sight?”
“Oh, evil-doers are always lurking. I often use them in my books. Is that why you’re here, pretending to be young and difficult? Who would be so dreadful as to force you back into revisiting your teen years? That dishy boyfriend I met in New York? Max … something… yum-yum?”
“Max isn’t aware of this. I’m here on unofficial police business. Well, unofficial official police business.”
“Surely no one is taking this circus of hokey threats seriously?”
Temple didn’t feel she could mention the mutilated poster and Molina’s concern for her daughter’s safety. For once she agreed with her enemy. Something nasty was going on here. But what?
“Maybe not.” Temple rose from her seat upon the commode, reassured. “I hope you didn’t lose any major inspiration.”
“No. Guido was about to do something interesting with a box of Lady Godiva chocolates. Deep dark bitter chocolates, do you think, dear, or perhaps white ones?”
“Never touch ‘em,” Temple said, retreating toward the main room. “I’d better get back on observation. For some reason, the Teen Queen team gets nervous if they don’t know where I am every minute.”
“You’re a perfect little delinquent, Xoe Chloe Ozone! That’s why. My straitlaced sister would be … appalled.““You won’t ever tell Mom?”
“Not if you don’t tell her about my quandary with Guido and the gourmet candies. Karen was always so … Midwest.”
“If you stay in town long enough after this is over, Aunt, remind me to introduce you to the Fontana brothers.”
“Mobsters? I can always do research.”
“Yum-yum young mobsters. Definitely the white chocolate type.”
“Really?” Kit rose from her seat upon the tub surround to show Temple out, like Lady Macbeth rising from trying out the throne of Scotland. “Plural, you say. Very intriguing.”
“Thanks for the use of the biffy,” Temple/Xoe said once they were within mike and camera range again in the main office room. “I’ve got eighty million little tiny hairs to rinse off from that salon job they gave me. You’d think that Adair guy was a mini–Bucky Beaver.”
“You look smashing. A death of a thousand hair snips is worth the agony for the result. Take lots of long showers to rinse off the little pricklers, and keep your self-esteem up. You show great potential, Xoe, if you don’t get stubborn and blow it.”