He began to have one too. This guy was actually old enough … to be his father.
Chapter 42
Feline Shepherd
I am shocked. Shocked, I tell you!
With my own concealed ears, I hear my Miss Temple consign young Miss Molina to the questionable oversight of Mr. Rafi Nadir, who may be her unacknowledged sire.
Being an unacknowledged sire myself, I feel a deep sense of obligation to keep an eye on this extremely unlikely pairing.
If my Miss Temple has set the wolf to watch the lamb, I will be the mountain lion set to watch the wolf.
And when it comes to major matches, felinus versus caninus always wins.
So, when Miss Savannah Ashleigh betakes herself inside, I pad after Rafi who pads after her.
Once she is fully attired, if you can ever call the belly button–exposing, cleavage-baring clothing of MSA that, we follow her to her office quarters for the day and stand guard in the hall.
He is in the standard feet apart, hands crossed in front posture of security guys since my forebears stood guard duty in the palaces and temples of ancient Egypt.
I assume the deceptive stance of a sleeping feline. It works every time.
Sure enough, along comes Miss Temple, escorting Miss Mariah to her first appointment of the day.
“Mariah, this is Mr. Nadir. He will help you if anything goes wrong.”
Mariah is having none of it. “You mean if Savannah Ashleigh is strangled in her own monokini by the time I go in for my appointment?”
“Hey,” Mr. Rafi Nadir says in a cajoling tone. “Nobody buys it on my watch. What say I accompany you on your rounds and make sure?”
“What about your client?” Mariah asks, savvy kid that she is.
“Oh, I suppose your friend Xoe Chloe will be responsible for her.”
Miss Mariah consults Miss Temple, who shrugs in typical, deplorable Xoe Chloe fashion.
And so the deal is struck. My Miss Temple will watch Miss Savannah Ashleigh, a personage we both wish would be boiled in canola oil and put on the South Beach Diet until death did them part. And Mr. Rafi Nadir, the bane of Miss Lieutenant C. R. Molina’s life, past and present, will be watching over his own daughter, unawares. If Miss Savannah gets restive and calls for male reinforcements, instead of Mr. Rafi, I myself will rush to the scene to distract her and the Persian babes. It is the least I can do, and I have been known to drive Miss Savannah to distraction in the past.
It is amazing the things an observant feline can know, and not say.
I decide where to invest my time and energy, and decide it is the unlikely partnership of Nadir and Molina.
Miss Temple watches me ankle off down the hall after them, looking worried.
So we all three end up waiting outside various offices for Miss Mariah’s daily consultations.
“You pull bodyguard duty often?” Mariah asks.
I am about to answer but Rafi Nadir beats me to it. “Nah. Most people who hire bodyguards need the publicity more than the muscle.”
“This is a weird place.”
“You got that right.”
“I mean, it is supposed to be a contest but it seems like someone is pulling the strings.”
“How so?” He leans down like a gentleman to hear her answer.
I lean up.
“I mean, it is supposed to be a fair contest but everything so far is rigged. All the Teen Queen candidates are tall, thin, and blonde. They all look alike. Maybe it was a mistake that I was made a finalist?”
This gives him pause.
“Hey, kid, you got it the wrong way around. Looking all alike is not the way to go. You look like yourself, then you’ll know you’re not a fraud.”
“Girls change their looks all the time.”
“Right. Because they have not found the way they really want to be.”
“Like a singer?”
“That what you want?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” You can tell that Rafi Nadir knows a little about advising girl singers. He leans against the wall. “Sure you want to find a look to perform in but it should be what you like, not what everybody else looks like. You got lots of time—”
“No, I do not! The finals are just days away. I gotta polish my song and find out what they do to me and—”
“No, you do not. You do not wait to find out what they do to you, ever. You decide and you tell them, get it?”
“But, if I am not sure . .”
“Then make sure before you let them at you. Me, if I was you, I would nix the blonde. They always do blonde. At least half the country is not-blonde. Look at that big old alley cat there. He could be any one of thousands. I bet there are more black cats than any other kind in the country.”
“Maybe not.”
“Why not?”
“I heard Tern … someone say once that they put black cats to sleep more than any other kind.”
While I shudder to hear the truth so baldly stated, Mr. Rafi Nadir stops to reconsider.
“There are still a lot of them around, so I guess that does not work.”
“So what are you?” Mariah asks.
“Not-popular.”
“Why? What are you?”
“Me? This is not about me,” Rafi says.
“You’re not-blonde.”
“I am worse than that. Arab American.”
“Oh. I see what you mean about popular. I am just Latina. But even all the girls on the Hispanic stations are going blonde.”
“You kids. Always gotta do what everybody else does. Grow up. Get past that.”
Mariah nods to the door behind which Miss Savannah Ashleigh awaits her.
“She is blonde.”
Mr. Rafi Nadir straightens and makes a funny face at the door. “Right. Case closed.”
Mariah giggles, then knocks.
Point made.
Chapter 43
In Old Cold Type
Newspapers sent out copies of old articles on white paper so heavy it had a chalky feel.
Temple lay an Atlas’s worth of such pages over the bathroom twin-sink counter. They’d been delivered to the house in a king-size pillow wearing a flannel case in a frolicking kitten design.
A wretched note accompanied this innocuous delivery: “Please deliver to my little Xoe, who doesn’t sleep well without her kitty pillow. She must have forgotten to take it. Her Mom.”
Apparently this maternal plea had moved the powers that be, for they had sent the sleekest professional blonde in Temple’s category to deliver it to her bedroom door just before dinner, with the hulking cameraman shooting tape over her bony shoulder. Apparently, now that the crime scene work was done and the detectives were gone for now, the filming ban had been lifted.
“Here you are, Xoe,” Ashlee announced. “Something special from home for our resident tough girl. Oooh, the coot ‘iddle kitty-wittys. Maybe now you can go beddiebye.”
Temple/Xoe snatched the ungainly gift away.
She must have blushed because Ashlee tittered for the camera.
Temple was embarrassed all right. Not because of the kiddie pillow but because the note had probably been penned by mother Molina.
“Thanks lots,” she told the door she had slammed in Ashlee’s face.
Temple had turned to drop the pillow on the bed while Mariah snagged the note that dropped off it.
“Hey, this looks like—” She glimpsed Temple’s hasty shushing pantomime and came near. “—like a really soft pillow.” She leaned down (how humiliating!) to whisper in Temple’s ear. “Looks like my mom’s writing.”
Then they had adjourned to the bathroom. Although Temple was pretty sure bathrooms were a no-film zone, she was paranoid enough about their current task to hang washcloths and hand towels from any possible fixture that might hide a camera.
The copier hadn’t captured every line. Many were blurred.
Mariah hunched over the assemblage, scanning the blurry type.
“Wow. This is ancient stuff.”
“The mid-eighties.”
“Right. Ancient stuff. My mom sent this?”