The car’s headlights revealed an expanse of water. The surface was so gently riffled by the wind that it resembled the tiny ridges of sand dunes in the uncertain light. Silk moiré.
Temple peered around for a source of light. There was none but the sickle moon and the shimmer of headlights on the water. And, if she turned around to look back, the distant ground-bound aurora that was Las Vegas.
“Matt—?”
“You remember. Isn’t this familiar?”
“Yes and no.”
“It’s a natural spring in the desert. Been here for centuries. That salt cedar tree, the giant weeping willowlike one there, is maybe five hundred years old.”
“It’s spectacular, but—”
But … Matt was leaning back into the car. Music started pouring into the empty desert night. “Sometimes When We Touch.”
He came around the open door, carrying a white box. “You still don’t get it, do you?”
Temple nodded. “Call me incomprehensible.”
He took something out of the box and slid it around her left wrist. Scent exploded on the dry desert air, intense, sweet as syrup, yet amazingly delicate.
A white moonflower blossomed on her arm. Three of them. Gardenias.
“Matt. We did that prom night thing, way back months ago.”
“That was you taking me to my high school prom, the one I never went to. This is me taking you to yours, the one you went to but never liked.”
Temple brought the gardenias to her nose. Did any scent in the world pack such an intense emotional punch? “I had a prom night,” she said. “You didn’t.”
“That’s the single nicest thing anyone ever did for me. Thought I’d return the favor.”
“You don’t have to. I’m a veteran. Been there, done that.”
“Not the right way. You asked why I bought the Crossfire. I bought it to take you to the prom.”
“Me? Your car? Why?”
“Don’t you remember? Curtis Dixstrom and his father’s dweeby Volvo station wagon?”
“Oh, yeah. I told you that so long ago and you remember every detail? No, the most handsome popular guy in school didn’t ask me to the prom. Yes, I was humiliated going with some fourth-tier guy who wanted an excuse to get a lot closer to me than I ever did to him. But … that’s life. That’s high school. I’m ashamed I was ever so stupid and shallow. If I ran into some Mr. Hot Stuff Who Didn’t Ask Me today I’d be bored to tears in two minutes. I bet my actual date would be a lot more interesting. I grew up. He grew up. The guys and girls who had it all in high school never did. You don’t have to make up one damn thing to me.”
“But I want to.”
He’d bought a thirty-five-thousand-dollar car just to take her back on a sentimental journey! Should she just say no? Hell, no!
“Oh. Well. The wrist corsage is—”
“I remembered that dress didn’t allow for anything pinned onto it.”
“So … gardenias. Thank you. I’ve always looked for a perfume that duplicated their scent but everything artificial overpowers reality.”
“Overpowering reality. That’s what this is about.”
Matt brought out a crystal plate of hors d’oeuvres, an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne, and two crystal flutes.
Temple recognized the products of the best caterer in town.
“Um, this is a big cut above the prom buffet table of Ritz Crackers and Cheese Whiz and seriously nonalcoholic punch.”
“The past can be improved upon; that’s what this is all about. Have a seat.”
Just as Temple was about to ask where, he picked her up by the purple taffeta waist and set her atop the Crossfire’s warm hood.
“A rough road trip out into the deep desert,” she observed. “Serving as an impromptu buffet table. That’s a heck of a way to treat an expensive new car, Devine.”
He sat on the other side of the hood, so they were facing in opposite directions, like on those old Victorian seating pieces. Courting sofas.
She held her flute up for a bubbly infusion. The music on the CD pulsed softly.
“Won’t the battery die?”
“I put the headlights on parking. They’ll last for hours. Long enough, I hope.”
Long enough for what?
But the shrimp and salmon and cream cheese and all the chilled appetizers were a piquant contrast with the thick soupy warm desert air. And the dry champagne went down like very sophisticated Sprite.
Temple was swinging her feet against the front tire tothe rhythm of Rod Stewart’s romantic anthem “The Rhythm of My Heart.”
“Great soundtrack,” she said when the edge was off her hunger and the champagne flute was on its third refill. “To whom do we owe the pleasure?”
“Ambrosia of WCOO-AM.”
“Your boss? The Queen of Late Nite Music to Sigh By?”
“Yeah. I asked her for the appropriate background music. Some of it’s thirteen years old and some of it’s today.”
“And all of it’s classic.” Temple set her flute on the Crossfire hood, mellow enough not to worry about maltreating a hot car.
“Shall we dance?” Matt asked.
She was ready to jump off to the ground herself but he was there to catch her, and before you could say “Canadian Sunset” they were slow dancing, swaying to the music.
No. That was on the radio. The car CD, rather. Temple’s corsage-bearing left hand (with Max’s emerald ring on the middle, not the third, finger) was resting on Matt’s shoulder. She and Max had danced around the marriage question a few times, but that was two years ago, when their romance was as fresh as a daisy and as hot as a hibiscus and anything seemed possible. Not lately. Max was married to the mob lately. The counterterrorism mob. Danger was his sole dancing partner. Temple had defended him to Molina and every other corner, excused his absences to herself, accepted his apologies, and understood and understood and understood until she took the word for her middle name.
Suddenly, she couldn’t see or touch the past. Only the present. She could see only Matt. Feel only him. And nothing about that seemed wrong, only absolutely, infectiously, incontestably right.
The gardenia scent enveloped her, enveloped him. It swirled on the dry night air like a drug.
Something brushed her temple. An insect. No. Someone’s lips.
Her cheek. Her chin. Her lips.
They were kissing. And kissing. Separating and touching. Tilted this way. That way. Again. Scent and sound. Feet stepping together. Apart. Lips together apart. Always new. Testing. Tasting. Slow dancing on the desert. Surprise and collusion. Collaboration in rhythm. No missteps. Perfect harmony.
Slow dancing.
Just me …
And my .. .
He lifted her up on top of the car hood again. Better.
Liquid gardenia moonlight. Radio at the midnight hour.
Temple knew better. But she couldn’t think of a better way to be. Matt matched her. Motion for motion. Surrender for surrender. She thought of hovering humming birds darting at blossoms. So swift. so graceful in their elegant hunger.
Separation. Intermission. When it came, it seemed unnatural.
“I’ve thought about it,” Matt whispered.
Whispering in a desert was ludicrous but it was the only appropriate response to this infinitely delicate, devastating situation.
“I want it to go fast. I want it to go slow.”
Seconded. Jimmy Buffet was singing about a slow boat to China. He knew sailing ships.
“I decided slow.”
“Slow,” she repeated. Dutifully. Running a very slow tongue tip along his upper lip.
And she had to wear this balloon of a dress meant to keep her from feeling anything below the waist. That was then, this was now.
She pushed her upper teeth into his lower lip and felt his hands convulse on her waist.
A finger, or thumb, ran down the long zipper at the back. Desert air struck her spine with the shock of hot water. His hand was hotter.
“Slow,” he said.
Oh, yes. Oh, no. Vive la difference!
“So,” she said, remembering certain concerns, very remote. “What about your religious whatever?”