“You can dance on wood as well as sand,” she said approvingly as he pulled out her chair so she could gather the full skirt under herself and sit. Sometimes vintage was awkward.
A lot of times life was awkward.
Matt sat opposite her. The Crystal Phoenix avoided the usual flickering candle under glass on its table. Instead a Murano blown-glass phoenix spread its tail feathers in a series of fairy-size floating flames.
The flickering uplight made every man and woman look like a soft-spotlit movie star. Matt was a floating, glittering image of himself. Temple hoped she was too. No wrinkles. No worry, just radiant points of light.
The waiter wafted plates before them as if presenting canna lily leaves bearing manna from Fairyland. Divine scents lilted upward.
“How wonderful,” Temple said. “Chef Song has outdone himself.”
“Even Louie might approve,” Matt said, eyeing her.
Even Louie might approve . . . what? The menu? A delicate fish dish for her, medallions of beef for Matt? The two of them together, dining at Louie’s old stomping grounds, the Crystal Phoenix? The chef? The place? The atmosphere? The pheromones?
They were silent during dinner, every bite of which was . . . divine.
Temple patted her lips with the heavy linen napkin, thinking about when to refresh her pale lipstick, thinking about the beaded lipstick holder in her teeny-tiny purse on the tabletop. About whether to excuse herself and flee to the ladies’ room. Or to reapply her going-out mouth at the table, as etiquette said one could, in front of one’s escort.
Matt beat her to it by abstracting a small, black satin box from somewhere. It was almost as magical a manifestation as some paper bouquet from Max.
He held it under the flickering crystal gaze of the mythical bird that had died in flame and ashes and risen from them hard, diamond-bright, invincible. Reborn. New. Fresh. Real.
Temple took the box in her hand. Licked her lips.
Opened it.
Glanced away from the laserlike fire.
Lasers healed, lasers struck dead. Lasers dazzled.
“Matt.”
She finally focused past the blinding glitter. The bling. A ring of diamonds massed in the mechanically graceful assemblage of curves and angles that screamed Art Deco. Art Deckle. Not even a dead man could push himself between this view and her understanding of it. “Fred Leighton,” the inside of the satin lining declared in subtle letters. Estate jewelry. True vintage. Amazing beauty of shape and line, of time and history. Of understanding what called to her.
“This,” she said, “is truly Red Carpet bling. It’s exquisite. My God, I’m Julia Roberts!
“This is a ring,” he said. Corrected. “You’re you. It’s really two guard rings. It comes apart, see? The band is rubies, for . . . later. I saw it and saw you. That’s all.”
Temple was agape at the clever way the two halves of the ring separated to admit a band. A band of rubies for a wedding ring. What an exquisite thought, an exquisite execution, the epitome of every reason she loved vintage things, but Fred Leighton, jeweler to movie stars . . . that was way too much.
She said so.
“Listen. I’ve given triple that to African famine and Gulf Coast flood relief. You can wear it in good conscience.”
Of course he would have; that was why she’d always had to spur him into springing for the basic little comforts of American consumer life. But for her, he needed no encouragement. He went big.
Temple bit her lower lip (on which she should have reinstalled lipstick for this truly Kodak moment).
Beauty, the poet had said, is truth. Truth, beauty.
Who was she to deny the perfection of a beautiful gift, a beautiful moment, a beautiful mind, a beautiful heart, a beautiful hope?
“I don’t know quite what to say,” she said. Anyway.
She held up the corona of light, in her right hand, poised somewhere over her left third finger. Apparently, it was a Kodak moment to someone other than Matt and herself.
A flash exploded around them both, an aurora, a star going nova.
“Photo, folks? Visiting Las Vegas to celebrate an engagement and tie the knot? Your friends and family will treasure this moment as much as you do.”
Temple rather doubted that.
“Just twelve dollars.”
Matt didn’t doubt that at all but reached for his wallet. It was his night to pay, all the way. To pave the way.
The tiny elevator at the Circle Ritz was all theirs at this hour. The Midnight Hour. Monday night. Matt’s one night off from his late-night radio shrink show.
The shrink was in.
His finger was poised over the round black buttons with the white floor numbers mostly polished away by other fingers over many more years than they’d been on this planet.
“Floor two or three?” he said lightly. Temple still heard the strain in his voice. It was a momentous decision and it was all hers.
“Three,” Temple said. “I’ve got an aunt cluttering up my living room and a cat claiming my bedroom.”
“I’ve got a brand-new bed and no aunts or cats.”
“I know.”
“Is there a reason you’re huddling in the corner of the elevator?”
“I’m scared?”
“You’re scared?
“It’s a lot of responsibility.”
“Don’t I know?”
He took her elbow, steered her out of the small elevator car into the deserted hallway and down the short cul-de-sac to his door. Where he got lukewarm feet.
“Maybe some place more . . . unusual. Without a past. A hotel?”
“This is fine,” Temple said, trying not to zone out on the way the sidelight fell on his hair, making a blond halo of it.
Angels. They didn’t do carnal things like sex.
“Are you—?” he asked.
“Protected? Yes. Is that a sin?”
“That’s the way you are. You’re perfect. I’m not. Remember? I don’t want to hurt you. For what you are or for what you aren’t. You’re all I want.”
“Funny, I feel the exact same way about you.”
Inside the apartment, there wasn’t a soul around. Not even a cat.
Temple eyed the sculptural red fifties designer sofa she’d found for Matt at Goodwill. Danny was right that it had cost something to give it up to him, to insist he have it. She’d always kinda maybe thought in her wildest dreams they’d make it someday on that sleek suede surface. She’d always kinda maybe thought a lot of inadmissible things, inadmissible evidence, about Matt Devine. Before she’d known he’d been a priest.
And, heck, even after.
She sat on the red sofa knowing her peony of a purple taffeta skirt made her look like a human mushroom. She looked at her left hand with the movie-star-level estate diamond ring on it.
“I don’t know if I’m ready for this,” she told him.
She didn’t tell him that the day after the black dress interlude she’d hied herself off for testing. A small card that declared her free of HIV and other STDs now lay hidden in her seldom-used scarf drawer. She knew Matt came shrinkwrapped, so to speak, and didn’t want her virgin would-be bridegroom thinking about ugly realities on such a momentous occasion as first sex. She’d figured she was safe and had sniffled a bit when she read the results, pretty solid proof of her conviction that Max had never been unfaithful.
Matt was still trying to be supremely accommodating. He sat beside her. “If the ring’s too much or too much pressure, forget it.”
Temple knew that visible symbol of commitment would mean a lot to his conscience.
She stroked his forearm with that hand, watching the diamonds throw out serious sparks. “No, it’s beautiful. It just should be our secret for a while.”
She touched his lips with a forefinger.
He was watching everything she did with such dreamy pleasure she thought she could die happy right that moment. She’d forgotten what first love was like, but Matt was bringing it all back to her.
“I feel responsible,” she said.
“For what? Yourself? Me?”
“I’m the one who knows. I’m the brazen hussy. You’re the innocent virgin. I can take. You can only give. It’s not fair.”