“Yes, sir,” Temple said. “With pleasure.”
So since Temple had means, she had opportunity. She was going to be nervy and pitch some Very Important People to attend not only her and Matt’s wedding, but a surprise family get-together afterward. She figured it would only work if she contacted them in person. Enter Skype, the free video call computer face-to-face program, which Temple didn’t use much herself and which would be outright foreign to an older generation.
To do this, Temple felt she needed to sit upright in her desk chair and play a pilot at the controls. Her fingers had tapped a paper list of names and phone numbers on the desk’s right surface. Everything had to be concrete, firmly at hand.
She’d always been a tad leery of the digital. That was why she wore a round watch face as large as her slender left wrist, with a Big Hand and a Small Hand ticking off the exact second. It flashed some Austrian crystals, as did her big round sunglasses. As a tiny woman she wasn’t afraid to accessorize big. People remembered that, and remembered her. And trusted her to Think Big too.
Before she pressed the starter, engaged the ignition, and took off into the wild blue Internet, she skimmed the list once last time. She had to keep an eye on who was who and who was where. She could not afford to make a mistake.
She’d confronted a murderer or four, and a psychopath or two, but this head-to-head was even worse. It was Family. And even worse, OPF, not other people’s money, but families. That wasn’t public relations, but private relations.
She took a deep breath, dialed the first number, and lifted her chin, remembering this was going to be Skype and computer cameras always shot upward to provide the best double-chin angle, like at the police booking room or the driver’s license photo renewal set-up.
Not that she had a double chin.
Before she could take a second deep breath, she was looking at Max Kinsella, thirty years older, on the screen, full head of black hair graying in dramatic white swaths, but the eyes still piercing and demanding accounting.
This was the most delicate and volatile contact. Survive this and it just got easier.
“Miss Barr,” the older Max said, “I presume. This is a bizarre…method of contact and communication, but you say it involves our son.”
The woman beside him seemed petite, like her (oh, cra…ah, crepuscular moon!). Temple tried to swear, even to herself, as she did everything else, creatively. Don’t even think you reminded Max of his mother!
The man went on. “If this is some Internet scam, I assure you, young woman, we will prosecute you to the full extent of the—”
“Cat!” the woman exclaimed.
Temple gritted her teeth while maintaining her friendly smile, a PR professional necessity.
Midnight Louie’s big head had pushed over her shoulder, either recognizing a certain “Max” timbre in the man’s voice or a verbal threat from the screen.
“Louie,” Temple tried to shrug him out of view. “Butt out, there’s nothing to eat here.”
The woman advised her husband. “A con artist wouldn’t bring a cat along.”
He was not soothed. “We’ve heard very little from our son lately, scanty communication for years, in fact. That’s the only reason we agreed to this mad meeting over the ethernet.”
“I’m so glad you knew someone acquainted with Skype. I know you need to see me for myself, if not my cat. I work at home. Are the Kellys with you, as requested, Mr. Kinsella?”
Husband and wife exchanged consulting glances.
“Who hired you?” Kevin Kinsella barked.
“Nobody hired me. Your son would be very unhappy to know I’d contacted you and the Kellys.”
“Unhappy?” That one word from Max’s mother was a cry from the heart. “Is it something we did wrong all those years ago?”
It was something you failed to do right, Temple thought, but an ace PR woman couldn’t say that.
“It’s something you can do very right,” she said. “I’m a friend of…Michael’s, and he suffered a serious fall some time ago, during his magic act. It caused traumatic memory loss.” True. “His pride has taken a body blow from the accident. He was always so self-sufficient.”
Mrs. Kinsella reached for her husband’s arm off-camera, and his grimace showed the full force of her grip. “He’s mobile, he can communicate,” she begged. “He’s recovered?”
“All recovered, except for pieces of his memory of you and your husband and his best friend and cousin, brother really, Sean, whom he deeply mourns, and his aunt and uncle. The Kellys are there, as I so I hoped they would be?”
“Here, but dubious, as we are,” Max’s father said.
“May I speak to them?”
The couple parted sheepishly and a pair of very different features pushed through to stare at her, with hair red and curly as opposed to black and straight.
Temple could sense the couples’ discomfited body language at being forced to crowd together around a tiny screen, but they all were eager for more news. Finally.
“You don’t know me,” Temple said. “I hesitated to contact you, but I think it would help Michael’s memory so much, and help you to understand the long silence, perhaps between you all on your side of the generations too.”
Silence.
“I’ve contacted you because I’m getting married soon.”
“To Michael?” Eileen Kelly had spoken sharply. Temple understood why. Michael was getting married? Her dead son, Sean, never would.
“Oh, no,” Temple said. “I’m marrying another wonderful man, a man named Matt.” She appeared to think a moment. “But Michael will attend the wedding. We both think so highly of him, and thought that if you all could attend, it might break him loose from the prison of his amnesia.”
“Catholic, are you?” Patrick Kelly asked.
“I’ve been known to attend Our Lady of Guadalupe in Las Vegas.” True.
“Las Vegas!” Maura Kinsella was taken aback.
“Michael had performed here under another name until forced to take a sudden leave of absence.” True. “This amnesia has gone on for a long time.” Well, a few months.
“Hey, people. I would be the happiest bride on the planet if your families could come to my wedding. It might break the veil of Michael’s memory. I represent the Crystal Phoenix Hotel, the most tasteful boutique hotel in Las Vegas. The management will fly in anybody I think essential to my dream wedding, and include paid-for luxury suites and the reception.”
“Smells like one of those time-share vacation schemes,” Kevin Kinsella grumbled in the background.
“Got it on Google,” whispered a loud young male voice, presumably the nephew acquainted with Skype. “Hot Kardashian sundae, that place rocks!” A lad after Temple’s heart. “Five stars. On Yelp. That’s golden. Quit angsting, oldsters, and go for it.”
“I assure you,” Temple said, “it’s a five-star wedding gift to me, like Michael and his folks,” Temple said.
Temple didn’t need to say another word. She merely stared hopefully in a starry-eyed bride way, into the screen.
The saying went, “Never let them see you sweat.”
With Skype, that was possible.
Temple wiped her palms on her poplin capri-clad thighs and dialed again.
“Temple! This is such a treat. I can see you perfectly.” Matt’s mother’s welcoming face on the screen made Temple’s tensed shoulders loosen.
“That the mighty mite from Vegas?” Matt’s crushing young cousin popped her Goth post-punk face into the Skype view. Krys considered herself as an also-ran for the bride role.