But it wasn't just the clothes or Matt's always enthralling looks. Matt was different, very different. Somehow, he had changed more than she had over the Christmas holidays, during their separate missions.
He stepped in without being asked. "You look fabulous," he said, as if on cue, and with sincerity.
"Oh, this old thing. You've seen it before. I wore it to the Gridiron dinner."
"It looks even better now."
"Look who's talking."
"Maybe this is a bit much." He glanced disowningly down at his brandy velvet sleeves.
"No. Perfect. But you reminded me. It is January, or almost January. I need a wrap. Rats. Be right back."
Temple retreated to her bedroom to root through her closet. All the best-laid plans of mice and Minnies, and she had forgotten to find a suitable evening wrap. ... A loose-knit black wool capelet went flying over her shoulder to drape Louie. Too casual. A sheer jacket of black chiffon hit the bedspread next. Too cool.
Finally she pulled out a black velveteen bolero and tore back to the foyer.
Matt wasn't there.
The door was now closed. Had he been kidnapped by his evil stepfather? Had he fled?
Where? What?
She turned in a circle while wrestling her aching arms into the jacket. And saw him standing by the French doors to the patio, studying the eternal aurora borealis of the Las Vegas Strip.
"Now I'm ready," she said, joining him.
"Chicago's so cold, narrow, dark. In the winter, at least. Even the streets with the snow piles at the curbs seem to be hunching their shoulders. But Las Vegas is like Camelot in the song from the musicaclass="underline" the weather is wonderful by decree."
"By decree of the corporate entrepreneurs who would pay the sun to shine if they had to; luckily, they don't."
Matt turned from the window, a small wrapped package in his hand. "Merry Christmas."
"Christmas, but that's... history. You ... I didn't get you anything."
"You overlook the sofa-hunt."
"But... I only got you to spend money."
"You sure did. I've been on a real jag. It was kind of fun. But it stops here."
He looked a little anxious. Temple finally realized that he had probably never bought a woman a present before, other than a nun or his mother. She desperately hoped she would really like it, although she would like it even if it were a weenie beanie baby from McDonald's.
The soft contact lenses softened even her closeup focus, as if she viewed everything under very clear water. A long thin box said jewelry; her conscience said, please, nothing too expensive. Her conscience had also said to leave off the opal and gold ring tonight, so her hands were bare as she wrestled off the elastic gold cord and the jewel-tone paper and finally had no option but to open the box.
"Oh! Wherever did you find it?"
"I thought it might go with the shoes."
"Oh, it does. Thank you." Temple blinked. "Damn these new contacts! I can't f-focus on anything. It feels like my eyes are watering all the time. Are they watering?" she added, not looking up from the box.
"They look a little dewier than usual. Do you really want contact lenses?"
"I suppose so. Why?"
"Well, you look kind of. . . different without glasses."
"Better, right?" .
"No. Just different. Like a stranger. I guess it'll take me a while to get used to the new you."
Was he righter than he knew! Temple lifted the delicate gold chain from the box, elevating the central figure of a cat in crushed black-opal inlay, collared in tiny diamonds, with winking emerald-green eyes.
It would go perfectly with Max's ring.
"It's wonderful, Matt! Perfect." She undid the tiny clasp and lifted her arms to fasten it behind her neck. Of course, her muscles screamed, "no fair!"
He mistook her pain for some confinement of the dress and took the chain ends from her fingers.
"Never done this in my life, but I think I know how it works. There."
He sounded proud of himself, but Temple skittered away to the foyer mirror, avoiding one more compromising moment, not that a lot of them weren't forthcoming.
Poor Matt was jumping every gate like a steeplechase champion; he just didn't know that the winner of the race had already been announced.
Temple positioned the exquisite charm in the hollow of her throat and swallowed hard to keep from bursting into tears. Probably they would float the treacherous soft lenses straight onto the floor as she shrank from shame like Alice into Tiny Alice, at risk of drowning in her own saltwater mess.
"Lovely," she managed to get out as she snatched her purse from the hall table and opened the door.
Matt followed, looking bemused, as if she had really chameleoned into a semi stranger.
The mechanics of getting to the New York-New York complex distracted them both from awkwardness, although Temple couldn't restrain a small shudder as they approached the parked Storm.
"Not as cold as New York?" Matt commented, momentarily wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
It hurt, but she dared not wince.
He saw her into the passenger's seat, then got behind the wheel and backed out of the slot.
Every ordinary action, and reaction, was pure torture for Tern-pie. Why had she thought she could let Matt down gently? That leading him on was kinder than letting him down from the first? Women were conditioned to feel responsible for everybody's hurt feelings, especially men's. They were either too hot or too cold, too encouraging or too chilling. They were supposed to figure out what they themselves really wanted and needed, all the while taking the emotional temperature of every soul around them and trying to soften blows and ease reality.
Max had been right. She wasn't here tonight because she needed to prolong the agony. She needed to delay the moment of truth.
Matt finally spoke, his face illuminated like a medieval angel's by the unholy halo of half-light from the dashboard. "I really can't thank you enough, Temple, for what you've done for me."
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea Maxima culpa . . . and she wasn't even Catholic! She wasn't even a good Unitarian, although she was suddenly thinking of entering the convent.
"Oh, yeah?" As if she were saying, "How interesting."
"Yeah. That's what I wanted to tell you tonight. I bet you're dying to hear how I tracked down Effinger, but that was just the beginning. Going back to Chicago was a revelation."
"So tell me," Temple said, getting a grip on her paranoia and deciding to relax back into the passenger seat.
This is what she was really here for: to listen, to understand. Matt's quest had become more entangled with her life than either he or she would like, but it was, had become, a tandem journey. That, Effinger had proven in the Circle Ritz parking lot not two days ago. That, nothing could change, not even Max. And he knew it. Sort of.
"First, I want to explain the plans for the evening." He glanced at her as they glided under a brilliant swath of street light.
Temple wished her face didn't feel as if it were wearing a plaster of Paris mask.
"I thought New York-New York might be fun, since you haven't been there yet and you're fresh from the real thing. They had this New Year's Eve package ... a before-dinner drink at the New York Bar at Times Square, dinner at a steakhouse--Gallagher's-- and an after-dinner drink at a place called Hamilton's, finishing with a midnight champagne cocktail back at the Times Square Bar."
"We should be finished by then, all right."
"I know it sounds kind of touristy and hokey--"
"It sounds like fun.... and what isn't touristy and hokey in Las Vegas. Drive on, MacDuff."
Matt seemed to relax now that she had accepted the evening's program. At least the novelty of visiting New York-New York would distract them both from any misgivings.
Naturally, the hotel loomed on the horizon, its skyscraper skyline lit up like an old-time switchboard on crack cocaine.