"Shouldn't have happened. I ought to have told you sooner. I was trying to save you a shock at a bad time, but now it's worse than ever for both of us."
"For you and Max, or for you and me?"
"I'm talking about us."
"How can there be an 'us' if you're with him?"
She didn't argue, only picked at some lint on her skirt. The stretchy fabric dipped between her legs. He had neglected undoing the buttons all the way to the bottom. Now he never would.
"How long?" he asked. "When? How?"
She didn't tell him it was none of his business.
"Since after Christmas. In New York. Max showed up at Kit's to take me out to dinner. He gave me a ring. No, I haven't been wearing it."
"After Christmas? That day I called you, was it after--?"
She nodded in super-serious slow motion, like a naughty child admitting to eating all the cream puffs.
"God." The timetable was driving home on hammer blows of irony. "I was so . . . high after that trip home, after settling with Effinger and declaring my independence from the past with my family. You know, I thought about flying to New York just to tell you all about it. Only it seemed kind of impolite and . . . impractical. Guess Kinsella isn't polite and practical."
"Nope."
"He who hesitates is lost. And now I've embarrassed both of us by jumping on you like a--"
"Shut up!" Tears were still refusing to fall from her eyes. "Don't you dare. It was one of the erotic high points of history, and we were there, okay? Both of us. We just can't do it again."
"Why not? Temple, I know I'm supposed to care about things like this, but I don't care how often you slept with him, or how recently. I want you now and for the future. You don't have to honor the past."
"But I do! Max and I really had something. It wasn't his fault that he had to leave. I can't tell you why, but it wasn't his fault. We owe it to each other to try again."
"Is he in the witness protection program? Is that the reason for all the secrecy? I've wondered."
"A performer? A Las Vegas magician?"
"You quoted him as saying that brazen is often the best disguise."
"Not the witness protection program, but something . . . similar."
"Temple, you've known love, you've known sex. I haven't, until now. I'm not going to give this up. I'm almost ready to suggest that you don't tell Max,about us, but I wouldn't mean it, and I know you couldn't do it. But that's how far I've fallen."
She put a hand to the side of his face, a touch almost as comforting as the tenderness in her eyes.
"Max knows I have deep feelings for you. It's horrid that he was gone just long enough for you and I to connect. But I'm going to try as hard as I can to make it with Max. Nobody knows the man behind the magician. He's had pain, he has a past. We have a mutual history that's worthy of saving. If Max had met someone else while he was gone, I'd still try. And he loves me."
"Too."
Matt got up, surprised that his knees still locked when necessary.
A picture of Temple branded itself on his mind and memory: her sitting there as demure and delicate as a ballerina in a Degas sketch, except for the erotic touch of her undone buttons. He loved her for not dishonoring their intimacy by trying to cover up her exposure, he loved her for giving him an erotic snapshot to treasure.
"I suppose we'll talk, see each other, when it's necessary."
"Of course."
The tears still stood in her eyes. If they hadn't fallen yet, they weren't going to fall in his presence, ever. He imagined them glis-CAT ON A HYACINTH HUNT * 259
tening on her collarbones and breast, himself lapping up the saltwater drop by drop . . .
desire was dementia. Love was delirium.
"Do me a favor," he asked. "Don't ever get rid of that dress."
He didn't say goodbye, and outside the unit, he only got a few steps down the cul-de-sac before he had to stop and lean against the wall.
The erotic charge still shook him. He felt possessed by a power greater than himself. He saw this as one more evidence of the Creator's incredible, indelible omnipresence, something to be celebrated, not stifled. And he couldn't stop an idiotic smile from crossing his face, despite his having heard the worst news of his life. Idiocy looked to be his lot for a while; he was in love and finally knew it.
He started when he heard a click down the hall. It had taken Temple a long time to get up and lock the door after him. He wondered if she suffered from the same weak-kneed condition.
If she stood with her back to the wall on her side of the partition, reliving the ecstasy and grinning like a lunatic. Like most serious matters in life, sex also seemed to be a healthy though heady mix of the sublime and the ridiculous.
Chapter 37
Ms Cellany
Temple poured what was left of Matt's wine into her own glass and took a deep swig.
Then she absently ran the cool, smooth brim over her lips, back and forth, over and over.
Amen.
She was huddled in a corner of the sofa, knees jackknifed, arms clutched around them, as if she were cold.
But she wasn't cold at all. Temple balanced her glass on one kneecap.
Lesson number one: sparing other people's feelings is usually a euphemism for sparing yourself the pain of telling the truth.
Lesson number two: playing with fire will give you blisters. You might get to like blisters.
Lesson number three: expletive deleted.
Somehow she'd managed to be disloyal to everybody in this eternal triangle, including herself.
Including even Midnight Louie.
She really could have used a comforting feline presence right now. That sagacious furry face; those wise, slitted green eyes; that warm, solid body against her side.
But even Louie had deserted her. Even? Max and Matt had not, more's the pity.
She chugalugged the rest of the wine and un-corkscrewed herself to set the empty glass on the tabletop.
Not on the tabletop.
On top of a glossy brochure.
Temple saw a flash of color and motion, a sexy female, an exploding firework. The usual Las Vegas come-on for everything from soup kitchens to nuts to celebrity-impersonator revues.
How had this piece of trash gotten onto her coffee table? Maybe someone had stuffed it into her tote bag as she'd rushed by. Las Vegas was always foisting fleshly delights on oblivious passersby with more elevating issues on their minds. Like gambling.
Fleshly delights, oh my. Oh, Matt. Oh, Max. Oh, Midnight Louie. Maybe she should stick to cats.
Except that one word caught her attention as it was about to drift to sea.
Hyacinth.
"Shangri-La and Hyacinth. Hyacinth is also a cat, for heavens sake!"
Well, she would have to ask Max about this lady magician and her magical disappearing cat called Hyacinth.
She would have to see Max, soon. And say? Nothing. Sparing people's feelings, including one's own, could become a very bad habit.
***************
Matt had hours to go before he could go to work and lose himself in open-line jive. He would listen with a whole new third ear now, to lovesick Romeos and Juliets, to suicidal rejectees, to women haunted by obsessive stalkers.
But first he would call Lieutenant Molina. She had handed him a body. He had run with it.
Now she could chase down the implications: hyacinths by the truckload, an anonymous donor, fingerprints on the silver dollars.
He needed to call Temple.
No, he really needed to call her, to ask her something.
To hear her voice. To imagine her.
He called.
She answered, and sounded surprised.
"Silver dollars? How many? Sure, I can count them."
She was back at the phone after too long a while.
"Thirty."
"Exactly?"