Of course I could not accept this vastly reduced territory.
I immediately leaped to the bedroom floor, playing into the usurper's hand, and stalked to a corner of the room to consider my retaliation under the guise of grooming my ruffled fur.
Naturally, no one noticed.
Had Miss Temple been in her right senses, I have no doubt she would have observed my ousting and repaired the damage.
As it was, she was in no condition to come to my defense, having so recently--and so ineffectively--come to her own.
I cannot blame her for this dereliction of duty. Nor can I blame the Mystifying Max for exercising his territorial imperative. That is what we guys do.
I do blame myself for catnapping at a crucial time, when the balance of power was up for grabs. And I do blame that handy goat for all things grungy and inglorious: Cliff Effinger. I am getting sick and tired of this creep messing up the calm domestic lives of me and mine.
Someone will pay for this unseating, and it will not be feline.
Count on it.
Chapter 5
New Year's Irresolution
Temple stared into the mirror over the bathroom sink, looking like a hungover detective from a vintage film noir.
Her small, nineteen-fifties bathroom mirror was made to enhance that effect. It covered a built-in medicine cabinet, and was lit from above by a flickering, buzzing wand of blue -white fluorescent bulb.
Knowing this, Temple never looked in her bathroom mirror. She used the incandescent-lit looking glass on the bedroom wall above her bureau-cum-makeup table. But she needed to pass critical muster tonight, and figured that the only mirror on the wall that would judge her camouflaging makeup job as "fair" enough was this one.
The brutal downlight aged her ten years and even then she barely looked twenty-five. Cruel shadows played pocket-pool with her facial planes, but she still only resembled an unmade bed, not an assault victim.
Temple nodded at herself. Her head no longer ached at such violent movements. Good.
Even under this pitiless light she passed for healthy. The only sign of Efftnger's attack two days ago was a tendency to mumble. Her cut mouth and sore jaw refused to let her tongue tap-dance at its usual articulate speed.
But this was New Year's Eve, right? They would be eating (mush for her) and drinking, right?
She wouldn't be expected to sound like an elocution student with a fistful of glass marbles in her mouth spewing out consonants with spitball precision.
Temple glanced at the dainty bangle of evening watch on her left wrist, blinking while the temporary soft contact lenses floated like dead jellyfish skins over her eyes. The optometrist had said they were close enough to her forthcoming prescription to do everything but drive with, and she was not going out for her gala New Year's Eve date with Matt Devine (during which she would have to confess that she and Max were an item again and good-bye except for some neighborly schmoozing now and then) wearing those groady eight-year-old round frames: yuppie plastic tortoiseshell. How had she ever been hyped into choosing the East-coast owl look? Stupidity of the sweet bird of youth (probably an owlet), she guessed, as opposed to the stupidity of young single adulthood.
Temple stopped her antsy mental monolog, stopped moving. This was all an act, like dressing for the performance of a play. Concentrating on hiding the results of his stepfather's attack from Matt kept her from thinking of the emotional assault she would make sometime tonight on Matt himself: admitting that she and Max were together again. Their own recent relationship had been unspoken, but warm and even tender. Now that would have to stop. She didn't want to reject or hurt Matt, and she knew he didn't approve of Max, just like her family.
She put cold fingers to her warm cheeks, feeling like Scarlett O'Hara not wanting to think about it until tomorrow. Frankly, my dear, I do give a damn. I'd give up Tar a not to have to. . . .
Temple rushed back to the bedroom, grabbed her quirky little evening bag (Temple owned two sizes of purse: huge and lilliputian) and paused before the bedroom mirror. Of course, the brittle Cosmo Girl's number-one ground rule for telling a guy that everything was kaput was to look especially fabulous. The eat-your-heart-out look. But Temple had no need, intention or desire to have Matt cannibalize his cardiac organ. She just wanted to exit from his personal life on an optimistic note, not like a beaten puppy. And she certainly didn't want him feeling guilty about Effinger turning on her, when she was the guilty one for letting any relationship flower between them when her heart, body and soul were still mortgaged to the Mystifying Max Kinsella.
The soft-focus bedroom mirror told her that the foundation caked on her left cheek and eye socket as thick as burn camouflage worked like gangbusters. She practiced a smile. The left side lagged behind the right, but in a dim-lit restaurant that would only look like dramatic lighting.
Otherwise, she was up to snuff: the same silver-beaded dress Matt had seen before, so he wouldn't have any illusions she had, like, gone out and bought something special for this evening to remember, poor man . . . the Midnight Louie heels flashing their Austrian crystal brilliance everywhere, except on the glittering black silhouette of a green-eyed cat atop each high heel.
Temple twisted her torso to view as much of her rear as possible. Silvery gray panty hose covered her bruise-tattooed legs, but too bad she wasn't wearing hose with seams. The way the cat's front paws reached up the back of the shoes, Louie could almost be construed as straightening invisible seams. So forties noir. Too bad Louie couldn't straighten the seams in people's emotional lives. . . .
The real Midnight Louie, in the all too, too solid flesh and fur, lay stretched out horizontally, not vertically, on the bed's Zebra-pattern coverlet.
Temple blinked again. Not tears. No tears. Her sensitive eyes were tolerating the lenses better than they had earlier unsuccessful attempts at wearing soft contact lenses, but she was having trouble focusing through these Saran-wrap windows.
Louie yawned, displaying so much deep pink mouth and tongue that she couldn't miss the gesture.
"I won't be back until late, Louie. Real, real late."
She checked her watch again and grimaced. Eight-thirty. A nine p.m. dinner reservation at New York-New York Hotel and Casino, then hanging out until midnight to see the New Year in.
After that, Matt wanted her to stop and view the red sofa in his apartment. She'd said she'd be too rushed before, that they could do it after. So that would be the scene of the coming crime: his place, in the wee hours of the New Year. She would tell him that she was once again previously engaged. Sort of.
"I am a worm!" she told Louie in heartfelt tones.
He did not disagree.
****************
Despite her physical and mental preparations for the coming ordeal, Temple still jumped when her mellow doorbell chimed.
She clattered to the front door over the parquet floor, pausing to look through the peephole first. No more surprise carry-out boys for her!
The tiny convex glass conveyed a travesty of fuzzy, foreshortened image, but there was no mistaking that butterscotch-blond head.
Temple flung open the door, always prone to overreact under stress, and prepared to chatter away despite the risk of revealing her mandibular difficulties. Instead she was struck dumb.
Well. Wow. What could she say? He stood there looking like the perfect prom-date-cum-Greek god, wearing some sort of bronze-sheeny jacket over an ivory turtleneck that turned his hair to spun gold and his warm brown eyes to the richest, smoothest, most self-destructive chocolate mousse you ever wanted to drown in.
And she had thought Max had a certain stage presence.