Cat In A Topaz Tango

It nearly killed Temple to wake up early the next morning. This was Sunday, the day of the first live evening show but she doubted Matt would miss mass.

She ached to trail the cop side of the undercover team, but she knew Zoe Chloe Ozone needed to hang with her “peeps,” the four teen girls dancing with the barely older singing sensations, Los Hermanos Brothers.

The boy band’s name was redundant, hermanos being the Spanish word for brothers, but Temple supposed record and TV moguls liked the spin of a bilingual name.

The brothers themselves, ranging from twelve to sixteen, were reassuring both to their adoring fans and their mothers, and even to Temple.

Early showbiz exposure and training had made them smooth and creamy tween idols. They all had the cheeky, choirboy innocence of the young Bobby Dylan, not that it meant that they were. Nowadays, though, looks were everything.

Each girl had her soundproof mini-rehearsal “room.” Ekaterina was unique in having her own “manager,” Mariah.

Temple imagined Mama Molina was as thrilled as she was that Mariah and EK were joined at the hip for this competition. Official nerves were as tight-strung as the high E-string on a guitar about the junior competition members’ safety with reports of the Barbie Doll Killer elsewhere as well as the usual Cloaked Conjuror worries.

Los Hermanos Brothers made millions and the girl contestants were invaluable as the ordinary members of the community who were getting a gazillion-dollar chance to turn pro. Anything bad happening in this neighborhood was a disaster.

Temple donned Zoe Chloe makeup and clothes, which took an hour over a room service tray, and headed for the theater area. Things were getting serious. Maybe that’s why Midnight Louie had donned his best ears-perked attitude and came along like a lamb in his tote-bag transport.

He even proudly wore the silver collar trailing a bib of rainbow-colored heart-shaped beads Temple had made from an overdone ankle bracelet she found at the nearest dollar store. Well, he wore it without bucking out from under it and scratching it with the massive scimitars of his hind claws once Temple had explained that they all had to suffer through abominable articles of clothing to make this undercover operation work.

Louie’s aloof green eyes had then surveyed Molina’s Woodstock tie-dyed headband, Rafi’s leather vest and Navajo shirt, Temple’s Goth fingerless spiderweb gloves, navy-blue-painted finger and toe-nails, and skunk-striped pantyhose, then leaped for cover in the depths of her zebra tote bag, his collar strands clicking like mini-castanets or Chihuahua toenails on a kitchen floor.

All four girl contestants were in EK’s and Mariah’s “rehearsal room,” sitting on the wooden portable dancing floor in frog posture with their ankles together and their knees splayed flat as if they didn’t have a joint or sinew or protesting muscle in their bodies.

Louie jumped down to join them, getting copious oohs and aahs and pettings.

Zoe Chloe elected to perch pixielike on a nearby ladder, so as not to overstress her knees. Jumping down would be so much more graceful than jumping up from the cold, hard floor.

“That José Juarez is hot!” the black girl named Patrisha opined.

“So is Captain Jack!” a blond girl breathed.

It took Temple a millisecond to realize they were referencing the metrosexual Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean. She blinked at the advanced level of sophistication of young girls today. She’d never dreamed she’d be behind the curve ball at thirty.

For a moment, she ardently sympathized with Molina, who must be at least seven years older than she, and only a decade away from being able to sit on the floor. At all.

Watching the four competitors sink bonelessly to the floor and let their hair down was amazing. They chattered away, ignoring her now that Zoe Chloe was just another semi-adult supervisor.

EK’s doe-eyed, sallow look made her seem as wary as a starving alley cat. Skateboarder Patrisha’s elongated ebony frame was pertly elegant. She seemed a likelier candidate for a supermodel contest than this gig. Meg-Ann was a soccer star, big-boned, strong, and determined. Her long brown ponytail and sunshine-spawned freckles gave her tomboy appeal. And, of course, there was the perfect, cool, spoiled blond girl wearing the latest fads and destined to be prom queen, if nothing else: Sou-Sou Smith.

“What we really need to decide,” Sou-Sou said with a toss of her highlighted hair, “is who has the hottest Hermanos brother. I vote for my partner, Dustin. His sideburns just radiate sex.”

Sideburns on teen boys? Temple wondered. When did the world turn back to the seventies when she was born?

“You’re just pimping your dance partner,” Patrisha said with a, well, patrician sneer. “I got Brandon, babe. He has that delicious name and that open shirt and tie bit going. Speaking of bite—I may go gaga vampire on stage.”

Temple blushed at this open teen lust.