Cat In A White Tie And Tails

Temple ordered an obscenely expensive glass of white wine whose vintage and vintner she didn’t recognize. Jon ordered single-malt scotch, the kind Max favored. Matt surprised her by asking for a Bombay gin martini.

“Unfortunately,” Temple said of her wine, “I’m the designated walker.”

“Yes.” Jon grinned. “What is with the women wearing all these extreme high heels? They can’t be comfortable.”

“Temple’s always been a footwear connoisseur,” Matt said. “Don’t worry. She works at home in bare feet most of the time.”

“In my case,” Temple added, “I got the short stick in the genetics lottery. Also, the heels make excellent defensive weapons.”

“It’d be better to run,” Matt said.

The menus came next, just as padded as the liquor ones but larger. They all studied them as if needing to pass a test.

“You are my guests, of course,” Jon said. “So how are you?” he asked Matt. “How’s the trip business going?”

“You are the trip business.”

“How’s your mother?” Jon had turned businessman brusque.

“Well, but more than somewhat confused, as you can imagine.”

“Same with my brother.” The waiter came to take their orders and then they were left in blessed peace for a few moments. The level of attentive service at this restaurant assured a good many necessary “time-outs” in the conversation.

Temple suspected they all ordered just to get it over with. Salads were too messy for delicate, groundbreaking conversations, Temple knew from experience. Your mouth was always sprouting spinach leaves that wouldn’t chew, or your fork was pursuing vagrant bleu cheese crumbles just as words were most urgently called for. The guys ordered steak entrées and she wild salmon.

“You should know,” Jon told them while the tablecloth still hosted only drinks, the roll basket, and butter containers, “and this might be a bit shocking. I want to come out of the closet.”

That shut their mouths.

“In terms of our”—he gestured back and forth between himself and Matt—“relationship.”

Matt, shocked, opened his mouth to speak.

“You’re right, Matt. Secrets are corrosive. Besides.” Jon looked sheepish. “My brother knows something is wrong. I can’t keep him in the dark much longer.”

“I don’t even know your brother’s name,” Matt said. “Why should he be the deciding factor in anything that involves my mother, as well as you?”

“Because he loves Mira and wants to marry her.”

“If he does, he’ll let her come to terms with the problem on her own. She won’t even talk to me about it.”

“It’s not a problem.” Jon smiled the same heart-stopping way Matt did when he was pleased. “Knowing Philip, he’ll win her over. Consider me the advance guard for a better future trip to Chicago,” Jon told him. “You’re not exactly nobody. The extended family only knows you’re a ‘distant relative,’ but is wild to meet you,” he added as ruefully as Matt spoke of his birth father’s family. “Now that I’ve seen the lovely Miss Barr, that’ll go double.”

Matt just shook his head, trying to imagine—like Temple—who, when and where, would tell Mira the family that had banished mother and infant son thirty-five years ago was strong-arming their belated introduction into their bosom.

After a few sips all around, Jon broached what seemed an even more uneasy subject for him. “Since the … revelation, I’ve studied the family financial structure.”

“I’m financially fine,” Matt said. “I’d be financially fine if the best job I could find was at a fast-food place.”

“I understand that. I admire where you are. I admire your independence. I’m not thinking according to need. I’m thinking according to … justice. Moral responsibility. My parents’ family had an inflated notion of their position. They opposed my enlisting in the armed forces. They wiped my wishes and obligations and responsibilities away like bread crumbs off a table.”

He gestured at the recently brushed white linen cloth.

“They sinned against me, and your mother, and you. You of all people should understand those terms.”

“I do,” Matt said. “I just don’t want to apply them to anyone else.”

“‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,’” Temple put in helpfully.

Jon sat back and took a hit of scotch. “That’s what my family always feared.”

“Someone alien having a claim on their money, right?” Temple said. “Especially someone their heirs might have liked or loved. ‘Money is the root of all evil,’ et cetera. Oh, heck, Mr. Jon Winslow. I’ve always been a working girl. All I need is a decent place to live where there’s a really good selection of vintage and resale rags, an honest man to love and love me, and a job that challenges my brain. The rest is luck or compromise, and I don’t believe in either.”