Cat In An Aqua Storm

“I wouldn’t joke about the dark arts, dearie,” Electra said with a shudder, flipping down her sinister visor.

Despite needing to hustle, Temple couldn’t resist waiting to watch the landlady mount, expertly kick away the support, start the engine and chatter off in low gear to the shed around back.

Then she glumly lugged Louie through the gate, shut it and headed across the area bordering the pool, relieved that Matt Devine wasn’t in sight.

She couldn’t believe that Max had never mentioned that thing, much less using it for a down payment on the condo.... He had glossed over that issue when he’d put the place in both their names. Electra was financing it, so it was simple—if not monetarily easy—for Temple to take over the payments after Max skedaddled. And here Temple had hoped buying instead of renting had indicated that Max was as serious about permanent relationships as she was... hah!

While these thoughts festered, her autopilot had called the elevator, punched the proper floor and gotten her off before the doors sliced together on her or Louie’s carrier.

She walked down the semicircular hall to her door, unlocked it and sat Louie’s carrier on the entry-hall parquet. When she opened the grille, he sulked inside, reduced to a resentful glare of electric green eyes.

“Sorry, boy. I’ll feed you as soon as I drag the bag back from the car.”

She was back in minutes, staggering, to find the carrier empty and Louie nowhere in sight. Temple sighed, slung the huge brown-paper bag to the kitchen countertop and proceeded to exercise her nails on trying to puncture the stitched-shut top. She finally fetched the kitchen shears and took several ill-tempered stabs at the tough paper until she worried a ragged hole in one comer.

Then she hefted the heavy bag and squatted to pour its contents into Louie’s empty banana split dish. Green-brown pellets plugged the hole, then burped out in a dirty hail, scattering like run-amok marbles on the black and white tiles.

“Oh, holy horseradish! This feline health food is gonna break my back. Louie! Come and get it.”

He refused to show, so Temple stomped into her bedroom to look under the bed. Nothing animal there but dust bunnies. The louvered closet doors were shut, but she jerked one open just the same. Jerk. Speaking of which, there was Max, face-to-face.

She studied the glossy, oversized poster she knew like the markings on her mauve snakeskin J. Renees. By now, Max, the most mobile of men both mentally and physically, had become frozen into this single, hype-ridden image: black turtleneck, black unruly hair, green stare. The Mystifying Max, vanished magician, former roommate, lost lover. Was he ever.

And now his past recycled... a massive silver Vampire on wheelies. It must have meant something to him, owning a classic motorcycle. He must have ridden it at one time, then left it behind when his act toured distant cities like Minneapolis. He must have figured a Heckwith, or whatever, Vampire wasn’t Temple’s speed, or he’d have kept it, shown it to her. Said, Hop on, I’ll take you for a ride. He hadn’t needed a motorcycle for that.

Temple sat suddenly on the bed, still staring at the poster. She wasn’t a motorcycle moll. She couldn’t see herself roaring along the never-ending white centerline on two narrow tires and a bloated black belly of steel. Maybe Max couldn’t see that either. Maybe that’s why he’d left. She was too conventional, took herself too seriously. Maybe she would have liked it, plastering herself behind Max, wrapped up in gear with a dark crystal ball for a crown and the wind rushing at them, the road running away behind them and speed thrumming with exultation between their conjoined thighs....

Temple rose, then used her long, lacquered nails to peel the tape very carefully from the four comers of the poster. She folded the excess tape down on the back before rolling the heavy paper into one long white cylinder. Then she stuffed it down in the far dark back comer of the closet where the last of Max’s clothes hung waiting to be taken to the Goodwill someday.

2

A Crummy Encounter

“I can’tbelieve the nerve of that man.” The tall blonde drowned her complaint in a swallow of white wine spritzer, the PR woman’s national drink.

“Who?” Temple, looking around sharply with news-hound instincts, saw only women gathered in cocktail-party knots.

The blonde’s name tag said she was Sunny Cadeaux. She turned away from the two other women in her schmoozing circle to spit out two loathsomely familiar words: “Crawford Buchanan.”

“Oh.” Temple quickly sipped her Virgin Mary while trying to dodge the leafy stick of celery afloat in the blood-colored beverage. “Awful Crawford. What’s he done now?”

“You must have come in the back way,” Sunny suggested.

Temple nodded. “I was late, and I wanted to talk to the hotel manager.”