Cat In An Aqua Storm

Matt stepped nearer and lowered his voice. “Are you going to group?”

“Going to group! That’s so California, Matthew.” Temple looked up at Matt in the shade. This was definitely one way to get closer to Matt Devine, and she certainly wanted to do that, didn’t she?

“Group therapy is not exclusive to California, and my name isn’t short for Matthew.” He sounded a little stiff, even a bit miffed. Temple’s surprised silence forced a further revelation. “My name is... Matthias.”

“Oh.” Matthias was an odd name, was that why it bothered him? Temple decided to move past the issue. “It still shortens to ‘Matt.’ And couldn’t I see a counselor solo?”

“Sure.” Matt relaxed into his usual good humor once back on neutral ground. “But then you wouldn’t hear the stories of people who’ve been through the same thing as you have.”

“Most of them haven’t.” Matt’s smooth face roughened as he began to object. “I know they’ve been attacked,” Temple said quickly, “but by muggers or husbands and significant others, however nasty. How many other people in ‘group’ are going to have to confess to getting creamed by a couple of professional thugs intent on beating information out of them? They won’t believe me. In fact, I have a hard time believing me.”

Matt’s smile was rueful. “I’ve never known anyone who was so outright embarrassed at being the target of a crime, but I’ll bet there are a couple just like you in that group-therapy session. That’s why you need to put your own experience in perspective. And this is an all-women’s group.”

“I’ll look like a crybaby compared to people who’ve been really abused. Rape victims—”

“Survivors,” Matt corrected. “We’re trying to get away from reinforcing the victim feeling. You’re a survivor.”

“Survivor. I guess if I can survive interrogations by Lieutenant Molina, I can survive playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle with you. Okay, Counselor. I’m ready. Let the games begin.”

Matt’s manner became all business, as if a screw at the top of his head had tightened. Temple, still sheepish about what she was trying to do and the costume she had to wear to do it, realized that the martial arts were serious stuff to him.

“First,” he said, “are you pretty much recovered physically? No sore spots?”

Temple nodded. “Amazingly recovered. I can see how abused women keep hoping the abuse will stop.”

“You don’t have any old injuries, say, from high school? A broken wrist or anything?”

Temple shook out her arms in the long sleeves. “Not yet.”

“You won’t break anything here. That’s why the pads. You said you weren’t athletic in school. What about at home, in your family? Did you have any brothers and sisters to tussle with?”

“Not in the physical way.” Temple let her head wag from side to side in resignation. “You sound like Molina during an interrogation. Yes, Officer, I had brothers, four of them. And, no, we didn’t go at it much, for fun or for fury, because I was—naturally—the youngest. And the littlest. With eight years between me and the next youngest, obviously my siblings were too grown-up to have much to do with me. I did get endless icky clothes handed down from older girl cousins.”

“So you were almost an only child. That’s interesting.”

“To a counselor, maybe. To me, no. You know how they say parents over control the first child and loosen up for the later ones? Well, I was such a tail on the dragon that my parents got neurotic all over again. In fact, my brothers all joined in. Everybody knew what was best for me, except me.”

“Sounds like you were the apple of the whole family’s eye.”

“Yup. My father called me ‘Ladybug’ till I left home. And when I flew away from home and left Minneapolis with Max—they went ballistic.”

“They sound a tad smothering. Try to direct your frustration with your family into what we’re doing here. Redirect the irritation into action. And remember, I’m not going into the ‘Kung Fu’ mystical stuff. These are just some moves you can use to get an attacker off balance.”

“Will I be able to throw you over my shoulder?”

“Eventually,” he promised with a smile.

She sighed, looked around again for witnesses, found none, then grimaced. “Just don’t call me ‘Grasshopper.’ ”

Temple padded barefoot into the Circle Ritz and up to her apartment. She hated to “pad.” It made her feel like a child who’d gotten out of bed to ask for a glass of water, like she had to ask permission of someone for whatever she wanted.

Matt had been right. She was more deeply irritated by her family’s overprotective ways than she knew. When she drew on that ancient annoyance, pretending to be Nancy Ninja didn’t feel so weird. Not that she’d get to the stage of tossing him that quickly.

In her bedroom she fought the fabric knot and won. Round One for the little lady in bare feet. When she shrugged off the—what was it, a uniform, a costume?—gi, the unfurling fabric released the scent of her own sweat, faint and pleasantly pungent rather than reeking.