Cat In An Aqua Storm

Katharine was sitting at the counter staring disconsolately into the mirror when Temple returned. “Ice won’t do no good—what’s your name, anyway?”

“Temple. Here, I’ll wrap the ice in this towel.” She snatched a clean but rouge-stained one from the counter-top. “Hold that there.”

“Thanks,” her patient said. “Still won’t help the color.”

“Makeup.”

“You gotta look perfect for the judges. They’ll see.” Temple hated hearing that anything was hopeless. She had a feeling that Katharine had been told that everything was hopeless for as long as she could remember. Temple’s eyes roamed the dressing room, looking for inspiration. The cloaks—no, Katharine needed to hide her face, not her body. Hardly her body, that was the whole point. But... her face was not.

Temple pointed at the cat-faced shoe at their feet. “Cat cloak!” Katharine looked puzzled, rightfully. Temple’s inspiration came so fast she stumbled over the words. “Mask. You’ll make a cat mask to match the shoes!” Brown eyes opened wide, then winced half-shut again. “Yeah. I could do that—maybe.”

“Sure you can! Then how your face looks won’t matter. What’s your routine, the music?”

“ ‘Batman.’ Only I play Catwoman.”

“Perfect! It’ll be even better than before. Trust me.” Katharine, dazed into docility, nodded while clasping the homemade ice bag over one eye.

“Will he... come back?” Temple asked next.

“No. He’d figure this took care of it.”

“Why did he do it?”

She shrugged. “He likes to. And I’m gonna leave him. Soon. I got my own business, my card—” She patted around for a purse, then sank back into the chair in chagrin. “No room for cards on this costume. Upstairs in my purse. He wanted to talk, he said, alone, so we came down here. Anyway, I have this private stripping service, for parties, you know? Good clean fun. Gags. Go-go grandmas, guys in clown costumes, whatever fits the occasion. I win this contest and get the prize money, even if I don’t, I’m outa stripping myself. But a win would help my business. Grin ’n’ Bare It. That’s the name of my business, spelled ‘b-a-r-e.’ Cute, huh? I got four people working for me part time. We do singing telegrams, ‘birthday suit’ strips, lots of things. Pm not just... a dumb stripper, you know. I’m an entrepreneur.”

“Sounds great.” Temple had noticed how Katharine’s spine had straightened as she began talking about her business. “If you need a PR person, here’s one of my cards.” She squatted to dig through her tote bag.

Katharine’s hand on her arm made her pause. The expression in her one visible brown eye was serious, a curious mixture of supplication and defiance. “I wasn’t crying ’cuz it hurt, you know. Only ’cuz it ruined my chances.”

“I... know.”

Temple tried not to think how a woman had learned to take pride in not crying when it hurt.

16

Crime and Punishment

Sobered byKatharine’s sad predicament, Temple bustled out the back of the Goliath to the guest parking garage. Eager as she had been to get home and type up her radio schedules for Lindy and Ruth, the image of Katharine’s battered face haunted her. In the elevator up to the ramp’s fourth floor, that face seemed to float on the stainless-steel door, a distorted reflection of herself.

Her heels clicked across the concrete garage floor as she pawed through her tote’s awesome collection of effluvia searching for her key ring. She hardly heard the footsteps approaching behind her.

They didn’t stop, and they didn’t overtake her. Just followed along. A woman who lives alone gets used to being wary, and her stint with Max had not been lengthy enough to blunt that self-defensive instinct.

Temple turned casually to see just who was behind her. Two men, who noticed her noticing them.

“Where do you think you’re going?” one demanded with the voice of authority.

Temple speeded up. Was there some snafu about her guest parking status? They could discuss it once she was prudently locked inside the Storm, which was just down several vehicles....

Steps pounded behind her, few and hard.

She glanced back, primed to run, and found the men sweeping past, sweeping her up between them, carrying her away in the irresistible current of their force.

Temple felt like a little kid being hustled away by two of the block’s big-boy bullies. Mean preteens, they would whisk her tiny five-year-old self behind an empty garage and make her swear eternal silence—“Don’t you ever blab, baby. Hope to die and tell a lie”—about what they’d done to Mrs. Saletta’s flower garden, or the secret location of their forbidden tree house or...

These real-time big boys—men—whisked her away, all right. Each grabbed an elbow. Between them, Temple’s high-heeled feet barely touched ground as they dragged her around a concrete pillar and pinned her against the wall behind it.

Temple fought to catch her breath, aware that she now occupied a dead-end notch in the parking ramp design, invisible to anyone who wasn’t looking for people to be there.