Cat In An Ultramarine Scheme

First, though, she had to take a shower and blast the plaster and limestone dust off her epidermis and out of her hair. The showerhead installed over the vintage bathtub was a fancy chrome “waterfall” type, expensive and European-made. Its warm, tingling downpour rinsed her right off. Yup. She was enjoying one of Max’s upgrades of the premises. She so did want to wash that man’s memory out of her hair.

Perhaps only leaving the condo that had initially been “theirs” would end the unwanted memory reruns. Matt’s unit was too small for two, though. Unless Electra would let them remodel two units into one, they might have to move out. Darn. Rip Midnight Louie from his charming Circle Ritz home? Unthinkable!

Temple, now double-wrapped in a huge Crystal Phoenix bath towel (perk of the job), padded barefoot and dripping into the main room. She threw herself down on the living room couch and picked up her iPhone to dial Matt’s cell phone. No answer.

He often turned it off when traveling, perhaps the only annoying habit he had. When Matt was on camera on a major TV talk show, he sure didn’t want a ring tone broadcasting over the air, even though Temple had installed Leonard Cohen’s awesome “Hallelujah” and it was pretty playable.

She left a message, part love note and part incoherent job report, disappointed. Matt always had long business dinners at fancy places when he was in Chicago, so they often didn’t connect until midnight or later.

Temple couldn’t wait that long. She was bubbling over with ideas and anxieties (wasn’t that always the way?) and needed to run them by someone she could trust. What she was planning was risky to the point of being a hokey failure, but her job depended on selling her bosses and the public on her thinking. A consultant always needed someone close to consult.

Matt’s room phone rang and rang.

She tried the cell phone again. If the dinner ran late and the wine had been primo, she knew Matt would call her on the room phone from bed. He knew she liked to wake up to his voice, and while it wasn’t totally phone sex, it was sweet-little-nothing sex that left them glowing and intimately connected, long-distance.

Matt’s experience hosting The Midnight Hour radio call-in program had made him a sex symbol to thousands of women, and Temple had that smooth baritone on personal speed-dial. She indulged in a little shiver that cooled down her overactive brain.

Temple kept her old-fashioned line phones because they were cozier to cuddle up to and she used a headset on her cells for business calls. She didn’t want to get brain cancer from long cell phone calls. Well, it could happen! Besides, her longtime bedroom phone was shaped like a red spike-heeled shoe and she’d never give it up.

Temple jumped up and went to her tiny black-and-white kitchen that would wake up a narcoleptic. She opened the refrigerator and stared inside, then did the same with all her cupboards. She hadn’t eaten dinner but she was too jumpy to find anything appetizing … except her absent fiancé.

Back to the living room to scan the day’s newspaper.

She jumped up again in five minutes and did an all-room under, inside, and above search for Midnight Louie. At least she could tell him her plans. He listened with remarkable attentiveness and intelligence and only yawned occasionally during her monologues.

But the only black body hairs and rare white whisker she could find were throwaways. Who knew where he’d gone after the hubbub in the Chunnel of Crime-to-be?

Back to the kitchen. Caramel corn. No! Blueberry yogurt. No. Try the phones again. No answer.

She finally went to bed without supper, all alone without her iPhone. She found a terrible sixties movie on a bottom-feeder cable channel and watched it until her eyes crossed and her nerves flatlined and … she went to sleep.

The old-fashioned ring from the bedside phone gave her the expected but still pleasant little shock.

“Oooh, is this my secret midnight caller?” she cooed into the shoe phone’s toe, only then realizing something might have gone wrong at the Phoenix and midnight was prime time there.

Matt’s laugh was low. “Hi, Lolita. This is Lonesome calling. You sound all sleepy and warm.”

“And I’m only wearing a towel.”

“You just showered?”

“No, hours ago, but I went to bed early just so you could wake me up.”

“I could wake you up a lot more if I were there.”

“I know. So it was a late dinner? I left messages on all your phones.”

“The cell’s on off in my jacket pocket, but I saw your red light blinking on the hotel phone the second I got in. You must be ready for business.”

“For you, always.” Temple let her voice exit intimate mode. “But I really do have business to talk over with you.”

“So you’ve been so frantic to reach me just for … business?”

She started to explain, but he interrupted.

“Actually, Temple, I might have some work stuff to discuss with you before this trip ends. So what’s up besides me?”

“Oh, really? You just made me forget what I was going to say.”