Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (6 page)

“No." Matt stared ahead at the freeze-frame screen. "She
was a surprise."

“
They
call it confrontational television."

“
I thought you
said this was a decent talk show." "Well, no talk show is really
decent, is it?"

“
But
she's a veteran. Been at it much longer than I." "And takes a much
tougher stance."

“Tougher? Or just less tolerant?”

Temple
rolled some more tape to follow the slim,
suited figure as she entered and took a chair on the mod
erator's right. "Very symbolic placement.
You on the left,
her on the right. What a media vixen. Spouting
holier-than-thou inflexible Ten Commandments stuff, and she
had an affair with a married man years ago; even
has
some undraped photos zipping
around on the Internet."

“
They ambushed
me," Matt agreed, refusing to rise to
the
bait of his rival's ancient shenanigans. "So I ended
up defending
myself and my caller."

“
I
thought it was
pretty brilliant when you accused
Dr. Laurel of being willing to throw
the mother out with
the
bathwater."

“
I
was getting angry."

“It didn't show."

“
That's when
I'm
angriest.
I
never would have gone
on if
I
thought that confused child was going
to be used
as a bad example. She was simply stressed beyond her
fragile defenses. And that
dysfunctional family . . . What you're saying,
Temple
, is that
I
was
out of my league."

“
Oh,
yes, definitely."

“A good lesson. Don't do this again."

“Oh, no. Not at all."

“What?"

“
You're out of your league because you're not playing to
the lowest common denominator. That's just what talk
TV needs, so
I
think you should do as much of it as
they ask you to.”

Matt did not look encouraged.

Chapter 5

Help Me

(Larry
Gatlin wrote this for Elvis in 1973; his
recording peaked at

6 on the
country chart in
1974)

The
knock on
Temple
's
door that evening caught her
trying to do something that seldom turned out well:
cook.

She
turned the heat down to simmer under a frying
pan choked with
softening vegetables and tough shrimp.
If time could heal
all wounds maybe it could mend a
stir-fry that was too fried to stir.

She
wondered what Matt might have to tell her now.
His life had
become a whirligig of news updates, spin
ning to the tune of a media frenzy.

She opened the door, stunned
to find a strange woman waiting on the other side.

Temple
stood there, spatula lifted
as high as a homely
wand, one curl of
overcooked onion clinging like a
comma to its nonstick surface.

“I'm sorry to bother
you." The woman shuffled her
shoes,
reminding
Temple
of a door-to-door solicitor who
had
suddenly developed cold feet. "You're making din
ner."

“
That's debatable,"
Temple
said
wryly, The woman's
voice sounded familiar. Even the face seemed familiar.

Or
maybe
Temple
had just seen too
many women like
this when she had
been a TV news reporter. The ex
pressionless
faces of women who were victims of whatever car-jacking/rape-drug/lost
child/domestic violence
case caught
the public's attention for the blink of a bat
tered
eye.

“It's
... I'm Merle."

“Merle!"
That rang a bell, even if Merle herself had
eschewed
using
Temple
's
doorbell. The
telephone calls
Temple
kept missing. Merle Who? Merle What. Above
all,
Merle Why.

“
Sorry." The woman was turning to retrace her
steps
down the short neck of hallway
that led to the circular
building's curving central area.

“Wait!"
Temple
edged
into the hall. "I remember now.
You
wanted to talk to me. So come on in. Talk. Share
the spatter."

“Spatter?"

“I'm
trying to stir-fry.”

Merle's noncommittal face twitched a little. It might
have been an infant smile. "Smells more like smoked
barbeque."

“
Omigosh! That darn controller knob. I can never
tell
which way is hotter or cooler.”

Temple
rushed back into the kitchen, where smoke
was now billowing righteously to the ceiling. She swat
ted at it with the slotted spatula, managing only to flip
the
slimy onion slice onto her cheek.

“
Here." Merle marched in, snatched a length of
paper
towels to use as a makeshift hot pad and transferred the smoking
fry pan to an unheated burner. "Do you do this often?" she asked.

“
Burn or cook? Obviously not,
either one."
Temple
watched closely as Merle turned the control
a tiny bit to
the right.

“
You just went past 'Low' to the highest setting,"
Merle said.

Temple
peered at the
still-sizzling contents of the pan.
"The
black charring kind of underlines the faded color
of the vegetables. Maybe char-stir-fried is an
innova
tion."

“
Whew. Have you got a venting fan in this place?"
"This
building is a little old.”

Merle
leaned over the smoky stove top to press a
switch on the
charming little copper canopy overhead.
With a whirring
roar, smoke was suctioned up into it
like magic.

“I never knew that was
there,"
Temple
admitted.

Merle,
speechless again, stood under the glaringly un
kind kitchen light,
uneasily dusting her palms together
as if the crisis, being over, had left
her with a case of
the
willies.

The last
few moments had given
Temple
a chance to
sum up her visitor. Besides lank dishwater-brown hair,
Merle had nearly invisible
eyebrows, wore lipstick in an
unflattering
shade of coral, and her oversized beige
sweater had the same
pulled-out-of-shape droop as her shoulders and her spirit.

“
Come on,"
Temple
said, "sit down in the living room
and enjoy the haze."

“You don't remember who I
am," Merle noted as she padded after
Temple
like a lost puppy.

“Gee. No. I'm sorry."

“
We only met for a moment, and I wasn't the main
event."

“What was the main
event?"

“Not what. Who."

“Well?"

“Crawford.”

Temple
's face must have
betrayed her estimation of
the hearer
of that name. because Merle
hastened on, tripping over her own words like a nervous teenager.

“
It was at the hospital.
When he was in for that hear
trouble.
And you took over handling some event for him
I don't remember
what."

“
You're his . .." Oops,
Temple
didn't have a quick
descriptive phrase at her fingertips. She should
never
have started such a clumsy sentence.

“Girlfriend,
I guess you'd call it. Insignificant other.'
Merle's
laugh tried for self-deprecating and—like
Tem
ple
's stir-fry dish—fell far short of expectations.

“
I was going to say, Quincey's mother!"
Temple
coasted on a saving burst of memory, trying
to lend the
woman a more glorious role than
unsanctioned
consort
to
Temple
's
least-favorite male in the entire world. Ac
centuate
the positive. "How's Quincey doing?”

Merle's crumpled doily of a face collapsed into shat
tered
silk.

“Sit
down,"
Temple
insisted, finally hitting her stride,
Solving
face-shattering problems was a PR woman's
specialty, even if stir-fry was not. "I'll whip up what I'm
really good at, instant anything, and you can tell
me all
about it."

“
This is really good tea," Merle said
enthusiastically
about eight minutes later.

“
It ought to be. The hot water's the only thing I
con
tributed to it"

“The,
ah, lime slices are an original touch.”

Temple
decided it was better to accept undeserved
praise
than to give it. "Thank you.”

Now that Merle Conrad had shed her shapeless car
digan sweater and had settled into the sofa, she looked
more relaxed and less harassed. Maybe it was the com
forting pillow of Midnight Louie that had curled up next
to
her, gazing up at her pale face as if he were all ears.

“What
a pretty cat," Merle said, patting his head.

“
Pretty cat" did not
exactly describe twenty pounds of muscular, vasectomized tomcat, but
Temple
was just
glad Louie was on his best behavior. He apparently
got
along best with the female of the species, any species.

Having given Louie his due, Merle turned sad hazel
eyes back to
Temple
.
"Crawford keeps saying that you
should come to work with him
at the
Scoop."

“
I left journalism a long time ago,"
Temple
said, po
litely refraining from mentioning that the
Las Vegas
Scoop
was to journalism
what lumps of coal are to di
amonds.

“
It's just a joke. Then, he says, you could have a
column
called
'Scoop
Snoop Sister.' “

Temple
was not amused.
"Merle, is this about a .. .
criminal matter?”

Merle put her mug atop the morning paper on the
coffee
table.

“
It's about a worrywart mother, I suppose. But Craw-
ford's dragged Quincey into another one of his
crazy
schemes, and I'm worried about her.”

Temple
had been worried about Quincey too. The
sixteen-year-old
had a diffident mother who was under
the
thumb of a pseudo-stepfather she loathed. Naturally,
she retaliated by
acting like Biker Chick.