In a few airy hops, she has lofted atop the pink damask table-cloth, the camera dollying in the feathery wake of her pendulum tail. Now her sensitive nose detects the point of the exercise. A fresh dollop of A La Cat fills a footed, cut-crystal dessert dish at a place setting fit for the Queen, or at least her first cousin.
Yet while the camera captures the Divine Yvette's cavorting, I notice sinister background preparations. A mullioned window stands alone, propped up by wooden supports. A black curtain behind it signifies deepest night, and also black intentions, for I see a familiar mug poking out of a familiar carrying case.
It is yellow, as are the two slitted-pupil eyes in that notorious face. Maurice, the Yummy Tum-tum-tummy cat, is about to make his entrance.
I watch as he is pulled from the carrier and his big, splayed mitts are posed on the supposed windowsill. With a little prodding from behind and another plumed stick waving like a turquoise carrot before him, he leaps atop the narrow sill and teeters for a moment.
I turn to see the Divine Yvette in closeup, sampling the proffered catfood in innocent cooperation.
Little does she know she is about to be accosted by a gate-crashing camera hog.
A gentle push from behind encourages Maurice to take his mighty leap to join the Divine Yvette on the tabletop. I launch myself from beneath that very table like twenty pounds of avenging hellhound.
We meet in midair, claws out, tails curled, camera rolling. Maurice's surprised yowl is drowned out by my superb battle cry. After batting him down like a butterfly, I turn (with my best side to the camera) and jump up to join the Divine Yvette atop the table.
"Louie!" she greets me, pausing to lick her whiskers feline-clean.
We sniff noses to insure that a body double has not been slipped in somewhere. She is not unduly upset, but the vanquished Maurice and the director are livid, I notice.
"Ahhhh!" Miss Savannah Ashleigh has risen to the occasion, but is shocked motionless. She clutches her purse to her breast like a baby, and wails.
Maurice growls fiercely from the floor and tries to jump up. I do not even have to biff him again. The Divine Yvette watches with contempt, then bats at him when his whiskers are within striking distance.
The blow is anemic, but enough to startle Maurice out of his stripes. He lands like a sack of soggy potatoes, and stays there. The Divine Yvette sure is cute when she is mad, which I tell her.
"I am not mad, Louie," she says with a dainty shrug. "I am eating.
At that, she resumes to consume, as is her duty. What a pro!
I sniff the edge of her bowl, then back off. I have just gotten a good whiff of the muck she is eating.
What a pro!
By then the director, the collar lady, the cameramen and Miss Savannah Ashleigh are all converging on me with contorted faces and unintelligible growls, howls and yowls.
I leap for my life, spinning a gold-rimmed plate to the floor along with some silverware that feels as heavy as a Buccalatti service for twelve. The crash and clang of the falling place setting muffles the humans' naughty words, so my darling does not have to hear them.
The last I see of the Divine Yvette is her piquant little kisser buried to the nostrils in A La Cat.
The last I see of Maurice the rum-turn tiger, Yummy Tum-tum-tummy cat is his yellow-striped hindquarters being stuffed unceremoniously into a portable plastic cubicle like so much dog-meat. Too bad it is not a Dumpster.
Chapter 24
Jake of All Trades
"Cheyenne's dressing room? Sure thing." He jerked his head in a forward direction to indicate Temple was to follow him.
With thirty-three guys making five costume changes en masse somewhere in the Crystal Phoenix basement, Temple felt more secure asking a passing stranger for guidance than blundering around on her own.
Her guide was amiable, and also tall, but more lanky than hunky. In fact, he reminded her of Tiny Tim's cuter younger brother, which wasn't saying much for his looks.
But Temple followed his long legs as fast as she could without her high heels clicketying like a typewriter on the harsh concrete floors. She soon discovered that the pageant contestants had been given a vast, empty storage space as a dressing room. Long rows of imported folding chairs and tables topped with plug-in makeup mirrors had been curtained into two-person cubicles. Still, with thirty-plus contestants, any real privacy was--as always in theatrical ventures--a snare and a delusion.
Now that she had seen the dressing rooms, killing Cheyenne in the dark confusion of the spacious stage wings made much more sense than trying to do the deed discreetly in one of these cramped, confessional-sized, cloth-walled booths.
Temple's anonymous guide stopped by the burgundy entrance curtain to one cubicle and swaged it back, bowing with a sweeping gesture for her to enter.
She saw nothing inside she didn't expect to see . . . and smell. Theatrical makeup never hid behind floral additives; it broadcast a strong, oily-waxy odor. Temple eyed open tins of bronze body makeup, a much-fingered clear plastic bottle of some kind of oil, and an upstanding chorus line of mousses and other modern hair shapers and bodifiers necessary for long tresses, no matter the sex. That was one of the two adjacent tables. The other table top suffered from a neatness verging on abandonment, except for a blue folder, a box of tissue and a lone tin containing a pallid golden sun of makeup.
"Mine," the man said, noticing her surprise at the lack of cosmetics.
Temple turned, even more surprised. "You're a contestant?"
"Over forty." The man slumped onto his metal folding chair to gaze into a tilted makeup mirror rimmed with unlit theatrical bulbs, like the matching unit on Cheyenne's cluttered tabletop. The overhead fluorescent cast a sunken, sallow visage into the mirror. He made a deprecatory face. "More over forty than most. Jake Gotshall. And you are--?"
"Temple Barr. I work for the Crystal Phoenix."
"I guess I'm what you would call a wild card contestant." Jake smiled at his ghastly reflection.
He reminded Temple of Gumby, another elastic, vague figure dating from a few decades ago. Call it aging hippie. Jake's hair was long, but thin, lackluster and graying. From an ebbing hairline it dwindled into a limp ponytail that thinned into split ends before reaching his shoulder blades. His features were Gumby-soft too: no overshot ledge of jaw and chin to cast a shadow on massive pectorals; no lush eyebrows shading deep-set eyes. After a few days of seeing Incredible Hunks, Temple was amazed to realize that Jake looked completely masculine while claiming not a single characteristic that could be termed "hunkish."
He smiled at her expression.
"No doubt you're wondering why I called you all together here. Actually"--he looked carefully around Temple for signs of other people--"you're alone." His voice assumed an Alan Alda self-mockery. "No doubt you're wondering why I called you here alone?" His straggling eyebrows quirked upward in patented ogling villain style.
"I wanted to come here," Temple pointed out. "I took you for a stagehand."
"Oh, cruel fate! Does this indicate that my chances for this year's Incredible Hunk are not hunky-dory? Don't I look like the late hunk's dressing-room mate?"
Temple sat, gingerly, on Cheyenne's empty folding chair. "Apparently you are, whether you're sure about it or not. I knew Cheyenne, very casually. I wondered what had happened before he went on stage. Maybe you can tell me."
Jake leaned his elbows on the makeup table, hands cupping his amiable, if not particularly attractive face. "You're being too polite. You know you're dying to ask what I'm doing in an Incredible Hunk contest. Instead of inquiring about my late mirror-mate, you should wonder how I got past the contest doormen, in this case doorwomen."