So I hunker down in the so-called woods and wait, trying not to let the artificial smells of plastic and putty put me off the scent. Soon I pin my ears back as a gaggling crowd of tourists and their jabbering offspring stumble down the Yellow Brick Road that weaves through this movie-set woods like a center highway line painted by a drunken sailor with Montezuma's revenge. An awesome assortment of tennis shoes parades by, but nowhere do I spot my little doll's high-heeled sneakers. Okay, they are not really sneakers. They are black denim with a rubber-clad sole and heel made to resemble maple, so they are easy on the ears.
The babbling gawkers hunt and peck down the Yellow Brick Road while I shimmy my way near, sniffing for Toto. Luckily, this setting is so artificial that nothing natural has been permitted to permeate the pathway. At last! I spot Miss Temple's dainty spikes hushing down the lane. She is tailing the sightseers, but pauses by the first solo act in this compact scenario, little Miss Dorothy Gale with her Red Riding Hood basket and her red-sequined shoes.
Miss Temple Barr has no time to dally with picnic baskets and checked pinafores. She squats down by Miss Dorothy and studies the sequined pumps. She doesn't even look up when the mannequin cranks into life and begins declaiming a pre-recorded message. I can tell what Miss Temple is thinking, even from the rear (hers, not mine). She is mooning over the ruby red slippers, though she knows that they are a copy of a reproduction. She is never one to overlook a snazzy pair of shoes.
But she rises with an audible sigh and makes a face at Miss Dorothy Gale. It is not really her shoes Miss Temple covets in her high-heeled sole. Too low, too dowdy, too dusty for my little Rustilocks. She minces on, eerily silent for once in her new snooping shoes.
What can a fellow do but follow?
Not forty feet farther down the YBR, she stops cold. Or perhaps she stops hot. Either way, she is as still as one of these overdressed, over-chatty statues. I slither closer to discover the object of her attention.
I am soon sorry.
Someone has escaped the gingerbread kiosk, and it is no ticket-seller. In fact, this figure could not sell flying monkeys to a circus. There she stands--tall and green and thin and unlovely-no girl from Impanema, but the Wicked Witch of the West, a sight designed to give even an anteater an upset stomach. Her clawed hands are clutching her glassy spy-globe while her sharp nose and chin try to touch warts as she cackles about what she will do to Miss Dorothy Gale "and the little dog, too."
Actually, maybe the Wicked Witch is not such a bad sort, after all.
Miss Temple must have come to the same conclusion, for she stands mesmerized by the animated performance, which is good, but not earth-stopping. I am somewhat taken aback--in fact, I am forced to scoot under a scraggly spreading plant of some sort-when Miss Tempie bends down and begins examining the ground around the witch.
She keeps an eye over her shoulder for wandering tourists, but seems to be looking for something.
Not five feet away she finds it. A genuine tree branch, about three feet long. Scrawny, like the witch.
And leafless and loose for the taking, which she does. My poor little doll. I have been neglecting her for the siren call of my kind. Can her state in life be so barren that she must resort to collecting dead branches as a hobby? What happened to her hankering for shoes?
Whatever the answer, I am not about to get it now.
Miss Temple discreetly brandishes her branch with a triumphant expression, then returns to confront the witch. Hey, I do not cotton to the old grouch, but there is no need to take a switch to her animated effigy!
Even as I doubt the evidence of my eyes, the green sky above the Emerald City shifts with lightning.
Thunder rumbles and glowers. I anticipate the arrival of a gaggle of security guards while the message
"Surrender Temple" is etched across the dreadful lime sky above.
Miss Temple Barr, of course, is oblivious to all but her weird task. With a last lunge forward and a terrific jerk upward on her stick, she manages to dislodge the witch's long black skirt from the ground.
Beyond it I glimpse shadow and no substance--the witch has nothing left to stand on! No wonder she melted like liquified rubber at the film's end. I also finally understand the object of Miss Temple's machinations. The witch has no feet, and therefore no shoes.
Oh, what a clever, inventive girl my little doll is! I confess that I have utterly underestimated her for once. Of course she would suspect a pair of black-cat Halloween shoes of being hidden under the Wicked Witch of the West! Not only did the ruby slippers originally bedeck the witch's feet (when she had these useful appendages, which her stand-in does not), but black cats and witches go together in the popular imagination like white doves and peace. Not in this instance, alas, but good try Miss Temple!
Even as I transmit waves of support and approval, I notice that someone human has sneaked up on Miss Temple. A blond young woman in a short skirt and a vest. She is frowning.
"Pardon me, ma'am," says this Goldilocks in the wrong world.
Oh, Miss Temple must hate that "ma'am." She straightens so fast her precious branch snaps into two skimpy pieces, and she knocks her shin on the fence rail "Did you lose something?" The babe In the woods regards my dear roommate with a solicitous smile that is most denigrating.
Never let it be said that Midnight Louie associates with those overburdened by the heavy weight of literal truth.
"Uh ... yes," Miss Temple extemporizes in a wide-eyed Dorothy way. "A ... cat. Not a real cat. A little black cat figure I keep on my keychain. I think it rolled into the woods right here."
"I don't see anything," the helpful girl guide says.
Meanwhile, Miss Temple has noticed the uniform nature of the girl's attire and realizes that she has been caught by someone official.
"Maybe I lost it getting out of the car. I'll check there. Am I too late for the show?"
"Almost," the young woman answers. "Better hurry."
And so Miss Temple Barr does: right past the blathering animated tin woodman and scarecrow and into the towering green domes of the Emerald City itself. The young woman watches her retreat so closely that I cannot follow, although I am dying to see the magic act inside the fabled viridian metropolis.
Instead I make my hidden way to the Emerald City's other side, observing that it is constructed of particle board and glitter. Illusions. Life is a magic act and this time I am in the last row. But I am waiting in the fake greenery when Miss Temple emerges from the structure, blinking. Above us, thunder grumbles and the Wizard exhorts the masses from the podium of his balloon gondola.
The more things are different, the more they are the same-- here or over the rainbow. And where are the purported bluebirds, anyway? I could use a snack even more than Miss Temple Barr could use another pair of shoes.
Chapter 28
Romantic Rendezvous
"Where have you been all morning?" Kit demanded the next day, sounding mighty like Temple's mother.
"Out. Hun-ting" Temple echoed Bela Lugosi's fiendish intonation when he had played Dr.
Frankenstein's hunchbacked assistant; he didn't always get to be Dracula.
"Okay, Igor," said Kit, proving herself well up on vintage horror movies. "Shoe business again, huh?"
Temple nodded, not eager to relay her indignities at Fabrizio's hands. She was also wondering where Kit had been all morning, given Jake's disturbing new information about her aunt's late night assignations. And Electra hadn't been too evident this morning, either, come to think of it!
Oblivious to Temple's mental reservations, Kit verbally careened on. "Whilst you were off tracking the wild Weitzman, I arranged for a high-powered coven of romance writers to assemble.