But inside I am a free spirit.
Party on!
Chapter 15
Claus for Alarm
Deck the Halls with . . . pigtails and coveralls.
Everyone escaped the conference room at six- something that evening. Despite the massive quantities of coffee consumed, they lurched blinking like zombies from the still- dark room into the well lit halls.
While they'd been closeted within their media cocoon, the outer world of Colby, Janos and Renaldi had altered dramatically. The exiting people couldn't evade it, since they all nearly tripped over the major change in personnel. An unlikely addition.
Toddlers, tots, tykes and preteens ran, roared and raised heck up and down the halls, all dressed like Santa's elves in green and red (some rebels in green or red), imps clothed in plaids, paisleys, velvet, corduroy and velour, in holly and cat-angel Christmas prints.
Halfheartedly chasing the escapees were harried parents from knots of chatting wives or joking husbands.
Andrew Janos, obviously coveting a Golden Globe award, never stopped running his camcorder but came charging from the dark, the camera's light blaring like a steam locomotive's single warning headlight.
The din, of course, was many times the normal hubbub of hyped-up ad people stepping on each other's sentences and building molehill notions into media-campaign mountains through a round robin of creative one-upmanship.
Temple hadn't bothered donning Louie's Cat Aboard in the dark, so she toted him and it before her, no hand free to shelter her ears from the shocking howls, squeals, giggles, bleats, bellowed orders, whines and assorted, and mostly ineffective, parental pleadings.
"Duck into my office," Kendall suggested in Temple's ear. "You can change there. I don't think you or Louie would much care for the rest room at the moment."
Temple watched a young mother squat before an adorably dressed little girl, struggling to comb a tangled ponytail. The child's protesting screech would have deafened a bat, or Batman.
Temple nodded yes to the suggestion, clutched Midnight Louie as close as his girth would permit and made for Kendall's crowded office.
"Did your father really mean that the cats were not to be confined for the party?" Temple asked Kendall as they arrived at her office door. "I mean, all those strange kids wandering around. Uh, not that the kids are strange, inherently, only that they're unknown to the cats and the cats are unknown to them and someone could step on someone's toes or tail and someone could claw or bite someone."
"Colby, Janos and Renaldi kids don't claw or bite," Kendall said with a firm smile. "I think Dad's looking for how the cats react to crowds, unleashed. There'll be pet store openings to attend, and the spokescat has to be mellow enough to roll with the punches."
Temple eyed Midnight Louie, lolling with flattened ears in the bosom of his cradle. "Mellow" was not a word she would use to describe him.
"But... if there is an incident, and kids can tease animals without meaning to--"
"We want to know if there will be an incident. If one occurs here, our employees are less likely to sue for a cat scratch than the public at large. Better to know now. What's the matter, are you afraid that Louie will be ninja cat outside his carrier? He was a pussycat on the conference table."
"But the people sitting around it were adults, not kids."
"Don't be too sure about that," Kendall said sardonically, shutting the door.
The message was clear: the Christmas party was another "test" for the animals as well as the people. "Don't hiss, scratch or bite," Temple admonished Louie. "And don't snag my velvet dress or anybody else's."
She swished her black stretch-velvet turtleneck dress from the door hook, and changed clothes with a nervous eye on some still-lit offices in the opposite skyscraper--a cleaning guy waved. Once the dress was on, she waved back, then topped her velvet neck and shoulders with a red-beaded openwork shawl. Trust Las Vegas for the latest experiment in instant, portable glitz. Her plain black Stuart Weitzman pumps sported red Austrian-crystal lips that were either cheeky or surreal, depending on interpretation. They certainly looked Christmassy. She was afraid to trust the fully spangled Midnight Louie Austrian-crystal shoes to such a big, toe-stepping, punch-spilling crowd.
"Too bad you're fussy about wearing anything off camera, Louie. That flamingo fedora you wore in the Las Vegas ad footage was tres chic, but would be sadly out of season here and now. And I guess you'd snarl at a red bow tie on a collar."
Louie, who had leaped atop Kendall's desk to bat the red fringe that draped from Temple's bodice, withheld comment. But not his claws.
"I hope you used your conference-room box recently," Temple admonished her bored darling, wishing she'd had the foresight herself to manage a rest-room visit earlier.
In minutes she had extracted her small purse from the bottom of Louie's carrier, a great place to carry valuables like credit cards, and slung it over one shoulder. She picked up Louie, sans carrier, and managed to open the office door. First, she peeked into the hall.
The Tiny Tot Parade had assembled elsewhere by now, but the Children's Chorus came loud and muffled from deeper within the suite of offices.
As if following a latter-day Pled Piper's audible trail, Temple found It passing the darkened conference room. Something moved within. Someone. Someone wearing red. The motion stopped the moment it attracted her sideways glance.
Louie chose that instant to decide that he was no longer a carry-cat.
Four dangling legs flailed. Temple, fearing snags in her expensive new velvet dress, held his weight away from her. She had an invisible opponent. Gravity grabbed Louie's leaden mid-section and pulled until it pooled like mercury in his tail-section. Louie ended up falling/jumping to the floor.
Being a cat and instinctively recognizing the least convenient place for him to go at any given moment, he immediately darted though the ajar door into the darkened conference room.
"Lou-ie!"
Temple felt like the harried mother of a delinquent tot. She dove into the dark after him, her hand slapping the wall inside for light switches.
Her palm found only smooth flannel paneling. Such oversized rooms as this usually featured multi-switch installations, not near the door like a normal switch plate, but someplace discreet and unexpected . . . and far away. Still, Temple thought, one guiding light switch must be near.
She fumbled in the dark, wondering whom she had seen lurking in here. "Lurking" was the only word to describe the darting, shy almost-motion that she had glimpsed. Now, the vast dark room was silent except for her own clumsy thumps and shuffles. Louie, naturally, could navigate this dim expanse as quietly as a snowfall.
Temple's fingers finally found a single light switch four feet from the door, and flipped up the lever. One wan light winked on, revealing Louie in Halloween-cat pose, back arched, on the conference table, facing off with . . . Santa Claus.
Then Temple remembered. Brent Colby, Jr., always played Santa at these company Christmas parties. He had to change and hide out somewhere until he made his entrance. Thanks to Louie, she had stumbled into his dressing room. Great move.
Louie clearly nonplussed Santa, and he seemed equally startled to see Temple. He had backed away from the open door's sight line. His mouth remained frozen into a round, jolly little O, as if he wanted to speak to her but had thought better of it.
She wondered if, like the tin woodman, he needed a little oil at the jaw joints. Then she noticed a costly crystal lowball glass beside him on the table.