Cat In A Quicksilver Caper

“Then that’s good because you aren’t just any therapist.”

“I’m not a therapist at all. I’m a radio shrink.”

By then Temple had crossed the threshold. She blinked to see a despised throw rug in front of the fire-engine-red sinuous Kagan couch.

Funny, she’d always pictured . . . never mind.

The gray melamine discount-store cubes in front of the couch had been replaced by mirror-bright stainless-steel cubes.

“Same effect but way upscale,” she noted.

“In case you haven’t noticed, everything Danny Dove does is way upscale.”

“The big production number, the chorus of glittering dozens. It’s his trademark. These improvements do make the room live up to the couch.”

“I’m glad you approve. This has forced me to upgrade to a gold card.”

Temple turned to Matt. She’d been shy about looking at him because the last time they’d been together had been pretty overheated. He always looked good enough to top with hot fudge and eat slowly with a long-stemmed spoon. Caramel-blond hair, milk chocolate eyes, toasted vanilla skin. He was one way to break your diet without gaining an ounce.

She had to admire Danny’s discipline. Dancers had that in spades. Not that Matt was fair game, but Danny’s instinct was to move beyond the surface to a genuine impulse to help the man who had helped him.

“I don’t know what he’s talked me into,” Matt said. “It doesn’t feel ‘me.’ ”

Matt’s “me” was in a state of evolution, maybe even revolution. Temple suddenly realized that she really, really wanted to be there.

“So,” she said, not letting her gaze eel away into social evasion. “Show me the new bedroom.”

Matt shrugged and opened the door. “It’s not that big, Danny said.”

Temple refrained from reading anything Danny said (or Matt innocently repeated) the wrong way, but she gasped as the opening door revealed the room beyond. She’d glimpsed this room before, a spare space with jerrybuilt student bookshelves and a barracks brand of simplicity.

The walls were now glazed shiny meringue white. A brushed stainless-steel king-size bed frame with touches of imperial gold thrust four sinuous posts toward the ceiling, where a Casablanca ceiling fan (the brand or the film variety; take your pick of the fantasy) made lazy circles against the daylight-washed curved ceiling.

The mirrored blinds on the window sliced the people on the scene into tantalizing slices of motion and distorted the bedposts into the disconcerting illusion of movement.

“I’ve never seen Art Nouveau Victorian before,” Temple said at last.

“Is that good? Or bad?”

“Depends on what you like.” Come to think of it, Matt’s bedroom experience was a combination of Art Nouveau and Victorian.

“My credit card company likes it a lot,” he said.

Temple laughed and turned to look at him, and at a mirrored unit that occupied the wall alongside the door and reflected them both against the sumptuous background of The Bed.

“What’s that?”

Matt tapped a pressure hinge and the mirrored doors opened to reveal a big plasma TV screen, speakers, sound system, equalizers. DVD recorder, and possibly an alien spaceship launcher.

“I guess Danny didn’t think the living room was big enough for an entertainment center,” he said.

“Do you have cable?”

“Cable? Is something falling down?”

“Cable TV.”

“Uh. No. Why?”

There would be time later to explain the facts of bedroom life. Maybe. At any rate, Matt was wired for sight, sound, and definitely not Disney entertainment.

“Danny,” he said, “suggested that I needed some help with, you know, bedspreads and sheets and things.”

“They’re gonna run you a fortune.”

“Why stop now?”

She glanced at him. The question had a certain edge. It could be about them as well as the room.

Temple escaped by approaching the bed. She absently ran her palm up one serpentine brushed-steel post. Cool. Smooth. Glittering with fugitive gold. The frame was a work of art. How had Danny convinced Matt to pay what it cost?

Of course. It was therapy for Danny. Cost would be no object. Matt had money. He just lacked the lust to spend it. So, Danny made him pay through the nose for a monument to . . . what? Lust? Love. Marital arts?

Matt was her would-be fiancé, and she hadn’t given him an answer. He came up behind her. He might be naive. He wasn’t stupid.

“So, what kinda sheets and stuff do I get? And where?”

“Tuesday Morning. Great discount linens. Fabulous stuff. I think . . . this room is basically off-white, silver, and gold. Maybe Greek Isle blues, from indigo to cerulean to teal to turquoise. Come to think of it, that’s too big a job for Tuesday Morning. We’ll have to hit the boutique bedwear shops in the upscale malls.”

“Yeah?” Matt was smiling down at her. “I’d really much rather shop with you than Danny. I like that blue idea. Matches your eyes.”

“I’ve never been a true-blue eye-color person. Just sort of blah gray-blue.”

“Silver-blue. That’s the way they look in here.”

And maybe they did. Danny wasn’t beyond establishing a flattering color scheme that would paint Temple right into it.