Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  Temple toddled to the built-in bar, which was stocked with nonalcoholic mixed beverages bearing cute names.

  She ordered a My Tai Chi—green tea and lime juice—and turned to study the room.

  “Pity.” The voice behind Temple set her spine on edge.

  She whirled. Dexter Manship himself had been eyeing her unawares. A shoulder-hoisted camera was eavesdropping and recording over his shoulder. The man holding the camera was half-hidden behind the mask of his equipment. Temple guessed they’d all come to take this constant surveillance so much for granted, they’d soon hardly notice it.

  “You’ve got quite a creative look, in your own trashy way, but it’ll all have to go, from the tattoos on out. We want little American beauties here, not five-dollar hookers.”

  “You let me in.”

  “For a bit of amusement and contrast to the real contenders. This is reality TV, sweets. Freaks sell.”

  “You’re living proof of that. Maybe I’ll surprise you and get the votes of the real judges.”

  He laughed, turning to play directly to the camera. “Guttersnipe but cheeky. It takes all kinds in America. Or, rather, America takes in all kinds.” He turned to pinch Temple’s overheating cheek before ambling off.

  Temple turned to the camera herself. “Somebody should tattoo the words ‘male chauvinist pig’ on his condescending hide.”

  Barely had the cameraman cruised away in Manship’s wake than a voice near her said, “Tut, tut, tut.”

  Beth was hovering nearby, oddly nervous. “You don’t want to take on Dexter Manship, my dear. He can be vicious.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Oh, well. His reputation. He’s not afraid to say the most outrageous things in front of, and about, everybody. I’d stay away from him, if I were you.”

  “He can’t seem to stay away from me.”

  “That’s another warning sign, isn’t it? Perhaps if you dressed less provocatively?”

  “Tell it to Britney Spears. If you can get past her bodyguards.”

  “We’re looking for a more wholesome female role model.”

  Temple eyed the room. Every candidate was dressed to kill. Even nervous thirteen-year-olds like Mariah wore clothes designed to show off, if not outright incite. It must drive their parents bananas.

  The word “bananas” brought her gaze back to Crawford, surrounded by his gaggle of naive young things who’d heard the word “media” and rushed like lemmings to any sleazeball therewith associated.

  It was really hard to be a sedate thirty pretending to be today’s exhibitionist nineteen. Temple had the same mixed feelings toward the Teen Queen contest as she did toward strippers.

  These young women and girls were desperately upwardly mobile. The tangible rewards they fought for were superficial, and in her heart of hearts she felt they were selling themselves short.

  “Don’t be glum, dear.” Beth squeezed Temple’s upper left arm, motorcycle tattoo, ladder of little chains on her knit top, and all. “I know your edge is just an act. You’ll learn here that you can be yourself and still succeed.”

  Not really, Temple thought. The only way I can succeed here is to not be myself and keep Mariah safe.

  Only what was she saving Mariah from? A lurking killer, or the corruption of becoming a Material Girl?

  Chapter 19

  Chicklets

  “Wow. You look cool-io. No wonder you didn’t buy a thing at the mall without metal on it.”

  Mariah stood in the middle of the room they shared, staring at Temple. Admiringly. Especially at the skimpy hot-pink stretch top with the short silver chains that were all that held the slit sleeves together.

  Temple caught Mariah in a quick embrace, even though the thirteen-year-old was already taller than her five-feet-nothing and probably hated to be hugged.

  “Careful,” she whispered in Mariah’s ear. “I bet we’re all on Candid Camera here 24/7. Supposedly we don’t know each other.”

  Temple drew back. “You’re a pretty cool chick yourself, kid. I was thinkin’ I’d draw Suzy Square for a roomie. You look like a with-it kitten.”

  “Thanks, but I’ve got a lot to work on.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like my weight.” Mariah opened her pink glossy folder. “Look at this slop they have me eating.”

  “It’s called vegetables and fruit.”

  “You sound like my mother.”

  “Gad!” Temple mimicked a heart attack and fell back on the huge king-size-plus bed they’d share. “Heaven forbid! I’m just trying to help Bugs Bunny sell his line of veggie delights.”

  Mariah giggled and sat on her side of the bed, a full body-length away. “You look like you’ve been living on radishes.”

  “Yeah, I got a great metabolism but no boobs. You, kiddo, could have a J-Lo figure if you don’t let adolescence pack on the pounds.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. That’s why the diet and exercise program for you. What you do now sets your babe appeal-o-meter for life. Capische? Suffer now or pay later.”

  “You’re not entirely flat.”

  “Thanks,” Temple whispered to Mariah, “but I’m implementing things for my role as the Bad Girl candidate.”

  “No, really.” Mariah, a quick study, whispered back. “You look cool. What’s with the wig, though?”

  “I know some of the folks around here, and don’t want to be recognized. ’Cuz they know me too.”

  “Oooh, too bad. I keep forgetting you’re here to finger a bad person.”

  “Thanks for the compliment, kid.” Temple lifted her voice to a normal tone. Time to play to the concealed mikes.

  “I like to go by ‘mari.’”

  “Why, girl?! You’ve got a great name. Look at Mariah Carey. She’s cool.”

  “And she’s just changed her name to ‘Mimi.’ My mother liked that name, but even Mariah Carey thought it was lame.”

  “Listen, if I knew why my mother named me what she did, I’d have a Ph.D. in parental psychology.”

  “So you hate Xoe?”

  “No, it gets attention and distracts them from who I might really be. Oops.” Whispering again. “Neglected Basic Step One in Spy-Girl 101.”

  Temple then proceeded to check the large room and adjoining bathroom for all the usual suspect places for hidden cameras and bugs. Mariah watched with round eyes, then joined in the hunt.

  “What a posh joint,” Temple exclaimed for the unseen recording devices. “Wonder why the dude who built this place went bankrupt? It’s on sale for four-point-six million. I bet somebody will pounce on this white elephant once it’s become famous on national TV.”

  “Like us?” Mariah asked.

  “Well, I hope somebody doesn’t pounce on us … unless we want him to. How about that win-a-date thing? You like the boy band guy, Zach French?”

  Mariah shrugged. “He’s okay. For a kid. I like the guy your age group gets, Aiden Rourke, way better. He’s such a stud.”

  “Now, how do you know that? He could be a dud. You young chicks always go for the older guy. It’s a stage.”

  “The whole world is a stage,” Mariah retorted, spreading her arms and shamelessly playing to the presumed cameras.

  Temple wished she had spotted something but maybe it was too early. Or maybe there was some law against secretly filming underage kids like Mariah. There oughta be.

  Though the place seemed clean, so far, Temple advised her roomie via whisper that they’d better discuss “real stuff” only in the bathroom from now on.

  “Gotcha, girlfriend.” Mariah high-fived her. “You really like my name?”

  “I love it. Your mom, who’s way off base on soooo much, was dead-on about that one.”

  “She is kinda square.”

  “Not square, hon. Wrapped tight. Probably because she worries so much about you, which mothers do. I had one of those myself once. Still do.”

  “What would she say about your being here?”

&n
bsp; “She wouldn’t say a thing, Mariah, because she’d be passed out cold in a faint on the entry hall floor.”

  Mariah giggled again. “You are so funny. This is gonna be a riot.”

  Temple devoutly hoped not.

  That night they found that the Pink Fairy had visited their closets. Each had a pink Teen Queen sleep T-shirt and terrycloth robe and matching jogging suit and workout wear, all with their names embroidered in silver on the shoulder.

  Once clothed like Stepford-wife wannabes, each contestant was singled out from the herd after breakfast on the patio and marched off to either exercise regimes or consultations with the coach/judges and various gurus.

  Savannah Ashleigh told Temple her Goth look was “dead,” never getting the humor of the pronouncement. She also said it was “aging,” as was her Cher hair, and had to go.

  Dexter Manship, told her she had control and authority issues. Surprise. He did too.

  Her Aunt Kit Carlson said Temple needed to find a more positive cultural role model and expressed dismay that her talent selection would be a rap number she would write herself.

  Beth Marble told Temple her persona hid a sensitive soul that needed to fight free and fly.

  She was given a schedule of meals, exercises, and appointments with all of them, and signed up for a shopping expedition with a wardrobe consultant on the second-to-last day.

  In the mansion’s sprawling den, Temple found several of the contestants sprawling on the off-white upholstered furniture.

  They eyed Temple as warily as sheep would a wolf when she entered the room. Mariah was still undergoing interviews, but some girls her age sat on the floor trying to get the Xbox to work.

  Like the other media equipment in this room, it seemed to have been disabled.

  “No distractions,” a lanky blond girl commented, watching Temple take in the scene. “Come on in. I’m Norma Jean. All we can do here is exercise our butts off, consult, train, primp for the ever-present cameras, or hang and get on each other’s nerves. You don’t look like any competition to worry about.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Too short,” another girl said, her long legs stretched out on the floor and her hair color so blond it touched dead white on the color scale. “I’m Blanca.”

  “Too dark,” said yet another blonde, this one even yellower. “Call me Honey.”

  “Too flat,” pronounced an ash blonde with platinum streaks who filled out her spandex top like helium does a balloon. “I’m Silver.”

  “Too freckled,” complained a dishwater blonde who’d bothered to come close enough to ogle Temple almost nose-to-nose. “I’m Ashlee.”

  So much for sisterhood.

  Every girl in the place except Temple hailed from the merry old land of Clairol.

  At least no one said “too old,” which would have really given the game away.

  Temple took a seat on a giant ottoman, not sure how one began talking with piranhas. The last time she’d been in a female competition had been high school softball, although some might say females were always in competition.

  As the aura of all that blondness grew familiar, Temple saw that none of these girls were as picture-perfect as the magazine ads. Yet they all had terrific facial bone structure, like the radical makeover candidates on The Swan. These reality show producers were savvy enough to start with a good foundation before they worked their “magic” transformation.

  “Hi. I’m Amber. Don’t listen to them.” A lanky strawberry blonde with thunder thighs joined Temple on the ottoman, which could probably seat forty. Temple didn’t envy her. That body type was hard to change. “We’re all hyper-nervous about our own evaluations. Have you done your interviews yet?”

  Temple nodded. Suddenly, she was the center of everyone’s interest.

  “Are they too beastly mean to stand, like Simon on American Idol?” Silver asked.

  “They’re pretty blunt,” Temple said. “It wouldn’t be good TV otherwise. You can see the cameras and you know they want to make you sweat.”

  “Who could see you sweat with that mop of dyed black hair?”

  “You sound just like Mr. Adair, the Hair Guy. At least I stand out in a crowd,” Temple added pointedly. “Why did you all want to be in such a pressure-cooker, anyway?”

  “Same reasons you did,” Ashlee said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Temple doubted anyone else in the crew was a plant. Or a mole … oh. There actually could be a fake mole, as opposed to the real mole part Temple was playing. Reality shows loved to use fake contestants as insiders who could stir up trouble, keep everyone on edge, and rat to the producers on them all.

  “What are your reasons?” Honey asked as if beeswax wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

  “Needed to get away from the family, such as they are.” Temple snapped her gum for emphasis. “My brothers’ bike club was keeping me up nights.”

  “You’re brother’s a biker?” Blanca asked with a curdled expression.

  “Brothers. Plural. I have … six, I think. Yeah. You ever heard of the Demon Dozen?”

  “No.”

  “Why’d they let you in here?” Ashlee made no secret of the fact that this was a comment on the bad taste of the producers, not merely a question.

  “That’s a no-brainer. I’m the only one here who isn’t a Paris Hilton clone. Thin and dumb is getting old.”

  “Would you please stop chewing that tacky gum!” Blanca said.

  “If it weren’t tacky, it wouldn’t be gum, sis. Can’t stop. It’s my weight-control secret.”

  “Gum?”

  “Yeah.” Temple blew another big pink bubble, then reeled it back into her mouth. “Burns calories. The longer you chew it, the more you lose.” Now that she had their rapt attention, it was time for a kicker, the more ridiculous the better. “And if it’s green tea gum—very rare, that stuff—you’ll lose a pound a day.”

  “Really?” Amber edged near, her lips almost quivering to acquire a wad of green tea bubble gum.

  Temple was seriously wondering how she could “manufacture” such a thing.

  “All right, girls. Ready to rock-and-roll on the exercise mats?”

  They all turned to regard the Barbie doll in bright pink spandex yoga pants and top. “I’m Brandy, y’alls personal trainer, and an hour a day keeps the cellulite away. We’ll be working out by the heart-shaped pool. Won’t that be inspiring? Follow me.”

  Silver was both preening and frowning. “Didn’t Jayne Mansfield have a heart-shaped pool? She was the best blonde bimbo since Marilyn.”

  “She had a heart,” Temple said, “but not a head.”

  Only ex-newsies would remember the car accident that had decapitated the actress in nineteen-something ancient. The newspapers and TV stations always like to recall the date of anything grisly once a decade or so and call it an anniversary mention. That was one reason Temple had left the news biz for the PR biz. Grisly did not go over big in PR. Except, somehow, it seemed, on accounts she handled … .

  The crew of identically clad contestants, joined by the Little Sisters from the breakfast room, marched behind Brandy out to the welcome sunlight of the house’s expansive grounds.

  What a sight to behold.

  Twenty-eight hot pink yoga mats surrounded the heart-shaped swimming pool, its gunite walls painted pink for the occasion.

  The only thing that marred the pink perfection of the scene was the whipped cream letters lying like fluffy clouds across every mat, spelling out …

  Everyone else stopped cold in the hot Las Vegas sun, frowning into their hot pink sweat bands, but Temple/Xoe just had to step forward and count:

  Die, you damn heartless bitches!

  Twenty-eight letters exactly, counting the punctuation marks. Twenty-eight little candidates all in a row.

  Someone was a perfectionist.

  Chapter 20

  Whipped Scream

  You have not lived until you have seen the Las Vegas crime scene inves
tigation folks (now famed on TV) photographing twenty-eight hot-pink yoga mats with whipped cream pooling on them in the sun.

  By the time that they, and I, have been alerted and are on the scene, the colorful language, laid out one letter and/or punctuation mark to a mat, has melted enough that the b in “bitches” looks more like a sideways w. The authorities have to take the witnesses’ word for it as to the original intention.

  I, however, have to take no one’s word, and never do. That is why I am such an ace detective. I am incorruptible. I must admit, though, that the whipped cream was a temptation too yummy to leave untasted. I was alone on the scene then. My Miss Temple, aka Xoe Chloe for the nonce, had been shepherded indoors to await the police, along with everybody else. Human, that is. Or what passes for it on reality TV. The show security staff, i.e., bronzed gods in loin cloths, were arrayed along the doors to the pool area, facing inside to keep twenty-eight agitated candidates and assorted staff members from messing up the scene of the culinary crime.

  So I was free to explore on my own.

  The first thing my shameless taste test discovered was that the whipped cream was not even beaten. It was, in fact, a particularly soapy shaving cream, one that offered a full-bodied texture and a risqué and amusing hint of mint.

  Not my vintage, thank you. And I thank Bast that I am not required to shave. It would be a full-time job.

  My unstunted white whiskers—vibrissae to the cognoscenti at the vet’s office—were double-dipped in fluffy white after my explorations, so I paused under a bush to wash off the evidence.

  Yuck! No wonder people wash out the mouths of their sassy kits with soap. I would not even refer to a female dog by the proper term after a close encounter with this stuff.

  I am clean-shaven as far as my kind is concerned but fighting residual nausea when I notice that a couple of curious cats have whiskered in on my action.

  Before I can throw my weight around and order them away, I realize that both are of Persian extraction, and one is of the sublime shade of platinum blonde known as “shaded silver.”