Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit (29 page)

Brandon chuckled, his face and manner resuming their earlier bonhomie. "Clever fellow too. How'd you get into the TV shrink game?"

“
I'm not a shrink. I was a Catholic priest for most of
my adult life."

“Now that surprises me. Also relieves me. Can't have the wife too enamored of sharp young men on TV. You left, then?"

“Officially, yes, the priesthood. One doesn't ever leave the Church, I'm told."

“I've heard that same sentiment from Chicago's most famous priest, Father Greeley. Wonderful man.”

Matt felt he had now been firmly pinned to whatever part of the bulletin board Brandon reserved for such alien life forms as celibate priests, current or former.

“What can I do for you?" Brandon repeated.

“Not for me so much as for my mother."

“Your mother—"

“She lives here. In Chicago."

“
And you?"

“I live in Las Vegas now."

“
Las Vegas? Really? Quite the switch for you, I imag
ine."

“
It's mostly a city that ordinary people live in. That's
where my syndicated radio talk show originates.”

“
Syndicated. Indeed.”

Matt hated to use his media connections but they ap
peared to work.

“
Would you like my girl to get you a cup of coffee or
tea? Something stronger?"

“
No. Thank you. What I'd like is for you to take a look at this . . . document my mother signed thirty-five years
ago. Your firm drew it up."

“
An old document. Quite the mystery. Now you've got
me curious. Let's see it.”

Matt lifted the briefcase, unlatched it, and brought out
the three-page agreement that bore his mother's signature.

Brandon lowered his silver-haired head to the pages,
skimmed the first page. Flipped the paper back over the
staple in the upper-left-hand corner.

“
A deed transfer. Straightforward. Your mother was
given title to a two-flat." He hit the third page, where she
was required to seek no more "compensation" and to
make no further "contact" with the unnamed party who
had transferred ownership of the two-flat to her.

“Most . . . unusual.”

Matt had watched Brandon's face fade again to gray.
He'd heard people described as "going white" with shock
but he'd never actually seen the phenomenon before. It
was more a grim tightening of the features than actual
paling, but there was no doubt that what Brandon saw in
those papers disturbed him.

“An unusual deed transfer but quite binding, I'd
think." Brandon held the papers out to Matt, who didn't
take them.

“
It was a compensation for my birth. Child support of
a sort, if you will. My mother was very young, not even
eighteen, and she signed it without legal advice."

“Still, she signed it."

“
But I didn't. I'd like to know who the unnamed 'party
of the first part' is."

“
Impossible. The anonymity is as binding on this firm
as your mother's agreement to seek no further informa
tion was, and is, on her."

“
I'm not her. I want to know the name of the family
that made arrangements for my domestic life. I want to
know my family name."

“
You have a perfectly good, and fairly famous, one
now: Devine. I advise you to be happy with it."

“
It's a phony name, Mr. Brandon. Do you know where my mother got it? From her favorite Christmas hymn, '0
Holy Night.' The line goes, '0 Holy Night, 0 Night Divine . . .'“

Brandon kept his eyes on his lizardskin desk set.
"However it came to be, it's very . . . telephonic. Stick
with it and forget delving into the dead past.”

^—
The dead past' involves how I came to be. I'm not
going to leave it alone."

“
I can't help you break the confidentiality of a docu
ment this firm constructed."

“
Why not? 'The truth shall set you free.' My mother
was a naive teenager in desperate circumstances when
she signed that document. Encouraging her to do so
might be construed as fraud. Who paid her off to keep
her, and myself, ignorant of my father's identity?"

“I can't tell you."

“Why not?"

“
I have to protect the party of the first part, our client.”

“
But it's my birth, my life, hidden behind these three
sleazy little pages buying silence and selling souls."
Brandon waved the papers at Matt again. His face crin-
kled with appeal. "That was almost thirty-five years ago, young man! Take my advice. Forget about it. You have a
successful life. I assume you can take quite good finan
cial care of your mother."

“Someone felt guilty, or that paper would never have been drawn up. Guilt doesn't melt like hailstones. It sits
and festers. Whoever wanted that secrecy enough to buy
it doesn't really sleep well at night, thirty-five years down
the drain or not. I'm doing him or them a favor. And I
won't give up or go away. Quite frankly, I started this on
my mother's behalf. I tried to advise her against it with
the same platitudes you're now urging on me. But Shakespeare said it best: 'the past is prologue.' That's the story
of all our lives, if you think about it, and we all deserve to
know our own pasts.”

Brandon jabbed the papers at him one last time.

“Keep that," Matt told him. "It's only a copy. I'm after the originals."

“You're quite eloquent, you know that? I'm glad you're
not an attorney. But the law's on my side. I can't help you,
or your mother. I'm sorry. I can't.”

Matt stood up. "I want to know. I need to know. I intend to know. Maybe other attorneys in this city would like to know too. Maybe Amanda would like a personal story from an expert on her show. Maybe a lot of possibilities are out there somewhere. Like the truth. Thanks for your time. Give your wife my regards.”

It was a long walk to the door. He took it as if he had
won, not lost. Hearing Brandon make the same argu
ments to him that he had given his mother had turned
Matt 180 degrees on this whole issue.

She had a right to know. He had a right to know. They had a right to know.

Opening the door, he almost bumped into the lurking paralegal.

“
Oh. Mr. . . . Devine. May I show you out?"
He smiled. "Sure. Thanks. These offices are a rat maze."

“
Don't we know it? So many junior partners.”

She happily led him through carpeted hallways that turned and twisted, always passing by more paper-filled work cubicles.

“
When do you find time to watch
The Amanda Show?"
he asked as they neared the central reception area.

“
Amanda Show?
Daytime TV. Oh, I don't. Ever find
time, I mean. I know it's a Chicago institution. Why do
you ask about it?"

“
Because it's a Chicago institution, like
Oprah,"
he
said, shrugging as if he didn't care.

So her amazing interest in him didn't derive from his TV appearances. Surely his recent
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
hair highlighting job wasn't solely responsible for these frequent dewy glances?

“Here we are. Reception, Mr. Win—" She glanced,
mortified, at the appointment roster in her hand. "Oh,
yes. Right. Mr. Devine."

“Thank you.”

He'd never meant those two words more. Moving
through the crowded reception area, barely seeing the
blur of briefcase-carrying men and women, he mentally repeated the young woman's slip of the tongue over and over:
Mr.
Win . . .
Winthrop? Winston?
Winter?
Winterhalter?
Winscott. Wingate. The Chicago phonebook would be
crammed with enough possibilities to make his vision
blur at the tiny type repeating
W-i-n
into infinity.

So, suddenly, there were possibilities. He had been mistaken for someone. A client. Apparently there was a
marked family resemblance. He looked like someone
alive in this world besides his mother.

The feeling was weird, and frightening, and infuriating.
He would find out who, one way or another.
Win
is for
Winning.

Chapter 31

Kissing Cousins

Matt's mind was running in circles as he headed to his
mother's apartment in a cab through rush-hour traffic.
He'd happened on a hornets' nest at Brandon, Oakes, and
McCall but exactly what variety of wasp had he stirred
up? Legal shyster? Loyal attorney protecting a client?

Maybe he should have stayed. Watched the employees leave for the night. He had a hunch someone would be hearing about his visit. But . . . no one would be showing up until tomorrow. If ever. Let your fingers do the walking, use the phone or e-mail nowadays. Never show your face. Someone might notice your lying eyes.

“Here you are, bub.”

Said pointedly. While Matt had been enacting various scenarios in his head, they'd arrived at his mother's apartment building. A bland block of windows. Horizontal glass windows, tall vertical exterior columns of stone. Plaid fifties-era urban high-rise.

Matt paid the driver, tipping him way too well. He couldn't be bothered calculating a few dollars when his whole life was suddenly a million-dollar question. He
entered the echoing lobby, so much more pretentious
than the Circle Ritz's music-box proportions. And
therefore, so much less homey. And no Temple here to
run into.

He was whistling by the time the elevator disgorged
him on the twenty-second floor, thinking of Temple. The key his mother had given him on his last visit to Chicago
turned in the plain apartment door with its lofty four-digit
number. He was already relishing the peace and quiet of an empty apartment—Mom was at her job as a restaurant hostess, miles away. Wouldn't be back until eleven
P.M.

By then he'd have relaxed, chilled out, gathered his
wits so he wouldn't blurt out his discovery before he had any hard evidence. . . .

The door gave and opened before the key had finished
its turns. A tallish young woman stood behind it.
"Matt! Come in."

“Krystyna! Krys. You're here."

“Yup. Live here, off and on. Didn't Mira tell you?”

“Uh, no."

“
Don't
you
look as yummy as a caramel sundae!
What's with the bleach, dude?”

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Blond in
this instance. His cousin Krystyna's hair was a kaleidoscope of platinum-on-blonde-on-black.

He put a dismissive hand to his hair, remembering it
looked different. "Photo shoot for the radio station. I'm
told it'll wash out." Close enough. "You, on the other
hand. . . ."

“
Madonna, Evita-in-Krakow style. You like the indigo highlights?"

“Colorful. I'm surprised to see you."

“
Have I got a Mae West line for you! Never mind. Not
suitable for ex-priests. I guess my job is to entertain you until Mira gets home."

“So . . . you live here. Off and on. I take it the punk boyfriend is around during the off?"

“
Huh? Him? Oh, history. I was young and stupid then.”

“
Three months ago?"

“Yeah. Want a beer?”

She was poised on the carpet verge next to the
linoleum that marked off the alley kitchen.

“Yeah." Matt realized he needed one.

Krys. She changed like a rainbow. Since he'd first met
her when he'd connected to his Chicago relatives six
months ago, she'd gone from breathless teenager to re
bellious young adult, heavy on young to now . . . as
sertive single chick. Cousin. Assertive single cousin.

First cousin. Like it mattered to her.

She brought a Bohemian beer, the dark brown bottle sweating goose bumps of condensation. She didn't offer him a glass.

“
So." Leaning against the eating bar that divided
kitchen and living room. Five-foot-nine of fine Polish womanhood. Blue eyes both guarded and challenging. "How'll we kill some time until Mira gets home? Cousin clearest.”

He suggested that they sit and talk. That was his profession, after all.

Or watch some TV. The remote was front and center on
the small round fruitwood coffee table.

“
I watched you on
The Amanda Show
today," she told him, settling beside him on the couch. Settling way too much beside him.

“
Really? It's amazing how many people in Chicago
miss my golden hour.”

She sighed. "You're really good. I studied advertisingin class. TV is a 'cool' medium. The cooler and more laid back you are, the hotter you come across."

“Glad you're learning something in college. Is Uncle Stash letting you major in art?"

“
No." She sat up from her couch-lounging position,
took a long swig of beer. "He still treats me like a kid. A
woman."

“
I thought you wanted to be treated like a woman."
Matt was surprised at himself for challenging this incendiary cousin with a crush on him.

She grinned. "Not that way. Like the kind of woman
you write off and put down. Polish Catholic burqa anyone? Like a nobody with nothing about her that counts."

“
He's old-fashioned. He can't help it."

“So I should suffer?"

“No.”

She set down the beer. Moved closer on the couch. She
wore a soft black sweater that ebbed off her shoulders
like ebony surf. Cashmere maybe, or just a really good acrylic.

Wow. He was really absorbing a lot from Temple. Including enough savvy to regard his high-spirited young cousin as sheer poison.

“
I'm mad at you." She sounded like an adolescent
again, emotionally bipolar. Also like a Lolita.

“Why?" Might as well walk into it.

“It could have been you." When he continued to look blank, she added. "Last Christmas.”

Matt sipped the beer, knowing he wouldn't like where this was going.

She mirrored his gesture, eyed him sideways. "Instead it was that loser Zeke."

“
I met him. You brought him to the restaurant where
my mother works. Apparently he wasn't such a loser
then."

“
If you remember him, you know I'm not lying."

“He . . . like most guys his age he's just self-involved, dead set on being too cool to care. Or too cool to appear to. He'll civilize in a few years."

“I wish you'd told me that before I lost my so-called innocence to him."

“You—Krys, I don't need to know this."

“Are you shocked?"

“I don't hand out moral judgments anymore. Gave that up for Lent, along with my Roman collar."

“You're shocked, I can tell."

“
Not shocked. Just not comfortable discussing this
with you."

“
You discuss things like that all the time on TV and the
radio, in front of thousands of people."

“I don't know them."

“I'm just being honest."

“You need to be honest with yourself. You don't have to share the news with other people."

“
You're not other people. You could have been the one.”

He shook his head. "Never would have happened. Face
it; we're first cousins. Even civil law, not just ecclesiastical law, frowns on that. I know family dynamics. First
cousins are often first crushes but I've been too messed
up myself to do unto others the same. It's not that you're not bright and attractive, trust me."

“Are you still—?"

“It's none of your business."

“You are!" It was an accusation. "Why?”

When he didn't answer, she shook his arm. "Are you saving yourself for someone?”

Matt thought for a long moment. She had nailed it. The
question was, should he be?

“
Because if you are, maybe a little preliminary prac
tice, a dry run, would be just the thing. Cousin.”

Chapter 32

The Wig Is Up

"The show must go on" is an ancient theatrical maxim probably going back to the Greeks and the first ever chorus line on some hill in Thessaly.

It was all too evident that reality television shows still abided by the same philosophy.

Except that Temple and Mariah had been on Candid Camera much more frequently than the other candidates, so Big Brother and Sister had been watching Xoe Chloe's every far-rambling move.

Mariah returned to their room from her morning
lifestyle counseling session feeling both nervous and rebellious.

Temple had slept in, in her wig, which was now look
ing matted as well as lank and dispirited. In fact, it looked
like the road kill of some thankfully unrecognizable
species.

She awoke grudgingly from dreams of Rafi Nadir and
Matt Devine escorting her and Mariah to the father-
daughter dance, except that Temple got Nadir for a father!

“What a nightmare," she muttered as Mariah shook her
awake. Although, the alternate possibility of Matt as her "father" escort was even worse. And far more Freudian.

Mariah was whispering in her ear. "They say I'm missing my beauty sleep and getting into trouble. I got a big lecture about bearing down on my diet and exercise program and staying away from you."