Cat in a Topaz Tango

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  Zoe Chloe leaned forward between them, effectively becoming a Goth girl wall.

  “Peeps! You’re forgetting you work for me now. Cut the personal crap. I need to watch this to learn how Crawford Buchanan emcees the big boys and girls so I have a role model for my star turn with the little girls and boys.”

  “Yeah.” Rafi snorted. “You learning from Buchanan. That’d be like the lieutenant here learning from Deputy Barney Fife. Call this what it is, babysitting.”

  He nodded at Mariah and the junior dancers huddling in the front row of the side section, looking rapt and a little scared by the bored Los Hermanos Brothers sitting on their spines behind them.

  “It’s not natural,” Rafi rumbled. “Real guys don’t dance.”

  Molina kept silent on the subject.

  “That is sooo a middle-aged ’tude, dude,” Zoe Chloe said after a three-beat pause. “If anyone here says Matt is not a real man, I will hit them with my designer tote bag, with Louie in it!”

  “Present company’s fiancé excluded,” Molina said quickly. She eyed Rafi. “Some men have out-of-date macho issues.

  “Max danced,” Temple said suddenly, in her own persona. “Like a dream.”

  Rafi shrugged. “From what I hear, he was all balls, so I stand corrected.”

  Molina fumed visibly as her face turned a dull beet-red, but she literally bit her lip.

  Temple had the funny feeling Molina had known Max danced.

  Or was the Iron Maiden of the LVMPD recalling when she and Max had done the martial arts tango in the strip club parking lot several months ago? Good ole Carmen the Cop had told Matt that Max had gotten sexual with her then, but she was always ready to blacken Max’s motives. Temple had never confronted Molina about that. Maybe she should.

  Luckily, right then Crawford Buchanan oiled on stage and crooned into his MC’s handheld mike.

  “Welcome to Dancing With the Celebs, Las Vegas’s answer to presenting new terpsichorean stars of the entertainment firmament.” Every eye was on the top of each side staircase, where the first couples would pose and descend. Temple knew that walking head up and smiling down steps without looking at your feet was a demanding art.

  She was also as rapt and eager as the junior girls to ogle the lavish costumes, makeup, and hairstyles. Stagecraft always delighted her. She figured Zoe Chloe was a glamour groupie too.

  Temple had wedding bell stars in her eyes when his name was announced and Matt came out with a fragile-looking Glory B. on his arm.

  “The first dance is a waltz,” she whispered to no one in particular, eyeing the women’s full, floating skirts and the guys’ formal evening getups. On either side, her undercover escorts tried to blink their eyes wider open to stay attentive. Obviously Molina and Rafi had never treasured wedding day dreams even when they first met years ago.

  A full, formal wedding, yes! In Chicago and maybe again in Minneapolis. She was Glory B.’s size. Those yards of white organdy and trailing chiffon and pearls and rhinestones, a bride on a cloud with Matt glitteringly blond—what had they done to him? Oh, the spray tan, spray-in platinum highlights, then black-and-white formal dress. Matt would seethe about the artifice, but Zoe Chloe would have to beat them off with a baseball bat.

  Ooh! The first threat of brutal violence at this competition and it was in Temple’s head.

  “Prince Charming,” Rafi conceded, reading her besotted reaction and realizing he had just dissed her fiancé. “I guess a father-of-the-bride would put up with that if the guy could play pool.”

  Temple felt ridiculously pleased, as if her father were sitting there okaying Matt.

  Molina kept silent.

  Did the woman have no hormones? Temple wondered, gazing happily on her beloved. The other couples weren’t tacky, either. She sighed as she absorbed the romantic costumes. And here Zoe Chloe was exiled to the lost-and-found department of teen angst: painted-on Goth tears and bedhead hair, long waif legs in funky hose under ultrashort skirts. Schoolgirl decadence.

  Then she pulled herself out of the pack of overwhelmed audience and back into the persona of eagle-eyed observer. This dress rehearsal was the first time anyone had seen the contestants perform and could evaluate them. Even the judges would not arrive until the actual performances to give their thumbs-up and thumbs-down.

  Temple’s innards were fluttering, hoping she hadn’t led Matt astray. Hoping he would perform as well as he looked. Hoping she got a hell of a wedding reception waltz with the groom out of this stunt.

  Molina was looking more forbidding than ever, keeping a keen eye on Mariah and her giggling young cohorts and the smooth boy-band stars sitting behind the girls. The four junior couples would perform one to a show the four days before the finale.

  What was different about this program was that the celebrities would take turns dancing with each other, after being coached by their propartners.

  So, trailing down the treacherous stairs after Matt and Glory B., came the Cloaked Conjuror in stunning Phantom of the Opera mask and costume with a red-silk-lined cloak that preserved his anonymity even as it glamorized it. He had drawn escorting the ripe (firmly past fifty but sucked and tucked to make a TV living) Olivia Phillips as the Lady in scarlet satin and tulle.

  Next came the lean and darkly handsome Olympic fencer, José Juarez, escorting the Amazonian wrestler Wandawoman, clad in off-the-shoulder jonquil satin that displayed her pumped up shoulders and arms, yet made power look feminine.

  Last came celebrity chef Keith Salter, whose Three Tenor physique had somehow been jammed into a suave formal dress profile. His partner was the self-described “Hip-Hop Ho,” Motha Jonz, who had been corseted up and toned down into a jazz age queen in mocha chiffon and sequins.

  Temple loved these onstage transformations. That was what made Dancing With the Stars a hit. Sure they were B- or C-level celebrities on the brink of has-beenship. It was never too late. Anyone could apply themselves to a new discipline, work hard, and come out fresh and even svelte from the chrysalis. It was Cinderella and the American dream all over again. Over and over. Make overs were ratings kings.

  Why anyone would want to taint such a glorious American showbiz tradition with sabotage and death threats was puzzling.

  What with Awful Crawford botching his intros, backstage costume problems, and ladies’ high heels catching in trailing, floor-length skirts, it took the entire two hours for each couple and the first junior contestant to get their full moment in the sun of the spotlights.

  Matt’s waltz was smooth and sweeping. He was a dream prom date. Mariah’s compadres were giggling and whistling and clapping up a storm for him.

  Temple relaxed, well pleased.

  The Cloaked Conjuror already had a dramatic stage presence, and if he was heavy on his feet, he had an operatic majesty that made a stately frame for Olivia’s seasoned charms.

  José Juarez executed a number of swoon-inducing masculine flourishes that made light of the task of steering the statuesque Wandawoman smoothly around the floor.

  Weakest was the Keith Slater–Motha Jonz combo. Both were portly, and neither cooking nor hip-hop seemed professions that lent themselves to the froth of performing an elegant waltz. Both seemed embarrassed by everything: dance, costume, music, each other.

  No one would be booted off until the end of the week, but judges would score everyone each night. Viewers would call in their votes daily, each call contributing twenty dollars to the cancer fund. In a reverse of the usual order, the judges’ scores would remain secret while the viewers would dominate the scoreboard. The kicker was that the judges could overturn a ranking.

  Because both dancing partners were being scored separately, it would be hard to tell the leaders from the losers until the very end. And the viewers would become more frantic to visibly boost their favorites as the scoreboard player favorites.

  “Care to make a bet?” Rafi asked Temple, leaning in to whisper.

  “My money is on blond over black,” she said. “Ou
r boy is looking good, but I admit José has the edge on the Latin dances. Polish is not the Latin type or temperament. I’m sure they started with the waltz to put everybody on an even basis to begin with.”

  Molina leaned in on Temple’s other side, as if competing with Rafi. “This is all hopeless hoopla. If Ekaterina didn’t look like a lost sheep, I’d jerk Mariah out of here in half a heartbeat. Rafi, you’re backup. Watch her!”

  He nodded. “I’m glad she’s not competing. That’s where all the attention is focused.”

  “My point exactly. We’ve got to focus on Mariah because she’s in the background.”

  “So far this has been pretty tame,” he said.

  Molina eyed her large, serviceable watch. “Everyone gets a dinner break before the show. Zoe-ee can take her cat and hang in the junior girl’s dressing rooms. You and I can split,” she told Rafi, “to cover the men’s and women’s dressing rooms.”

  “Uh,” said Temple, “I might want to buzz by the men’s dressing room for some hit-and-run secs.”

  Both stared at her. She realized what “secs” sounded like.

  Molina frowned. She might not rock ’n’ roll, but she was becoming a champion Botox candidate overnight. “You don’t want to blow your cover as a ditsy Goth girl.”

  “Pish! Zoe Chloe is a total man groupie. She just wants to google-oogle the guys in the changing room and report back breathlessly to all the junior girls. It’s part of her job building rapport with her peeps!”

  “Will you stop using that asinine expression? No one is . . . are . . . your ‘peeps.’ ” Molina eyed them both, then made an executive decision. “You,” she told Rafi, “will watch this loose cannon and make sure she doesn’t roll right over all our efforts to lock down the danger quotient at this contest. And you,” she told Temple, “will keep your contact with your fiancé to the bare minimum.”

  Zoe Chloe smiled like a cherub. “I wish I could make certain that those female contestants did that too.”

  “Molina sure has a burr up her nose,” Temple said as she hustled alongside of Rafi Nadir through the mazelike backstage area to the dressing rooms.

  “This is one of those thankless stakeout jobs you can’t ignore, but won’t get anything but grief from,” he answered. “Look at it from her perspective. She’s having to go back to undercover, like she hasn’t since they made her do john stings in L.A. Her daughter’s on the premises, and she’s got to put up with you and me.”

  “Oh, yeah. But look at the bright side. She gets to support her daughter in something that’s very important to her. She gets to know what a stand-up guy you are.”

  Rafi snorted.

  Temple went on. “She gets to see Matt transformed into a hoofin’ hottie.”

  Rafi snorted again. “You think she hasn’t noticed your boyfriend? Even I can see they have a history, and I’m brand-new on the scene.”

  “Nothing . . . sexual.”

  “Chickie baby, your guy may be an ex-priest, but that would be right up her alley at the corner of Guilt and Common Ground Streets. Those Catholics stick together.”

  “Max was brought up Catholic too.”

  “I rest my case. Carmen wouldn’t have such a hard-on to accuse your ex-boyfriend, Max, of something if he didn’t have something she doesn’t know she wants.”

  Temple couldn’t keep bouncing along like Zoe Chloe on bubble gum any longer. She stopped and confronted Rafi. He eyed her seriously. Almost sympathetically.

  Rafi might be right, but that road ran both ways, so Temple had the last word, and took it.

  “By your logic, Molina wouldn’t be as hard on you as she is if you didn’t have something she didn’t know she wanted either.”

  Hot Stuff

  Zoe Chloe was one subdued little Goth girl by the time they arrived at the men’s dressing room door.

  Rafi Nadir wasn’t the dumb, disgruntled ex-cop Molina acted like he was. Maybe he’d been bitter and angry when he’d first discovered his ex-roommate was alive and well with his unsuspected child in Las Vegas. That was then. He’d pulled it together since, as far as Temple could tell, maybe because his ex-roommate was alive and well with his unsuspected child in Las Vegas.

  And maybe he was just a tad jealous of any man Molina knew in this town, which included two of Temple’s.

  Rafi knocked on the open dressing room door. “Femme coming through.” He must have done touring show security work to know the backstage routines.

  A leg trousered in black kicked the ajar door wide. “We’re loaded with femmes. Bring her on in.”

  José Juarez was lounging in a metal folding chair, his dress shirt open to the navel. He eyed her. “You one of the kiddie dancers? Sure you’re old enough to be here?”

  Rafi was there like a bodyguard. “Ms. Ozone is the celebrity emcee for the junior competition. She wanted to acquaint herself with the adult division competitors.”

  José spread his arms to display his pecs and washboard stomach, reassured she was of age. “Acquaint yourself.”

  Obviously God’s gift to the female gender. Temple eyed the women costumers who were still fussing around with final touches.

  Three of the four men contestants were stationed at mirrors framed with lightbulbs as thick as dotted Swiss. Tasty snack food on hotel ware lay amid the scattered hair products and makeup, a buffet for the harried hoofer.

  At Keith Slater’s station, a full dinner filled a room service tray accessorized with linen, sterling silver, and a single rose in a vase. Too bad Keith was standing, with a weird air of satisfaction and embarrassment, as a female costumer knelt before him to repair an entire seam on the fly of his pants that had ripped out during the rehearsal.

  His food was getting cold, but he must be so severely corseted for the dance that the trousers couldn’t be removed for repair. Backstage mishaps broke down the usual modesty bounds, and at least Salter’s corset ensured he’d have good posture during the waltz.

  Matt was at the other end, wolfing down a ham sandwich while being admonished by Tatyana.

  “Shoulders back and you will be perfect,” she was saying.

  His grooming remained perfect, except for his tucked front white shirt, open at the neck for breathing and eating room, and revealing a bit of tan rub-off inside the collar.

  “You were awesome in rehearsal,” Zoe Chloe cooed. (When you had a name like Zoe Chloe, you could coo.)

  Tatyana rolled her hazel eyes. “When he has shoulders back properly, he will be this ‘awesome.’ Do not swell his head too much, little Miss Muffet, or his collar will not close for the actual performance. A good rehearsal can jinx the real thing.”

  She huffed away to pick at another of her pupils, the Cloaked Conjuror, whose costume and full-face mask forced him to stand and watch the others eat while he killed time. He was just visiting, as Zoe and Rafi were. Because of constant threats on his life, he’d been given a separate dressing room, with his own bodyguards on duty as well as hotel security.

  Matt sighed relief to see Temple and Rafi.

  “You are looking at an airbrushed portrait of a person,” he said. “Was the waltz all right? I felt like a badly soldered tin soldier on parade.”

  “First-rate,” Temple whispered in her own voice. “Right, Rafi?”

  “Jumping around in that monkey suit must be worse than having shingles,” Rafi said, “but even Molina shut up to watch you. You must be doing something right.”

  Matt momentarily shut the unexpectedly brown eyes that made his enhanced blond hair look so electric. “That’s right. This is not radio anymore, Dorothy. Everybody will be watching me. I just ask that my performance be passable, and the kids’ leukemia fund gets lots and lots of money.”

  “Don’t let that dance machine hear you say ‘passable,’ ” Temple warned, eyeing Tatyana. “She is a Russian bear down to her size-five jackboots. Besides, you were great! Unbiased reaction from a Goth brat totally unimpressed by anyone and anything. All right?”

  “A
ll right,” Matt answered. “You better spread your unbiased sunshine elsewhere for a while, but not on Mr. Leer near the door.”

  “He is so lame,” Zoe Chloe said. “Hitting on a teen babe like me. I mean, I go for younger guys, like those Los Hermanos hotties. Speaking of which, I gotta peel to see what the deal is with my crew in the junior division.”

  “Mariah okay?” Matt asked, his eyes darting from Temple to Rafi.

  “Super,” Zoe answered. “I’m leavin’ my man Raf here to watch all you big, bad boys, and will be hangin’ with my homeys down dressing-room row. Mariah is in her girlie element, believe. I will have her running off with a Hermanos brother before Mama Molina can say ‘Amber Alert.’ ”

  “Poor Molina,” Matt said.

  “You watch the kid,” Rafi ordered Temple. “This isn’t all fun and games.”

  She left them, Rafi standing uneasily by Matt, eyeing the guys being fed and primped down the mirrored line, looking like a visitor from another planet who’d like to level this one.

  Wardrobe

  Malfunction II

  Temple was beginning to understand how proud mothers felt as she sat beside Rafi and Molina on her left and Mariah on her right. This was the real, live show. They’d been asked to view the show on the huge greenroom monitor.

  Temple was near the door, so Zoe Chloe could anticipate her entrance and hop up discreetly to take the mike and do emcee duty.

  Matt and Glory B. had glided through their opening waltz like a couple atop a wedding cake. Glory B. looked gorgeous in her wedding white gown but Temple wasn’t jealous. Poor Glory B. was too obviously one crazy mixed-up kid to regard as a rival.

  In a way, this swaying, smooth, adult dance with Matt was reinventing her before Las Vegas eyes. She clearly adored him, and Temple guessed it was more than his Prince Charming looks, it was the Prince Kind personal attention he gave everyone on his radio call-in show and everyone, period.

  He made “nice” seem necessary, as it was in this cold, anxious, raw-edged world. Young women who acted out needed a steadying hand, and Matt was a master at that. Shoot! Zoe Chloe was tearing up; couldn’t have that.