Free Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit by Carole Nelson Douglas

watch her upend about a zillion shopping bags on the bed I have honored with my reclining presence.
    I am adrift in a blizzard of mall-style plastic . . . the Gap, Victoria's Secret, The Icing, et cetera. She has been on a shopping spree wild enough to smother me had I not beaten off a rain of plastic bags with the Ginsu knife shivs so conveniently attached to my ex tremities.
    “ Oh, sorry, Louie," she remarks offhandedly, trying on a faux-leather bustier over her faux-front gel cups in the full-length mirror on the wall.
    I am used to seeing my MissTemple in a state of un dress, due to our intimate relationship in the bedroom, i.e., we share my king-size bed.
    I am not used to seeing assorted tattoos and rings on her upper arms, ankle, neck, and the . . . gasp, small of her back, which is pretty small, her being a Lilliputian human.
    When did she go berserk at a piercing parlor without consulting me, I would like to know! Obviously, I have been derelict in my duty of shepherding her through life as we know it in Las Vegas.
    When she pulls out the Cher wig and tugs it on over her own tortie-red curls, I know I have to take action.
    She turns from the mirror, looking like something from the back of a squad car on Cops, the first and most-forgotten reality TV show.
    I am aghast to see that her eyes are as vibrantly green as mine ... then I realize that she has borrowed Mr. Max's performing trick: green contact lenses for that mesmerizing gaze. Trouble is, it works on cats and magicians but I am not sure it works for my MissTemple.
    “Well, Louie, do I look like a reconstruction project?”
    She looks like an escapee from the city pound, espe cially with that rhinestone dog collar around her neck.
    “Am I ready to take on the world of reality TV?”
    Hmmm, I already observed that she looked like an escapee from Cops.
    “ Am I post-'Tween Queen in the making?”
    'Tween tweezings, I think to myself. Not to mention a ripe candidate for brain implants.
    “ Do I look sweet, swingin' nineteen going on Goth thirty?”
    Goth? As in I "goth" to get outa here?
    I take my own advice and retreat to the outer room but resolve to keep a very close eye on her from this moment on.

     
    Chapter 11
    Good Golly,
    Miss Goth Girl
    The mall was mobbed with 'tween girls from just-thirteen to a tarty fifteen. And a few good legally blonde bimbos from sixteen to nineteen. The decibel level in the vaulted central atrium suggested a jungle of screeching parrots.
    Temple had never seen so much metallic and iridescent nail polish, so many spandex capris, thong flipflops, and belly buttons in one place since a Britney Spears concert. And she'd never seen a Britney Spears concert except in TV commercials.
    Temple glimpsed a shadow of herself in a Gap display window. It took her a moment to pick herself out from the crowd. She couldn't believe she was doing this: standing in line, hiding her hair, and showing her belly button.
    This was the screwiest self-marketing job she'd ever done. She'd decided that the subject of a TV makeover show should require some major makeover, plus. And she needed to disguise herself enough to fool any possible acquaintances, so . . .
    She craned her neck to see if her little buddy—or was that "budette" in this case?—was anywhere around. But Mariah was not here. No. The Molina kid had made the smart move. Applied early. Before the humiliating cattle call. Mariah was less than half Temple's age, and she was already a finalist, a contender. Temple was a raw recruit.
    Temple, aka Xoe Chloe—"pronounced just `Zoey Chloey,' or `Chloey Zoey' if you like that better," she'd told the babe with the clipboard collecting their applica tion forms—stared down the endless line forward, and then back along the endless line backward.
    It felt creepily like instant aging in a horror movie to be bracketed by so many genuine tender young things. Skin creamy as a SouthBeach diet ricotta cheese dessert. Zits, yes, but young, plump,