Cat in a hot pink Pursuit

half-glasses.
    “Men are easy.”
    “Men are only fifty percent of the vote.”
    “Yeah, what’s that Elvis guy here for anyway?”
    “Apparently local color. I think he’s like Jai on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. A cultural consultant, always a vague and unrewarding position.”
    Temple shrugged. “Who cares what any of you do or think? I don’t want to win anyway.”
    “I bet not. Losing can become a way of life. You get to sneer at the winners, whine, be cynical.”
    “Cynical. Like it’s a sin! Sins are cool.”
    “You try not to show it but you’re obviously a very bright girl.”
    Temple sat up, indignant. “What makes you say that?” Kit smiled, making Temple feel like a rat for the masquerade.
    “You worked that guy like a pro,” Kit said, woman to woman.
    “Pro what?”
    “Pro girly girl. No prob. That’s what this exercise in media exposure is about. Question is, is there a real person under that persona?”
    “Persona? Lady, what big words you use. I’m more real than all those bottle blondes out there put together.”
    “Granted. But what wins? The obvious. I almost voted against admitting you to the contest but I had to admire the crass way you played on Manship’s crassest inclinations. I have a weakness for chutzpah.”
    “Is he really the deciding vote?”
    “He’s the audience favorite. Everyone has a mean little devil inside aching to bust out. He feeds that need. That makes him a man of power. The temptation for women everywhere is to play the man of power. That’s the way women lose it. Lose it for winning.”
    “So what are you doing here if the game’s so crooked?”
    “Restoring balance? Plus, I’ve never done anything like this. I thought it’d be interesting. And it’ll help my career.”
    “You’re just in it for the fame and fortune.”
    “Anything wrong with that?”
    “Just don’t go pretending you actually care about any of us.”
    “But I do.”
    When Temple snorted and looked away, Kit went on. “If we women leave it up to men to judge women, we’ll end up with the Taliban.”
    Temple was speechless at the conviction in her aunt’s tone but Xoe squirmed in her chair. “This is way heavy stuff, lady.”
    “She ain’t heavy, she’s my sister.”
    Temple blinked. Maybe she had to banish tears. “That’s brother, lady, that quote. ‘He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.’”
    “It can’t work both ways?”
    “Not in my world.”
    “Get a different world, then. Make one.”
    “I’m trying.” For an awful, role-playing moment, Temple was Xoe Chloe Ozone, teen girl rebel. Her Aunt Kit was good. Very good.
    Kit smiled crookedly, at her. “Try a little less hard, and try being a little more soft, huh? Being interesting isn’t the kiss of death in the real world. It just looks like it sometimes.”
    “Yeah. Thanks.” Temple stood and slouched away.
    She was such a fraud.
    Who else around here wasn’t?
    Including a stalker/killer.
    Before she reached the door, Kit leaped up to intercept her.
    “Oh, fashion faux pas! You’ve got mascara smudges under both eyes. You surely don’t think raccoon eyes are punk?”
    Before Temple could defend her waterproof brand of mascara, Kit leaned close and whispered, “We need to talk somewhere. Privately.” Kit nodded to a small door at the left and whispered again. “Adjoining privy. They had it right in the old days, didn’t they?”
    Temple recognized the word for “private” as applied to old-time bathrooms. But Xoe Chloe just looked puzzled, then nodded and followed Kit past the coffered wooden door into a bathroom equipped for a Victorian household, wood-paneled, with matching enclosed tub and toilet.
    Once there Kit turned the faucets on full, retrieved a pair of thong panties that were drying over the edge of the tub, thought better of it, grabbed a tea-rose-embroidered hand towel instead, and tossed it over some sort of sprinkler spigot in the ceiling.
    Thong panties? Temple thought. “I don’t think they can have cameras in the bathroom,” Xoe Chloe whispered.
    “Just to be safe, sweetie.” Kit sat on the broad tub surround and kicked off her shoes, a pair of svelte but sensible pumps. Pink. She was an ex-actress after all, and tended to dress for real life as if it were a play.
    “Not in the bathrooms,” Temple said. “Invasion of privacy. Even for reality TV. Cross my heart. But it never hurts to be safe.”
    “Exactly,” Kit said. “What’s up, niece?”
    “Oh,