Club Deception

by Sarah Skilton

  “Oh, she’s safe from me,” said Jonathan. “I wouldn’t touch her to smack her.”

  Felix saw red. “She taught me more in one afternoon than you have all month. And you treat her like dirt! What’s your problem, man?”

  Jonathan was silent for a moment, his impassive expression rivaling Claire’s. Felix wondered if they had contests over who could look less upset.

  “Let me ask you a question about Mrs. Fredericksson,” said Jonathan. “If she’s so good at magic, why doesn’t she perform, huh?”

  “Stop it,” said Claire.

  “No really, ask yourself, if she’s so talented and smart, why isn’t she a magician? She has the skills and the knowledge. She’s easy on the eyes. So what happened? Why isn’t she the one up there, if she’s so great?”

  “There aren’t that many women in magic,” Felix said carefully.

  “Do you really think that would stop her?”

  He shook his head.

  “I’ll tell you why she’s not up there. Claire is useless onstage. Did you know, once upon a time, she was going to be my partner? Oh, yes. That was the idea, wasn’t it, honey? Are you familiar with Vice Versa, Felix?”

  He was. It was a transpo illusion in which a man and his female assistant swapped places. But this felt like a trick, so he didn’t respond. It was unsettling how much Jonathan was talking to him right now, after weeks of near-silent interaction.

  “Well, we created an hour-long show surrounding her version. The high point was when I suspend my lovely wife in midair before making her vanish and reappear in a box hanging over the stage. We rehearsed for months. The show was exemplary. We booked a twenty-city tour. All the venues were scheduled, advances paid, tickets sold. Sold out, in some cases.”

  Claire jumped in. “He’s angry because I refused to be a stage mom. But our baby was not a trained seal put on earth to make us money.”

  Jonathan’s voice got louder. “On the very first night, she freezes. Right in the middle of the show. Couldn’t do a single illusion in front of an audience. Even with a mask on. What’s to be scared of?”

  Felix winced. There was of course a parallel phenomenon in baseball, a problem no one talked about it, because if you acknowledged its existence in any way, it might happen to you. A year removed from his time on the baseball field, and he still felt superstitious thinking the words: the yips.

  The worst part about the yips, and maybe also about stage fright, was that there was no cure. He wanted to tell her this, so she’d know he understood and didn’t judge her for it, but Claire spoke up before he could.

  “It wasn’t right for Eden,” Claire yelled. “She needed to be in a stable environment, needed playdates and preschool. Life on the road is no place for a three-year-old.”

  “She loved it. She didn’t know any different. You just like to be the martyr who saved our baby girl from her awful father when all along it was you who couldn’t handle it.” Jonathan turned conspiratorially to Felix, as though they were pals now, sharing a beer together. “I should’ve known long before that it would never work. I mean, look at her, she’s enormous.”

  Felix couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “She’s beautiful.”

  “Shit, clearly she’s attractive, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is she’s enormous. She’s almost six feet tall.”

  “Five ten,” Claire corrected irritably. “But please, keep talking about me as though I’m not in the room.”

  “That’s extra-large in magic. Five foot three or less. That’s the only height you can use. What was I thinking? She can’t be sawed in half. She certainly can’t fit inside any of the equipment, she’s too big.”

  “You could’ve made it work, if you built your own props,” said Felix. “If you wanted it to work, it could have.”

  “Thank you,” said Claire.

  “Would you please get the hell out of here?” Jonathan roared at Felix.

  Felix stayed where he was and looked at Claire for guidance.

  “It’s okay,” she told him.

  “Are you sure?” He touched her arm.

  “Yes. Thank you for asking.”

  * * *

  Outside, Felix moved his car half a block down, then returned to the front porch to stand by the door and listen. He wanted to make sure Jonathan didn’t start whaling on Claire. Their voices were low, but he could make out every word:

  “I’m packing a bag,” Jonathan said. “You’ll hear from my attorney first thing tomorrow.”

  “You’re divorcing me?” Claire cried. “Ohhhh, no, you don’t, that is not how this is going to play out…”

  They shouted at each other for a while, and Felix moved behind a tree just in time to see Jonathan, with a suitcase in one arm and Doctor Faustus in the other, stomp over to his TrailBlazer and peel out of the driveway. Uncertain what to do, but eager to leave now that Claire wasn’t in danger, he got into his car and drove down Edgecliffe Drive into downtown and past Club Deception. The place, the people, the dream, all seemed less mysterious now, yet more out of reach to him than ever before.

  How had he fallen so far, so fast? Internship, gone; affair that had barely started, over; career in magic, kaput. Jonathan would probably get him banned from the club and he was sure he’d be fired from Merlin’s Wonderporium any day now, and then what would he do? Beg Paco for a job at Turbocare, shoveling mulch for the rest of his life?

  I could’ve at least spelled her name right. Now she thinks I’m stupid.

  At home, depressed and horny, he drank several shots of tequila and passed out atop his messy sheets, still in Jamie’s suit.

  But when the phone rang a few hours later, waking him from fitful sleep, it was her.

  Heart pounding, tongue a thick sour mass inside his mouth, he tapped ANSWER. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

  “No, no, we’re fine…What’s wrong with your voice?”

  “It’s three in the morning.”

  “Oh. Right. Listen. I’ve been thinking, how would you like to be Magician of the Year?”

  Jessica

  The morning after her first WAG brunch, Jessica woke up alone on the couch. Cal had gotten home so late the night before, she’d fallen asleep in front of the TV waiting for him. He’d placed a blanket over her but as usual they were ships passing in the night. She’d tossed and turned, cognizant enough to realize she wasn’t in the bedroom, but too tired and heavy-limbed to get up and walk across the hall. Now he’d be out all day on postproduction for his TV special, just like yesterday, and the day before that, so of course they hadn’t had the chance to talk about Claire’s meltdown, the odd response she’d received from the older WAGs at her table, or the salivating sex fiends of Table Six.

  Claire’s explanation ran on repeat in her head, spinning faster and faster.

  You stole their favorite toy.

  It was time to face facts: She’d married a man she didn’t know because the unknown was better than the things she did know. About her family, her life, herself.

  Jessica stretched and looked at the clock above the TV: ten forty-five. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t spend the day in bed stewing, catching up on sleep, and waiting for Cal’s return. She was supposed to meet Kaimi for lunch in Los Feliz. After that, she had an appointment with Cynthia’s mother, Evelyn, at a nursing home in mid-Wilshire, to discuss organizing and digitizing Evelyn’s photos.

  First up, coffee. As part of his commitment to sobriety—and because he never did anything halfway, case in point: his rapid-fire marriage to Jessica—Cal only drank decaf. Jessica kept a small box of Starbucks VIAs in the cupboard for her own caffeine needs. The finished concoction reminded her of the Nescafé her mom used to buy in bulk from Kroger; it had the same plastic smell and frothy pond scum surface at the top of the mug, but it got the job done.

  She filled a mug with water to heat in the microwave, then opened the cupboard for the packet of instant when wham—dozens of beer bottle caps hailed down on her like sti
nging wasps. Jessica screamed and covered her face. The bottle caps fell and scattered, creating a field of sharp edges on the kitchen floor.

  Why the fuck does he have all these?

  Oh, right. The Bottle Cap trick. She crawled around cleaning the caps up, and decided to buy a real cup of coffee on her way to lunch.

  After scrubbing her face and brushing her teeth, she fumbled for her contact lens case only to see a severed thumb in the corner of the bathroom floor.

  “Oh my God, oh my God…” Jessica hopped up and down, hyperventilating, then pushed at the horrible thing with her toe, squealed, and crouched down for a closer look—it wasn’t a severed thumb, just a fake plastic thumb, cut off at the first knuckle. She chucked it in the trash with no regrets.

  Outside Cal’s loft, a FedEx courier stood in the hall.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Are you Jessica?”

  She nodded.

  He held out an electronic signature reader, which she signed.

  The battered, partially ripped brown box, held together with frayed duct tape, was postmarked Waukesha, Wisconsin. A wedding gift? she thought idly. Right on time, Mom. And such pretty packaging. You shouldn’t have. Really.

  “Looks like your mail arrived, too.” He nodded to a stack of envelopes by the door.

  “Thanks.”

  Jessica gathered the stack in her arms and slammed the door behind her, praying she would survive the morning before the house exploded or a bunch of doves fell from the ceiling.

  The magazine on top was facedown, so she turned it over, then promptly screamed for the third time that day. On the cover was a clown, wearing full makeup and clown regalia, holding a tiny umbrella. Clowning 4 Cash magazine.

  She chucked the mail to the floor and took off so quickly she forgot all about the package from Waukesha, Wisconsin.

  Inexplicably, there was bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Harbor Freeway. Rush hour should’ve been over. Why isn’t anyone at work? What do people do all day in Los Angeles?

  “Hotel California” played on the radio. She switched to another station. “Alone” by Heart finished, and “Hotel California” started up. She switched to a third station just in time for the guitar solo from “Hotel California.”

  To pass the time, she surveyed her new city. None of the houses on either side of the freeway matched. Stucco seemed to be the dominant theme, but within the black wrought-iron fences and rose gardens she saw Spanish, Mediterranean, French, and Tudor-style architecture side by side, or integrated in one property, proving that in LA any set piece from the outside world could be plunked down between any other set pieces.

  At the Mickey D’s drive-through on Fountain Avenue, she splurged on hash browns to go with her coffee, and pulled up to the pay window with a pounding headache. Relief comes soon, she promised herself, grateful that despite her horrible morning she was still on track to meet Kaimi on time.

  She dug through her purse, realized her credit card was still on her desk at the loft, cursed, and searched the car for cash.

  Nothing in the cup holder or sunglasses holder above the rearview mirror.

  She unbuckled her seat belt and twisted her body to dip down to the backseat, where she was rewarded with the discovery of a five-dollar bill.

  She handed it through the window to the clerk.

  He unfolded it and gave her a suspicious look. “What is this?”

  “A five. It was only two-something, right?”

  “This isn’t five bucks. This is…I don’t know what this is. Hey, Larry,” he yelled to a co-worker. “Come look at this.”

  Larry, whose name tag identified him as the shift manager, walked over. “What’s going on?”

  “Check this out. Do you think it’s counterfeit?”

  “No, it’s weirder.”

  The guy behind Jessica honked and shouted at them to hurry up as Jessica finally noticed what had perplexed the clerk so much. The bill she’d given him was divided into fourths, containing the print work of a five, a one, a ten, and a twenty, all on the same sheet.

  “Wait, don’t, that’s mine.” She snatched it back from a perplexed Larry and shoved it in the back pocket of her cutoff jeans. In the armrest, a coin slot beckoned her, so she frantically raided it for quarters.

  When she leaned her arm out the window to pay again, one of the coins split open, revealing a second coin inside.

  “Goddammit,” she muttered.

  The number of legitimate coins in her possession added up to a buck twelve, enough for coffee and nothing else.

  * * *

  When Jessica pulled into the restaurant parking lot, her stomach grumbled and she hoped the menu had something more substantial than salads or smoothies, both of which seemed to be the dominant meal choice for women in LA. She’d kill for a Chicago-style hot dog and a vanilla shake to dip her fries in, especially since she’d been denied her hash browns that morning.

  Kaimi seemed to have a similar mind-set; her choice for lunch was a place called Home on Riverside Drive, which boasted honey-breaded chicken with Belgian waffles on its all-day breakfast menu. This boded well for their potential friendship.

  “Thank you for having a normal appetite,” Jessica said when she reached their table. Kaimi sat outside on the expansive, shaded patio, wearing a loose, bat-sleeved sweater, red-framed glasses, and ripped skinny jeans. She raised her Mimosa in greeting.

  Jessica ordered the same and got carded. Can this day get any more mortifying?

  “Really?” Thankfully her license was in her purse. “I’m almost twenty-seven.”

  “Deverell?” Kaimi asked, reading from the card. “You didn’t take Cal’s name?”

  “Fast as I could. I’m waiting on my new license.”

  Once Jessica’s age had been verified, they settled in for a good old-fashioned chat. Even before the OJ and champagne bubbled up to her head, she felt relaxed around Kaimi; no need to guard her words or behavior the way she did around Claire.

  “Oh, my God, can I vent to you about my morning?” she asked.

  “Go for it,” said Kaimi.

  “Every magic trick Cal owns fucking attacked me today.”

  Kaimi stifled a laugh. “What?”

  “His props are, like, scattered around the house, lying in wait for me like a bunch of fucking spiders. And it wasn’t just in the house! It was in the car, too. Fake coins everywhere, fake dollar bills! Which reminds me—this is so embarrassing—I don’t have any money on me because I raced out of there so fast I forgot my credit card. I’ll owe you big-time. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You can just pay for the next lunch.”

  The implication that they might make this a regular thing made her feel better, less unhinged.

  “Thanks. I mean, what if Cal had needed those trick coins today? I could’ve lost them. They were in a regular coin slot, not even in a box marked SNEAKY COINS.”

  She knew she was fixating on small things, stupid things, instead of the real issue, the fact that she’d married a stranger. A good-looking stranger, sure; a kind stranger, too—so far, at least—but a stranger nonetheless.

  “Do you ever feel as though you barely know Landon? Or like…he’s hiding things from you, and you’re just…alone?” she asked hopefully. Maybe this feeling wasn’t singular to her. Maybe it was suffered by every woman who became involved with a magician.

  Kaimi cleared her throat. “Landon’s kind of an open book, for better or worse. But I know what you mean. I had a boyfriend like that in grad school. I could never tell what he was thinking, or what he was going to do next. It was hell.”

  “It sucks. What brought you out to California?” Jessica asked.

  “I’m a native, actually.”

  “Oh, cool! I wasn’t sure they existed.”

  “I know. Everyone seems to come from someplace else. But I’ve spent the last fifteen years in Hawaii.”

  “Lucky duck. I’m from Wisconsin. This is my fi
rst time on the West Coast, but it’s in my blood. My parents met in California. They didn’t stay together, but I’ve always wanted to come here.”

  The waiter returned to take their orders. Kaimi asked for a crispy onion burger and Jessica ordered the chicken/waffle combo.

  When he left, Kaimi leaned forward, her eyes glittering with curiosity. “So, what’d you think of the other wives and girlfriends?”

  “Some were nice, and some were completely bonkers,” Jessica said, relieved to have someone to compare notes with.

  “Did you meet the Chest Hair Woman?”

  “What? No.” She lowered her voice. “Is she like…a sideshow freak? Am I even allowed to use that word?”

  “Oh, no, sorry, she doesn’t have chest hair. But her husband does a trick in his set where he has someone pick a card and return it to the deck, right? But instead of finding the card, he rips open his shirt and the card symbol is shaved into his chest, a diamond and a three. And guess who has to shave it for him every month?”

  “Oh, my God, awesome. I missed all the best people. Meanwhile I was stuck in suckville with the creepy swingers.”

  “Swingers? Really?”

  “I think my husband…used to…swing. A while back.” She closed her eyes briefly. I can’t believe I said that out loud.

  Kaimi’s expression didn’t change, and no judgment passed across her face. “Who am I kidding? Landon did, too, probably. I mean, he’s noticeably been around the block.”

  “I was going to ask you more about him. I guess he’s got a reputation or something? But if you’re dating him, he must have at least some redeeming qualities,” she said sincerely.

  Kaimi rolled her eyes. “I have a theory about that, too.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Take a look at this.” Kaimi pulled up Landon’s Facebook profile on her smartphone and showed it to Jessica.

  “Only sixty-three friends?”

  “I know. I figured he’d have ten thousand. But look at his childhood photos.”

  Jessica scrolled through the album of vintage images and chuckled. Landon was a plump kid wearing glasses and purple suspenders. “Nerd alert.”