Cal replaced Brandy, scrubbing her from his life. It still infuriated her that Cal had burned all his photos of Brandy. He claimed to have copies of videos they’d made, but that may have been a lie to placate her. She had several bound albums from over the years, but almost nothing digital, nothing that would last. Sometimes she couldn’t remember how Brandy’s hair had looked in the last year of her life. What color had she dyed it by then? How short had it been?
The doorbell rang.
She expected Doctor Faustus to bark and run over, and then remembered that Jonathan had abducted him last night.
Aware that she wore no makeup, no bra, and no underwear, she tightened the knot keeping her robe closed and looked through the peephole.
There was Felix, as though he’d materialized to fulfill her longings in the shower. He wore a backward baseball cap, jeans, Converse without socks, and a blue-sleeved baseball tee. If not for the manly stubble on his face and the fact that she could see his pecs through this shirt, he’d have looked like a paperboy stopping by to collect his wages.
When she opened the door, he took off his baseball cap and held it to his chest in a facsimile of antiquated manners. “Hi.”
She ushered him inside and shut the door. “Did anyone see you?”
“No, why?”
“Are you sure?”
“What’s the problem?”
“No one can know I’m helping you. Do you understand? What about your roommates, do they know where you are right now?”
“No. Well, Jamie does. He won’t care. And I might’ve mentioned it to Paco.”
“Which one’s Paco?”
“My cousin. He owns the Party Palace, uh, the house.”
“Well, let’s not leave out Scooter. Let me guess, he dropped you off, so now he knows what we’re doing, too.”
“Relax, okay? I drove myself and I parked a block away.”
“Oh,” she conceded. “Good thinking.” At least he knows enough to do that.
“Jonathan’s not here, is he?” Felix said, peering behind her.
“No, and he’s not coming back.”
His gaze swept over her body and he grinned wolfishly. “Nice robe.”
She pulled tighter on her belt, which served only to draw Felix’s attention closer; the thin silk stretched across her curves made it obvious she wore nothing underneath.
“Don’t cover up on my account,” he said, and let his top teeth graze across his delectable bottom lip.
She stared, mesmerized. “Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll get changed?” she said, not moving.
He took advantage of her hesitancy to place his hand above her on the wall, reminding them both he was taller than she was, but still giving her room to maneuver away if she wanted to.
“Wait, I need to ask you something: And it’s not that I’m not psyched, but…why are you doing this for me? Magician of the Year is a huge deal.”
“Nature abhors a vacuum,” she replied.
“…Right.”
“Do you know what that means, Felix?”
“Yeah, isn’t it like global warming?”
She blinked. Don’t torture yourself, just move ahead with the proposal.
“I assume by your presence that you’re in?” she asked.
“Definitely. I just need to know how it’s going to work.”
“Simple. I hand you a gift-wrapped, brand-new, ten-minute act. I’ll coach you through every second of it. But you have to commit; lessons every day, no exceptions. The contest is in less than a month, and the grand prize is one hundred thousand dollars.”
He whistled.
“I think we should split it seventy–thirty,” she finished.
“Sixty–forty. I’m doing all the hard work.”
“I’m doing all the hard work. In fact, I’ve already done it. In or out?”
He considered this. “Sixty-five–thirty-five.”
“Deal.”
“Seal it with a kiss?” he suggested.
“Sure.” Their mouths brushed against each other. His lips were warm and pliable.
She came back for more.
His stubble burned her, and she wanted to burn everywhere.
He tugged on the silk ties of her robe, and it fell open with no resistance.
Cold air hit her naked breasts, causing her nipples to tighten. Felix lowered his face to lavish them with attention. He tugged on one of them with his lips, sucking on it like candy, like he was trying to pull it from her body. She cried out when his stubble abraded her; it felt even better than she’d imagined. Her pleasure was short-lived, though. This is a mistake. If we do this, he’ll expect it every time and we’ll never get anything done.
“We need to focus,” she managed to get out.
He smiled around her other nipple. “I am focused.”
“On the routine.”
He sighed and stood back while she quickly retied her robe.
Brandy screamed at her from the great beyond: If you don’t bone him to death, right now, I’ll freeze you out in the afterlife. I will not invite you to a single party.
Cal and Jonathan seemed to think younger was better. Maybe it was time to find out if they were right.
Felix looked right at her. They could probably see his sincerity from space. “I meant what I said last night. I think you’re beautiful, and I want to show you.”
Forget the paperboy. Now he looked like an Abercrombie & Fitch model who’d sneaked off set to smoke a blunt; his gaze was heavy-lidded and full of promise.
None of that mattered, though. The competition had to take priority.
“Stage name,” she blurted out.
“What?”
“You need a stage name.”
He stepped back, confused, and she retightened her robe as a reflex. “Felix doesn’t cut it. I mean really, what sounds better, Harry Jansen or Dante?”
“Where did this come from?”
“You’re right, we’ll worry about that later. I’m going to change.” She dashed into the master bedroom and locked the door behind her. When she emerged, wearing decidedly unsexy old sweatpants and an oversize T-shirt, he was waiting for her on the couch, looking hopeful.
“Up,” she said. “To the kitchen.” The couch held too many tempting memories of the night before.
She fixed them both coffees, grabbed a deck of cards, and sat opposite Felix at the table. In the skylight of the kitchen his eyes were clearly bloodshot.
“First off, no drinking until the contest’s over,” she said.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. You can’t be hungover when I’m trying to teach you things. Okay. So. The judges for the contest are older than God with twice the memories,” Claire said. She absentmindedly riffled the cards.
“Should I be writing this down?” He sounded nervous.
“Just listen for now.”
“They’re tough to please, is what you’re saying?”
“Yes, sort of how doctors make the worst patients. When magicians go to magic shows, they don’t go to be astonished or mystified. They know when they’re being misdirected. They know when the patter’s been lifted word-for-word from last month’s issue of Genii. They know women always pick the Queen of Hearts. They know when a card’s been marked, palmed, crimped, reversed, or sleeved. They know when the deck’s been switched, false-cut, false-shuffled, or Svengali’d. They know how the balls multiply and the rings link. They know how the knives, razors, and bullets penetrate; how the swords are swallowed and the glass eaten.
“When magicians go to magic shows they just hope the sap onstage doesn’t embarrass their profession. At their worst, they go to magic shows to find fault and burn the other magician. Did he flash? Did he fumble? Did he miss his cue, wreck the punch line?
“At their best, magicians go to magic shows because in their heart of hearts, they still want. And what they want is to see something new.
“They remember what it was like when they were kids, watc
hing magic shows on Saturday morning, transfixed by every Cut-and-Restored Rope, Metamorphosis and Impossible Escape, Vanished Lady, Quick Change, Miser’s Dream, Coins Across, and Egg Bag. So. Understand? That’s what we’re going to give them.”
“Something new?” Felix guessed. He looked pleased with himself.
“No. We’re going to make them believe it’s something new. We’re going to take them back to those Saturday mornings before they knew everything. We’re going to give them back their childhoods. That’s how you win. That’s the only way to win.”
He looked at the floor. “That’s kind of a lot to ask.”
“Let me worry about that. Do you want to hear about Schrödinger’s Cat?”
His brow furrowed. “Schroeder? From Charlie Brown?”
Dear God. “Schrödinger’s Cat. It’s a famous thought experiment.” Though apparently not famous enough. “It’s the name of your act.” My act. “It’s a paradox in quantum mechanics theory in which a cat is discovered to be simultaneously dead and alive while covered up inside a box. His condition is predicated on whether some other event in a different time and place does or does not occur. That connection is called entanglement.”
“Um. What?” said Felix. He looked ill.
“It’s okay. I’ll show you. Here.” She got up from the table and described the show to him. She paced and gestured, her face flushed with excitement at the telling of it, of sharing it with someone besides Jonathan. It was her pride and joy. Her finest contribution to the art of magic. She watched his reactions carefully as she explained the opening, the intermediate illusions, the rising action, and of course the twist ending.
When she finished, he didn’t speak.
“What do you think?” she asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet. A standing ovation wouldn’t have been out of order.
He did stand, but it was to flee. Head ducked, he nearly toppled his chair in the effort to leave. “I’m out of here. Sorry.”
“What? Why?”
“What you’re asking…is impossible. I want to do it, I thought I could do it, but we don’t have enough time, there’s no way I can learn that before the contest.”
She followed him to the door. “Are you allergic to cats? We can work around that…”
“I can’t even impress the customers at the magic shop, okay? This is nuts.”
“Okay, okay, it’s okay. Let’s talk this through,” she said calmly, though she felt anything but. She couldn’t let him derail her plans. She wouldn’t. “Forget the magic shop for a moment. In fact, you shouldn’t even be working there. You don’t have time for that. Call them tomorrow and give your notice, effective immediately.”
His panic grew. “I can’t! I need money for groceries and I’ve been trying to save up first and last month’s rent so I can move out of my cousin’s place.”
“Not a problem. I’ll loan you whatever you need.” Before he could protest, she added, “You’re not a kept man, I’ll take it out of your share of the prize money.”
“What if we don’t win?”
“It’s an investment I’m willing to make, and you never need to pay it back. But that’s moot, because we’re going to win. You’re going to win, and I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“After you quit the shop tomorrow, come over and we’ll go over the routine again, in detail, however long it takes, and make a list of the techniques you need to learn. You’ll see that with enough practice and hard work, you can do this. I know you can.”
“I think you picked the wrong guy, Mrs. Fredericksson.”
She wanted to slap him. He was being a coward and he was going to screw everything up. When he opened the door to leave, she dug her fingernails into the side of her arm so that she wouldn’t do it to him.
“But this is what you wanted,” she cried. “You said you wanted to intern with me, and now you can.”
“Not like this. Not with all this pressure.”
“At least think about it. Take the rest of the day to think about it. Catch up on your sleep and I’ll call you this evening, all right? Felix? Felix!”
“Yeah, whatever. Bye, Mrs. F.”
* * *
She forced herself to wait until nightfall before picking up the phone. Every word out of her mouth would be a gamble. She needed to choose them with great care. The prospects of money, fame, or collegial respect hadn’t been enough to persuade him. That left her with one other option.
When he answered, she didn’t bother telling him who it was.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
He sighed. “I’m thinking about all those people in the audience, the judges, the other magicians, burning me with their eyes…”
She regretted painting such a brutal picture of the audience and their lust for catastrophe. She’d be sure to downplay it in the future.
Oh, God. What if her stage fright somehow…manifested in him? What if it was contagious? She felt queasy imagining rows and rows of spectators’ eyes; the force of their gazes a living thing, making her joints lock up and her mouth fill with cotton.
She fought to redirect him before he could sense in her the same fears he was experiencing.
“When you played baseball, you faced much tougher crowds, much bigger crowds. This’ll be nothing. And it’s only ten minutes.”
He didn’t respond.
Hail Mary time. “Do you know how much fun you can have in ten minutes?” She elongated the words, like honey dripping off a spoon. “We had a lot fun on the couch with our ten minutes.”
“Yeah, we did,” he admitted.
“Do you know what I’ve been thinking about all day?”
“No, what’s that?”
“How wet I got when you untied my robe.” She held the phone away from her mouth and bit her lip, certain she’d gone too far, that he’d see through her blatant ploy. But his reaction told her it was quite the opposite.
His breath quickened. “Keep going.”
“Why, do you like the sound of my voice when I’m touching myself?”
“Fuck yeah,” he whispered. “I like the sound of your voice all the time.”
“Are you by yourself?”
“Yeah, everyone’s at a movie.”
“Mmm, lucky me.”
He laughed, but quickly got serious. “What are you wearing?”
“A silk chemise. It’s the same material as my robe this morning, but it’s gold, and it has a much, much shorter skirt.” In reality she wore a frayed camisole and plaid pajama bottoms, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
He sighed with longing. “I bet you look hot.”
“I wish you were here to take it off me, pull the straps down my shoulders.”
“Oh, God,” he moaned. “I wish I was, too.”
Were, she mentally corrected. You wish you were. It’s not the past tense. “What are you wearing?” she purred.
“Uh, just my jeans.”
“No shirt? I like picturing that.”
“I like picturing you, too.”
“Why don’t you undo the top button of your jeans and get more comfortable.”
“Okay.” His breathing was ragged.
She lay on her back and looked up at the ceiling. She was uniquely well suited for phone sex—it being a style of performance that didn’t involve strangers looking at her. All she needed were her wits, her imagination, and—why not?—her hand. It didn’t technically violate her no-sex-with-the-student rule. They weren’t even in the same part of the city.
“For your first lesson we’re going to see how well you take direction.”
Jessica
Cynthia had apologized profusely for her mother’s outburst, of course. They ducked into the hallway, where Jessica paced back and forth, clenching and unclenching her hands. Cynthia’s face was red, and she spoke in rapid, hushed tones.
“I’m so sorry. She has dementia and she’s not herself. No one really thi
nks he had anything to do with Brandy’s death, it was just a rumor going around at the time, it was on the news I think, and she picked up on it. We never know what she’s going to retain, and…I’m sorry. I understand if you don’t want to stay but I hope you’ll consider coming back another time. We could really use your help. But it’s up to you, naturally, and…again, I’m so sorry. What a horrible thing to have happened.”
Jessica promised to think about it, and immediately took her leave. All she wanted to do was go home, pull the covers up over her head, and sleep for three days. Maybe by the time she woke up Cal would be finished with his motherfucking (bloody) TV show and they could finally see each other for more than twenty minutes. He could tell her about his first wife and reassure her that nothing sinister had caused her death.
On the drive back she argued with herself.
“No one really thinks he did it,” huh? Why the frosty reception at the WAG brunch, then? Why was everyone I met surprised he’d come back to LA—the scene of the crime—with a new wife in tow? A naive, foolish young wife who worships him…oh, God, I’m the stereotype of a trusting, gullible victim and he’s going to kill me next!
Shut the fuck up. He didn’t murder anyone. Evelyn’s on a lot of meds, her memory’s shot, and she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. It’s not true. There’s no way it could ever be true.
Yes, he’s been busy. Yes, he’s been ignoring you since you arrived in California, but that’s because he has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with this show and he doesn’t want to screw it up. He’s doing it for both of you. And when you do see him, he’s your dream guy—funny, and loving, and generous. He’s given you a great home, a car, a place to do your work, all his support, and the best sex of your life.
Everything he has, he’s shared with you.
Except information.
How many times had he cut off her questions before they got started? How many times had he given her the runaround?
Mind racing, she pulled into the parking garage of Cal’s building. The other car (Brandy’s car? It was disturbing how much she didn’t know) wasn’t there yet. Good. Her breathing sped up and she moved quickly, out of the car, into the elevator, and up to his loft. She could google all of it, right now, before he came home. He’d never have to know she’d researched him, and when the time was right they could talk about it, all of it, but in the meantime she’d have peace of mind. Everyone googled each other, it was just life in the Internet age.
Club Deception Page 15