Capitol Magic

by Klasky, Mindy

  Sometime during phone call fourteen, he left a voice mail. My so-called beloved was a director. His message used our common language, the patois of the theater that we both lived and breathed. He was sure I’d understand eventually, he said. He’d only just realized it himself. The blocking of our entire relationship was just not right.

  Blocking. Where the actors stood when they said their lines.

  I had spent the night of my would-be wedding, precisely one year ago, kneeling on the bathroom floor of the Hyatt Regency. Maddy and Jules had taken turns holding my torn-down updo off my face, offering me damp paper towels and glasses of cold water to rinse my mouth.

  The guests—cast and crew from dozens of local shows, long-lost relatives, scores of my father’s law firm partners—had pasted on fake smiles and eaten their filet mignon with merlot reduction, their potatoes Anna, their haricots verts. And I had eaten nothing as I tried to imagine how I could possibly face everyone the morning after.

  I had eaten nothing that night. But I’d made up for it during the intervening year.

  For twelve months, I had solaced myself with alternating treats of sweets and savories. In my frequent bouts of self-loathing when I thought about what I was doing to myself, I was disgusted by the amount I had consumed. Sure, I was tall—five foot ten—but there was a limit to the pounds that even my height could camouflage. A monolith of empty ice cream pints towered in my mind, mortared together with crumpled bags of Doritos, shredded boxes of Cheez-Its. My candy wrappers alone, laid end to end, could have spanned the Grand Canyon, and I couldn’t bear to picture the veritable ocean I had consumed of the perfect comfort food: homemade Tater Tots hot dish.

  I also couldn’t stand to think of the four different wardrobes crowding my closet—four different sizes of clothes, laid out in a neat sequence, like my stage manager scripts. After rebuying jeans for the third time, I’d gotten smart and given in to elastic waistbands—bulky sweatshirts, fleece pants, all in black because I desperately believed the color was slimming.

  What did it matter? I spent most of my time backstage in a dark theater. Why did I need a real wardrobe, anyway? It wasn’t like the dating gods were showering gifts upon me. There might be dozens of theaters in the Twin Cities, but TEWSBU had friends in all of them. Stupidly, I was still caught off guard when theater people nodded as I introduced myself, a distant glint of recognition in their eyes. I was that one, they all seemed to say. And then they all darted not-surreptitious-enough glances at my ever-expanding waistline, silently saying, “Well, no wonder he left her.”

  A lot of theater people could be superficial. That came from judging actors on their body types, day in and day out, defining whether they could fill a role based on how they looked. But the most frustrating thing about all of my weight gain? My chest was still flat as a board. At twenty-eight years of age, I could still get by wearing an undershirt, instead of the engineering feats of lace and wires that other women proudly sported.

  I was jilted, fat, flat, and miserable.

  And the absolute worst part was, I couldn’t even drown my sorrows in alcohol. Sharing a few six-packs with girlfriends had carried me through the loss, years back, when my boyfriend broke up with me freshman spring at the U. And when I kicked out my sophomore beau, I already had a bottle of chardonnay waiting on ice. Tequila shots dulled the pain when my junior year beloved turned out to have a side thing going with my then-best-friend. And each and every time I broke up with one of those meaningless senior-year guys, a legally purchased martini had marked the occasion.

  But at some point in the past six years, since I’d been cut loose from the serious business of college partying, I had become allergic to alcohol. It was really strange—if I took a sip of wine, a swallow of beer, touched my lips to anything stronger, I could feel my cheeks turn bright red. The handful of times I’d tried to go beyond that warning sign, I’d been rewarded with blotchy hives that itched like the devil.

  My doctor had shrugged and told me that allergies sometimes develop later in life. She’d shaken her head at my dismay and reminded me that I was actually pretty lucky. After all, no one really needed alcohol to make it through the day. I could avoid it easily enough, she’d chided. It wasn’t as if I had a severe allergy to eggs or wheat, to something that would put me constantly in danger of a reaction worth a hospital visit.

  Yeah, that was me. Lucky. Lucky like a Minnesota Vikings fan, watching my team forever slip out of contention.

  I brushed my hands against my black fleece pants and turned toward the rolling racks of Kismet costumes. There were a dozen outfits for dancing girls—long, flowing harem pants in pastel colors, each matched with a scandalous golden bra. The boys’ outfits featured similar pants, but in saturated hues.

  I started to hum “Stranger in Paradise” as I attached price tags to each of the frothy creations. I couldn’t imagine anyone actually wearing one in public, but then again, there were a whole lot of men and women who thought nothing of donning slut-wear for Halloween. We just had to find a lot of people willing to buy almost a year in advance.

  Somewhere nearby, we must have stored the accessories from the show. If I remembered correctly, the dancing girls had worn elaborate veils in one scene and necklaces of gold coins in another. The men had sported ruby-studded sashes, and we had to have at least a dozen scimitars. The Kismet cast would never have made it through airport security. If, you know, they were actually going anywhere. It wasn’t like Fox Hill productions traveled to New York, or Hollywood, or anywhere else smacking of theatrical power or prestige.

  Absentmindedly, I tugged at the third rolling rack, ready to find the small pieces and finish my work for the day. A loud, metallic clatter made me jump back, and I bit off a curse. If the necklaces had fallen, they’d send coins flying all over the shop floor. It would take me forever to collect the debris.

  I quickly realized, though, that no jewelry had fallen. The clatter I’d heard had been loud, echoing, not the tinkle of scattered metal. I squatted beside the rolling rack and reached beneath to retrieve whatever had fallen.

  That motion had been a lot easier thirty pounds before. My hand came down sharply on something metal. I dragged it back and sat down hard, eager to relieve the pressure on my knees.

  A lamp.

  A brass oil lamp, with a high delicate handle and a long, gently curved spout.

  It must have been one of our props—we had dressed the set with all sorts of pseudo-Arabic bric-a-brac. I could still remember the props master coming in from Goodwill, thrilled to have found a string of glass beads that looked like they’d just surfaced in the local bazaar. We’d joked about who’d had such tacky decor in their own home before donating it for our greater good.

  The oil lamp in my hands was absolutely filthy, so caked with dust and tarnish that I wouldn’t have thought it metal if I hadn’t heard it fall.

  Huffing and puffing more than I was willing to admit, I clambered to my feet and stepped back to the center of the costume shop. I raised the lamp toward the bare light bulb overhead, hoping to make out some stamp on the bottom, something that would let me jack up its price for our current desperation sale.

  Shaking my head, I pulled the sleeve of my sweatshirt over my wrist and rubbed at the brass, trying to polish off its coat of grime. Pressing harder, my fingertips brushed against the curved brass spout.

  An electric shock jolted through my arm. The force was strong enough to make me yelp, and I dropped the lamp with another ungodly clatter. My fingers jangled violently, and I shook my hand as if I could make the pain fall away, drip off like splatters of boiling water. My heart pounded so hard I couldn’t speak, couldn’t even swallow, and for just a second, I thought that I had somehow, impossibly, managed to electrocute myself.

  I kept on breathing, though. Kept on breathing, and kept on watching, even as my jaw dropped in disbelief.

  Fog poured out of the brass lamp’s spout.

  Okay. I was a stage manager. I knew how t
o generate fog onstage. I knew how to make great billowing clouds with dry ice. I knew how to generate clammy banks that hugged the floor, twining around actors’ ankles, making audiences shiver in anticipation of London accents and wolves howling on moors. I knew how to create a soft, fuzzy mist with fine droplets of heated oil, a shimmer that could diffuse spotlights and make a crowd believe that they were lost in a dream, that they were in the company of Broadway stars who belted out ballads as if their fictional lives depended on it.

  I could order up atmospheric effects in my sleep, recognize them—any of them—from twenty paces.

  This was no atmospheric effect. This was real. This fog swirled as it emerged from the lamp, shimmering with its own inner light. It expanded and twisted on itself, writhing like a living thing, glinting beneath the fluorescents. I could make out flashes of cobalt and emerald, ruby and topaz.

  I blinked, and the fog disappeared.

  In its place was a man. A man wearing a white polyester suit with wide lapels, and a black synthetic shirt with an ungodly, buttoned-up white vest. He was tall, a good head taller than me, and so skinny that I wondered if he might be ill. As I gaped, he shot his right hand up in the air, striking out his left leg in a perfect 1970s Disco Fever dance pose.

  A tattoo wrapped around his right wrist. The ink was compelling; it drew my eyes, even as I gaped at the bizarre sight in front of me. I could make out a delicate tracery in red and gold, individual tongues of flame outlined in jagged black. The design made me shiver, as if it spoke to some dark, secret memory deep inside my brain.

  As I stared, absolutely speechless, the guy smiled and tossed his blow-dried hair in a way that I was apparently supposed to find seductive. “Hey, foxy lady! Ready to boogie on down with a wish?”

  Buy How Not to Make a Wish and read the rest of Kira’s story here:

  http://tinyurl.com/bvc-how-not-to

  Or, buy the entire As You Wish series in a three-in-one omnibus edition!

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Mindy Klasky learned to read when her parents shoved a book in her hands and told her that she could travel anywhere in the world through stories. She never forgot that advice.

  Mindy’s travels took her through multiple careers. After graduating from Princeton University, Mindy considered becoming a professional stage manager or a rabbi. Ultimately, though, she settled on being a lawyer, working as a litigator at a large Washington firm. When she realized that lawyering kept her from writing (and dating and sleeping and otherwise living a normal life), Mindy became a librarian, managing large law firm libraries. Mindy now writes full time.

  For years, Mindy’s dating life was a travel extravaganza as well. She balanced twenty-eight first dates in one year, selecting eligible gentlemen from sources as varied as Washingtonian magazine ads, Single Volunteers of D.C., and supposedly-certain recommendations from best friends. Ultimately, she swore off the dating scene entirely. After two years of carefully-enforced datelessness, she made one last foray onto Match.com, where she met her husband – on her first match.

  Mindy’s travels have also taken her through various literary genres. In addition to her Harlequin Special Editions, Mira, and Red Dress Ink books, Mindy has written six traditional fantasy novels for Roc (including the award-winning, best-selling The Glasswrights’ Apprentice), short stories, and nonfiction essays.

  In her spare time, Mindy quilts, knits, and tries to tame the endless to-be-read shelf in her home library. Her husband and cats do their best to fill the leftover minutes.

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