Magic Mansion

by Jordan Castillo Price

  And that John’s skin probably felt amazing now, too. And if they rubbed their amazing skin together, it would be so hot Ricardo might just burst into flames.

  A double-knock sounded on the door, and an assistant called in, “Taping in the ballroom in ten.”

  Ricardo gave Sue what he hoped was an uplifting smile, and said, “It’s showtime!”

  Sue stood, unfolding painfully from the edge of the bed. “I want to die.”

  “Come on.” Ricardo offered his arm. “We’ll walk nice and slow.”

  They did walk slowly, and consequently, were the last two to enter the ballroom. With the Gold Team standing there framed by the gilt fireplace, Ricardo experienced a moment of disorientation at seeing Amazing Faye and Charity there with Muriel and Bev—because during his morning at the spa, he’d forgotten them. Intellectually, he knew they were part of his team. But in his heart, his teammates were the women he’d met while he was taping the Magic Mansion intro.

  Faye’s semi-causal outfit consisted of a halter top and clingy tuxedo-inspired pants with sequins running up the sides. Charity had on a bubblegum pink tracksuit—and her puppet was now wearing a bow tie. Ricardo looked more closely. No, Oscar had on a whole new outfit. Right down to the shoes. His fuzz-like hair was even styled a bit differently, parted to the side.

  Did Oscar wear pajamas, too? Ricardo had been a bit lonely in his own room, but the thought of Oscar watching him sleep made him experience a surge of gratitude for his solitary accommodations.

  The Red Team stood beneath a massive Impressionist depiction of swans and water lilies, a towering canvas at least ten feet high. It seemed a bit festive behind them, the men all in black—even Chip Challenge, though his rhinestones, cuffs and fringe were colorful. Their sole female contestant, Jia Lee, was once again fabulous in red: a short, tight red sheath dress with a mandarin collar.

  Around the perimeter of the room, camera operators got themselves settled in, while assistants took readings with light meters and fussed with the curtains. A makeup artist touched up Sue’s lipstick, but must not have seen anything to correct on Ricardo. And then Monty Shaw walked past with a quick, “G’day,” and took up his station on a piece of tape beneath an ornate arch that led to a smaller parlor, or something—Ricardo couldn’t quite say what it had once been, only that there was a tapestry screen blocking the view of its interior now, and the set assistants went in there every time they needed a power strip or a roll of gaffing tape.

  Iain came in last, murmuring to each of the cameramen. He conferred briefly with Monty, then seated himself behind the boom operator, where he crossed his legs and began chewing on his thumbnail. He did not, Ricardo noticed, say hello. He only said, “Action.”

  “Hello, magicians!” Monty said brightly.

  Both groups cautiously said hello. Ricardo felt the camera sweeping him, and he hoped he’d hit the right note with his greeting. Too subdued, and he might come off as bored. Even arrogant. Too enthusiastic and he’d seem like a loser.

  Maybe he shouldn’t have gone for the exfoliant after all. He’d need his thick skin if he hoped to stand up to the continual scrutiny of the camera.

  “I trust you’re all rested and rejuvenated?”

  Sue managed to smile and act like she was. Even if she was grinding her teeth to keep the ache in her thighs at bay.

  Once the magicians all made their sounds of affirmation, Monty said, “Then you’ll be eager to hear about your next challenge.”

  Not really. What Ricardo was eager to do was ditch the show and go back to the spa with John. Or go anywhere with John, for that matter. But he supposed every challenge he endured put him one step closer to an off-camera meeting with the Professor.

  “In this challenge, you’ll be working as a team. But…” he looked from one group to the other, and the cameras panned over everyone’s fretful expressions, “you’ll be doing it one teammate short. Because two of you…have been eliminated.”

  Eliminated?

  Two?

  Ricardo felt physically ill. No one said anything about one elimination, let alone two. And Monty hadn’t said they were going to be eliminated, either. He said they had been.

  What if the spa were some kind of test?

  What if Ricardo was supposed to do the deep tissue massage and leave the seaweed wrap for one of his teammates? Just a second ago he’d been fantasizing about leaving Magic Mansion behind and cruising off into the sunset with John. But now that his possible cut from the team was imminent, he realized he didn’t want to leave at all. Not really.

  Because Ricardo was a competitor. And, damn it, he wanted to play.

  He swallowed hard.

  Maybe (he hadn’t allowed himself to even think it) what he really wanted was…to win.

  Across the room, Kevin Kazan planted his feet wide and crossed his arms in a thuggish stance. His stiff black baseball cap sat high on his head at an angle that made Ricardo itch to straighten it out, and his neck was so thick with oversized necklaces that the Red Team medal just looked like part of his jewelry collection. When he saw Ricardo sizing him up, his eyes narrowed, and he tipped his chin up as if to say, You want a piece of me?

  Ricardo swallowed again, and considered the revelation he’d just had.

  He wanted to win.

  Yes, he did.

  He looked Kevin Kazan right in the eye, and he smiled.

  “Last night,” Monty said, “in the fishtanks, your physical limits were tested. Some of you competed successfully. And some of you…did not.”

  He paused while the cameras roved past the magicians, attempting to capture whatever dismay was lurking behind their polished smiles or sneers.

  “Would the magicians who stayed behind at the mansion today please step forward?”

  Iain said, “Stand on the tape mark,” which would be edited out.

  Faye strutted up to the tape in her silver high heels and thrust out her chest. Charity took her place between Faye and Chip, who greeted Oscar, and even shook his puppet-hand. Beside Chip, Ken shifted uneasily and cracked his huge knuckles, pulling each finger so hard it looked as if he might rip it right out of its socket.

  With a nod from Iain, Monty said, “Magicians must be able to endure a certain amount of bodily discomfort, whether that means holding their breath, or keeping calm inside a confined space. Amazing Faye, you held your breath for less than a minute. Not only that, you didn’t mega-charge your tank with fish, or even turbo-charge it with water.” He gazed at Faye pityingly, and said, “You didn’t even try.”

  Ouch. It was a scripted admonishment, no doubt. But still. Ricardo would have died inside to have someone tell him he hadn’t even tried.

  “Charity,” Monty said, “you suffer from claustrophobia, a most unfortunate phobia for a magician. Sadly, that condition has cost you.”

  Charity looked down at the floor. But Oscar’s mouth was moving, as if the puppet was whispering in her ear. And right next to it, Chip looked rather puzzled.

  Monty turned to the men. “Chip, while it’s true that the King packed on some extra weight in his later years, your faithfulness to his legacy has done you no good. You held your breath for an unhealthy fifty-nine seconds.”

  Chip did some Elvis-like posing while the cameras focused on him, tugging on his forelock, planting his foot so his bell-bottomed trousers flared noticeably. But even as he tried to take advantage of his moment in the unwanted spotlight, his attention was drawn away from the camera yet again by Oscar.

  Monty went on as if he didn’t notice. “Ken Barron, you’re an escape artist by trade. And while everyone has an off-night once in a while, yours picked a pretty bad time to show up.”

  “This is bullshit.”

  This time, Chip wasn’t the only one to be distracted. There was no mistaking that creepy falsetto. And it wasn’t Charity they were looking at, either. It was Oscar.

  “We weren’t told about no elimination round. This ain’t fair.”

  Faye blushed
to the roots of her flaming auburn hair, and said, “Any of us can get eliminated at any time. Deal with it.” She was talking to Oscar, too.

  “This is BULLSHIT.”

  In a very good Elvis-like Tennessee drawl, Chip said, “Now if we can all just calm down a minute.”

  “BULLSHIT!”

  Faye held up her hand as if to shield herself from Charity, and said, “You think having a puppet in your hand gives you the right to act like a spoiled little brat?”

  “It’s not me,” Charity said in a quavery voice, a completely different voice from Oscar’s, and an actual tear rolled down her cheek.

  “THIS - IS - BULLSHIT!” Oscar’s head popped up and down like he was on a pogo stick.

  “Okay,” Iain told Monty, “That’s good. Go on, now. And talk over her if you need to—your mike will pick it up—but switch the order of announcing the vote-offs from the way we had it written…for obvious reasons.”

  “BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULL…SHIT!”

  Monty nodded succinctly while Charity carried on via Oscar, and when she paused for a breath, he said, “The first player voted out of the mansion by our studio audience is…Chip Challenge.”

  Everyone went quiet. Even Oscar.

  Chip nodded, gave a sad smile, and dipped his head in a brief bow. “Thank you—thank you very much.” He swaggered forward from the rest of the lowest-scoring group, and turned to wave goodbye with one fringe-trimmed, rhinestone-studded arm—to the Red Team, to the Gold Team, to Monty, and finally, to the cameras.

  “Oh, right,” Oscar’s shrill voice cried out as Elvis left the building. “Vote off the only member of the whole cast who’s actually entertaining!”

  Faye covered her face with her hands and said, “This is not happening.”

  “One more player is going home tonight,” Monty said, “and that magician is…Charity Young.”

  It felt as if everyone—the cast, the crew, the room itself—held their breath. The moment hovered there, filled with mortifying possibility, while Charity gaped at Monty, stunned.

  And then her face twisted, and the tears started flowing in earnest.

  Sue hadn’t been kidding when she said cameras swarmed a weeper like flies on…poop, or whatever she’d called it.

  The weird part was, Charity was definitely crying. Hard. Huge, wracking sobs, with tears and even snot running down her face. But through it all Oscar, somehow, was still screaming.

  “Big surprise. Vote Charity off first to keep her from winning.”

  Iain said, “Just let her keep going ’til she wears herself out.”

  “The first challenge was a joke!” Oscar hollered. “Charity had all the talent! You never gave her a chance to perform! You never gave her a fucking chance!”

  Faye backed away, returning to her team without Iain’s permission, and hid behind Ricardo. She was shaking. Ken Barron was left alone in the middle of the room with Charity and her meltdown, and he watched in rapt horror as if her tirade had frozen him to the spot.

  “This mansion is a joke! Set dressers try to make it look fancy, but it’s all a sham. Half the rooms are falling apart, there are mice in the walls, and the first floor smells like a petting zoo!” Charity swung around and looked at the Gold Team, and Ricardo’s bemused shock turned to dread, as he wondered if he’d somehow managed to incur Oscar’s wrath, and he was about to be outed in front of the cameras. “You probably won’t win,” the puppet said—not to any specific teammate, but to the team in general. “Not without Charity. But if one of you does…hire yourself a good lawyer. This whole place is a joke, and they’ll probably try to cheat you out of the prize money.”

  Charity, meanwhile, wept. She stumbled toward the exit, then paused in front of the Red Team, and let Oscar shrill, “Your captain’s an asshole. They’ll probably rig it so that he gets crowned the Grandmaster Magician.”

  And with that, they strode out the door, Charity sobbing, and Oscar with his head held high.

  Chapter 14

  METAMORPHOSIS CHALLENGE

  Cast, crew…everyone stared at the empty doorway in shock once Charity Young departed. Iain was the first one to speak—into his phone. “Yeah, we need security up here to escort the rejected players off the property. We’ve got a sore loser.”

  Ricardo shuddered.

  “Well,” Muriel said placidly, “I didn’t see that coming.”

  “Maybe it’s an act,” Bev suggested.

  “No,” Faye said. She was so spooked, she looked close to tears herself. “No one’s that good. That was a real freakout. Maybe a psychotic break.”

  “We have been under a lot of stress,” Bev said.

  Sue cocked her head, considered the tape mark on the floor, and said, “But you’ve got to admit. She was a really good ventriloquist.”

  “Okay, everyone,” Iain called out, “deep breath. Think of it as trial by fire. You’re going to see some weird things over the course of the game. That’s good. In fact, that’s preferable: it’s engaging TV. No one’s gonna tune in to see you guys sipping tea and playing tiddlywinks. Got it?”

  Tea and tiddlywinks—what the hell did that mean? Ricardo wondered if it was a veiled homophobic remark…or if Iain was just a dismissive prick who thought insufferable-hipster-producer was a more respectable career than magician. Probably both.

  Iain turned to some grips and said, “Wheel in the boxes.” The burly assistants went behind Monty, into the room blocked off by the fabric screen, and wheeled out a pair of trunk-sized boxes. One black and gold, one black and red. Ricardo was more proficient at juggling than cabinet tricks. Even so, he could think of a dozen possible ways for the painted boxes to play out. Once the trunks were parked in front of their respective teams and the hand-carts were rolled away, Iain said, “Ken, get back with your team. Everyone, stand up straight and listen. Monty, you make the next announcement.” He sat down and steepled his fingers. “Action.”

  “Now that the poorest performers have been eliminated from your teams,” Monty said, “it’s time to show off your magician skills by performing a classic trick that takes flexibility, timing, and precision.”

  A camera swept the Gold Team as its members eyed the box. Across the room, another cameraman did the same to the Red Team.

  Once the cameras got whatever it was they were looking for, Iain told Monty, “Go ahead.”

  “This illusion has been around since 1865, when it premiered with the name The Box Escape. When Houdini borrowed the trick in 1893 and put his own spin on it, he re-named it Metamorphosis, which it is still known by today. In this trick, a magician seals an assistant in a bag, places them inside a trunk, ties the bag shut and climbs up top. A curtain is then raised to block magician and trunk from view. When the curtain falls—usually just a second or two later—the assistant, in an entirely different costume, has taken the place of the magician. The trunk is untied, and then the bag, so the magician can show off a costume change of his or her own.”

  Iain said, “Both teams, step up to your cabinets. Open them, tap on them, check them out.”

  As Ricardo approached his box, he heard Bev whisper, “That’s it. I’m finished. I don’t even know how it’s done.”

  Muriel shushed her, and said, “We’ll work it out.”

  Sue explained quietly, “This lid slides open while the magician straddles it, see? Right between the legs. The rope holding the top on isn’t really tied on tight. The slack is hidden in the box. By the time the magician is standing on top, the assistant’s changed costumes and ready to hop out and take his place. That’s why they spend so long securing the bag shut. It gives the assistant time to swap her wardrobe.”

  Ricardo glanced at the Red Team while his teammates explained the trick to Bev. All five of the Red Team members poked and prodded their box as if they were on a car lot shopping for a new Ferrari, and though they looked like they’d probably done the trick a hundred times before, they probably wouldn’t mind taking their red and black box for a spin.
r />   Once everyone had a good look at their prop, Monty said, “While Houdini performed Metamorphosis underwater, we wouldn’t dream of making you get wet two challenges in a row. Besides, the trick has as many variations as it has performers. One thing those variations do have in common: they’re done behind a curtain. But since you’re all magicians—and you all know the secret—that’s not going to be the way we do it today. You won’t be aiming to impress an audience. You’ll be trying to beat each others’ times.”

  Ricardo felt a twinge of queasiness. Bev was adorable, no doubt. But he had a hard time picturing her doing a wardrobe change in a box. And Muriel said the funniest things…but she wasn’t exactly quick on her feet.

  “Confer with your teammates, and pick two magicians to represent your team in the Metamorphosis Challenge.”

  “Yes,” Ricardo hissed—and though he worried that maybe he’d offend his older teammates by doing so, when the Gold Team huddle formed, they looked just as relieved as he felt.

  One of the Gold Team members, Amazing Faye, had been a magician’s assistant for an unspecified number of years before she got sick of playing second fiddle and decided she should be running the show. Ricardo assumed she was somewhere around his age, mid-thirties, though under all the concealer and glitter it was kind of hard to tell. She seemed like she was in great shape, and that’s what mattered. Plus she had a lot of experience. “I do Metamorphosis all the time,” she said. “I’m so fast I can even pop out with a different lipstick on.”

  Things were looking better and better.

  “I could do it,” Sue said. “Normally.” Her voice went a little wobbly, and she said, “But, guys? I’m so sore from that awful massage I can hardly even move my arms.”

  “Hey.” Ricardo squeezed her hand. “I know the trick. It’s been a few years since I’ve done it, but even if they don’t let us practice it, I’m fast.”

  “You don’t mind?” Sue said.

  “Are you kidding? Lemme at it.”

  “Thank God,” Bev said. “Because if Gold Team had to rely on me, we’d be up a creek.”

  “Any day I don’t get stuffed into a pine box is a good day,” Muriel agreed.