by Ivy Pochoda
“Yes, where I sent you.”
“I have never felt anything like the sensation of plunging into that tank of water. It was as if everything fell away from me. I never hit the bottom. You said I wouldn’t.”
Toby nodded.
“But you didn’t tell me what would happen.”
“I didn’t know,” Toby admitted. “Everything always turned up where I expected it.”
“People are not things,” Eva said. Her voice was calm. “It was as if I was skydiving. I was spinning and rotating. A hundred black-and-white movies seemed to be rewinding through my head. I felt as if I were in a plummeting airplane.” She pulled down the cuffs of her suit jacket. “I arrived on a mesa. Yes, a mesa. So perhaps, Toby, your instinct was right, to look for me here in the desert. But I always wonder why it took you so long to start searching.”
“I didn’t know how.”
Eva shook her head. “If you try to lose someone into thin air, you better learn how to look for her.”
“It’s not something I’d ever try again,” Toby said softly.
“You would have found me on a mesa, the bleakest place I can imagine. I felt suffocated by the absence of people.”
“I’m sorry,” Toby said.
“How did you do it?”
“An accident,” he repeated.
“As if that explains anything.” Eva smoothed her immaculate hair. “I was absent for eleven months. It was both an eternity and a millisecond.” She wrapped one hand around her forearm. “Sometimes, I wonder if I’m even back. Maybe this is just somewhere else, another place from where we began together. Anyway, Toby, you’ve moved on,” Eva said, turning in my direction.
“Mel, yes.” Toby stumbled over my name.
I nodded.
“Don’t worry, Toby. I’ve no illusions. I’m just hoping you play safe from now on.” She looked at me with cool eyes. “Especially with her.”
“I would never,” the magician began.
“You see, I always knew you preferred magic to me.” She smiled. “That trick was just more important to you. Imagine, what it takes to make someone disappear for good. It’s easier than loving her forever, right?”
“Eva, you make it sound like I did this on purpose.”
She shook her head. “No. I’m just saying you didn’t understand your own intentions. And if you’re not careful, you’ll do it again.”
“No.” Toby’s voice was firm. “Never.”
“Careful, Toby. Don’t get carried away by your tricks.”
Toby turned away from Eva and stared at the looming canyon wall. After a moment, he said, “So how did it end? How did you make it back?”
“I’m not sure. Slowly people began to appear. And one day, I felt the same nauseating whirl and the desert where I’d found myself literally came to life. There was wind and tumbleweed. A car drove past. I flagged it down. The driver told me the date. Eleven months had passed. I hadn’t even noticed.”
Toby shook his head.
“Do you know what the worst part is?” Eva asked. “No one believes me. How could they? I plummeted into a tank in the middle of a magic trick and reappeared in a world created from your loneliness. Toby, you were always a lonely magician. No friends. Nothing but your incomprehensible tricks.” Now Eva laughed a laugh that sounded like cascading gravel. “That’s why I am so surprised you didn’t look for me. I wound up in the perfect place for you and your magic.” She blinked again, her smoky lids eclipsing the whites of her small eyes. “That’s why I’m so surprised you didn’t come.”
Toby cleared his throat. “I didn’t know how to find you. All I could do was wait.”
“For some reason, I don’t believe you.” She folded her arms across her chest and looked at Swenson.
“I’m getting seasick,” he muttered.
“There’s more,” Eva said. “I still don’t know where I am most of the time. I don’t trust my surroundings.”
“That’s your work, Toby,” Swenson said. Then he turned to Eva. “You should see him with the ladies following him around the casino. Wonder where they’re gonna wind up.”
Toby turned to Eva. “You’re going, already?”
“I don’t stay in one place for very long. That is what has happened to me.”
Swenson tapped his ring again. The boat was approaching the dock. He linked his large arm through Eva’s and began to lead her belowdeck.
“Careful with your tricks,” Eva said, her words light and fading. I watched her walk away, jealous of her carriage and her clothes. Then she and Swenson were gone.
We stayed on the top deck as the other passengers disembarked.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“At least you found something you were looking for.”
“No,” Toby said, “she found me. It’s different.”
“Why?”
The magician didn’t reply, but kept his eyes on the spot Eva had left.
Six
In the days following our anniversary cruise, Toby clung to me but never mentioned our meeting with Eva. He threw himself into the preparations for the Winter Palace opening, crafting a show he hoped would be unlike anything Las Vegas had seen before.
I never told Toby that when he was busy I often ate my meals at the Red Rock Diner simply to see if Greta was all right. When it was crowded, I tried to avoid her section, choosing to watch her from a distance. Greta made no secret about which customers she preferred, but I could never decipher her preference. I simply felt sorry for the people whose cups came half-empty and whose orders were never quite right. Of course, whenever it fell to her to be my waitress, Greta gave me special treatment—sometimes waiting ten or twenty minutes before taking my order. And yet, on certain occasions when the diner was empty, she would linger, doodling on her pad as I considered the menu. I knew she wanted to ask me about Toby.
In recent weeks, she had begun to scrub off her goth façade. First the chipped nail polish went, replaced by a well-maintained beige. Then she’d trimmed her hair and recolored it an unremarkable shade of honey brown. Her lipstick went from dark purple to red, then to pink, and finally to a coral gloss that would have pleased Sandra. Greta swept neutral eye shadow over her lids and coated her lashes with brown mascara. Between shifts, she had made time for sunbathing, darkening her already coppery complexion. She might have passed now for a run-of-the-mill teen working at a diner to save for her prom dress.
I was not particularly hungry when I opened the door to the Red Rock. The grease and steam from the industrial dishwasher hit me full on. I saw Greta at the far end of the counter near the kitchen, examining her freshly painted nails as she flirted with one of the cooks. The diner was nearly empty, so I sat at the counter. I didn’t bother to signal to Greta. She’d come or she wouldn’t.
As I waited, I pulled out a textiles catalog and began to note bulk prices for some replacement fabrics I thought the Winter Palace should keep in stock. Without warning, a cup of hot tea slid down the counter, landing in front of me and splashing onto the open page.
“Greta, thanks,” I said. I didn’t bother looking up. I figured that by the time I did, she’d be gone. But as I lifted my cup, she was there.
“So. How’s it going?”
I looked up. “I’m fine.”
“I’m not asking about you.”
I sipped my tea.
“How’s the show coming? Toby’s show.”
“I’m sure that’s fine, too.”
“So, he keeps secrets from you, too.”
“He’s a magician. That’s his business.”
Greta patted the top of her neatly combed hair. “Must bother you.”
“It doesn’t.”
She considered her nails once more. “But when he gets an assistant, he’ll share everything with her. It’ll bother you then.”
“I keep telling you that Toby doesn’t work with an assistant.”
“He will.”
“Greta, it’s getting old.”
She waited a moment before giving me her mocking smile. “Who are you to talk about what’s getting old?”
I opened the menu and pretended to be interested in it. Greta reached over and drummed her nails on the lacquered page.
“What do you think of the color?”
“Your nails?”
She nodded.
“Pretty basic.”
“So you think I should go longer. Brighter, maybe? You think hot pink would be more suitable?”
“For what?” I asked.
“For the stage.”
“And what stage might that be?”
Greta removed her hand and took away my menu. “You know.”
I shook my head. “Give it a rest.”
“Even Jim Swenson said Toby’s going to use an assistant eventually.”
“Please stay away from Jim Swenson.”
“Whatever,” Greta said, walking away without letting me order. In a moment, she was back with a new cup of tea. “I’m just saying, two people ordering hot tea on a hot day is kind of weird.”
“I didn’t order,” I reminded her.
“Well, you know.”
I hadn’t wanted either cup of tea. I’m a coffee drinker. But since our first encounter in the Red Rock, tea was all Greta ever served me.
“I don’t know what’s up with people like you.”
“People like who?” I asked.
“You and that other lady. The one with the tea. Sitting in that booth.” Greta rolled her eyes across the diner. “The one in black. Don’t know how you can walk in shoes like that.” She tapped her nails. “Well, unless you work the Strip.”
I tried not to laugh.
“Hey, ma’am,” Greta called, inching down the counter. “More tea?” It was a condemnation, not a question.
The woman turned. Her coiffed hair was unmistakable. In an instant, Eva was on her feet, heading toward the kitchen.
“Greta,” I called.
“Paula,” she reminded me, flicking her name tag.
“Is that an exit?” I pointed in the direction of the kitchen’s swinging door.
“Not really,” she replied.
I stood up to follow Eva.
“I mean, not for you,” Greta said.
But I had already pushed through the swinging door and was standing in the steamy kitchen. Eva wasn’t there. At the far end, near a walk-in refrigerator, was another door, which probably led outside. The teenaged cook tried to stop me as I passed him.
After the steam of the Red Rock’s kitchen, the Vegas heat was strangely refreshing. The grimy parking lot was littered with Dumpsters for various businesses. At the far end, I saw Eva, her slim black figure opening the door of a car.
“Eva,” I called. “Wait.”
To my surprise, she stopped.
I hurried toward her. “Please,” I said.
“I’m waiting.”
For a moment, we looked at each other.
“You’re expecting the circus girl Toby probably described?”
I shrugged.
“People change. Can you tell me what you want?”
I was staring at the fleur-de-lis motif on her stockings and shoes. “Not really. I thought you were leaving Las Vegas.”
“So did I.” Eva laughed. “But it’s difficult for me to go when and where I please.” She looked at me, searching for some sign of comprehension.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I came out here.” I looked back at the door of the Red Rock.
“Not jealousy, I hope.”
“No,” I replied, “not at all.” I ran my fingers through my hair, which next to Eva’s seemed brittle and unkempt. “I guess I thought talking to you might help me understand Toby a little better.”
“You’ve married someone you don’t understand?”
“Maybe.”
Eva smiled, and suddenly I got a glimpse of the person who got lost inside one of Toby’s tricks—a captivating woman who commanded the audience’s attention while the magician put the finishing touch on his latest illusion. She walked around to the driver’s side of her car, opened the door, and got behind the wheel. The window on the passenger’s side rolled down. “Get in.”
Eva drove fast, zigzagging through the traffic on the Strip. We shot out of Vegas in the direction of California. Using the rearview mirror, she applied her murky red lipstick. Then she lit a cigarette. “You haven’t known him long, then,” Eva said.
I shook my head. “A couple of months. We met in a small town a few hours from here.”
“I don’t think I ever really knew Toby at all. I was a different girl back then. I wanted a boyfriend. That’s what you want when you’re young, isn’t it?”
“I guess,” I said. I fiddled with the clasp on my seat belt. “Where are we going?” I asked.
“Somewhere important.” She tossed her cigarette out the window and exhaled a last burst of smoke. “Maybe you and Toby will have a life—” She paused. “—a normal life. I don’t know. But he told me when we first got together that love and magic don’t mix. After a few months, we both forgot about this. When it was too late, I realized that the kind of magic Toby aspires to leaves no room for others.” She looked at my wedding ring. “But he hasn’t quite figured that out yet.”
“You’re wrong.”
Eva shook her head. “How can you be sure? You didn’t know him before.”
“I know him now.”
“It won’t last.”
“How do you know?”
The car sped along a two-lane highway.
“Toby has the ability to pull the perfect person to his side at the perfect time.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“So you think it’s a coincidence that you two met in some middle of nowhere?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Eva’s words were bitter. “Keep in mind, if he is able to pull you to his side, he can send you away again.”
I decided not to respond.
“He might not mean to. In fact, he absolutely wouldn’t mean to. But he will.”
I glanced at the speedometer and wished Eva would slow down. Or stop. “You sound jealous,” I said. I unrolled my window to breathe the air outside. “In fact, maybe you are. I’m having no trouble staying at Toby’s side.”
Eva put her foot on the brake. The car fishtailed to a stop in the middle of the highway. “Mel,” she began. I was surprised that she remembered my name. “I live inside a magic trick. I have no jealousy.” Eva stared at me. “I’m not trying to frighten you.” Then she pressed on the gas. “I’m just trying to help you. When Toby sent me into that trick, he destroyed a part of my will. I don’t want that to happen to you.” She glanced in the rearview mirror. “Or to anyone else.” Eva lit a new cigarette.
“Why would that happen?”
She exhaled. “Toby doesn’t understand the sacrifices he is willing to make for his craft.”
I looked out the window and wondered about the truth of this.
The sunset began to spread at the far edge of the desert, sending long shadows across the sand. If I squinted, the land looked tiger-striped.
“I was a city girl,” Eva said. “I never thought I’d spend so much time out here.” She laughed. “I was popular, too. Now it’s simpler to know no one.”
“Me, too,” I replied.
“You, too, which?”
“The part about the desert.” The other part was true as well, but I didn’t want to admit it. Eva looked at me out of the corner of her eye. Her glance told me she knew better.
I wanted to ask how much farther we were going, but I knew she wouldn’t answer. What I asked instead was, “What was he like?”
“You assume that the magician is different now.”
“I think Toby was probably always a little different.”
Eva looked at me again with her cool gaze. And for a moment, I wondered if there was a possibility that we could be friends.
&n
bsp; “Toby is indifferent. He never understood what effect his magic might have on other people.”
“That’s why he no longer does magic involving people,” I said. My defense of Toby sounded tired, even to me.
“Toby’s ambition is to be the greatest magician who ever lived. And he could be. But at some point, his audience will insist on tricks using people.”
I shook my head. “He’s resisted before.”
“It’s easy to resist in a forgettable desert town.”
Before I could reply, she pulled off the highway and onto a dusty service road. We passed rotting fences that enclosed vast patches of dust and sand. When I looked over my shoulder, the lights of the highway had vanished.
“Mel,” Eva said. My name dropped from her mouth like a pebble into a lake. “What is the loneliest you’ve ever been?”
I knew. The nearly deserted motel where I’d spent my first night in Nevada. Being lost in a cornfield when I was a kid. Listening to the empty echo of the house after my brother left. Staring at my half-eaten dinner in a restaurant full of happy couples. “Watching my brother slip away downstream,” I said.
“But you weren’t alone,” Eva replied.
I hadn’t mentioned my mother. “It felt like it.”
“You had the river for company. Even a little sound can be comforting.”
Eva finally stopped the car. Leaving the headlights on, she opened her door. I followed. The light illuminated a small mesa. Eva walked around the side of it, until the car was out of view. Then she began to climb.
Despite the dark and her high heels, she walked confidently, but my shoes tangled in the bristly grass, and I often had to grab the brambles for support. It took us almost half an hour to reach the top. When we reached the plateau, I was out of breath, but Eva was as cool as ever.
Neither Las Vegas nor the highway nor anything else was visible. No lights danced in the sand. No sound rose from the desert. I bent over, trying to recover from the climb. Before I could right myself, Eva disappeared around a jutting rock that divided the plateau. I found her standing at the base of an old radio tower that stretched fifty feet into the air. At the top of the tower, a red light was flashing, soundlessly interrupting the solid night.
I wanted to say that I hadn’t noticed the tower as we’d climbed the mesa, but Eva spoke first.