by Ivy Pochoda
“This is it.”
I placed a hand on the iron base of the tower and felt the rust flake off.
“This is where I wound up.”
I looked over the mesa and across the desert. The silence and the dark were overwhelming.
“Of course, it’s not exactly the same,” Eva continued. “When I arrived, this mesa was a figment of one of Toby’s tricks. I imagine it’s a place he’d noticed once on his way to school in California. I bet he never really thought about it. It just stuck in a corner of his mind. Then he sent me here.”
“The signal, what is it?” I asked.
Eva shook her head. “At first I thought it was a dream, that I had been knocked unconscious at the bottom of the tank. But you can’t bang your head against a dream, and if you scream in a dream, you wake up.” She took a breath. “I was awake. I was underneath the signal tower. I sat there for so long that my pulse fell into sync with the flashing light. The night stretched on forever. Literally. The sun didn’t rise. There was no wind, not even any sound from the desert below.”
“And you didn’t go down?”
“In the dark?” Eva laughed. “I had just been in front of a large audience. I had just felt my boyfriend’s hand on my back, urging me into a tank where lily pads were supposed to bloom. And now…” She stretched out her arms. “As I told you on the boat, over time, the mesa started to change. It was as if it were waking up, leaving Toby’s imagination and rejoining the world. One day, I noticed a car in the distance. Even though the trick—whatever it was—was dissolving, there was one thing I already knew.” Eva paused and looked at the beacon. It flashed three times before she continued. “I could never really go back.” She dragged her foot across the dusty plateau. “It was his doing.”
“But an accident.”
“An accident is still somebody’s fault.”
I started to back away from the radio tower, ready to leave the mesa.
“Toby didn’t think. And he still hasn’t learned that his magic is harmful. It’s painful, and he will hurt someone. You need to convince him. He will listen to you.”
“Convince him of what?”
“That his magic is dangerous.”
I opened my mouth.
“Not always, but sometimes. And that is enough. It is the dangerous tricks that will appeal to him the most. Keep him away from these.”
“Even if that were true, I’m not sure I could.”
“But you will try.”
“I’ve never seen Toby try anything dangerous.” I headed for the large stone that divided the plateau.
“That is because you didn’t know what to look for. The very fact that he doesn’t understand how his magic works is dangerous enough. You could at least tell him that.”
“He’s heard.” I took a few steps before I realized that Eva was no longer following. I whirled around. “Eva.”
No answer.
“Eva,” I called again. But my voice was swept away. “Eva,” I cried, stretching my voice as far as I could. No sound came back to me. There was only the persistent heartbeat of the radio signal above my head.
I sank to the ground beneath the tower. I felt as if the whole desert—the whole world, in fact—were being pulled toward this signal and then transformed into nothing but a repeating red blip. I struggled to control my breath. Surely, Eva would return. If she didn’t, would Toby come? Would he think to look for me in the desert?
Eva had asked me a question about loneliness. It prompted another. What is the darkest place I’d ever been? Until then I’d thought it was the river that had taken my brother during a storm. I’d been wrong. Now I knew: the top of that mesa.
Oddly, I was relieved that Eva had gone. The Toby she knew and the one I married were different men, different magicians. I felt the night draw closer, enveloping me in Toby’s lonely magic. But unlike Eva, I wasn’t its captive. I stood up and started to walk. I felt my way down the mesa. My shoes filled with pebbles and dust as I walked along the dirt road back toward the small highway to hitch a ride back to Vegas. I could not tell Toby where I’d been.
Seven
Sandra was getting under my skin during the days leading up to the Winter Palace’s grand opening. I had agreed to help her find the right dress for the VIP party. She dragged me through the malls at Caesars Palace, the Venetian, and the Aladdin until we found something suitably unsuitable. When she was not pinching me and pulling me from one boutique to another, she was back at the Winter Palace, hovering around my magician as he paced the main floor of the casino. She and her coworkers tittered, whispered in Toby’s ear, and bought him drinks, but Toby said nothing about his plans.
I knew that Toby’s silence concealed excitement. We sat up late, working on his show. While I sewed his costume—an elegant black suit lined with silk that captured the colors of the setting sun, he dreamed up illusions, made lists of materials, and considered how much of his remarkable skill he could display to the patrons of the Winter Palace and how he would trick them into believing that what they were seeing was not real.
Three hours before show time, the Winter Palace was crowded with middle-aged women who twirled their VIP passes, snatched blintzes and caviar canapés from passing trays, and flirted with the bartenders. Their heels were already doing a number on the red carpet. The explosion of fireworks from the Winter Palace’s minarets echoed through the building. A traveling branch of the St. Petersburg Orchestra was tuning up in the theater while the Flying Karamazov Brothers tested their juggling equipment in the wings. Cocktail waitresses in skimpy peasant outfits circulated with trays of champagne and White Russians. Sandra was tipsy. She was wearing heels that she described as “absolutely Ivana Trump,” and she looked, as she had wished, like something out of the pages of Russian Vogue circa 1985.
“Fantastic!” she trilled, popping a hand-cut potato chip loaded with caviar into her mouth. “Mel!” she yelled in my direction. “Mel! The curtains, fantastic. Everyone, just look at those curtains. Look how rich. You just want to roll around naked in all those folds. It’s too bad we can’t keep Mel around forever. Genius. She’s a genius.”
We were standing near an ice sculpture that Sandra had commissioned. It showed a family of caribou frolicking alongside an ornate sled filled with Russian royalty. The attention to detail was impressive, from the animals’ chin hairs to the patterns on the rugs warming the passengers. “You like?” Sandra said, accidentally showering one of the caribou with champagne. “I knew you’d like it. All that snow and ice.”
I thought how nice it would be to cool my cheek against the flank of a caribou. “It’s fantastic,” I replied.
“We’re keeping the sculptor on the premises for the first month, in case we have a meltdown. After that, we’ll call him in every other month or so for a touch-up.” Sandra paused and adjusted the neckline of her dress. “You know, I must have taken twenty calls in the last two days about this show. All of my girlfriends were dying to be in it.”
“I can imagine.”
“But I made the best choice.” Sandra swilled her champagne.
“Choice?”
“I wanted only the finest showgirl.”
“For what?”
“For Toby’s assistant.” Sandra gave me one of her condescending looks.
“Assistant?” I asked.
“Your husband is sex on legs, but you’ve got to appeal to the men, honey. They’re the big spenders.”
“What assistant?” My mind was racing back to Eva and the mesa—to the warning I thought Toby didn’t need to hear.
“Every good show needs a showgirl. And I got him the best. She’s the lead dancer at the Rio. Guys come, literally, from everywhere to watch her shake it.”
“But Toby doesn’t use an assistant.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Sandra said, polishing off her drink. “But we told him—no assistant, no show. And he’s pretty excited, let me tell you. She’s a real showstopper.”
I grabbed a dr
ink from a passing tray and took a generous sip. “Sandra, this is a bad idea.”
“It’s not like he’s going to cut her in half or anything.”
I clutched her wrist. “He’s not supposed to use an assistant.”
“Is this jealously talking?” She tried to pull out of my grasp.
“You don’t understand—he can’t.”
“Honey,” Sandra began in her mock whisper, “there is no can’t. It’s already done.” She stepped away from me. “You’re never going to make it in this town if you’re afraid of a showgirl.”
“Sandra—”
“Done,” she called over her shoulder.
My heart pounded as I watched Sandra slip into her crowd of girlfriends and vanish in a swarm of high hair and sequins. I edged over to the gambling pits and set my drink on one of the craps tables, wishing I could find the magician and ask him why he hadn’t told me about the new addition to his show. I scanned the crowd for his familiar crown of shaggy black hair, but I knew that Toby was hiding. I exhaled, trying to expel the panic and numb my ears to Eva’s warning.
“Not on the felt, please,” a voice barked, making me jump. Even though my glass hadn’t been on the felt, it was returned to my hand. “Can’t put anything on the tables. Against the rules.”
I looked around and saw Greta in one of the cocktail costumes. The bodice drooped. She’d frosted her hair and pulled it back in a tight bun. Her nails were long and bright pink. If it weren’t for her voice, I might have mistaken her for one of the Winter Palace’s trainees I’d used as a model for the outfit she was wearing. “I didn’t put my drink on the felt,” I replied. “And can you bring me another?”
“Close enough,” Greta replied, ruffling the skirt for my benefit. “The edge is close to the felt. And on the felt is against the rules.”
“I know,” I said. “I make the rules.”
“Then you should know how to follow them. I’m circulating over there next,” she said, gesturing toward the ice sculpture. “So I wouldn’t wait around for that drink.”
“How did you get a job here?” I asked.
“You think I’m gonna work in that dumpy diner my whole life?”
“I don’t know.”
Greta took a step back and reconsidered me from top to toe. “You said you work here?”
“Yes.”
She lowered her voice. “I’m only hired for the night. If I do good, I get to stay on. Not that I’m gonna be a waitress forever.”
“I’m sure,” I said, trying to get away.
“It’s a shame that magician didn’t give me a chance.”
“It’s too late. He found his own assistant,” I muttered, finishing my drink.
“Who?” Greta’s voice rose above the polite cocktail party murmur.
“The Winter Palace found her for him,” I said quietly.
“So, he does keep secrets from you.”
“I guess so.”
“Should have been me.”
“Shh,” I said, lowering my voice and hoping that Greta would do the same. “It wasn’t supposed to be anyone. Toby is not supposed to use people in his tricks.”
“You keep telling yourself that. But it looks like you’re wrong.”
“It must be a mistake,” I repeated, talking more to myself than to Greta.
“The only mistake your magician made is not choosing me.” Greta’s voice carried over the crowd.
Several partygoers looked our way. One of the floor managers started to head in our direction.
“He’s made a mistake,” Greta repeated. She was nearly yelling now. “Your magician has made a real mistake. I was meant to be in that show.”
The manager approached our table.
Greta turned and faced her. “I was just telling this lady to keep her drink off the felt,” she said, gracing me with her mocking smile. “But I guess she didn’t listen.” Then she raised her tray to shoulder height and left.
I was about to follow her when the ladies’ magician entered from the Empress Buffet. He walked swiftly, so that his jacket blew open, showing its multicolored lining.
The women pushed forward. They ran their hands along Toby’s sleeves, slipped money into his pockets, and tried to whisper in his ear.
The husbands bowed their heads and muttered. “Don’t much like magic myself,” a man standing next to me said. “In fact, I used to think that it was a dangerous waste of time. But this guy’s done wonders for my wife. Turned her back into the little dynamo I married fifteen years back.”
I looked at the impromptu stage of backgammon tables. The question of whether the felt would survive the magic was eclipsed by my fear for the assistant Toby had invited onto his stage.
When Toby’s assistant appeared, the crowd of women dispersed. As Sandra promised, she was captivating. She wore a black velvet burlesque costume with red satin ribbons that trailed behind her as she walked. Her black hair was sculpted into an impossibly high tower on the top of her head. Her lips sparkled with vibrant, iridescent red gloss. Her heels looked poised to kill. She towered over the magician, and it seemed to me that she could certainly do him more harm than the other way around.
Toby walked to the gambling floor and hopped onto one of the tables. His assistant stood below him. Standing on the tabletop, he produced a bottle in each hand and began to fill the glasses she held. He poured pink champagne, regular champagne, and even a sparkling Italian red. The assistant passed the drinks while Toby made the table’s chips rise from the felt into his hands.
Toby had refined his Castaway routine. No more wicked winks and naughty smiles—he was all turn-of-the-century elegance. He did not speak, and his silence doubled the distance between him and his assistant. Once the drinks were distributed, the assistant held up a cue card that read MANUAL MAGIC: THE DEXTEROUS DANCE.
Toby shook his cuffs to show that there was nothing concealed in his shirt. Then he fanned his fingers and shot a stream of small sparks from his right thumb. When he touched his right thumb to his index finger, that, too, lit up with a stream of sparklers. He continued using his thumb to ignite one finger after another until the tip of each finger was alight with a small fountain of fireworks. Then, starting with his right thumb again, he touched his index finger and extinguished the sparks until all the fires died down. Fanning his fingers one more time, he shot a single, strong stream of sparks from his index finger, held it aloft, and traced it through the air, describing the word WELCOME.
The audience applauded politely, shifted their weight from one foot to another, and sipped their drinks. The assistant held up a card that read FROZEN FOUNTAIN, then handed Toby a red-and-gold brocade cloth that I had selected. He displayed both sides of the cloth. Waving it with the challenging grace of a bullfighter, he lowered the fabric until the bottom edge touched the blackjack table. He whisked it away, revealing a porcelain fountain filled with porcelain lily pads and birds. Toby lowered the cloth over the fountain. The gold fabric seemed to bulge. He withdrew it, and water poured over the fountain’s sides. With one more whisk of the cloth, the lily pads began to bob and the birds came to life and flew into the casino. Toby lowered the cloth once more, restored the fountain to its original state. Then the showgirl wheeled it away. He took a bow.
After these two tricks, I relaxed. It was clear to me that the magician was going out of his way to avoid contact with his assistant. His fingers never grazed hers as she passed him things. She was decoration.
In a number called ADRIFT, Toby updated a classic illusion by levitating two statues of Catherine the Great and sending them over the crowd and into the far reaches of the gambling floor. In MIND YOUR VALUABLES, he produced dozens of items, which he had lifted from the audience, dropped them into a giant glass vase, filled it with water from the palm of his hands, covered the vase with a black drape, took a hammer and smashed the vase to bits, and then lit the drape on fire. After the drape disintegrated into ash, he directed the audience to look at another table, where they
saw a gold box filled with their possessions. Toby hopped off the table and, without asking anyone to come forward, handed each item back to its owner.
Now the assistant held up a cue card for Toby’s final illusion. It read CATCH ME IF I FALL. Like any good magician, Toby knew he had to include one dangerous element. Although he had been fairly secretive about his preparations, he had assured me that he would make himself the subject of any dangerous trick he did. He did not mention that he was considering the BULLET CATCH.
Toby took his mark on one of the blackjack tables while the showgirl held a gun up to the audience. She distributed bullets to people, asking them to mark the shells. She then loaded the gun and tested it, firing at one of the statues of Catherine the Great and shattering the tsarina’s left shoulder.
Coyly, the assistant asked for a hand climbing up to a table facing Toby’s. Several men jumped forward to assist her. She posed for the crowd, then pointed the gun at the magician. My heart rose. Toby held up a finger. The assistant smiled. She put the gun down and held up a new cue card: VOLUNTEER PLEASE—CATCH HIM IF HE FALLS. The ladies of the Winter Palace moved forward, hands waving. I saw Sandra’s pastel nails fluttering furiously. And from the corner of my eye, I saw a pale figure in a neat, black sheath dress. Eva’s red lips were pressed together as she stared at the magician. He looked away, searching the audience for someone else to stand behind him and catch him if the bullets struck.
Hands waved and heads turned, searching for the person Toby would choose. Then I caught sight of one supplicant. She might have been any cocktail waitress. But I knew she wasn’t. Her pink nails caught the light.
“Me,” she cried.
I felt Eva’s cool glance on my back. I wanted to stop the magician. I raised my hand. “Me!”
The magician paused and glanced my way with a questioning look. “Me,” I demanded. Toby gave me a nearly imperceptible shake of his head. I tried to insist, but he turned away.
“No.” The teenager’s voice was cool and confident. “Me.”