by Ivy Pochoda
I nodded.
“I come from the desert. Never seen so much goddamned rain.”
I fumbled for my keys. Jimmy was too impatient and rang the bell. When no one answered, he pounded on the door. I found my key and was about to fit it in the lock, when the door opened and Toby poked his head out. If he was surprised by Jimmy’s presence, he didn’t let it show. He looked past the teenager to me. “Are you making it a habit of staying away at night?”
“I’m not the only one,” I said, pushing past him into the house.
Toby’s eyes clouded. Before he could speak, Jimmy wedged himself between us.
“It took me forever to find you.”
“I vanish easily.”
They backed into the vestibule.
“Some guy in a magic shop told me there were a bunch of creepy old magicians living on this street. I’ve been ringing every bell.”
“Creepy,” Toby repeated.
Jimmy looked over his shoulder at the street and then peered down the hallway. “Perfect.” He laughed. “This city and this rotten house are perfect for a couple of old-timers like yourselves. Couldn’t really imagine you under the Vegas lights.”
“You’d be surprised,” Toby said.
“We’re not as old-fashioned as you may think,” I added.
“A magician and a—” Jimmy looked at me.
“A textile designer.”
“Right out of the history books. Bet you don’t even watch TV.”
We shook our heads.
Then Jimmy looked down at his shoes. He pursed his lips and squinted. He pulled his puffy ski coat tighter. “Never cold like this back home.”
“Can I get you anything? Something to eat or drink?” I suggested.
“Nah. I haven’t found anything good to eat since I’ve been here.”
“Maybe a coffee?” Toby offered as Jimmy looked up.
“A beer,” Jimmy said finally. “I’ll take a beer.”
Toby and I looked at each other and shrugged. “Why not?” the magician said.
“Cool,” Jimmy muttered, and took off his coat.
We sat at the kitchen table. “Only good thing in this city is that you can get fries everywhere.”
“You can get fries a lot of places in America,” I said.
“They’re better here.” Jimmy looked down at the table. “Like at that diner, the Route 66?”
I nodded as I remembered the place where we first met Greta.
“The fries there suck. The ketchup is really bad, too. They just pretend it’s Heinz. But Greta always had to refill those Heinz bottles from some pump dispenser. Didn’t fool anyone.” He shrugged. “In Intersection, there isn’t much choice.”
Toby returned with three bottles of beer.
“Bottles,” Jimmy said, “nice. At the bars here, the beers are so small.”
“So it doesn’t get warm while you’re drinking,” I explained.
“True,” Jimmy said. “Greta’d probably be jealous if she knew I was sitting here with you. Or angry. Who knows.” For a moment, no one spoke. “I miss her sometimes,” Jimmy said finally. “I miss her a lot of the time. It’s like, when she ran off to Las Vegas, I wasn’t sure she’d come back exactly. But I never thought that I wouldn’t see her again.” He rubbed his eyes and looked at the table.
“I should have been more careful,” the magician explained. “It was my fault.”
Now Jimmy laughed. “That would make Greta so mad. She’d want all the credit.”
Toby drained his glass.
“She was such a weird girl,” Jimmy continued. “She talked about death like it was a person. It was like a popular girl Greta wanted to impress.” Jimmy shook his head. “The weird thing is, she was fun. I mean, at least she had a thing. All the other girls at school—well, I don’t know—they’re pretty much the same.” He paused. “I just don’t understand what she was thinking.”
“Some people just feel that they are meant to be elsewhere,” I said.
“How do you hold on to someone like that?”
“You can’t,” I replied.
“That sucks.”
“It does,” Toby added.
“Can you find someone after she disappears?” He looked from me to Toby.
Toby shook his head.
“But you’re a magician.”
“That doesn’t make any difference.”
Jimmy drained his beer then pounded the bottle on the table with such force that the plates shook in the sideboard. “No,” he said. “I don’t believe it.” His knuckles were white. “It’s the only thing that does make a difference.”
“Why?” Toby asked. His voice was calm.
Jimmy spoke slowly, trying to control a storm rising inside him. “When Greta left for Vegas, she said you were more than a magician. She said you could actually do stuff.” Now he pounded the table again and half rose out of his seat. “So, do something.”
“Please calm down,” Toby said.
“It’s just not okay,” Jimmy said, standing and walking around to Toby. “Everyone says it is, but it’s not. And you’re not going to walk away a second time.”
Toby stood and tried to lead Jimmy back to his seat, but the teenager didn’t let him.
“Greta’s dead, and you’re on vacation,” Jimmy said. “That just doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m not on vacation,” Toby replied, struggling to speak calmly.
“It looks like it.” Jimmy stumbled against a wall, then righted himself. “I’d like to blame Greta for what she did. But she’s gone. So I’m gonna blame you. You killed my girlfriend.”
Toby opened his mouth.
“And don’t tell me it was her fault. It’s your fault. You killed her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not good enough,” Jimmy muttered, rubbing his goatee. “I’m leaving tomorrow. But not before you make it better.” He jabbed a finger in Toby’s direction.
“He can’t,” I said.
“Yeah?” Jimmy looked at Toby, who remained silent. “Then why doesn’t he tell me himself?”
“What would you like me to do?” Toby asked.
Jimmy rubbed his goatee. “I don’t know. You’re the magician. So, something.”
“Something,” Toby repeated.
“Yeah, something,” Jimmy said as water welled up in his glazed eyes. “Because I can’t believe my girlfriend was dumb enough to step in front of a bullet during a magic trick. Death is not cool. I mean, I’d remember her forever if she hadn’t died. She was my girlfriend—how was I gonna forget?” He looked from me to Toby, waiting for an explanation or an answer.
Jimmy sat down at the table once more. He slumped his shoulders and hung his head. “I used to like magic as a kid,” he said, looking into his hands. “Shows came to Intersection, since it’s on the way to Vegas. But now I think it’s mean.”
Toby crammed his hands in his pockets. He bit his lips, trying to remain calm.
“Why does someone want to pretend he’s cutting one of my friends in half?”
“I don’t know. It’s a trick,” Toby offered. “It’s sensational.”
“Why do you want to pretend to kill someone?” He sank deeper into his seat. “I guess you don’t always pretend.”
“Stop it,” Toby whispered.
“Why?” Jimmy sat up straight. “Why?” he repeated, now on his feet. He approached Toby. “What is the point of being a magician if you can’t make anything better?” Jimmy was inches from the magician’s face. “You have to do something!” Jimmy yelled. “Greta said you could. And you will.”
“I can’t.”
“I’m not leaving until you fix it.”
“He can’t,” I said.
“Jimmy, please,” Toby said.
“No,” the teenager replied, throwing his hands up in front of his face, “don’t talk to me. Don’t.” He coughed. “Don’t do anything anymore. Not until you make it better.” Then he began to cry. His sobs rattled the glasses and t
he coffee cups. I put a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. I felt him shake so hard, it seemed he would burst. Then I looked at Toby.
For the first time in many days, he looked solid and resolute. “All right,” he said.
Jimmy looked up.
“I think there is something I can do.”
“What?” Jimmy said, wiping his nose.
“I said, I think there is something I can do.”
“You’re kidding,” Jimmy said.
Toby shook his head.
“So, Greta was right? You can do stuff for real?”
“I’m not sure what will happen,” Toby said. “I can only try a few things.”
I remained at the table while Toby showed Jimmy out. He returned with the same look of resolve.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
I never got my answer. Theo appeared in the kitchen doorway, looking impatient and aggravated. “You will waste your talents on that boy.”
Toby didn’t reply.
“He’ll find another girlfriend. They always do. Teenagers are fickle and often carried away by obsession.”
“I don’t consider easing his pain, or my own, a waste of my talents,” Toby replied.
“You are keeping us waiting,” Theo said, beckoning with his scarred fingers.
The magicians were sitting in the living room around the fireplace. In addition to Piet, Lucio, and Theo, the group contained several of the men I hadn’t seen since our visit to the sanctum. Piet made a place on the couch for Toby. I hovered in the doorway.
“Now it is time for you to decide,” Theo began, settling into an armchair farthest from the fire, “whether you are going to help us or not.”
“Toby.” Piet turned toward the magician. “I hope that I have done my best to show you a world of conjuring that can be yours.”
“If I give this one up,” Toby added.
“But why wouldn’t you?” Theo asked. “What do you have here?”
“I have Mel.”
“Perhaps you can convince Mel to go with you,” Lucio said.
“No,” I replied. “There will be no conjuring involving me.”
“You see, no matter where you go, she is not planning to follow,” Theo said.
“Stop talking about Mel,” Toby replied.
Piet placed a hand over Toby’s. “You love magic, but this time you live in does not respect your craft. There is no beauty or elegance to modern magic. Everything we created will still be in place when we return. The theater is set. The audiences are waiting.”
“Then they will have to wait,” Toby said, standing up. “I will not help you.”
Theo’s face darkened. “You are making a mistake.”
“No, you made the mistake when you came to visit me in Vegas. Las Vegas has always been my dream. I might seem silly to you, but I want to be a magician of this moment. Or of the moment before everything went wrong.”
“If you take us back, it will be to a time before that happened,” Piet said.
“But I wouldn’t have fixed anything.”
“You will never fix anything,” Theo said. “You will only pretend.”
“Untrue.” Toby stood up.
“If you will not help us, your time here is over,” Theo replied.
“I have no reason to help you.” Toby pushed past me into the hall.
Piet stood up, looked at me with his watering eyes.
“Did you really think I would go?” I asked the oldest magician.
“Before I met you, I had hoped.”
I left the magicians in the living room. I knew where I’d find Toby. He had opened the door to the Dissolving World. I rushed to the box and pulled him back.
“Why are there only two choices?” I asked him.
“What do you mean?”
“Going back to Theo’s heyday or returning to the night of Greta’s death?” I drew Toby away from the box. “What about staying here?”
“What’s the difference if we go back to that night and do it over?”
“Because we will always know it should have been otherwise,” I said. I opened the door to the box and peeked inside. All I saw was four walls. I let the door close. “Toby, there are consequences to what you do in there. Things in the present are starting to change. The magicians don’t care about this, because once they go into the past, the present, our present, won’t concern them.”
“What’s the difference if a few objects from a past life pop up here?”
I thought about Eva, buffeted on a tide of Toby tricks, pulled from one moment to the next. I wondered where she was now. “Because it won’t always be objects. Soon it will be people. You will hurt someone again.”
The magician shook his head.
“You can’t see past the possibility of succeeding in this one thing, in saving Greta’s life. You need to consider the effect it will have on other people. Like me.”
“How could saving Greta affect you?”
“After I fell through the ice, memories of my brother began to shift and change. Because you pulled me out, he was written out of that moment. When you save Greta, a whole different reality will open up. We cannot live in two worlds.”
“If we go back, we will eventually get back to the present.” Toby walked over and examined one of the illusions with menacing blades and saw teeth.
“What about all the things that have happened since we left Vegas? Do they matter? Should they cease to exist?”
“What has happened that’s worth saving?” He ran his finger along the sharp edge of a circular blade.
I thought of Olivia and Leo. “I’d lose my friends.”
“You can come back and find them again.”
“They wouldn’t know me. It wouldn’t be the same.” I backed away from the box and sat at the worktable. On the table was a yellowed playbill. It featured a picture of the Dissolving World with a painting of Theo’s head crowned in smoke. Beneath the illusion was the inscription STEP INTO YOUR IMAGINATION WITH THE DISSOLVING WORLD: $1.
“You’d find a way to befriend them.”
I shook my head. “As I said, I’d always know things were supposed to be otherwise.”
Toby’s eyes flashed. “Who are you to say how things are supposed to be?”
“Who are you?”
“I am trying to make things better, while you are content for everything to be the same.”
“With magic,” I said.
“Yes, with magic. But that is all I have.”
I took a deep breath. “I have always loved you beyond your magic. I have loved you in spite of it.”
Toby could not meet my gaze. He looked over my shoulder, through the dusty window where evening was coming too early, as usual. “In spite. As if it’s a burden.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You have always wanted me to sit on the sidelines of my art. You want me to play with it, but never use it.”
I shook my head.
“It is as if I were to tell you to sew buttons instead of creating a quilt. You want me to become like Theo and the rest—sit by and watch as my magic dries up.”
“Of course not. But the fact that I love you and not your art should tell you something.”
“What’s that?”
“That there is more to you than the skills that make that box work.”
“Maybe.”
“I need you to love me in this world.” I stood up and grabbed Toby’s wrists.
“I do love you. But it doesn’t matter where. To me, one world’s as good as the next. In my reality, things are forever shifting and interchangeable. I’m a magician, Mel. I never expect anything to be fixed. In fact, I demand the opposite.”
“Tinkering with reality is different from changing it.”
“Now that I’ve nearly found a way to undo the worst thing I’ve done, how can you expect me not to try?”
I blinked away my tears.
“Look around, Mel. Is this a place for my magic? Is this a pl
ace for us?”
I shook my head.
“If I don’t repair what went wrong in Vegas, I’m going to spend the rest of my life hiding away, unable to perform. I’m going to become Theo—a bitter, frustrated magician with no magic.” Toby paused. “We loved Las Vegas. It was strange, but we loved it.”
“I remember.”
“So, come with me.”
“No. There will always be something else. Saving Greta is only the beginning.”
We stared at each other, unable to find the words to close the gap between us.
“I love you, Mel. But I want everything to be better.”
“Then you need to show it by staying here with me. Things can be better without them being exactly as they were before. There’s nothing to fix. People aren’t meant to be brought back to life.”
Toby rubbed his hands together. “What if you had the chance to bring your brother back? Tell me you wouldn’t.”
“I did have the chance. I could have asked you. I could have asked to see him for a day, a moment, however long it lasts.” I shook my head. “But I didn’t. He chose to leave, the same way Greta chose to die.”
“Her death was my fault.”
“No, Toby. It wasn’t.”
The magician shook his head.
“Her death ended your run in Vegas. That is all.”
“I need to try and save the girl.”
“You are not saving her,” I said. “You are only saving yourself. It’s selfish.”
“How can you say that?” Toby said.
“Because you are doing this to make yourself feel better at the expense of everything else. And if it works, you will stay and I won’t be with you. You won’t have the heart to come back. You will be blinded by your magic.”
“I’ll come back for you.”
“No, Toby, you won’t.”
“This is my only chance,” he said. “Tomorrow we will have to leave Piet’s.” He opened the door to the Dissolving World.
“Don’t go in there.”
“I do love you,” Toby said.
“I won’t follow you.”
He stepped inside. And of course, I followed.
Seventeen
I open my eyes to an unnaturally gray sky. The looming clouds are stationary. Anyway, it’s too warm to snow. Beneath my head is a heavy synthetic cushion.