The Real Thing

by Marina Simcoe

  “Just swear to me again that he is not married or going through a nasty divorce!” demanded Emily for a thousandth time since I told her about Marcus.

  “No, he’s not married, and no, he’s not going through a divorce. I swear,” I placed my hand against my heart even though Emily couldn’t see me through the phone.

  “Why all this secrecy then? Why can’t we meet him? Is he an ex-con? An axe murderer who can’t behave himself in public? Why else would you keep him away from us? Oh, oh, I know! He must think he’s ugly or scary as hell! Like a real-live Quasimodo! You know I wouldn’t care about his looks, right? Or did he get injured in a horrific accident and is now covered in scars from head to toe, avoiding all people contact on purpose?”

  “God, Emily! You really should write a book or make a movie. Your imagination is bursting with some really crazy ideas!”

  “Nah. I could never stay put in front of a computer for hours to write a book. But don’t you change the subject on me! I need to know that I’m leaving you in good hands when I go. How can I be sure that I won’t return to your dead body — all cut up and stuffed in duffel bags — if I’ve never even talked to the mysterious Marcus in person?”

  “Oh boy,” I exhaled in exasperation. It was late in the day and the office was almost empty already. I had about twenty minutes to kill before the start of my evening shift at the store. This conversation now threatened to eat up all of this time and then some. “Okay, Emily. Just because you’re leaving and I want you to enjoy your honeymoon without worrying about finding a bunch of bloodied duffel bags upon your return…” I covered the receiver with my hand and lowered my voice to make sure whoever was still left in the office wouldn’t hear me. “Remember Marcus, the magician? I went to his show two or three weeks ago?”

  “No way!” Emily screeched in my ear like a banshee, forcing me to move the phone away. “Marcus the Magnificent is your Marcus?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t call him mine —”

  “You’re kidding! I can’t believe it! You’re dating a celebrity? Talk about having a magical boyfriend!”

  “Really, Emily. It’s all still very new. We just talk, mostly —”

  “Don’t tell me you haven’t fucked yet!”

  “Emily!”

  “Come on, Angela! They say he is truly magnificent in bed!”

  “They who?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He has to be! Why else would he have a stage name like that? It’s stupid!”

  “Well, his kisses are magnificent,” I admitted.

  “That’s good. You can tell a lot from a kiss. It’s like a preview, or an appetizer. So when is the main course going to happen? And how come it hasn’t happened yet?”

  This was a very good question, one that I couldn’t answer. As pushy as Marcus was at the very beginning of our relationship, he seemed to have calmed down significantly, and he didn’t voice any demands for sex anymore.

  I knew I insisted on it at the beginning, but it was simply because I felt that sex between us had to come with something more, and that I couldn’t be just one of his forgettable one-night stands. As much as I enjoyed our friendly conversations, I feared that we were sliding steadily into the “friend zone,” the place from where they said there was no return.

  “Angela,” Emily’s voice sounded very serious now and a little bit concerned, “just tell me he is a good guy. Do you like him?”

  “I do,” I said with an absolute certainty, and my heart swelled with the sweet ache that had been growing there ever since Marcus barged into my personal life like a sexy, magical avalanche of bad manners one morning. “I like him very much.”

  15. The Suite.

  Marcus told me all about his house in Nevada, the first house he’d ever owned. He mentioned that he would take me to see it one day, but hadn’t delivered on his promise yet.

  Mostly when we got together, we spent time in my apartment. We went out for breakfast a few times, and I better understood his reasons for wearing a mask when I saw how much he enjoyed simply walking down the street unrecognized without it.

  Without the mask, with his hair pulled into a low ponytail, wearing jeans and a leather jacket, he looked like an ordinary guy, even if a really attractive one.

  In public, I noticed women shooting heated looks his way on more than one occasion, but it wasn’t because they recognized him as the famous magician. It was because — mask or no mask — being tall, dark and handsome, he stood out in the crowd. I couldn’t blame them for their glances — not even when they openly stared at him, ignoring the fact that he almost always held my hand. His looks were what captured my imagination in the beginning too.

  The more I got to know him, however, the more things I found to love about him as a person.

  He said his grades were low in school and that he never went to college, but I found him to be intelligent and well-read. It was way too easy for me to lose myself in our conversations. I often forgot all about time in the morning, and if it weren’t for Marcus, who kept track of it for me, I would have been long fired for being late every day.

  I learned almost by accident that he supported a large number of charities, everything from women’s shelters, to children’s organizations, to development in the third world countries and natural disaster relief.

  His support and participation in these organizations was not widely known because, according to him, he didn’t do it for publicity and preferred to keep his charity work quiet.

  It was not a very practical move for a celebrity, in my opinion. If you were doing something good, why not get credit for it? However, most of his involvement in charities was under his real name or as an anonymous donor, and Marcus the Magnificent got credit for only a small portion of it.

  He claimed he had no power over people’s feelings and emotions, but that didn’t mean he didn’t care about how other people felt. He was remarkably perceptive and could pick up on slightest variations in their facial expressions and body language to guess their moods and predict their intentions. Sometimes, it really felt like he could read their minds.

  He was exceptionally attentive to me too. It didn’t take him long to learn all my likes and dislikes, and I could always expect to be spoiled when Marcus was around. He seemed to derive his own pleasure from my delight when my favourite things appeared out of nowhere for me.

  Chocolate, flowers, music, light effects and scents were among the things that Marcus used to make every one of our encounters feel magical. I refused to accept anything more tangible and materialistic like clothes or money. Even shoes were out of the question.

  Ever since that first morning, Marcus gave me flowers often. It was always a large bouquet of expensive roses, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I didn’t really care for them. After all, I knew he was getting the roses from a florist somewhere, and I didn’t want to spoil his pleasure of giving flowers to me by confessing that my favourite flowers were the ones from the wild, the ones that the city florists didn’t sell.

  I must have been a really good actress on that one, because despite his acute perceptiveness in everything else, he never suspected that roses were not my favourite.

  Breakfast was the time when we saw each other most often. For whatever unexplained reason, Marcus preferred having breakfast with me in my apartment rather than anywhere else. However, we did have it in his hotel suite on occasion.

  The first time he ever brought me there, I was shocked by how beautiful it was. How different it felt from the two hotel rooms that I shared with Emily and the girls on my one and only trip to Las Vegas. Marcus’s suite was all silver metal, dark wood, sparkling clean glass, and creamy white marble.

  “This is beautiful, Marcus!” I twirled around, trying to take it in all at once.

  “You think so?” He looked at me with amusement.

  “Why on earth would you ever want to hang out at my apartment if you have something like this to come home to?”

  “It’s not about
something. It’s someone.” He took a step towards me. “You hold the biggest appeal of your apartment to me.”

  I lowered my eyes under his intense stare and pushed a stray lock of hair behind my ear, feeling my neck and my cheeks flare up. I was blushing! I hadn’t blushed, probably, since grade five, and now Marcus set my face on fire in no time at all.

  “Besides, I like your apartment, too.” He walked to the white couch in the corner across from the large flat TV on the wall. “It has character. Your place is cute and funky with a flair of elegance, just like you.”

  “Cute and elegant? Sounds like an oxymoron.” I followed Marcus to the couch and sat next to him. “Those are mutually exclusive concepts, Marcus. You can’t be cute and elegant at the same time!”

  “No, I can’t,” he agreed, laughing. “Thank God for that! But you can, and you are.”

  He kissed the tip of my nose.

  “Listen, I hate to leave you here alone — even for a second — but I really need to find an elephant for tonight’s show. Would you mind if I went to check a few European zoos? It should only take me fifteen minutes. Twenty, max.”

  “Oh my God. Marcus!” I burst out laughing. “Only you can say something like that and actually mean it!”

  “Only you can take my life for what it is, Angela, and put up with it,” he smiled and got up. “Breakfast is on the table. Help yourself.”

  “Why do you need an elephant?” I asked quickly. “Something happened to Rosy?”

  Rosy was the elephant that Marcus owned. She was in all of his shows, and she was the one that I saw on stage in Toronto.

  Marcus told me that before Vegas, he used to borrow animals from different zoos for his shows. He preferred to get them from European zoos mostly because of the time difference. After the closing hours at night, there was a smaller chance of anyone noticing that the animals were missing for a minute or two while Marcus had them on stage in North America.

  Now, with regular performances in Vegas, Marcus ended up buying several large animals to avoid unnecessary questions from the staff and management. He had a few lions, tigers and the two horses that he used in his illusion of “sawing” a horse in two.

  “Hopefully there is nothing serious with her,” he replied, “but she’s been lying down a lot today, which is very unusual. The vet is coming to see her, and I want her to rest tonight.”

  He walked towards the bathroom, probably simply out of habit — he was used to teleporting behind locked doors to avoid leaving witnesses.

  “Do you want anything from Europe?” he asked as he closed the door behind him.

  “From a zoo? Sure! Bring me some pink cotton candy!” I joked and heard him laugh in response.

  “For breakfast? Not the healthiest of choices, Miss McAllister!” he shouted then he was gone and the suite became quiet.

  It was a little after three in the morning in Las Vegas. The sky was still dark behind the glass doors that looked like they led to an outdoor balcony or terrace. Well, it would have been dark if it weren’t for the many bright lights pulsing from the Strip outside, lighting up the sky.

  I walked to the table with our breakfast, decorated with a huge centrepiece of bright pink roses, and poured myself a cup of coffee from the thermos carafe when I heard a knock on the door. I went still for a moment, debating whether I should answer the door or pretend that I’m not here. I wasn’t supposed to be here, and as far as everyone was concerned, Marcus could have been asleep already. So I kept quiet.

  The knock came again, louder this time.

  “Marcus! Are you there?” I heard a male voice. “Open up or answer your phone! It’s kind of an emergency!”

  I thought I recognized the voice as Simon’s. We had never met officially. Marcus told me a little about Simon, but he had never introduced us to each other. Maybe he had his reasons for it. Maybe, I should have kept quiet, pretending I wasn’t there, but my curiosity had won over. Besides, Simon mentioned an emergency, didn’t he? I put my cup down and walked over to the door.

  Sure enough, as soon as I opened it, I was met with a surprised look on Simon’s face.

  “Hello, Angela,” he said, quickly recovering his composure. “Can I speak with Marcus for a second?”

  “Hi, Simon. Marcus is… um... in the shower. You said it was an emergency?”

  “Yes. It can wait until he is out of the shower, though. Could you tell him to call me whenever he gets out?”

  “Sure. Um… wait,” I stopped him on his way to the elevator. “Would you… Would you like to have a coffee with me? I’m having breakfast.”

  I had at least fifteen minutes to kill, and I had a few questions I wanted to ask Simon — the only person in the world who had known Marcus from childhood.

  He looked at me closely and answered carefully.

  “Sure. I’d love some coffee.”

  16. Simon.

  “So, how long have you known Marcus, Simon?”

  We sat on the opposite ends of the white couch, each holding a cup of coffee.

  “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions first, Angela? Before answering yours?” Simon leaned back on the couch and placed his right ankle on top of his left knee. I held back a smile. This was Marcus’s favourite sitting position too. They had known each other for a very long time, long enough to copy each other’s body language. I remembered the time when I thought that they might have been lovers.

  “You know, I wondered once if you and Marcus were a couple,” I blurted out without thinking; somehow it seemed like a good enough icebreaker to start a conversation. I realized that it wasn’t as soon as the words left my mouth, and I looked up mortified.

  “Ha!” Simon laughed heartily to my relief. “It would’ve made both our lives so much simpler if we were. It certainly would’ve made my job infinitely easier. Too bad we’re both too much into women for that idea to stick!”

  I smiled too, happy that he didn’t seem offended by my words.

  “Is it your first time here, Angela?” Simon asked.

  “No,” I shook my head. “My first time in Vegas was in May of this year —”

  “No, I meant here, in Marcus’s suite?”

  “Oh.” It was probably a mistake to invite Simon in after all. I was hoping to get some information on Marcus’s childhood. I was, however, completely unprepared to answer the questions Simon might have for me. I didn’t want to lie to him, but from my talks with Marcus, I knew that he didn’t share his secret with Simon so I needed to be careful.

  “Yes. It is my first time here, in the suite,” I decided to stick with the truth for now as long as it seemed like it wouldn’t do any harm.

  “I see.” He put the cup on the coffee table by the couch and patted his knee, smoothing the material of his expensive looking dress pants. “Have you been seeing him regularly since the show in Toronto?”

  I hesitated. I just told him that it was my first time here in the suite. If I told him that I had been seeing Marcus, it would imply that he came to Toronto to meet me. I was positive that Simon was aware of Marcus’s performance schedule, he would most certainty know that there was no conventional travel on Marcus’s part in the past couple of months. If I told Simon now that I saw Marcus regularly, he would question how it was happening.

  He misunderstood my hesitation.

  “Sorry if my question seemed too personal. I don’t want to be rude, and I don’t need any details. To be honest, I’m just trying to gauge how much information I can reveal to you by assessing how close you and Marcus are.”

  Well, that was direct and honest.

  Still thinking what to say myself, I took a closer look at Simon.

  His blond hair was fashionably cut and neatly styled; the light, even tan on his skin looked like it originated in a salon, not from the exposure to the desert sun. His face was open and friendly, and the fine lines around the corners of his eyes and mouth told me that he laughed wholeheartedly and often, even if he looked rather serious right
now.

  He met my eyes straight on, and I decided to be honest with him in return, as much as I dared.

  “Marcus and I are friends. We talk daily,” I replied finally and added to clarify the word talk. “He calls me and texts me every day.”

  Simon tilted his head, keeping his piercing grey eyes on mine.

  “Are you his girlfriend?”

  I inhaled deeply, stalling my answer. We did agree to date at the beginning, but Marcus never actually called me his girlfriend.

  “Well.” I forced my voice to sound more confident than I felt. “We’re dating.”

  “Marcus doesn’t date. Pardon me, but you’re the first woman I’ve seen fully clothed in his room.” Simon wasn’t mocking me, but there was a challenge in his voice, daring me to prove him wrong.

  “There is a first time for everything,” I managed an awkward smile, chasing the images of an army of naked women who might have went through this room before me out of my head. “We decided to give it a try.”

  “And how has it been so far?” Simon was smiling now too, and I physically felt the tension between us dissipate.

  “Wonderful!” Other women forgotten, my heart sped up with the memories of Marcus; our morning breakfasts, conversations and walks. The thoughts of the time spent with him over the past several weeks brought about that fuzzy, warm feeling inside of me, making my smile spread wider.

  “I see.” Simon folded his arms across his chest. “Marcus is a great guy. He doesn’t always come across as the friendly social type at the beginning, but it’s not because of his personality. It’s mostly because of the lifestyle he leads. He can’t let people get too close, even though he likes having them around.”

  Simon may not have been in on Marcus’s secret, but he obviously wasn’t blind or stupid. He had been around long enough to know much more than he let on.

  “Marcus doesn’t have many friends,” I said carefully and added, “except for you.”