The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic

by Emily Croy Barker

  A knock at the door. Moscelle, trim and pretty in a riding habit, asking if Nora would like to go riding this afternoon. “I’d like to,” Nora said regretfully, “but I don’t really know how to ride.” Her experience with horses totaled some pony rides and a few painful hours on a stubborn gelding when she was fifteen. But Moscelle said not to be silly. “Ilissa has a sweet mare you can ride. And there’s a spare habit that should fit you beautifully. So no excuses!”

  The mare was beautiful, jet black with a single white diamond on her forehead, and once mounted, Nora discovered there was none of the vertiginous jolting that had made her cling to the saddle horn in the past. They took a sun-dappled path that wound through the smooth trunks of beech trees, and the horse seemed to know exactly where Nora wanted to go, stepping like a dancer. This was riding as she had imagined it from the horse books she’d read in grade school. Having the right mount must make all the difference.

  Vulpin dropped back to ride beside her. He started by asking her about her studies, but she found that she wasn’t interested in talking about school. She asked him about Ilissa instead, and he began to reminisce; evidently he had known Ilissa since he was a small child. Nora gathered that Ilissa came from some sort of wealthy aristocratic family in another country, but he was frustratingly vague as to exactly where. Asked directly, Vulpin shrugged and said that it was hard to explain, they had moved around so much. He dropped a few references to the war, or wars, which Nora found confusing. Apparently Ilissa had played some sort of courageous role in saving a large number of people. There had been great privation and suffering.

  “Does Ilissa know Anastasia, by chance?” Nora asked archly, and then felt a little embarrassed. Vulpin only looked amused. She kept trying to think of the right questions to ask, something that would help her sort out the details of Ilissa’s past without being rude, but she kept getting carried away in the currents of Vulpin’s deep, soothing voice.

  They caught up to Gaibon and Moscelle. Gaibon grinned at Nora and asked how she had enjoyed the party last night—had she fallen in love?

  “Oh, I’m not ready to fall hard for just anyone,” Nora said. “I’m going to take my time to pick and choose.”

  Gaibon seemed to find this very funny. “Oh, you’ll be a prize. Ilissa has a knack, you know. When she takes someone in hand—well, you wouldn’t know them afterward. They might not even know themselves. She’s done a nice job with you, especially the lips,” he added. “Almost too pretty, eh, Vulpin? Our friend’s a lucky man.”

  “Stop teasing Nora, you’re making me jealous,” Moscelle said. Gaibon laughed and said something else, and Vulpin responded sharply, both of them speaking in long, lilting, incomprehensible syllables. Nora looked from one to the other. Then Vulpin said cheerfully that it was time to head back. He rode ahead with Gaibon, neither of them speaking until they were too far away for Nora to hear what they said.

  “What was all that about?” Nora asked Moscelle. Moscelle only laughed and said that Gaibon was flirting too much and that she, Moscelle, would have to keep a close eye on him at the party tonight. Nora was surprised: “Another party?”

  “Yes, a big one, not like last night. That was a little quiet, don’t you think? I think Ilissa was just a tiny bit embarrassed by how quiet it was. But she’s had all day to plan this one.”

  They started down a long driveway, and at first Nora thought they had made the wrong turn. The house ahead of them, basking in the late afternoon sun, was all slate-roofed gables and rose-colored brick, much older than the house she remembered from yesterday, and she started to say something to Moscelle. But Ilissa was waiting for them, slim and white in a dress that swayed around her legs as though it had never heard of gravity. Next to her was a boxy black car. “We’re late, my dear,” she said, holding her hand out for Nora.

  “My clothes—” Nora began. Someone pushed her into the car, a cave of rich green leather. “Don’t worry, darling,” she heard Ilissa saying. “You’ll be changed before you know it.” Gaibon winked. Nora discovered she was holding a champagne flute and that Vulpin was filling it. The car sped through a world of black velvet; Ilissa said there was no time to waste, and wasn’t night so much more lovely and romantic?

  Suddenly they were going over a bridge; an electric grid blazed ahead of them, the serrated skyline of New York. “How did we get here?” Nora wondered.

  “Oh, we drove much too fast,” Ilissa said with her fizzy laugh.

  There was something odd about the other automobiles they passed—their spoked wheels, their headlights like round-rimmed spectacles—but after a moment Nora decided they looked right, somehow. Their vehicle pulled up next to a striped awning, a length of red carpet.

  Nora stepped out, carefully, because of her heels, and smoothed her skirts. The car ride hadn’t wrinkled the silk at all; the dress rustled deliciously against her skin.

  “You see?” Ilissa said. “I promised you pearls. Like milk and honey, with your complexion.”

  Nora looked down. The creamy strand fell almost to her waist. “They’re beautiful. Thank you so much.”

  “Ah, at last.” A deep voice next to her. “Even prettier than last night.”

  Looking up, Nora met Raclin’s gaze, and felt a sudden confused warmth at the nearness of his white smile, his looming, well-tailored shoulders. She thought of the kiss he’d stolen in the garden the night before, and the sweeter one afterward. Watch out, a voice said inside, something wrong here. It said other things that she couldn’t quite discern. Raclin’s dark hair gleamed, combed back more carefully than the night before, but she could tell that the stray lock was still threatening to tumble down onto his forehead.

  She was suddenly impatient to see it fall; she wanted to tuck it back for him.

  Inside the hotel there was dancing, the crowd moving back and forth to the syncopations of a jazz band tucked behind potted palms. Nora recognized faces from last night, the men in black and white, the women in loose dresses that showed off slender legs in silk stockings.

  “Another theme party, isn’t it?” she said to Raclin, hoping she sounded more collected than she felt. “How does she do it, your mother?”

  “My mother lives to entertain,” he said. “It’s her art form, really. And she finds this particular setting intriguing. There’s something very playful about it. She thought it might appeal to you.”

  “Oh, I’ve always had a thing for the Twenties. The clothes. The Algonquin Round Table. Gatsby. But why would she want to please me in particular?”

  “She’s taken quite a fancy to you. Ilissa’s good at sizing people up. She can see their possibilities.”

  “What possibilities does she see in me?”

  “They’re not hard to see.” Raclin put out his hand to steer her toward the dancing. On the small of her back it felt assured, possessive. His touch was a pledge: I’m just beginning with you. Only wait.

  * * *

  Once or twice over the days that followed—or was it weeks?—Nora woke up and wondered seriously what kind of strong drugs she had ingested the night before. There seemed to be no other explanation for the parade of marvels every evening, the dazzling, incongruous things that could not possibly be true.

  “Was I really talking to Oscar Wilde last night?” she asked herself sleepily. No, you idiot, Oscar Wilde died in Paris in 1900, said some weary secret voice. But there he had been, holding court in the drawing room, tall, corpulent, the clever, mournful face that she knew from postcards and book jackets. Nora almost dropped her fan. He spent quite a long time talking to her, gazing at her with that rapt attention to which she had already become accustomed.

  She could tell that Oscar Wilde was not attracted to her, or any woman for that matter, but she had discovered by now that her beauty had a life of its own, that it could arouse a sort of greedy fascination in people, even the people at Ilissa’s parties, who were all beautiful themselves. She felt the same way whenever she looked in a mirror now, a mixture of wonde
r and suspense that sometimes held her in front of the glass for long stretches of time, examining her face at different angles to see if the perfection was real, scanning in vain for some hidden flaw.

  There was something sympathetic in the way Wilde spoke to her, as though he sensed her puzzlement. She felt emboldened to confide in him. “I don’t think I always looked this way,” she said hesitantly. “I wasn’t always beautiful.”

  “I am glad to hear it,” he said with a smile. “Natural beauty is always tiresome. It lacks that careless touch of artifice that is the hallmark of true originality. There is nothing so overdone and vulgar as unspoilt simplicity.”

  She laughed. “But sometimes I look at myself and I wonder, well, if it’s real.”

  “My dear young woman, appearances are the only true reality. I thought you would have learned that by now.”

  Then Raclin was taking her arm to lead her into the ballroom, and she forgot all about Oscar Wilde. It was the same every time: When she looked into those deep blue eyes, every clear thought went out of her head. And that lovely, lazy smile that he saved for her alone, as though they shared some secret joke. But for the life of her, she couldn’t say what the joke was.

  On the tennis court the next day, she started to tell Moscelle about her conversation with Wilde, but the details were already fading. She sliced the ball and watched it skim the net to bounce just out of reach of Moscelle’s racquet. Wonderful how much her game had improved lately. If only her memory were as good as her backhand. The one other thing she could recall from the night before was Vulpin’s friend Lysis complaining that someone had taken his horse. At sword point—that was the oddity that made it stick in her mind.

  “Game,” said Moscelle, and Nora realized that she had lost track of the score, too. “Darling, you win again!”

  “My brain is so fuzzy these days,” Nora said to Moscelle as they walked off the court. “I don’t know if it’s the late nights or the champagne.” She balanced the racquet on her shoulder with attempted insouciance. “Maybe I’ve had enough fun for now. Maybe it’s time to go back to the real world.”

  “The real world?” Moscelle asked lightly.

  “Well, school, if that counts as the real world,” Nora clarified. “I do have to teach summer school, whenever that starts.” Next week? Had it already started?

  “But we love having you here.”

  “I love being here, but I don’t want to overstay my welcome.” They went up the steps and into the entrance hall. Their white-clad figures floated through the silver depths of the tall mirrors flanking the staircase. Then Nora looked again, puzzled. “Moscelle? I just noticed. My hair is short today. It was long last night, I’m sure it was. I was wearing it up.”

  “Oh, short hair is the style now, darling.”

  “But when did I get it cut?”

  “You don’t remember?” Moscelle smiled at her kindly—almost too kindly, Nora thought suddenly, as though inwardly Moscelle were laughing but trying to hide it. “There was so much going on last night, and you were having so much fun, that it just slipped your mind, that’s all.”

  So much fun. “I’m losing my mind, that’s all.” Nora tried to sound casual, humorous, and it didn’t come out that way at all. She moved a little faster up the staircase, almost running, but Moscelle was right behind her, following her into her bedroom.

  “Darling, don’t cry!” Moscelle put an arm around Nora’s shoulders. “Please! You’re perfect!”

  That was the problem. “How the hell did that happen?” Nora felt Moscelle stiffen slightly. “I’m sorry. But—what’s going on? How did I get to be a natural blonde? Where did I learn to play tennis like that? I can’t remember. I can’t think straight. My friend Maggie—I was supposed to meet up with her sometime, but I don’t even know what day it is.”

  “Oh, honestly, who wants to remember everything?” Moscelle’s voice was calm and friendly in Nora’s ear. She smoothed Nora’s hair. “You were so unhappy when you came here! After that awful love affair. Do you ever think about that man now?”

  “No,” said Nora. His name came back to her after a moment: Adam. She turned away from Moscelle and sat down on the bed. “But that’s another strange thing. We were together for four years, and now I can hardly remember him.”

  “Why shouldn’t you forget about your old life?” Moscelle said reasonably, taking a seat beside Nora. “You have a better one now. And Raclin—I’m sure he’s the real reason you haven’t given a thought to that man who treated you so badly. When you find your true love, all the other men, they don’t matter anymore.”

  “My true love?” said Nora dubiously, but it was still an intoxicating thought. She savored it for a moment.

  You don’t know a damn thing about him. And if you did, would you even remember it?

  “Also, not to be crude,” Moscelle went on, “but you know what a catch Raclin is, Ilissa’s heir. And Ilissa simply cherishes you. She’s so delighted that you and Raclin are together. And you know, darling, Raclin would never let you go!”

  * * *

  He always arrived a little later than everyone else, but that night Nora thought he would never appear.

  Ilissa had promised that this evening would be special, a spectacle that no one would forget easily. “You cannot top this,” she had said in the taxi. And standing in the cabin of a dirigible moored high over New York, listening to the big band playing in the corner of what was a surprisingly commodious ballroom, Nora decided that Ilissa was probably right.

  She was feeling much better. She always did, as day turned to evening and the music began to play and the air filled with chatter and laughter. The champagne helped, too. She had already drunk several glasses, standing around talking to Vulpin, when she saw Raclin shouldering through the crowd. Moscelle appeared briefly next to him and said something in his ear; he nodded without slowing down. I suppose she’s telling him what a baby I was today, Nora thought ruefully.

  “Sorry to be late, my dear.” The band started a new tune. They began to dance, Raclin steering her in a smooth orbit around the dance floor.

  “I thought I’d have to find a new dancing partner,” she said, pouting a little. “Where have you been?”

  “I was helping my mother with her duties. Too dull to bore you with.”

  People alluded to Ilissa’s duties casually, without really explaining what they were. At some point it had become too embarrassing for Nora to admit that she didn’t know. Her original hypothesis, that Ilissa managed a large fortune, seemed too dull and technical for someone as graceful and sophisticated—and quite frankly, as frivolous—as Ilissa. For a while, Nora theorized that Ilissa was a clothing designer, producer of some rarefied European line that an impoverished graduate student like herself would never have heard of. Then the nightly spectacles made her decide that Ilissa must be involved in something theatrical. Now she was tending back toward the financial theory, with the revision that Ilissa must be directing some large-scale charitable endeavor that she was too modest to acknowledge openly.

  “What is it you do, exactly?” Nora asked.

  Raclin smiled at her. “Whatever Ilissa needs me to do. I help her carry out her inspirations.”

  “So you handle the business side?” Nora hazarded.

  “More or less,” he said. “You might not think it to look at me, but I’m rather good at that kind of thing.”

  “Mmm, I’m sure you are.” He hasn’t explained what he does, has he? Nora ignored the faint inner voice—its cheap cynicism—and angled her face upward to put her mouth closer to Raclin’s, in case he might kiss it. Raclin looked down at her, his eyes hooded.

  “Let’s go outside.” Taking hold of her arm, he led her onto the outside deck. Through the railing Nora could see the illuminated quilt of city streets, over a thousand feet below, and the spoked silver crown of the Chrysler Building nearby. They were tethered to the Empire State Building. The deck rocked slowly underfoot as the dirigible swayed in the bree
ze.

  “It feels good out here. It was so stuffy inside,” she said.

  His strong hands slid around her waist. Above the pale blur of his shirt front, his face was in shadow. “Moscelle said you were a little upset this afternoon.”

  Nora thought she had never heard anything as tender as the concern in his voice. “I was being silly,” she said. “It was nothing. I was just a little worried.”

  “Ah, but we agreed that you wouldn’t worry about anything.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” She laughed. “Well, I realized that I should think about getting back soon.”

  “Why? You’re not getting tired of us, are you?” As Nora shook her head, still smiling, he pursued: “Getting tired of me?”

  She hated that he would even think such a thing. Raclin was so vulnerable—she could sense it—under that princely self-confidence, those dark, sculpted good looks. “Darling! I love it here. But I do have obligations. My life. School.”

  “School?”

  For the first time, something in his tone didn’t quite satisfy her. She almost detected a hint of mockery. You can’t hear how he’s making fun of you? “Yes, school,” she said. “I’ve got to get back to teach summer school. And my thesis—I need to get to work on it again.”

  “That doesn’t sound so important.”

  “Well, it is,” Nora shot back. Whatever her private reservations about the worth of her graduate school career, she didn’t like the ripple of condescension that was suddenly plain in Raclin’s voice.

  He laughed quietly. “I’ve ruffled your feathers, my dear.”

  “No, it’s just—” Just that he’s being a patronizing jerk. She bit her lip.

  Reaching down to touch her chin, Raclin tilted her head back, aligning it just so. Then his mouth melted onto hers.

  At last. This was the part of each night that Nora looked forward to most. Throughout the evening, as they danced and circulated, Nora’s impatience would build, minute by minute, so that by the time Raclin turned to her, a faint smile on his face, and pulled her toward him, her body would be throbbing with anticipation. And then—it was always hard to remember exactly what happened next, a sort of thrilling blur that felt as though all the circuits in her nervous system were blowing out at once. Afterward she always felt damply exhausted and happy but still wanted more.