“You have my word,” I told her, my need to know eclipsing my good sense.
“I’m a substitute teacher,” she said. “They call me, I tell them if I can work that day or not. Sometimes, like now, when my schedule is relatively clear, I take a long-term sub position. A little stability.” My face must have made me look like a layperson who’s just been given the unimpressive secret to an impressive magic trick. “What do you want me to say? People are more than one thing. I’m a teacher, too, and I’m good at it, and it gives me pleasure as well as a W-2 each year to make Uncle Sam happy.”
“It’s just weird.”
“I’ve been a teacher almost as long as I’ve played cards. Weird for you? Maybe. Not for me.”
“And the part about your being a mom?” I thought back to the previous evening. “Your son’s love of dung beetles? Your daughter’s … whatever it was?”
“Yeah, that was all fiction.”
“You had pictures on your phone.” Hearing my own words made me feel like such a sucker.
She smiled. “Come on, you’re a smart woman. Stressed-out mom? It’s a winning persona at the card table, even if I were playing honest poker. People lower their guard.”
“You were convincing.”
“Wasn’t hard,” she said. “A little frazzled, a little naive. God, I love bringing up euchre. Euchre’s a great touch. I do that and people don’t believe I can play a hand of poker, let alone cheat at it. They don’t believe it even after I’ve taken all their money.”
“What about Ethan?” I asked. “Was he in on it?”
She shook her head. “He knew my parents ages ago, when I was a kid living in A.C. I only got back in touch lately. Far as he knows, I am a stressed-out mother and wife.”
“Well, like I said. You were convincing.”
“You just have to commit to the role,” she said with a shrug. “It helps a lot that I’m a woman.”
“Be glad you aren’t a magician,” I said.
“I’m glad every day of my life,” she said.
One of the guys in the back must have made a shot or won a game, because he started whoop-whooping as if he had just felled a gazelle with his bare hands.
“I know you won’t agree,” I said, “but you really would be an ideal subject for the article.”
“Breathe one more word about a magazine article,” she said, “and I’m gone. I’m being straight with you. One professional to another. It isn’t gonna happen.”
“You want the next game?” someone called out. The pool player with the ball cap had come halfway across the bar.
“No,” Ellen said.
“Wasn’t asking you,” he said.
I stared at him. Held his gaze long enough for him to say, “What?” Then he turned away. Then he turned back again. “What? Hello?”
When he finally realized that was all I was going to give him, he shook his head and muttered, “Freak,” before going back to his friend. He said something under his breath and the two of them giggled.
“I won’t mention the article again,” I said to Ellen. “But what about the false deal? Can’t you share it with me? One professional to another?”
She watched me a moment. “You were right before,” she said. “I did have teachers. So I’m sensitive to what you said. I am. But there are some secrets you don’t reveal to anyone. Even to another magician. You know that.”
If no magicians ever passed along their methods, much of the art form would be lost in a generation. I shared my secrets regularly in the Magician’s Forum. Still, innovative secrets, the real breakthroughs, were hard-won assets, and every great or good magician had a trick that was too valuable to risk depreciation.
“Unless,” Ellen said, shuffling in her seat, “we could maybe …” She bit her lip. “Maybe make some kind of a deal?”
“How’s that?”
“I show you the move and, in exchange, you help me do a thing.”
“A thing?”
“What?” she asked. “Too vague?” I smiled.
“It’s a little vague.”
She squinted at me. The lighting in here was needlessly, fluorescently bright. “What are you doing on January first? At night?”
“Why?”
“That’s when the thing is.”
“Do you mean a card game?”
“No, my classroom. I’m looking for a new teacher’s aide. Yes, a card game.”
“I’m not a cheat, Ellen.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Of course you are.”
“Doing magic shows isn’t the same thing.”
“I’m not talking about magic shows.”
“Then what? You mean Atlantic City? I was observing Ace for the article. That’s all.”
“Oh, that’s all?” She finished her drink and set the mug down. “You knew Ace was trying to cheat us out of our money, and yet you sat there and let it happen. And you went along with not cutting the deck because you thought it would help him to cheat the rest of us. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but what you did is called cheating at cards. And someone who cheats at cards is called a card cheat. So I’m asking, as respectfully as possible, that you please drop the black-or-white, holier-than-thou bullshit.” She let her words sink in. “And by the way, I don’t believe for a minute you’re here because of any magazine article, even if you think you are. It’s not why you were in A.C., and it’s not why you’re here now.”
When I started to protest, she shook her head.
“Come on, you’re no journalist,” she said. “You’re a conjurer, and from what little I’ve observed, you might be at the top of that game, but you’re nowhere near the top of mine, and you know it, and it’s driving you fucking crazy.” She stopped talking, and for several seconds it was all Duran Duran and the barista, David, laughing into his phone. Then one of the guys in the back must have made a shot, because he shouted, “Yeah, bitch!”
When Ellen spoke again, it was softer than
