For the remainder of the convention we were inseparable, sitting beside each other at performances and lectures and meals. I returned to my own hotel room only to retrieve and deposit outfits. For three days we were a couple, and then on the last day of the convention, at breakfast in the hotel restaurant, he told me that we couldn’t be in contact anymore. I thought he was joking.
You know I’m married, he said.
What?
It’s common knowledge, he said.
I became immediately aware of the packed restaurant, all the other magicians at all the other tables.
Where’s your ring? I asked. His fingers were long and tan, even over the place where a ring would fit.
He shrugged. I’m allergic to gold.
I left him there at the table and returned to my room. If his marriage really was common knowledge, then so was our affair. I had thought people were glancing my way all weekend because I was a rising star at the convention. Grand prize winner, and just eighteen, and a woman! I had felt special, being seen with—being attached to—one of the great magicians of our time. But all I’d been doing was making an ass of myself. No one had told me. They were all probably enjoying it too much.
Then I did something I shouldn’t have done. Mick had a performance later that morning, and I entered the theater just after it started. I watched him go through his first routine, and then I went to the front of the theater, stood right up by the stage so he couldn’t miss me, and gave him the finger with both hands. And I stayed there, frozen, not saying a word yet trying to ruin his show—by throwing him off, by diverting the audience’s attention. I stood there silently, arms extended, middle fingers in the air. Mick was doing one of his signature routines with five golf balls, and he carried on, glancing periodically at the exit, hoping maybe for security to bail him out, but he was on his own. At first, the audience might have thought I was part of the act. Then a couple of guys started whispering, “Stop that,” and, “Sit down,” but I ignored them. Then Mick dropped a golf ball. It made a satisfying clunk on the wooden stage. Mick soldiered on with the four remaining balls, but I knew he was sweating it. After a couple of excruciating minutes, I uttered a single “Fuck you!”—to him, to everyone—and walked out of the convention. I knew I could never go back but, I figured, who the hell cares? I didn’t need the likes of Mick Shane or anyone else.
Soon after, I started reading online that Mick was performing my pencil-through-water-glass trick in his shows. That was his quiet, nasty revenge—doing my trick. Everyone assumed it’d been his all along, that he’d taught it to me for my show at the competition, since I was, you know, his little slut.
So I did what I had to. I exposed the method—to my best fucking trick—on every magic blog I could find. Now everyone could learn it, and the trick became worthless. On magic forums online, guys were calling me a bitch and a whore. They depicted in revolting detail exactly how I ought to be punished for revealing the great Mick Shane’s trick—even while they were using it in their own shows.
I stopped going to conventions after that.
It was hard to believe all that was almost a decade in the past. When I let myself, I could still hear the explosion of applause after being announced as the grand prize winner. I could still feel the medallion being hung around my neck and could still smell Mick Shane’s spicy cologne. That whole experience was a rabbit hole I tried not to go down anymore, though it was hard not to think about it with the convention just a couple of weeks away.
I reminded myself that the antidote to fear was practice. I would practice in front of the bathroom mirror until my reflection grew tired of seeing me. I would pace my apartment and fine-tune my patter until it shimmered. And when I walked into that convention two weeks from now, it wouldn’t matter which ghosts were there with me.
4
Ellen called just once more, on Saturday afternoon. I was practicing at the time and let the call go to voicemail. An hour later I checked it.
Yeah … so … this thing we were talking about the other day? Turns out I really need you for it. I’ve tried like hell to find someone else, but I can’t. I’m getting a little desperate here. We’re running out of time. I’m just being honest, okay? And the thing is, it’s so guaranteed, Natalie. And it’s such a good … anyway, just call me back, okay? Just … all right? Call me.
But I didn’t. I’d already made my decision and didn’t want Ellen’s voice in my head. I had work to do.
When Brock McKnight called shortly after, however, I picked up. A weekend call from my lawyer felt like something I shouldn’t ignore.
“You want the good news or the bad news?” he asked.
I braced myself and told him to go ahead with the bad.
I could almost hear his grin when he said, “There’s no bad.”
“For real?”
“I suppose I could tell you that Lou was ready to hit you with a civil suit so big it would stop your heart. But instead I’ll tell you that he’s decided, on second thought, not to do that.”
He explained, to my amazed ears, that the criminal lawsuit was dead in the
