Mr. Flowers and my father seemed to be talking calmly. At one point, Mr. Flowers touched my father’s arm. None of it made any sense. I wished I’d never entered Mr. Flowers’s house. It was an ugly, mean house. A horrible house. Bad things happened there.
Spotting me, my father waved me over. When I approached, he smiled but it was more like a grimace.
“Have you eaten?” Mr. Flowers asked.
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
“Thirsty?” he asked.
I was so thirsty. But I didn’t want anything from him. “No.”
Mr. Flowers removed a large coin from his pocket and bent down. “Natalie, this is a silver dollar. Have you ever seen one before?”
The only dollars I’d ever seen were paper. I shook my head.
He held the dollar between his thumb and fingertips.
“Watch,” he said, and reached over with his other hand to take the coin. He slowly opened up that other hand. The coin was gone. When he reached up toward my face, I stepped backward in fear. His hand followed me. “The dollar, Natalie—” I felt the hair covering my ear being tickled. “It’s in your ear now.”
He lowered his hand. The coin lay in his palm.
I knew I was supposed to say something, but his fingers in my hair had felt like worms. I glanced at my father, whose hand gently covered his ribs, and back at Mr. Flowers.
“Here,” Mr. Flowers said, handing me the coin. “It’s yours now.”
I stared at him.
“What do you say, Natalie?” my father prompted automatically.
“Thank you,” I mumbled.
“You’re welcome,” Mr. Flowers said. Then he turned to my father and, in his smooth tenor, he said, “I’m glad we had a chance to talk, Dan. It’s good to know where a person stands.” He smiled. “You two enjoy yourselves.” Then he left us to greet some new arrivals.
My father touched my shoulder. “Are you having an okay time?” he asked.
I burst into tears.
“Honey.” My father bent down to me, grimacing a little. “Honey, what is it?”
Past my father, I could see a couple of the other kids watching us. “I’m so thirsty,” I said.
“Okay, sure, sweetie,” he said. “Then let’s get you a drink. And food, while we’re at it. All right? Let’s get you something to eat.”
We filled a plate of food for me, and a cup of iced tea.
“Aren’t you eating?” I asked my father, but he said he wasn’t hungry.
We carried everything to a spot on the grass closer to the edge of the property, farther away from the shouts of kids, the smack of bocce balls hitting each other, the clang of horseshoes.
I ate, watching the water and saying little. He only touched his ribs a few times. I started to feel better. I knew no one would call me Big Bird as long as I was with my father. We walked a little, went to the edge of the bluff, and stood facing the water. I told my father about Morocco, but he just grunted. When the afternoon breeze shifted and the air began to cool, the first guests began to leave. “Okay, kid,” my father said, “let’s hit the road.”
We waited for Mr. Flowers to finish saying good-bye to several guests. There was a tall stack of identical gift-wrapped boxes, and he was handing the boxes to kids as they were leaving. Mr. Flowers shook my father’s hand. I looked around for that other man, the one who’d hurt my father, but he was gone.
Mr. Flowers turned to me. “This is a magic kit,” he said, lifting one of the boxes from the stack. “If you work at it, you can learn to fool anyone. Would you like that?”
I nodded because I knew I was supposed to.
“Trust me,” he said, “the world is full of endless possibilities.” He smiled. “Can you say that to me?”
I glanced at my father, but he was watching something beyond us.
“The world is full of endless possibilities,” I mumbled.
But I must have satisfied our host, because he said, “Good girl,” and smiled. “You should always think big like that.” He lowered his voice. “Your father, he doesn’t think big. He doesn’t want to give you all this.” He gestured to his house, his whole property.
“Victor,” my father began.
“He would rather you look out your window at a slum than at the sea. Isn’t that right, Dan?”
My father’s lips were locked tight.
Mr. Flowers offered me the wrapped box. It was large but surprisingly light.
“Thank him,” my father muttered.
I thanked him.
“It’s my pleasure, sweetheart,” Mr. Flowers said. “And Natalie?” He waited until I was looking at him. “You take care of your dad?”
“Listen, Nat,” my father began. “Mr. Flowers. He can …” He shook his head. “It’s just how he is.”
We had descended the bluff and were heading toward the parkway again. I’d waited as long as I could before unwrapping the gift and was now turning the box over in my hands, examining the pictures and reading the words that promised everything.
Change milk to water!
“Natalie?”
“Fine.” I hated Mr. Flowers. That other man had done the hitting, but somehow I knew it was Mr. Flowers’s fault. When he gave me this present, I should have told him I didn’t want it. Now that I had it, I knew I should throw it into the kitchen trash can the moment we got home. The trouble was, I wanted it.
Read your friend’s mind!
“Mr. Flowers didn’t mean anything,” said my father, who by the next day would be not only unemployed but unemployable, on account of Victor Flowers floating some well-placed rumors about my father’s financial ethics and mental stability.
When we got home, I mumbled hello to my mother, who was paging through a magazine on the sofa, and rushed to my bedroom to open the magic kit. I touched the dice, the cards, the segments of rope and small
