The Art of Disappearing

to the house and called the police,” I said. “We remained inside while he joined the search party. Eventually I fell asleep. The last thing I remember seeing was a single tear trapped in the corner of my mother’s eye. I still wonder why it didn’t fall. Finally, when the last of the afternoon light had disappeared, a fireman arrived, carrying Max, drenching our floors with mud and water. Max’s arms looked translucent as they swung free from the fireman’s hold. His dark brown hair, matted with mud and small sticks, was caked in a helmet around his head. My mother moaned and slapped her hands against the sofa. Before she could speak, the fireman told us that Max was sleeping.”

“Sleeping?” Toby asked.

I nodded and smiled. “My brother had some extraordinary talents. Sleeping in water is one of them. The fireman told us that he found Max in a little creek two miles downstream. He said it was a miracle that the water hadn’t pulled him under. There was absolutely nothing wrong with him. Not even a mosquito bite. I think the fireman wanted to tell us that that was a miracle, too, but my mother would not listen. She didn’t want to encourage Max’s water-lust.” I spun my beer bottle in my hand and looked directly at the magician. “You know your pattern of watching and waiting here in the desert.”

Toby nodded.

“That night, my own vigil began. I was so worried that Max would return to the river that after he fell asleep, I crept into his room and sat in the rocking chair next to his bed and watched him.” I sipped my beer. “I woke him up and asked him why he’d gone down to the river. He told me, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, that he’d gone there to swim through the surface of the moon.”

“That sounds reasonable.”

I stared at Toby. “Maybe it does now. After that, I returned to Max’s room nearly every evening, trying to prevent his escape. I tried to keep Max as close to me as possible. And when I couldn’t, I guess you could say that I memorized him.” I laughed at the memory. “After the night he spent in the river, Max’s hair turned a light straw color. Within six months, the color deepened, acquiring a rich gold hue that sparkled in the sun and glowed in the dark. My mother thought the river had leaked inside his head.”

“Maybe it did.”

“I think so.” I finished my beer. “Soon after his hair changed, Max experienced a strange growth spurt that not only made him taller, but also disproportionately elongated his limbs, fingers, feet, and toes. My parents are compact, and when he was young, Max had been a miniature version of my father. But then his arms and legs grew until he looked like a monkey puzzle tree. His hands and feet followed, until we had to compare them to flippers. Eventually his skin paled to a translucent opal. I learned so much from Max. The only thing he couldn’t teach me was to love water. So I couldn’t follow him when he finally left.”

“And here you are in the desert.”

I looked over the canyon and nodded.

“Did you try looking for him?”

I shook my head. “Despite all my watching and memorizing, it took me years to figure out that Max never really returned from the river that night.” I dug the bottom of my beer bottle into the soft earth. “But that doesn’t prevent me from expecting him to turn up around every corner.”

Toby looked off across the empty canyon and said nothing.

In the month that I had been working for Sandra, I began to catalog her suits and became convinced she rarely wore the same thing twice. Today it was a coral pink number that gripped her waist, chest, and rear with magnetic force. The 2 percent spandex content of the fabric caused it to emit country music squawks each time she sat. Of course, she couldn’t hear this. All she knew was that her new suit felt like a second skin and deepened the dark leather hue of her tan.

“You’re the one who knows about fabric and all,” she said, pulling the bottom of her jacket so the neckline plunged to a dangerous low, revealing the turquoise lace trim of her brassiere, “but these synthetic blends are a gift from God. Sometimes I feel like my old linen suits hang on me like garbage bags. They make me feel like a pioneer or a settler—dowdy and homespun.” She gave her skirt a little twist. “This might be the desert,” she continued with a flick of her wrist, “but it’s not the prairie. No choice but to look good.”

“Spandex and nylon add shape,” I said, “but they don’t breathe as well as natural fabrics.”

“Breathe? Who needs them to breathe? Who goes outside? Everywhere has air-conditioning.”

This was true. Moving sidewalks and towering skywalks transformed the Strip into a synthetic biodome. Like moles, we traveled through cooled tunnels from parking lots to hotels and from movie theaters to shopping malls. Monorails ushered us from one casino to another, while gallerias and promenades sheltered us from the high midday heat. Everyone—locals and tourists alike—worshipped the heat from a safe distance. So, when Sandra wondered aloud for the second time that morning, “Who really goes outside, except to the pool?” I just nodded and examined the skin on my forearms.

We were reviewing the uniforms of the cocktail waitresses. The designer had taken a nineteenth-century Russian dress and crossed it with cancan outfits from the Moulin Rouge. With the hemline raised by nearly a foot, the overall effect was of a peasant costume run through a shredder.

“These crinolines look a little limp,” I said, fingering the built-in petticoats underneath the dresses. “If you want that bunny tail look, you should starch them or attach some wires.”

“Sure,” Sandra replied distractedly.

“And as long as you’ve got good servers who aren’t going