“I’d love to, but I can’t. I don’t stay in one place for long.”
“Because you’re a traveling textile consultant.”
I smile at this simple explanation. “Something like that.”
Toby loops one of his long arms around my shoulder and pulls my head onto his collarbone. “I feel so comfortable here. Like I’ve been here before.” Then he swallows hard. “You’re not seriously thinking of leaving town, are you?”
“I think I have to.”
“But we’ve only just met.”
“I’ve heard that love and magic don’t mix.”
Toby gives me a strange, thin smile. He shrugs. “I used to believe that. Until last night.” He releases my shoulder and pulls away from me so he can look into my eyes. He takes my hands in his. “Ever since I discovered I could do magic, I’ve been searching for the perfect trick. My stepfather, Ernest, was an anatomist. I would hang about his office, staring into the jigsaw of blood and flesh and bone and wonder what form of magic could reassemble what he had meticulously taken apart.” He squeezes my fingertips, causing small bubbles to rise into the air. “Unlike other magicians, my illusions are real. If a traditional conjurer pretends to cut a woman in half, he is pretending to put her back together. Of course, there is no pretending in my magic. This is why I don’t cut assistants in half or shoot them from cannons.” Toby presses my hands tighter. “Which is not to say I haven’t been tempted. But last night, simply by accident, I performed the perfect trick. I didn’t catch that bullet in time. I reversed it. I accidentally created and subverted actual danger onstage. I saved that girl’s life. In my Vegas debut.” Toby is beaming. “No magic trick will ever top that.” He leans forward and kisses my cheek. “I’m never going to try. That trick will live in everyone’s memory. A perfect moment never to be relived again.”
“You wouldn’t want to repeat or revisit it?”
Toby shakes his head. “It was the moment I’d been searching for since my childhood. A moment of purest magic. So, what I’m wondering is, now that this has happened, would you consider staying here in Vegas with me. I’m tired of banishing things. I’d like to do a less lonely form of conjuring.”
I stand up quickly so Toby cannot see my tears. How can our happiness hinge on the outcome of a single magic trick? But in this reality and in the other, this is what Toby believes. He sounds so earnest and sure of himself. But magic will win eventually, carry him off, just as the water summoned Max.
I cross to the opposite side of the room. When something goes wrong this time around, I wonder what moment Toby will wish to return to. Will he come back to the day we met, or will he revisit to the scene of his perfect trick? I might be fooling myself, but I try to imagine that Toby will return to me, if only in a world of his magic.
“I’ll think about it” is my answer.
If Toby is disappointed, he doesn’t let it show.
As the afternoon slides into evening, I decide to forget that I am a stranger in this place conjured by Toby. I want to enjoy the ranch house and the mystical mesas. I never got the chance before. Our future is now telescoped to this single afternoon. I draw Toby to his feet and lead him out into the desert behind the house. We walk through the sand, planning the future. We discuss the best place to install a picnic table and a cactus garden. We imagine our desert life, which seems to be unfolding quickly. Toby enchants me with details. He lures me into designing new curtains for the living room. We plan to rearrange the bedroom, so the view from the bed is of the sand, not the television. We decide to swap the smoked glass window in the bathroom for a clear pane.
Soon the sun is slipping between the mesas. Tentacles of black stretch out across the desert, creating pictographs in the sand. Toby sits at my side. We stare toward the mesas, at the place children believe is haunted by animal spirits. As I spread out the picnic, the pictographs begin to dance. They circle and weave; then they melt into the sand and emerge as new shapes. They steal toward our feet, curious explorers, then timidly vanish, only to reappear at a safe distance. As we eat, the pictographs rise from the sand, briefly forming into three-dimensional shapes. I recognize the spirits and creatures from the crafts sold at the side of the road. They last for only a moment, a beautiful two-step dance, before collapsing back into the desert.
When this dance is done, it is night. Toby stands up and draws a large circle in the sand with the toe of his shoe. I am at the center. He returns to my side and sits. As he does so, the circle bursts into low flames, protecting and illuminating us. We uncork another bottle of wine and drink in silence. The only sound is the low crackle of the flame and the scratch and snuffle of curious desert animals approaching the ring of fire.
Eventually the flames go out. I sense the magician readying for his next trick. I stop him. But I want something more. We return to the house and fluff the pillows on the bed. I pull back aside the drapes, so the desert stars shine into the window. We lie down
