I opened a set of French doors and stepped onto a stone balcony overlooking the backyard. Three tents draped with fairy lights stood on the perfect lawn, sheltering a wedding setup for at least a hundred guests. Round tables with red cloths; an explosion of roses; an archway of satin ribbon over a temporary stage where a band was setting up their amplifiers. I imagined myself standing on that stage, feeling a hundred pairs of eyes on me. Sensing the energy from the audience, controlling it, drawing their attention wherever I wanted it. I felt tingles crawling up the sides of my face—it was a rush, having that power.
I released the railing and took a step back, and the twitch of mania receded. I wouldn’t be onstage tonight; I would be hiding up here, taking my history exam.
Ella, ella, eh, eh, eh . . .
“Do you see those thunderclouds?”
I turned and saw Dad leaning against the door frame.
“An outdoor wedding in northern Indiana in October.” He shook his head. “I don’t envy the groom. Come on,” he said, beckoning me back inside. “Let’s get cracking.”
He had already unlatched one of his cases and was setting aside decks of cards and various props; I hadn’t heard any of it. Spacing out was another symptom of impending gray. I needed to hold out for few more hours. Then I could crawl into my vibrating bed and curl up in the fetal position.
“What should I close with?” Dad asked, shutting his case. “Dove Production? Spoon Bender?”
I frowned. “Doves won’t work if it rains.”
“Good point,” he said, rubbing at his mustache.
“And Spoon Bender is too small for that stage. I was thinking Card to Fruit.”
The trick worked like this: The magician asked a volunteer to pick a card and sign it. Then, using sleight of hand—my favorite brand of magic—he vanished the card. Next, the magician selected a piece of fruit at random from a bowl, cut it open, and voilà: he pulled out the signed card, wet with fresh juice. I loved it because of the reaction it elicited from the audience: eyes widening, jaws dropping. The trick defied logic in the most visceral way, and Dad performed it as well as David Blaine had in his famous Harrison Ford YouTube video.
“Perfect,” Dad said. He fished the necessary item out of his kit and tossed it to me.
As Dad took the stage, I watched from the balcony, just as I had watched him from the wings since I was a little girl. I’d been six when we relocated from Las Vegas to Indiana—and at the time, I thought we’d had to move because Mom died. Years later, I discovered the truth.
Dad had been grinding out a living at a small casino when he was offered the opportunity of a lifetime: a guest spot on Late Night with Craig Rogan. If it went well, he could finally move into a big theater on the Strip and see his name glowing alongside the greats’: Lance Burton, Flynn & Kellar, Daniel Devereaux. He spent a month designing a brand-new illusion—but on the night of the live taping, it went horribly wrong.
My memories of the incident were like fragments of a bad dream. Probably I had manufactured them, cobbled them together from YouTube videos and overheard conversations. But they seemed real to me. Looking down at Dad onstage now, I wondered if he was wearing the same black tie he’d worn that night.
The lights came up, and the wedding guests began to applaud. I remembered the faint smell of burning dust in Craig Rogan’s studio, the heat of the overhead lights. I tried to repel the memories of that night, but they pushed against my mind relentlessly, like a song, until I closed my eyes and let them come.
I’m holding my mother’s hand as the curtain ascends. When the lights come up on my father, standing center stage, she kisses my cheek, lets go of my hand, and crosses to him. As she turns to acknowledge the audience, her smile is luminous in the glare of the lights. She selects a volunteer, who binds Dad’s wrists and ankles—and then a second curtain goes up, revealing an old red Chevy pickup truck and an enormous Plexiglas tank filled with water. My mother helps Dad into the truck, and a winch hauls it toward the rafters.
The hush of the crowd, the gleam of chrome—and the splash as the truck hits the surface and sinks until the water is over his head.
Laughter from below jarred me back into the moment. Dad was finishing his new opening bit: dropping a red toy truck into a half-filled fish tank. The audience responded with a bout of laughter; it had worked.
When our gigs had begun to dry up, we’d had to do something to address Dad’s reputation problem. To point out the elephant in the room right at the top so everyone could move on and enjoy the show. But Dad was proud, and it had taken me a long time to persuade him to try the Toy Truck Drop. When he finally relented, it worked perfectly. Audiences laughed, relieved by his self-deprecating humor. They trusted him again, and he was able to perform with his old vigor and panache. For a year or so, the bookings picked up. But then they began to evaporate again, until we had only one gig on the calendar. This one.
I watched Dad step off the stage and circulate among the attendees, picking cards and finding coins to their delight. Most of the guests were older, probably friends of Princess Becca’s parents. The bride herself sat at a high table next to her pasty, corn-fed husband, smiling for pictures and picking at her salad. Overhead, the clouds threatened to break open, but luckily for her, they hadn’t yet.
I spotted Liam near the stage, holding court with a pair of girls. I recognized the pretty blonde; she’d been one of the baseball groupies at Eastside. She took his arm and started to lead him into the house, but then he glanced up to where I stood on the balcony.
Reflexively, I shrank away from the railing—but I was pretty sure he’d caught me watching him. God, I was embarrassing. What was I doing? Liam had been nice enough to me during Damn Yankees rehearsals, but once the show was over, he’d ignored me completely. Besides, that had been a year ago. It was ancient history now.
Liam and his girls had looked like they were making plans to escape the reception. I envied them; I had never had a group of friends, or any hope of escape. I had precisely one friend, who I knew only by his avatar and his voice.
I pulled out my phone and found the Millers’ Wi-Fi, thinking I should call Ripley as promised—but the network was password protected. So I sent a text instead.
Me: No Wi-Fi. :( Can you text?
I stared at the screen for two solid minutes, but Ripley didn’t reply. I imagined him lying back on his bed, texting with someone else instead, some new IRL bestie at his IRL high school who not only could afford reliable internet but could actually be present in his life. I pictured her as a pretty girl, taller and more elegant than me. His very own Princess Becca. It was a ridiculous thought—Ripley wasn’t like that—but the idea ricocheted around in my head anyway.
Ella, ella, eh, eh, eh . . .
The chorus of “Umbrella” had resumed its loop. For the umpteenth time, I wondered: Why that song in particular? I’d been a toddler when it came out, and as far as I could remember, it didn’t have any special meaning for me. Yet somehow it had burrowed itself into my brain like a Lyme-disease tick.
I was about to head back to the RV when I heard the sliding glass door open behind me. I turned. It was Liam.
He paused in the doorway, one hand in his front pocket, looking like a model from the J.Crew catalog.
“Mind if I join you?”