“What about you?” I said, forcing myself to reengage. “What’s your existential crisis?”
“Oh, that. Dad and Heather had an epic fight, but it’s over now.”
I closed my eyes and yanked on my hair again. I was the worst kind of friend: always needy but never available when it was my turn to listen.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.” My voice sounded small.
“Don’t even. Your timing is perfect. The aftermath was worse than the fight; they made up loudly for like two hours. I think I’m permanently traumatized.”
I laughed. “That’s nasty.”
“Oh, and I caught Jude vaping. Only twelve, and already a delinquent. So yeah, things are basically falling apart here. At least my mother hasn’t turned up. That would fuck everything worse.”
“Yeah.” I tried to sound sympathetic, but a splinter of resentment stuck in my throat. If my mom were still alive, I’d want to see her, no matter what.
“But back to you. What are you going to do about money?”
I leaned back against the stucco exterior of the Walmart. “I don’t know. We’ve never been this hard up before.”
Immediately, I wanted to take it back. I didn’t think I could look myself in the mirror if I heard a single note of pity in Ripley’s voice. He was an optimist, a problem solver. That’s what I loved about him.
“Are you going to resort to bump-and-grabs again, or . . . ?”
“I jacked eighty gallons of diesel and a wallet. Does that count?”
“Holy crap! I’d say so. Are you still keeping track?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me know if you need me to hack in and delete any security-camera footage.”
“You can do that?”
“Not yet, but I’m working on it.”
“You’re the best friend ever,” I said.
“It is known,” he replied, deadpan. I felt an impulse to laugh, but it died before it got out.
There was a coin-operated carousel in front of the shopping cart return. I threw my leg over a seahorse and sat down on the hard plastic saddle.
“I met a boy,” I said.
“Ugh. Please don’t make me listen to your romantic bullshit.”
I laughed and told him anyway—the vodka, the asking me out, the sexual tension.
“I don’t understand being attracted to someone for having a facial flaw and large arms.”
“You don’t understand being attracted to someone, period.”
“Don’t oppress me.”
“Don’t be a snowflake.”
“I can feel attraction, you know. Pretty people are like art. I like art. But you don’t see me racing into a museum to fuck a painting.”
This time, the laugh did make it out. I apologized for being insensitive about his asexuality, and Ripley apologized for mocking my attraction to Liam. We moved on, blathering about random stuff, anything but our parents and the sad state of our lives. Part of me wanted to tell him about my decline, about being out of meds—but he was already down, and I didn’t want to drag him deeper.
Besides my dad and my doctor, Ripley was the only person in the world who knew my diagnosis. According to my psychiatrist, I had bipolar II. Or Bipolar 2: The Sequel! as Ripley liked to call it. Lots of famous people had it: Carrie Fisher, Mariah Carey, Winston Churchill. But that was no comfort to me. Those people had done something with their lives, whereas I was standing outside a Walmart in Fort Wayne, Indiana, talking with my only friend on a four-year-old prepaid phone.
Like everything eventually did, my conversation with Ripley began to bottom out. A security guard came around and asked me to leave. I said goodbye to Ripley, trudged back to the RV, and fell dead asleep.
I was brushing my teeth when the irritating warble of my ringtone sounded. I rinsed my mouth and grabbed my phone: it was the prankster. I decided to answer.
“Stop. Calling. Me.” I hadn’t used my voice yet, and it came out like a croak.
“Don’t hang up, Ms. Dante.”
I frowned. This wasn’t the caller from yesterday; it was a man with a deep, strangely familiar voice. I glanced down the aisle; Dad wasn’t here. He’d probably gone into Walmart for something.
“Who is this?”
“Flynn Bissette.”
I sat down hard and all the blood rushed to my head.
“I’m a busy guy, and I’m calling you personally. Don’t screw this up.” When I didn’t reply, he continued. “Kellar and I are producing a magic retrospective for NBC. We’re projecting ten million viewers. I just had somebody drop out—and we shoot live in Hollywood in ten days. I want Dante for the show.”
A moment ago I’d been barely awake; now my heart was pounding so hard, I thought it might leap out of my mouth.
Before Dad’s career imploded, he had been a consultant to some of the biggest names in magic. Siegfried & Roy. Ricky Jay. Lance Burton. Maybe one of those guys wanted Dad to help them behind the scenes.
I tried to sound calmer than I was. “Who needs the consult?”
“Consult? No. I want him on the show. I want him to re-create the Truck Drop.”
My mouth went dry.
Dad hadn’t escaped anything more complex than thumb cuffs since his appearance on Late Night with Craig Rogan. He had attempted the Truck Drop only once—the night he burned his career to the ground.
“Why?” I said. “I mean, why him?”
“Fair question,” Flynn said. “Dante failed—but he failed big. I admire his chutzpah. I want to give him a second chance.”
I frowned. Something Flynn had said tripped an alarm in my head, or maybe a memory. It put me on edge.
“Maybe you just want to make money off his humiliation,” I said, not quite believing I was speaking this way to Flynn Effing Bissette. “People love to watch has-beens fall on their asses.”
“That’s true,” Flynn said. “But they also love a comeback story.”
I got up and walked to the accordion door. Dad was still gone, but he could walk in at any moment. I needed time to think. I needed to stall.
“I met you once,” I blurted.
“Is that right?”
“I was ten. My dad took me to see your show at the Havana. I pulled a silk daisy out of your pocket, and you signed the nine of hearts for me and wrote ‘fail big’ on the face.”
He laughed. “I don’t remember. I’m sorry.” At least he was being honest. “Listen, Ms. Dante—how do I get a yes?”
“What do you mean?”
“What does he want? Alpacas in his dressing room? A bowl of green M&M’s? What?”
I bit my lip. What we really needed was money.
As if reading my mind, Flynn said, “I’ll pay him five thousand dollars to show up, and five thousand more if he pulls it off.”
I sat down hard on the bed.
“Ms. Dante, you’re killing me. All right, ten thousand more if he pulls it off. That’s fifteen grand for a successful performance. Final offer.”
Fifteen. Thousand. Dollars. That was more than we’d made in the last year. That was rent. That was meds. That was rescue.
“How long do I have to consider it?”