Magic, Machines and the Awakening of Danny Searle

by John McWilliams

  “Would you two take it down a notch?” I said.

  “It’s keeping us warm. You should try it.”

  “I think what we should be doing is braving it up to the next exit.”

  Danny nodded her agreement against my chest and, after José and Jenny agreed, I helped Danny to her feet.

  Cautiously, we rode three and a half miles up to the next exit and pulled into a Days Inn. We parked under the lobby’s overhang.

  “Just one room, right?” I said, taking out my sopping wet wallet. “I mean we’re just waiting this out.”

  “Oh—no, no, no,” José looked at me as if I were insane. “You two get your own room.” He scanned the hotel’s flooded parking lot. “This could go on for hours. You two are adults; eventually you’ll figure things out.”

  “And if you need any pointers,” Jenny added cleverly, “we’ll be right down the hall.”

  I turned to Danny, ignoring their comments.

  “I don’t care. Just somewhere warm.” She opened the lobby door and backed away. A whoosh of air made it seem as if it was even colder inside.

  José and I paid for the rooms and parked the bikes at the rear of the building near the I-95 service road, then made a mad dash up the outside stairwell to our rooms.

  “Call us in an hour,” I said to José as Danny unlocked our door.

  José just shook his head as he and Jenny slipped into their room.

  “I’m going to take a shower, okay?” Danny asked, trembling as she removed her jacket and sweater and piled them into the bathroom’s outer sink.

  “Take as long as you like.”

  “Thanks.” She stepped into the bathroom. Then peered out. “You have to go or anything?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  She nodded and closed the door.

  Once the shower started, I moved her clothes from the sink to the heater under the window. Then, removing my own clothes down to my boxers, I placed them there as well. Wrapping a bedsheet around my waist, I sat on the edge of one of the beds, searching the TV for the Weather Channel.

  My mind, however, was like a pyrotechnic display of spectacular awarenesses: awareness of being here in a hotel room with Danny, awareness of her warm, wet, naked body just on the other side of that wall, awareness that this situation could lead to something more.

  Twenty minutes later, Danny emerged with one towel around her waist, one around her torso and one around her head. Steam billowed from the door.

  “Feeling better?” I asked, still at the foot of the bed.

  “Much better, thanks.” She looked around the outer sink. “Good, a hairdryer.”

  “I ah—” The tautness of her towels made me forget what I was about to say. “Oh, right, I put your jacket and sweater over by the heater.”

  “Good idea. Thanks.”

  “You might want to put the rest of your clothes over there, too.”

  “I will.” She looked at me guiltily. “I think I might have used up all the towels. I used one to dry off and the other three are on me.”

  “So, take them off. I mean—you know, after you put something else on.” I looked up and down the length of her body before realizing what I was doing.

  “How about I trade you one of my towels for your sheet?” she suggested.

  “Which towel?”

  “Choose.”

  I stood and walked toward her.

  “You are wearing something underneath that sheet, aren’t you?” Her blue eyes remained locked on mine as she removed the sheet from my shoulders and draped it over her own. She then wriggled out of her bottom and top towels and let them fall to the floor.

  “I thought I was going to get to choose,” I said.

  “I’m pretty sure you did.”

  “You’re a pretty good mind reader.”

  “I am.” Her eyes lingered on mine. “Don’t take too long in there.”

  I watched as she walked around me toward the beds.

  Inside the bathroom, I held her warm, soap-scented towels to my cheek, noting the powerful, ineffable quality that they possessed: these towels had actually been against her skin. I stopped, held them out. Tomorrow, the Days Inn’s housekeeping staff would treat these things like hazardous waste. Yet to me, in this moment, they were pure art.

  I wondered how many times these over-washed tangles of fabric had played this role for other lovesick people. If anything’s an illusion, it’s got to be the universality of quality.

  Catching sight of myself in the mirror, it dawned on me that Danny was probably starting to wonder why I hadn’t turned on the water yet. Stop daydreaming, idiot! I draped the towels over the curtain rod and stepped into the tub. In the soap tray, a half-melted bar of soap. Don’t you start mooning over this now.

  I showered, dried off and, as I was about to leave, a hand on the doorknob, I hesitated.

  Am I really going to go out there in boxers? That seems a bit daring. On the other hand, it’s no different than a bathing suit—right? Well, I’m pretty certain I couldn’t pull off Danny’s wrapped-in-towels look. I opened the door.

  “I think we’re going to be here awhile,” Danny said. She was at the dresser mirror, blow-drying her hair.

  “I know,” I agreed. Even above the hairdryer, I could hear the rain pounding against the roof. “I saw the storm on the Weather Channel.”

  “Are you hungry?” she asked. “There are a couple of menus over here. I was thinking Chinese.”

  “Sure.” I sat on the edge of the bed.

  “You know…” Danny smiled at me in the mirror. “For a geek, you’re in pretty good shape.”

  “Thanks. I, ah, see you made my sheet into a toga.”

  “Do you like it?” She glanced at me out the corner of her eye, and just when I thought my heart might explode, she went back to her hair.

  After she finished, we made several attempts to call José and Jenny before phoning the Asian Garden Cafe. While we waited for our food to be delivered, we played gin rummy, seated on the bed.

  “Where’d you get these cards?” I asked.

  “I just made them magically appear. We couldn’t have you getting bored, could we?”

  “And you thought cards were the best solution for that?”

  “What else did you have in mind?”

  “Well…” I couldn’t help but smile. But I had to show some restraint. “How about a cool card trick?”

  “A card trick?” She furrowed her brow. “Really?”

  “Unless that’s putting you on the spot.”

  “No, I’m pretty sure even on short notice I can amaze you.”

  “Somehow, I believe that.”

  “Let’s see.” She looked thoughtfully at the deck in her hands. “Okay.” She split the cards into three piles and placed them on the bed. “Choose one,” she said. I did, and she set the two remaining piles aside. “Okay, now take the first three cards from the top, but don’t show them to me.”

  I did.

  “Is one of them the three of diamonds?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really?” She sounded surprised. “That’s cool, but that’s not the trick. Just put those cards aside and draw another one—just one.”

  “Are you just making this up as you go along?”

  “It’s magic. Don’t question it. Now, please, take your card. Thank you.” She did a flourish of her hands and a purple cigarette lighter appeared.

  “Wow, can you show me how you did that?”

  “We’re in the middle of a card trick.”

  “But that seemed even better than a card trick.”

  “That’s because I’m not done yet.” She giggled. “You’ve got to be the worst audience ever. Here.” She handed me the lighter.

  “What’s this for?”

  “To burn your card.”

  “Burn it?”

  “Remember it first, and then burn it.”

  “But won’t that leave us a card short?”

  “Tyler…”

&n
bsp; “I know, it’s magic; don’t question it. I hope this doesn’t set off the smoke detector.”

  “It won’t.” She looked up. “At least, I hope it won’t.”

  I lit the card, letting it burn down to the corner, then let the ashes fall to the floor.

  “Hey, I needed that.”

  “The ashes?”

  “Could you please…?”

  “You might have said something.” I leaned off the bed and recovered what I could. “I didn’t know I was supposed to sacrifice my fingertips for your act.” I handed her a curl of ash.

  She smoothed out the sheet on the bed between us and placed the deck there. She took the ash and placed it on the top card and rubbed it in. “I will now attempt to push your card’s spirit back into the deck. And, if all goes well, your card should rematerialize at the bottom.” She lifted the deck to show me the current bottom card, the six of clubs. “Are you ready?”

  I nodded.

  “Oh spirit of Tyler’s card. I implore you to rejoin your former comrades in this deck.”

  “Are these Russian cards?”

  “Shush.” She slapped the top of the deck. “That ought to do it.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Your card?” She turned the deck over.

  “Sorry.” It was still the six of clubs.

  “Hold on, I might have hit the deck too hard. Your card’s spirit might have gone right through the sheet.”

  She took my hand and placed it where the deck had been. “Feel anything?”

  I climbed off the bed and reached under the tightly fitted sheet. I withdrew a card. It was mine: the two of hearts.

  “Yours?” she asked.

  “You are truly amazing.”

  “Well, it looks like I finally managed to impress you—”

  The lights flickered and went out. The heater fan clicked to a halt.

  We sat there listening to the rain.

  “This is spooky—” Danny began.

  Two rapid bangs on the door gave us a start.

  I leapt off the bed and moved the curtains aside. “It’s our food.”

  When I opened the door, I was met by a soaking wet, haggard-looking Chinese man. He stared at me as the cold air whipped inside. Drips rolled off his hood, one landing on his cheek. He flinched.

  “Nineteen forty-two,” he said, snapping out of it. He cleared his throat. Then he noticed Danny. She was on the bed in her toga.

  I handed him twenty-five dollars and had to practically rip the bag out of his hands.

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “No—enjoy your meal.” He yanked the strings of his hood and stepped backward, then jogged off down the walkway.

  “How weird was that?” I closed the door.

  “I bet he recognized you from the 60 Minutes segment.”

  “Or maybe he was so befuddled by your beauty that his brain froze.”

  “That was probably it.” Danny giggled.

  She spread the food out on the bed, dividing up the napkins and giving us each a fortune cookie. With the drapes drawn, we had privacy and just enough light.

  We sat down for our picnic, the rain steady, relentless. Then out of nowhere came a crack of thunder.

  “That was close,” I said.

  “I love thunderstorms.” Danny opened a pack of chopsticks. “It’s weird, but for some reason I’m really good with these things.”

  “Why is that weird?”

  “I don’t know. It’s like I was a Chinese person in another life.” She held up the chopsticks and clicked them together. “I bet I could catch a fly with these things.”

  “Maybe you were Bruce Lee.”

  “Maybe.” She shrugged as she opened the chicken fried rice.

  When we finished eating, we sat back against the headboard and listened to the rain, reading each other’s fortunes.

  “Yours says,” Danny said, “‘Success is a journey, not a destination.’”

  “I see my father is writing these things now.” I unrolled hers. “Yours says—”

  “What’s so funny?”

  “It says: ‘Physical activity will dramatically improve your outlook.’”

  “No it doesn’t.” She grabbed the slip of paper out of my hands. “First of all, what’s so bad about my outlook now?”

  “It says it could be improved. These things are very scientific.”

  Lightning flashed, followed by an earthshattering roar of thunder.

  The rain now sounded like horses galloping across the roof.

  “Hear that?” I sat up and looked over at the other bed. A puddle had formed. “We’ve sprung a leak.”

  “It looks like you’re stuck with me,” she said.

  “Looks that way.”

  “Now what?” She let her hands drop to her sides.

  “You mean until the roof caves in and kills us?”

  “I know. Tell me a secret.”

  “A secret? Me tell you a secret? You’re the mysterious one.” I looked at her in the gray light. “Why don’t you tell me a secret?”

  “I don’t know why you think I’m mysterious, but I do have a secret. It’s a little embarrassing, though.”

  “Oh?”

  “If I tell you, you have to promise not to tell anyone.”

  “Okay.”

  “Seriously. You can’t tell anyone.”

  “I promise.”

  “Especially not your dad.”

  “Especially not him. I promise.”

  “Okay, you promised.” She sat up higher against the headboard and turned toward me. “It’s about that first day I came to Quantum Bay. Remember the magic trick I did with the kitten?”

  “Pillow. Of course.”

  “Remember how your dad, afterward, kept bugging me about where I hid Pillow, saying that I must have sat on her? Well, I did.”

  “On purpose?”

  “Not on purpose.” She slapped my arm. “I had planned on putting her in my wizard’s satchel, but when it fell over the wrong way, I had to come up with something fast. I thought if I could just hold her there under my skirt—you know, between my knees.”

  I laughed—glad she couldn’t see the images forming in my mind.

  “But then the silly thing worked its way loose,” she said, “and started crawling around.”

  “So you sat on it?”

  “I told you it was embarrassing. I didn’t want to hurt the thing, so I had to kind of corral it.”

  “Where was it going?”

  “Exploring—I don’t know. I just hoped it wouldn’t bite me. How is that funny?”

  “The whole thing is funny.”

  “All right, all right,” she pleaded.

  “Were you at least wearing underwear?”

  “Of course I was wearing underwear.” She nudged me. “I was wearing panties… unlike now.”

  I stopped laughing.

  Lightning flashed.

  “You want me to prove that magic exists?” she asked, as if she hadn’t just shaken my universe.

  “Huh? Sure.” I quickly gathered my wits. “This won’t involve cards, will it?”

  “No cards, but it does require your cooperation. You have to lie all the way down and face the other way, away from me.”

  I did as she asked and, as she draped her toga over me, I could smell her freshly showered body.

  “Now, for this to work, you can’t be wearing anything under that sheet.”

  “And this is going to prove that magic exists?”

  “Shush.”

  I slid my boxers off and tossed them on the floor. I felt her warmth as she joined me under the sheet. She wasn’t quite touching me, but I could feel the tickle of her breath on my neck.

  “Everything around us,” she said softly. “The air, the rain, the walls, even our bones and blood, are all made of these lifeless things we call atoms. And for millions of years, creatures of all varieties have been emerging and dying and reemerging again and again from the very same coll
ection of these things.

  “What you feel right now, what I feel right now—these experiences—have also been formed of these same tiny grains.

  “And so, out of our own leased allotment of particles along the endless beach of time, we find ourselves in this moment. Not this moment. This moment.” She placed her hand on the lower part of my stomach.

  I gasped; my heart pounded.

  “That’s got to be magic,” she whispered.

  I rolled over and faced her. The world outside rumbled; the rain continued to pour.

  “Now it’s your turn to touch me,” she said.

  ****

  The next morning, having slept all of about two hours, I opened my eyes. Danny’s head was on my chest. The room smelled of soy sauce, heater-baked clothes and wet sheetrock, and, every few minutes or so, a droplet of water fell from the ceiling with a bwhap onto the other bed.

  Watching the sunlight seep down the paisley gold and white wallpaper, I wanted to stay in this moment forever.

  But then the phone rang.

  I untangled my arm from Danny’s and answered it. It was José. Ignoring his barrage of I-told-you-sos, I suggested that we meet by the bikes in an hour. He agreed. But after Danny joined me in the shower, one hour became two.

  Finally, dressed and dry, we stumbled out of our grotto into the morning sun. Placing our overlapping hands on the walkway’s railing, we looked down at José and Jenny on the sidewalk by the bikes. It was warm, nearly sixty degrees. Another day like yesterday, I thought.

  Only completely, profoundly, different.

  15

  For the next ten days life was perfect. Danny and I essentially broke the news of our dating without saying a word. We just kept showing up together with smiles on our faces. And though my father did manage to get a few clever remarks in, with all that was going on at QBL, it seemed we had dodged the brunt of his ribbing.

  Then came the accident.

  On Tuesday morning, the morning of our flight to Chicago, at 5:45 a.m., I shuffled out of the kitchen with a hot cinnamon Pop-Tart in hand. My father, Ishana, Danny, Mohamed and Stewart were at the dining room table, awaiting the limo that would take us to Kennedy International Airport. Peter and David planned to meet us at the hotel in Chicago later that evening.

  “Anyone want one?” I asked, referring to my napkin-wrapped pastry. No takers. They all seemed more interested in resting their heads on their arms on the table. Except for my father—who, bifocals on, was leafing through the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research.