“So,” Ricardo said brightly, to no one in particular. “How did you sleep?”
“Like sardines,” Bev said. “There were four beds in the room, and then they wedged in an air mattress.”
It was ridiculous, in this day and age, that Ricardo hadn’t been allowed to share a room with any of his teammates. But he sensed it might veer into damaging territory if he complained about it, so instead, he said, “Oh. Who slept there?”
“I did,” Sue said. “I thought I’d be too excited to sleep anyway, but I guess I was more worn out than I thought. It was no big deal. Kind of like camping.”
There was a long, tedious pause—not because the magicians had nothing to say to one another, but only because the camera was more intimidating than any of them had anticipated. Over the car speakers, Iain said, “You’re killing me, people. Say anything.”
Muriel jerked her head up as if she’d been caught nodding off in class, and blurted out, “I felt that damn dummy looking at me all night,” and Bev, before she could stop herself, whooped in laughter.
It was contagious. The cameraman held steady—maybe he was a veteran at filming reality TV—but the driver did crack a smile.
Once the laughter finally calmed (taking much longer than it normally would have, given the thick level of anxiety in the van), Muriel added, “What’s that thing’s name? Oscar? That means it’s a male dummy. I say it stays with Ricardo from now on.”
The women laughed the rest of the way to the spa. Ricardo did his best to laugh along…though it was hard enough sleeping in the mansion without worrying about glass eyes staring at him in the dark.
In a way, though, wasn’t that exactly what he was already doing? Dummy or not, there was a night-vision camera in every room.
That thought was of no particular comfort.
Iain’s voice broke into the laughter with, “Okay, kids, here’s the deal. We’ve only got this place booked for three hours and setup took up two. It needs to look like you guys are here all day, so each of you will get a separate treatment where we can film you doing a bunch of different spa stuff. The seaweed wrap and the deep-tissue massage will flash the most skin. Then we have an aromatherapy thing and something else with feet. What’s that?” he asked, as if he was holding a phone up to his other ear and having a second conversation…which, probably, he was. “Oh. Reflexology. So decide amongst yourselves who wants to do what, and be ready to strip down when you get here.”
The van, which had just been filled with laughter, went heavily silent once Iain was done talking. Ricardo looked to Sue to see if she thought Iain was actually gone. She shrugged. Then Bev said quietly, “I’d prefer not to get undressed on camera unless I absolutely have to.”
The four contestants bent their heads together to confer. The microphone in the minivan would likely pick up anything they said, but even so, the semblance of privacy made Ricardo feel a bit better. “Okay,” he said, “who wants to do what?”
Muriel said, “The smell of seaweed makes me gag.”
“I’m fine with stripping down,” Ricardo said, “and I’m fine with seaweed. I can do the wrap.” At least he’d get his money’s worth out of the tanning salon by showing off all the time he put in by flashing some skin.
“I wouldn’t mind a massage,” Sue said.
Muriel turned to Bev. “Got any problems doing the foot thing?”
“No. That’s okay by me.”
“Then I’ll take the aromatherapy. Done deal.”
They all looked at one another expectantly—and Ricardo felt a surreal moment where he wondered if indeed this reality show was actually happening, or if he’d made it all up in an elaborate dream—and then Sue dropped her voice down to a hint of a whisper, and said, “Girls’ team kicks ass.”
Bev gave Ricardo a motherly sort of smile, then wagged her finger at Sue and said, “Gold Team.”
“Oh. Right.”
Luckily they pulled up to the spa before another spate of giggling ensued.
____
John supposed, were he predisposed to headaches, he would have been suffering one as he stepped out of the red minivan. Marlene had given them four spa treatments to divvy up between them, and Kevin Kazan had turned the simple decision into an ordeal. But he was their team leader, they’d each received their assignments, and that was that.
The gold van pulled up just behind the red van, and John immediately watched for Ricardo’s appearance. He was smiling as he stepped from the van in his midnight blue fitted T-shirt and slim black jeans, and the gold-ribboned medallion he wore around his neck—which he wore well, despite how silly it was. He turned to help the ladies out of the van, and they were all smiling too.
John felt a wistful smile touch his own expression, though it evaporated when Kevin took his place on one side of him and Jia on the other, both glaring out at the world, chins jutting forward, spines poker-straight.
Jia didn’t like being told what to do. Kevin didn’t like repeating himself. Nor being challenged…particularly by a woman.
John couldn’t speak for Fabian, but he personally felt like he was watching a pair of children squabble over who got to play first on the jungle gym.
Marlene Perez climbed out of a much more utilitarian van than the one the Red Team had arrived in. Her black hair was caught back in a hasty ponytail, but her black-on-charcoal sweater set was obviously new, and probably had a designer label sewn inside the collar. When she drew close, John caught a hint of her perfume. She smelled expensive.
“Okay, Red Team, listen up. You’ll be sharing a treatment room with a member of the Gold Team, and we want you to chat. Remember, you’re rivals now.” She led them to a spot off-camera, and said, “We’ll get some shots of you walking in, and then we’ll get you situated in your rooms. Have your talks, then we’ll get back to the mansion location and grab some more ‘domestic’ shots.”
As John strode toward the spa doors, Fabian, beside him, muttered, “And here I thought this would be relaxing.”
John gave a slight nod.
Once John was inside, Marlene caught him by the arm and led him deeper into the building, which was so thick with camera equipment and crew he had a hard time picturing it without all the extra gear cluttering it up. “Here’s the changing booth,” she said, as she steered him into a curtained stall. “Get dressed and meet me in the room across the hall.”
The curtain shut, and John was alone.
It felt good, this moment of quiet, like the gasp of air he’d taken when the lid of the fish tank popped open. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been among so many people for such an extended period of time. It was actually rather thrilling—when they weren’t all sniping at each other and trading attitude.
He hung his new shirt and slacks carefully, and stepped into the disposable thong-like garment. Quick costume changes were no longer a key part of his act, not like they had been in the 70’s and 80’s. Not like Rose, either, who could go through as many as a dozen costumes in a night, and tear them off in two seconds flat without smudging her lipstick or knocking a hair out of place. While John might never have imagined a costume would include this flimsy excuse for briefs, or the turquoise robe, or the bamboo spa sandals, it was exciting to once again be part of an act that required a wardrobe change.
He dressed in the spa gear and stepped out into the hall, where Marlene was jabbing at the screen of her smartphone, deep in concentration. She looked up and smiled. “That color looks great on you. Make sure you pause in the doorway and let the camera get a good shot of it.”
With all the video lighting, the treatment room was glaringly bright compared to the hall, and a pair of cameramen were mashed up against opposite walls with handhelds. Two treatment tables had been shoved side by side, each with a spa technician at its head. But John’s focus narrowed to a single, stunning thing: Ricardo, seated on a table with one knee bent, in nothing but a pair of skimpy disposable briefs.
Ricardo turned. His eyes widened
and he hesitated briefly, then gave his showman’s smile, and said, “You opted for the seaweed wrap? It smells a lot better than they said it would.”
Both cameras swung over to John, who said, “I’ve always been fond of the ocean.” He put one foot in front of the other and stepped into the center of the room, moving on sheer instinct, because conscious thought seemed to have fled at the sight of Ricardo.
More specifically, Ricardo’s body.
John had suspected Ricardo would look good, but even his fantasies couldn’t compare with the reality of those long legs, that sculpted chest. Don’t gape, John managed to think (though just barely) and he turned away and looked to Marlene, who pantomimed undressing. He pulled his belt, and allowed the aesthetician to take his robe and guide him onto the table.
“It doesn’t smell like raw seaweed,” said the man who was painting a pale green gel on Ricardo’s back. “It’s mixed with a proprietary blend of essential oils.”
Ricardo and John stared—it seemed impossible not to—and finally Ricardo said, “Nice tan.”
“Actually, no. I’m Chamorro.” Which most people had never heard of—and it was a relief to have something, anything, to chat about. “From Guam. Some Pacific Islander blood, some Spanish.”
“Oh. Really? Because your aunt was so famous, and I don’t remember ever reading about….” Ricardo finished with a sheepish shrug, and John wondered if it was possible the camera was picking up the thick vibe in the room.
He watched his technician mixing a bowl of green gel as an excuse to tear his eyes away from Ricardo’s bare shoulders. “You wouldn’t have. Rose was always supposed to be coy about where she was originally from so she didn’t seem too foreign. It was a…different time.”
“We’ll apply the treatment to your back,” the spa worker told John, “then you can lie down.”
Ricardo’s technician had already covered his back in gel. The man guided Ricardo into a supine position—and John quickly found a picture on the far wall to stare at. It was something innocuous, something banal. A watercolor. Gestural, green. Perhaps a tea leaf. He focused on it, and saw it wasn’t really a watercolor, just a mass-produced print. Not from the image itself, which was blandly pleasant enough, but from the vibration of the cellulose and the thin varnish coat of the printing process.
As hard as he stared at that damn leaf print, all he could think of was the sight of Ricardo’s perfect abs bunching as he eased back onto the table. And imagining how they would feel sliding against his palms as the two of them rolled together. Skin on skin.
And then the seaweed touched him. Warm. Wet. Not unpleasant. It smelled herbal, like lavender, mostly. The technician applied it with a brush like he was painting the side of a house, with long, sure strokes. Then he asked John to lie down on the trough-like table, upon which was a layer of thick towels, and over that, a sheet of crinkly silver mylar.
The technician began painting John’s front. Marlene said quietly, “Chat.”
John turned his head. Ricardo was watching him. Smiling. Not the showman’s smile, but a private one. His front was now being painted, too. The gleam of the seaweed gel only enhanced his sleek muscles. “They say the seaweed draws out impurities,” John said…and then he wondered if that included impure thoughts.
“I hear your skin feels amazing afterward,” Ricardo added.
No doubt.
Ricardo’s technician finished coating him and began wrapping him in the mylar. “How long is it supposed to stay on?” Marlene asked him.
“Twenty minutes, half an hour. Enough time to work up a good sweat.”
Honestly, John thought. Must everything be a euphemism?
“I suppose we have time to go all the way,” Marlene said.
Yes. Apparently, everything must.
“Once they’re wrapped up,” she told the cameramen, “head over to the reflexology and get some close-ups of those feet. We’ll make sure to come back before they unwrap and get a few shots of these two looking sweaty.”
John’s technician spread the last of the gel over his stomach, then folded the silver sheet over him and tucked it in snugly. He brought up the other side and tucked that in too, then wrapped the sides of the thick towel around him as well. The cameramen trooped out, the technicians, and finally, Marlene.
John and Ricardo were alone. Swaddled in a pair of lavender-scented mylar cocoons, but alone.
John turned his head to face Ricardo. “How are you?” he whispered. He didn’t think there was a secret camera left behind, but according to the sheafs of documents he’d signed, there could be.
“Good. Really good. You?”
“Good.”
They stared awkwardly for a long pause, and then Ricardo said, “I really wish I could move.”
“It does seem to be your forte.”
Ricardo smiled. “What does?”
“Moving.” John wondered why he was admitting the thing that was keen on spilling out of his mouth. “I saw the videos on your website.”
“You did?” Ricardo’s cheeks flushed.
“They were…very good.”
Ricardo launched into a story about the venue where the videos had been taped, how he’d had a great audience there, a steady gig. How it had closed its doors during the latest recession and left him performing at parties. And John traded a story or two about some of the more unusual venues he’d headlined. A dot-com launch. A funeral, once. Twenty uninterrupted minutes felt like a decadent amount of time in which to talk—and perhaps it was fortunate that neither of them could move, because there could very well have been a hidden camera trained on them. And even so, if John had been capable of putting his arms around Ricardo, of drawing him into a kiss…he wouldn’t have been able to resist.
Chapter 13
TWO MAGICIANS LEAVE
UNEDITED VIDEO JOURNAL - KEN BARRON
“So I survived the first punishment, cleaning the bathrooms, making the beds. I don’t think the housework was the actual punishment. We’ve only been here one night, so it wasn’t particularly hard. It wasn’t as if anything was dirty. I think not being allowed to go to the spa, not getting to bond with our teammates…that was the real punishment.
“As much as it would kill me to do it because I’m so damn ashamed, I’m itching to call my sponsor. But I can’t. No phone calls, that’s part of the deal here.
“Last night…was out of control. Completely out of control. Totally…unbelievable. The way it feels, having cameras following you around, the idea that every move you make, every look that crosses your face, could possibly show up on someone’s high-def TV set, bigger than life—you can’t imagine the pressure. And maybe they’ll decide this ‘look’ of yours is raw enough to show over and over, every time they go into a commercial break. And then a DVD set will come out, and whatever look you had on your face will be there for people to laugh about, to mock…forever.
“And if it’s really humiliating, it’ll probably show up on YouTube, too. ’Cos the DVDs aren’t bad enough. People love that. Watching you die inside.
“Chip Challenge has been awesome through this whole thing. He’s like the kid brother I never had. He’s a good guy, you know? A sincerely good guy, deep down inside. You’d think this business would eat someone like him for breakfast. But there’s something resilient about him. And I hang out with him, the cameras don’t seem so bad, and I kind of feel like…well, I dunno. Maybe things can work out for me after all.”
____
As Ricardo finished changing into one of his “Magician Semi-Casual” outfits: tight black stretch jeans, a purple silk shirt (untucked), and a sixties-inspired pair of pointy suede wingtips, there was a tap on his bedroom door. He found Sue there in the hallway, just as moderately-dolled-up as he was in a glitzy clubwear blouse, crushed velvet slacks, and kitten heels. She slipped into his room and checked for cameras, and when she reassured herself of their relative privacy, said, “I still look like I’ve been crying, don’t I?”
&nbs
p; She did. A bit. “Can’t say I noticed. I was wondering if I needed to get myself a pair of velvet pants. They’re hot on you, girl.”
She perched gingerly on one of the room’s two unused beds. “It was so embarrassing.”
“You don’t even know for sure the editors are going to show it.”
“Oh, they’ll show it all right.” She sniffled as if she might start crying again. “The minute the waterworks started, the cameras swarmed me. It was like a scene from a Hitchcock movie. But instead of birds pecking at me from all angles, I had cameramen.”
Who knew a deep-tissue massage would be so painful? Ricardo felt profoundly guilty, because he should have been the one to bear the brunt of it. His pain threshold had always been high. And he felt even more guilty that the worst thing he’d needed to contend with at the spa was the fact that he was swaddled so tightly he couldn’t reach out and run his fingers over John’s bare shoulder.
That was likely a blessing, given that a secret camera might have been hidden in a heating vent or a stack of towels.
When they’d picked their tasks, everyone had been so distracted by the aspect of who was willing to grin and bare it—and who was concerned with sparing their older teammates the discomfort of disrobing—that none of them had considered the specifics of the treatments themselves.
“They’ll probably show Fabian too,” Ricardo said. “He must have been wincing, at least.”
“Probably. He was making this weird groany sound. But he wasn’t crying—not like me. And the crying seemed to be what drew them. Like flies to…crap.”
Ricardo sat beside Sue and gave her a pat on the knee. She winced. He supposed it wasn’t the best time to mention that he smelled really good, and that his skin felt amazing, even his elbows. Or that John looked just as fine with his clothes off as he did in his tailored black suit.
Magic Mansion Page 9
