Immediately, the assistant spotted a card with five checks on it, and made the audience member re-do the ballot, much to the annoyance of everyone in line behind them. Marlene called out, “If you marked more than one magician in any category, raise your hand and we’ll get you a new ballot.” A few hands popped up, and she sent another PA out with some blank ballots, muttering, “Go help them, okay?” It was almost over. That’s what she kept telling herself. And she had two weeks in Cabo coming to her, with no cell phone, no executive producers and no bleeding magicians, in the very near future.
With the re-do ballots dispatched, she turned back to the front of the line, noticing one guy watching the proceedings more shiftily than the people around him. “You…in the blue windbreaker. C’mere.” Marlene crooked her finger, and the guy stepped up and handed over his ballot.
The ballot was technically correct. There was only one magician chosen in each category. In fact, there was only one magician chosen at all: Kevin Kazan for magic tricks, Kevin Kazan for style, and Kevin Kazan for the theme of his act. No big surprise. The home viewers had their favorites, and a few “straight ticket” votes were to be expected.
But the word FAG scrawled across Ricardo’s name was a bit much. “Really?” Marlene said. The guy in the windbreaker wouldn’t quite meet her eye. She threw a too-small T-shirt at him and said, “Get out of here.”
Chapter 36
RUMOR MILL
It was late, and the magicians were all snug in their beds. The day had been brutally long, flying to the east coast and back with a big performance in between. And for once, Iain felt like he had another few hours’ reserve energy to draw on.
He’d slept like a baby on the plane.
Marlene, on the other hand, was looking haggard, though she always looked that way toward the end of a project. Iain scanned the email his PA had sent him, and realized he was probably about to accelerate Marlene’s need for another botox injection by a few weeks. He hit the print button and cleared his throat.
“What is it?” she snapped. “Can it wait? Because getting everyone together for the next big reveal is a bitch—”
“I think you’ll want to see this.” Iain slid her the printout. Marlene set it in her lap without glancing at it so she could finish up the email she was currently working on. Once she hit send, she glanced down. And groaned.
The photo was the most striking thing. Backstage, Atlantic City Boardwalk. Professor Topaz whispering in Ricardo’s ear, bending close, holding his top hat off to the side, dapper, almost courtly. Ricardo with his face all lit up, leaning toward him. Camera phones were getting better and better these days. This candid wasn’t as clear as a posed studio shot. But for onscreen viewing, it conveyed its message loud and clear.
And then there was the title of the message board thread: Ricardo the Fag-ificent.
Iain turned back to his monitor and read along with her.
realmagic34 - everything u see on this show is a fraud - maybe prof topaz is gay but riccardo is like the biggest fag u eva seen - look at him here hes just wishin he could go down on the prof right now
JodeeGal - shut up yr a jerk
sp@rkle - It doesn’t matter if someone is gay, if you care about magic like you say you do, what matters is how they do magic.
JodeeGal - and u didn’t even spell his name right
Anonymous - dude hes a total fag
PrettyBitty - ur wrong I tottally ship SueCardo
Anonymous - I hope they give each other AIDS and die
Marlene handed the printout back to Iain, pressed her fingers into her temple, and said, “Make this go away.”
“On the network’s message board, no problem.” Iain hit a few keys. “Done. But I’m sure by now it’s everywhere.”
“And the weird part is, once we got off the plane, I thought Ricardo and the Professor were pretty low-key about their…thing.” Marlene drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. “The contestants don’t have access to phones or Internet. I don’t suppose public reaction at this point matters.”
“They’ll see it eventually.”
“True. But not when it can throw them off their game before the final challenge.”
Iain looked down at the photo again. It wasn’t that the magicians were even doing anything particularly incriminating. It was more subtle than that. The lines of their bodies, the expressions on their faces—absolutely everything about them suggested a smoldering attraction. He wadded up the printout and lobbed it into the trash can. “Funny thing is, Ricardo’s the one they’re tearing up. Not the Professor.”
“What are you saying?”
Iain wasn’t exactly sure. “I dunno…the Professor’s, like, twice Ricardo’s age. Someone who didn’t know better could make the Professor out to be the bad guy, a creepy old performer out to take advantage of the young, starry-eyed hopeful.”
“I’m sure that’s exactly what someone out there is doing. Painting this whole thing as the magicians’ equivalent of a casting couch.”
A glance at the monitor, at the enraptured look on Ricardo’s face as Professor Topaz spoke to him, told Iain differently. “I don’t think so. Ricardo’s obviously head over heels. Plus the Professor’s not the type. He’s…elegant.”
Marlene shrugged. Even hearing that her favorite contestant wasn’t so bad after all didn’t seem to cheer her up.
“Don’t you think it’s weird,” Iain said, “that the Professor was the one we outed, but Ricardo’s getting the brunt of the flak?”
“In retrospect? No. It pisses off the audience when they feel they’ve been lied to. And the ones who fell in love with the whole Ricardo-and-Sue romance will feel betrayed.”
Iain took one final onscreen look at the covert snapshot of the Professor and Ricardo, then closed the browser. “I’m ready to call it a night. How about you?”
“I want to count the votes one more time.”
Iain stood and stretched, and wondered if he might actually have time for a little Call of Duty before he turned in. “I’ll have my PA count it up. You don’t need to do it yourself.”
“It’s just that it doesn’t make sense.”
Iain sensed a time-suck keeping him from his apartment and his game…but he couldn’t resist. “What doesn’t?”
“Jia’s score.”
“Good…or bad?”
“Nowhere near as high as it should have been. You saw her move—she was so smooth it looked like CGI.”
Iain thought back to the crowd. “They were scared of her, Marlene, plain and simple. Jia looks great on camera, but in person, she’s an intimidating little ball-buster.”
“But she looked gorgeous. And that thing she did with the fans and the ropes was so freaky.” Marlene sighed. “You’re right. Jia’s act was made to be seen from a stage. Not up close.”
“Not that it matters.” Iain flicked the trailer lights on and off a few times in an attempt to get Marlene to take a hint and go home. “You know the advantage they’ll win from today’s challenge is basically bogus.”
___
Stay in bed…or hit the gym? It was a tough call. John never worked out, and he looked great. Still, Ricardo had been diligent about his regime for the past twenty years…it would be a shame to start letting it slip now. The sorry little room that they called a “gym” was thankfully unoccupied. Ricardo warmed up with some shadow boxing, did his crunches on a yoga ball, then moved on to the treadmill. A brisk 4.5 walk there, a 6.0 jog for five minutes, and once his heart was thrumming good and fast, jab-jab-jab at the “up” button to take it to a nice, sustainable 7.5 run….
He was so focused on his run that the feel of someone mounting his treadmill behind him nearly sent him flying right back off…until his assailant spoke in that low, mellifluous voice that pervaded his daydreams. “I’ll need to get better at enticing you to stay in bed.”
Ricardo hopped onto the rails, breathing hard, while the belt sped by between his (and John’s) feet. “You’re always
telling me to be careful,” he chided.
“This is nothing.” John pressed into his back, buried his nose in Ricardo’s hair, and breathed him. The belt whirred past, motor working. “You’re totally engaged in what’s going on around you right now. Every bit of your attention is focused. You’re living your Truth. Now is the time…you’re safe.”
Ricardo let his head drop back and press into John’s shoulder. John grabbed his damp hair, pulled his head more sharply to the side, and swiped a long, wet lick down the tendons on his neck—tasting his salt, his sweat. Ricardo stifled a moan. It wasn’t so much that he’d expected John to be timid in bed…just that the full force of his attention would be enough to sweep anybody away. And every time they came together, John managed to take things to yet another level, as if there was no end to the depths in him waiting to be explored. “My attention’s focused, all right,” Ricardo said. “On that bulge you’re pressing into my butt.”
John clenched Ricardo’s hair harder, and allowed his breath to play along the side of Ricardo’s throat. A moan did escape Ricardo, then. And he wondered if John would actually try to go through with it, and do him right there on that big, vibrating machine, where anyone might walk in on them. But no. Not only was John sensual, he was patient, too. He placed a single kiss in the curve where Ricardo’s neck met his shoulder, and then raised his head and spoke against Ricardo’s ear. “This morning, when I opened my eyes and you weren’t there, I realized something.”
“What’s that?”
“When we’re done here…when it’s time to go…I can’t see myself waking up without you by my side.”
Ricardo’s heart rate, which had been cooling down to baseline, picked up again. “What do you…?”
“I want you to move in with me.”
“Oh my God.”
“We’d need a bigger place than my—”
Ricardo spun on the rails with the belt whizzing down the center, flung an arm around John and kissed him, landing his mouth somewhere in John’s beard in all his eagerness. “I can’t believe—I mean—yes, of course yes.” He took John’s face in his hands, tenderly now, and kissed him more deliberately, enjoying the tickle of his mustache, savoring his lips. “This is amazing. I can’t wait. I just can’t wait.”
John turned his head and pressed his cheek to Ricardo’s. “Then we have something to look forward to—both of us.”
The thwap of fabric hitting pleather startled Ricardo out of the followup kiss he’d been planning, and he turned to see Kevin Kazan standing by the chest press, where he’d just flung down his towel. “Y’all can do that shit anywhere,” he said. “Why you gotta go at it here? Some of us got work to do.”
Ricardo was so flush with the giddiness of what John had just suggested, he couldn’t dredge up a single retort. He simply stared back at Kevin, wondering which parts of his recent experience were his real life, and which were just strange snatches of performance art.
When neither Ricardo nor John took up the gauntlet and snarked back at him, Kevin puffed himself up bigger, gave them his nastiest glare, and said, “Y’all don’t intimidate me.”
And with that, he turned away, thrust the pin into the heaviest setting of the chest press, sat himself down, pushed…and grunted.
Ricardo twisted around and pressed the treadmill’s power-button as John climbed off. Today’s workout was officially over.
Even so, Ricardo found he couldn’t quite wipe the smile off his face.
“Why don’t we go back to my room this time,” Ricardo suggested, once there was enough distance between them and Kevin that the workout grunts faded into the Mansion’s background noise. “There’s a private shower.”
“I like the way you think.” John trailed his fingertips over the back of Ricardo’s hand as he veered off toward the kitchen. “I’ll get my things and meet you there.”
The handhelds weren’t paying Ricardo any particular attention as he skipped up the stairs two at a time. Too bad. If anyone deserved to have happy-music playing in the background as they trooped back to the dorms, it was him. He flung open the door to his old room with his mind on what he’d wear tonight, and whether they’d hear how they did in the latest challenge anytime soon. He was so absorbed, he didn’t hear the rustle of paper until it dragged in an arc.
A single sheet had been slid under his door. It was your typical plain white printer-paper. Wrinkly, like someone had crunched it into a ball and then flattened it out again. Ricardo picked it up and turned it over, and found a snapshot of him and John.
It was an awesome picture, even printed on plain paper with an inkjet printer. It had been taken outdoors in diffuse sunlight, and for a quickie shot, it had great color and contrast. Seeing the moment when John had told Ricardo how good he looked, but viewing it from outside himself, felt surreal. Ricardo had never given much thought to how the two of them looked together. John was deliciously tall next to him—and that Edwardian tux was enough to make Ricardo lightheaded.
Too bad the photo’s headline was Ricardo the Fag-ificent.
Ricardo read the online message thread with dull interest, then had another look at the photo—my God, John is so handsome—then read the comments again. And when he heard John’s footfalls heading down the hall toward his room, he fought the impulse to jam the printout in the back of a drawer, to spare John from seeing what the public thought of them together.
But he didn’t. He decided he’d rather embark on their new life together with disapproval rather than lies. Ricardo had learned to give what other people thought only the smallest amount of credence—so, what other people thought about him and John? That was their business. What John thought of him was the thing that mattered.
“What’s that?” John asked in a soft voice.
Ricardo handed it over, then turned to get ready. He didn’t want to watch John read it, and yet he held on to it for so long, Ricardo eventually stopped going through his shower caddy and looked up to see what was going on.
John’s eyes were closed. He held the printout in one hand, parallel to the ground. The fingers of his other hand stroked the surface of the paper, their motion hypnotic, as if he was demonstrating some new sleight of hand that would end with him pulling out a mylar flower, or maybe making the whole thing disappear in a pop of flash paper. When he opened his eyes, finally, he said, “Quite a few people have handled this. But we don’t really know them.”
“Not Kevin?”
“I don’t think so.”
Ricardo took the paper from John and looked at the photo again, squinting so the phrase “I hope they give each other AIDS and die” was a bit less distinct. “No…” Ricardo mused. “Kevin’s more direct. And he doesn’t have access to the Internet any more than we do. Plus that thing he said about not being intimidated by us?”
John stroked his beard. “It must mean that he is.”
“Exactly.”
Ricardo dug a pair of manicure scissors out of his caddy, and set to snipping the photograph away from the hateful words. “I’m sure we’ll be able to find that photo again online,” John said, smiling his sad smile.
“I’m not going to give some asshole the satisfaction of ruining my day. As far as I’m concerned, all they’ve accomplished was treating me to a picture of you and me—you in that crazy-hot tux—and as the first shot of the two of us together I’ve had the pleasure of seeing, it’s currently my favorite photo in the world.”
John took the wrinkled snapshot from Ricardo and slipped an edge of it behind the frame of the dresser mirror to display it, and said in his grave and sonorous tones, “The first…of many.”
Chapter 37
SCORING THE PERFORMANCE
They were lying in Ricardo’s large bed, still damp from the shower, when a PA knocked and told them taping would begin after lunch, and fancy activewear would be required for the challenge. John kissed Ricardo goodbye deliberately, though they’d spent the morning lost in kisses. He didn’t know what they were heading i
nto—and he felt it would be wise to ensure he was fortified against anything.
John’s activewear was nowhere near as clingy and revealing as Ricardo’s glittery gymnastic outfits. The slacks were fine dining waiters’ tuxedo pants with hidden elastic, the white shirt was a lycra blend made for dancers, and the vest had stretchy panels along the seams. Even his shoes were utilitarian. They looked like dress shoes from afar, but the soles were made to stand up to oily floors and broken glass. Once his secretly-flexible wardrobe was in place, John headed for makeup. Every crew member he passed—and there were many—caused him to wonder. Were you the one who slid that picture under Ricardo’s door? Or you? Or you?
And, more importantly, why?
He didn’t probe each of them with the Truth. There wasn’t time. Besides, John had been doling out his use of True magic sparingly, and it didn’t seem prudent to blaze a trail of it through the Mansion so close to taping. Now was not the time for Ricardo or him to draw any more envy than they already were by the simple fact of their happiness.
When he settled himself in his stylist’s chair, though, he couldn’t restrain himself from saying, “So…it’s on the Internet.”
She combed through his hair, dipped into some product, and worked it between her palms. “What is?”
“Photos. From the last challenge.”
“Really? How’d you look?”
John closed his eyes and gave over to the feel of her skilled fingertips against his scalp. Maybe several crew members had passed around the malicious gossip—but not the crew John trusted. The ones he knew. He needed to believe that. “Perfect. Thanks to you, Wendy.”
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