The Lightness of Hands

by Jeff Garvin

  I didn’t want anyone to see them.

  CHAPTER 8

  WHILE DAD PILOTED THE BUS northwest on US 33, I used my cellular connection to log into my school’s website.

  I’d gotten a D on the history exam.

  I sat back and raked both hands through my hair. The onset of depression had decimated my focus over the past few weeks—and between that and spotty internet on the road, I just hadn’t been able to keep up with my schoolwork. Not to mention all the time I had spent trying—and failing—to book us gigs. This was a huge setback—and history wasn’t the only class I was at risk of failing.

  I did a few quick calculations. Barring some miracle, I would finish the semester with a cumulative GPA of 2.5. That meant I had to get straight As for the rest of my high school career in order to get into nursing school. Dad’s health was getting worse; our whole future—our lives—depended on me getting a good job, getting insurance.

  Grades weren’t my only problem. I needed to pull off any number of other miracles, including acquiring expensive props and persuading Dad to reprise his biggest failure on national TV. On top of all that, I had only a small window of time to fix this mess before the down made it impossible to work.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to focus. Our best chance was the Flynn & Kellar show. I had to get my hands on those props.

  I texted Ripley:

  Me: Any luck?

  As soon as the message read “delivered,” the phone rang in my hand.

  “Good morrow, young Ellie.”

  “Hey, Ripley.”

  “Whoa. You sound terrible. What’s going on? Is it the thing with the guy? Do I need to arrange a fatal accident?”

  “I’m okay,” I said.

  “Like hell you are. You sound like a robot with dead batteries. Is it the guy? Or are you crashing?”

  I blinked. Ripley knew me so well. He knew my tells.

  “It’s the guy,” I said. It was only half a lie. “It got weird.”

  “Weird how?”

  “Can we not talk about it right now?”

  “Okay. But I’m officially registering my concern. Anyway, here’s some good news: I found Jif Higgins.”

  My heart swelled. “Are you serious?”

  Jif Higgins was a thirty-something multimillionaire who owned a casino in Las Vegas—and he was a giant magic nerd. He was infamous for buying old props and set pieces and hoarding them in his storage complex. Supposedly, his collection of Houdini memorabilia was unrivaled, and rumor had it he’d bought the entire Siegfried & Roy catalog when they signed off. Nobody liked him; he was notoriously arrogant and abrasive. But when a magician retired or fell on hard times, Higgins would swoop in with bags full of cash, buy up their stuff, and retreat once more into obscurity. If anyone still had Dad’s old Truck Drop props, it was him.

  “The guy is almost a ghost online,” Ripley said. “I had to dig, but I finally found a domain registered in his name. The Whois info was private, so I hacked like a bastard until I got his address and phone number. I’m a genius, Ellie. The NSA should headhunt me, but I’ll refuse them, because I’m too rogue.”

  I closed my eyes and grabbed a fistful of hair. “Ripley, thank you so much.”

  “Sending it as we speak.”

  We chatted for a few minutes, and then Ripley had to take his little brother, Jude, to soccer practice, so he signed off.

  I tapped the contact file he had sent me and stared at Higgins’s name. I should have called him right away—there was no time to waste—but I couldn’t bring myself to click the button. Ripley had said I sounded like a robot, which meant my voice was doing its flat-affect thing. It happened when I was low, and I usually didn’t notice it. But Ripley had. What if Higgins did, too? What if it weirded it him out, and he just hung up?

  I decided it was better to wait. It would take at least three days to get to Vegas; that was plenty of time. Besides, we needed to prepare for tonight’s show.

  I went up front and dropped into the passenger seat.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  Dad didn’t answer right away, so I looked over at him. He was completely zoned out. I felt a moment of panic.

  “Dad? Did you hear me?”

  To my relief, he seemed to come out of his trance at once. “What? Yes, I’m fine. Well, actually, I’m a bit tired. Maybe some coffee.”

  I frowned. How was he tired already? He’d only been driving for ninety minutes. Plus we’d just had an entire day off, which he’d spent relaxing. Whereas I’d been busting my ass all day trying to save my grades and make ends meet. Sometimes I wondered how he would survive without me.

  “Pull over,” I said. “I’ll drive.”

  Sunny’s Roadhouse squatted on the south side of I-20. It was a one-story brick rectangle with a detached, ramshackle smokehouse. I could smell the ribs before I killed the engine in the field behind the lot. Only a few Harleys and F-150s were parked in front; it was barely five o’clock.

  Dad was passed out on the couch, looking pale and waxy. I sat down across from him and watched him sleep, his chest rising and falling, his lips puffing up and releasing air like a cartoon character’s. It was a symptom of his apnea, which contributed to his heart problems. I felt guilty for being annoyed with him. Of course he was tired—he was sixty-four. Life on the road was getting harder for him, too.

  I thought of the guys he’d come up with in the magic world: Mac Regent, Eric Starr, David Standard. They all had cushy gigs at casinos in Las Vegas or Atlantic City. It wasn’t the high life, but it was a stable one, doing what they loved six nights a week for a steady paycheck. Dad’s epic fuckup on live TV had killed that dream for him. For us.

  Just then, a fire truck shot past on I-20, the siren so piercing that I had to cover my ears.

  Dad opened his eyes. “What’s wrong? Are we there already?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Why don’t you splash some water on your face before we go in?”

  The owner of Sunny’s, Caroline, was pulling pints behind the bar. She was big and redheaded, with thick glasses and a wide smile, and she looked up at Dad as we approached.

  “Sumbitch! What’s it been, five years? How you been?”

  “Six,” Dad said, and kissed her hand.

  Caroline laughed. “And you,” she said, turning to me. “You were a knobby-kneed little foal last time I saw you. Ain’t you something now. Those brown eyes.” She stroked my head like an old aunt, then looked at Dad. “Better get this one on the pill.”

  I tried to smile instead of vomiting on the bar. Dad turned pink.

  Caroline’s smile widened. “Are you hungry?”

  I ate a pulled-pork sandwich the size of a car battery and drank a root beer in a frosty pint glass. I barely tasted either as I glanced around the roadhouse. It was a converted barn with a horseshoe-shaped bar at one end and an elevated stage at the other. The stage was big, and a cluster of lights clung to a truss overhead. I felt the first few butterflies begin to spread their wings in my stomach. I wouldn’t be performing tonight—but for a moment, I pictured myself up there, and my nerves began to hum.

  The song on the jukebox ended, and in the momentary silence, “Umbrella” started up again in my head. Ella, ella, eh, eh, eh . . . It was for the best that I wouldn’t be performing. Maybe I would just curl up in the RV and try to sleep.

  Caroline grabbed a remote from behind the bar and clicked it, and the lights on the truss came on, bathing the stage in a deep blue. I saw a drum set and two amplifiers sitting upstage.

  “Looks like this place is more of a rock bar now,” I said. “Are people really going to be into a magic show?”

  Caroline smiled. “So long as you’re onstage, pretty thing, I don’t think there’ll be any complaints.”

  I shot Dad a look—but he didn’t meet my eye.

  “Of course she will be,” Dad said.

  The root beer turned to acid in my stomach.

  I strode across the field to the RV, makin
g Dad jog after me. I went straight into my shoebox of a bedroom and slammed the accordion door. A moment later, I heard Dad enter and move down the aisle. But when he got to the partition, he stopped and knocked gently on the wall. The only thing keeping him out was a flimsy plastic barrier, but he respected it. Somehow, that made me even angrier.

  “Can we talk?”

  I glared at his silhouette through the yellowing plastic panels. “About what?”

  “About the show. About how you’d like it go.” His voice was infuriatingly calm.

  “I’m not doing it. That’s how I’d like it to go.”

  He cleared his throat—a tell that indicated he was about to try to sell me.

  “But you’ve gotten so good!” His stage baritone grated like nails on a chalkboard. “Caroline asked for you specifically. She said—”

  I tore open the partition. “She what?”

  Dad blinked. “She . . . asked for you when she booked the gig. She had seen the video of you doing close-up in Columbus, and wanted—”

  “Did you tell her I would perform?”

  Dad opened his mouth, closed it again.

  “Did you?”

  “I . . . Yes. I did.” He straightened. “It’s the only way she would book us.”

  I thought the veins in my neck might explode.

  “You’re in demand!” Dad said. “Think of it! Most performers would kill for that.”

  “I’m not a performer,” I said, and this time I could hear the flatness in my voice. “Not anymore.”

  “Not a performer? That’s absurd. I’ve seen the way your eyes light up before you step onstage.”

  And had he seen the way they darkened when I stepped off?

  “I can’t do it, Dad. I need something normal. A normal life.”

  “Your talent is a gift!” Dad shook his head, incredulous. “For Christ’s sake, Ellie, it’s in your blood.”

  I slammed my hand into the bunched-up accordion door, splitting one of the brittle plastic panels with a crack.

  “And what else is in my blood, Dad? Heart attacks? Suicide? Are those gifts, too?”

  He flinched, took a step backward, and sank into the booth seat.

  “Ellie?” His voice was softer now, concern showing through the cracks in his bravado, but I didn’t respond. Was it possible he didn’t know how hard this was on me? After all my protests?

  Outside, the generator hummed. Traffic rushed by on the interstate.

  Yes, it was possible. It was the only explanation, really; whatever his faults, Dad loved me. He wanted what was best for me, even as he pushed me toward what was worst. And I had never told him, not in clear terms. So of course he didn’t know.

  I could fix that right now. I could say the words: I’m not well enough to perform. I can’t face the aftermath.

  I’m afraid it might kill me.

  But we needed this money. This show was our only lifeline.

  I looked at his face. He seemed smaller now, deflated. His mustache was wilted, not at all the bristle brush it had been when I was a little girl. Suddenly, I wished I were that little girl again. That I didn’t face these impossible decisions. I wished someone else would step up and take charge. I wished someone else were here to take care of Dad, to take care of us both.

  “I’m not her,” I said. “I’ll never be her.”

  Then, out of the quiet, he whispered, “I know it.”

  The words were like a cold blade in my chest. I moved forward and dropped onto the couch across from him.

  “But what if I am?” I tried to swallow, but my throat was too swollen. “What if I’m exactly like her?”

  He looked up, his eyes swimming. “That’s not what I meant. She was . . .” He shook his head as if he couldn’t bear to talk about her. “You’re strong. And resilient. She . . .”

  “She what?”

  Dad pressed his lips together, as if he wanted to hold back what he was about to say. “She had a darkness about her, Ellie. A darkness you could never be capable of. Not in a hundred years.”

  But I was capable. I knew it, and I wondered what it meant that he didn’t.

  He leaned forward and looked me in the eye. “She was never a magician, Ellie. But you are.”

  My whole body seemed to contract. “What if I don’t want to be?”

  What if I can’t?

  Dad scrubbed a finger across his mustache, then let his hands drop into his lap. “I don’t think any of us gets to choose what we are. For better or for worse.” He looked at me. “But if you don’t want to do magic, I won’t force you to.”

  I stared out the small window over the booth. The sun was just going down, and the roadhouse’s big neon sign flickered to life, its red and blue piping reflecting off the hoods of the pickup trucks like an electric flag.

  Dad got to his feet. “I’ll go explain things to Caroline. Call it off. Don’t worry, we’ll find another—”

  “No,” I said. “No. I’ll do it.”

  As soon as the words were out, I’d known I was going to say them all along. I was already headed for a crash—there was no preventing it now—and that stage was calling to me. I wanted to do it. I needed to feel alive.

  He turned to me, his eyes cautious but sparkling. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s wonderful, Ellie.”

  “But this . . .” I licked my lips, already feeling my heart rate start to climb in anticipation of the performance. And of the descent that would follow. The rest of the sentence came out almost a whisper. “This is the last time, okay?”

  His smile dimmed slightly, but he nodded. “Deal.”

  The disappointment on his face pushed the cold blade in deeper, but I ignored the pain and stood.

  “We’d better get to work.”

  The windows darkened, and the lights in the parking lot flickered on. Dad and I spent the hour after dusk reworking the set list, adding more close-up bits to leverage my talents.

  When it came to performing, my gift was legerdemain. Sleight of hand. Anyone could be the girl in the box, but when you could vanish an object right in front of someone’s eyes? That was real magic. Dad was good with coins and cards, too—but I was better. It’s what made me a good thief when I had to be.

  As I practiced, visualizing the audience’s reactions, I felt my heart rate climb even further. My vision grew sharp around the edges. Dad was right. Performing did light me up, just a little too brightly. I forced myself to take slow, deep breaths. The higher I got during the performance, the farther I had to fall.

  With an hour left till curtain, I retreated into my room to get ready. I closed the cracked accordion partition, sat down on my bed, and faced the small mirror Dad had mounted on the opposite wall.

  The thing I hated most about my appearance was my nose. It was long and masculine and belonged on the face of a French waiter. Apart from that, I resembled old photos of my mother: high cheekbones, mahogany eyes, almost-black hair. Suddenly, I couldn’t stand to see her face in my mirror. I opened the cheap plastic toolbox I used for a makeup kit and went to work, eyebrows first, then eyes, then lips. I brushed my hair out long, smoothed it out with baby oil, and let it hang free, a dark brown curtain.

  I took a last look in the mirror, and then it was showtime.

  CHAPTER 9

  I COULD HEAR THE AUDIENCE laughing from where I lay folded inside the trunk. Dad had finished his opening bit, dropping the toy truck into the fish tank. And by the sounds the audience was making, it had worked; they were on his side now.

  The lights came up, their red glare shining through the seams in the trunk. My pulse accelerated. Sparks seemed to pop inside the darkness of the box. My mind’s eye pulled back like a camera, and I visualized the show as if watching it from high above the stage.

  Music blares through the speakers—Ella Fitzgerald’s “That Old Black Magic.” Dad moves downstage and snatches a playing card out of thin air, then another. He squares up the pair, then fans them o
ut, revealing a dozen. The audience applauds. With the strike of a match he sets the fanned-out cards ablaze, then smashes his hands together. When he separates them again, he’s suddenly holding an oversized deck—custom Rider Backs twelve inches high. The applause swells, then fades, and his patter begins.

  Dad’s stage baritone rumbled through the subwoofer, and I felt its vibration against my rib cage. It brought me back to myself.

  Dad selected a volunteer, and the audience laughed as a pair of what sounded like work boots tromped up the stairs and onto the stage. I listened as the volunteer picked a card, then returned to his seat.

  Next came the false reveal, where Dad would draw the ace of spades from the deck.

  “Is this your card?” he asked.

  “Nope!” replied Work Boots. The audience laughed uncomfortably.

  “Oh, dear. Let me see . . .” I pictured Dad’s well-rehearsed frown as he thumbed through the deck again, this time plucking out the queen of diamonds.

  “Voilà!” he said.

  “That’s not it, either.” A titter in the crowd. A few boos.

  “Wait, wait. I have it.” Now Dad’s footsteps approached the box I was hiding inside. He produced a big brass key, unlocked the padlock, and flipped open the lid. I couldn’t make out his features against the glare of the lights, but I knew he was smiling down at me.

  He backed away as I rose, unfolding myself from the box and raising my arms in a victorious V. On the front of my bodysuit was emblazoned the volunteer’s card: the nine of hearts.

  The lights were blinding, and in the black void beyond their glare the audience exploded in cheers and applause. My face split in a wide smile, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. The adrenaline was pumping now, coming on too fast. I gritted my teeth and tried to hold steady.

  Dad’s voice drew reality back into focus as he launched into the patter that introduced Linking Rings.