The Girl Who Remembered the Snow

by Charles Mathes

  Howard had almost reached the door. He stopped now and stared at the enormous figure emerging from the shadows.

  “Yes?” gasped Howard with obvious respect. Clearly he was an eyelashes man.

  Sergio thumped his enormous chest, which he depilated regularly lest he be confused with an ape, and motioned Howard over with a meaty hand. The assistant manager approached warily, the sneer he had been wearing replaced by a sickly smile. When he was a few feet away, Sergio roared, put an arm around the man’s neck, and pulled him close enough to whisper in his ear.

  Howard gave a squeak of surprise, then fell silent.

  “Don’t you hurt him, Sergio,” Emma implored, rising to her feet.

  “Sergio no hurt,” shouted Sergio. “Sergio negotiate.”

  Emma held her breath. Basically, she trusted her assistant, despite his lack of subtlety. Besides, she was too far away to do anything. She could see the giant’s lips move. Maybe he was reading.

  After a few seconds, Sergio released his grip. The hapless assistant manager instantly flew out of the room as if jet-propelled. Sergio strutted his way through the tables to the elevated stage where Emma was standing in front of their three crates.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she demanded. “You want to get us arrested? You want to get us thrown out of the hotel?”

  “Sergio no hurt. Sergio help. Emma mad at Sergio?”

  His smile had disappeared, replaced by an expression like that of an anxious child.

  “No.” Emma sighed. “I’m not mad at you.”

  “Man find box now,” said Sergio, his smile returning. “You see. Sergio fix.”

  Sergio claimed he was Dutch, but from his accent Emma suspected that her assistant had originally come from Russia or one of the old Soviet republics. From his insistence upon being paid in cash and his obviously phony last name (who could believe it was really Budweiser?), Emma judged he was in the country illegally. Not that she minded, however. In fact, she was thankful that there was no paper trail leading back to her. If immigration ever caught up with Sergio, Emma’s failure to pay his social security taxes might wreck her chances of ever holding a cabinet position.

  “What did you say to him, anyway?” Emma asked, not sure she really wanted to know the answer.

  Sergio folded his arms in front of him and tossed his blond mane.

  “I say, if he no find box, I give him keesssss of serpent’s tongue.”

  “And what’s that supposed to be?”

  Sergio smiled dopily.

  “I lick his ear and leave to imagination.”

  Emma stared at him for a few seconds, then burst into laughter. Sergio beamed.

  “You big lug,” she said, giving her huge assistant an affectionate punch in the arm, though not hard enough to bruise her knuckles the way she had the first time she had tried it. “Let’s just hope he finds that crate, or we’re sunk.”

  “If he don’t,” said Sergio, a suggestion of worry crossing his perfect brow for the first time, “I no really have to give keeess, do I?”

  “No, you just have to rehearse. Tomorrow, you’re going to remember all your cues, aren’t you?”

  Sergio grinned, thumped his chest again, and studied his reflection admiringly in the polished metal tubing of a chair.

  “Sergio no forget. Many womens will be impressed with his brain.”

  “All right,” said Emma, knowing what they would be impressed with, trying to believe that everything would turn out okay, anyway. “Let’s set up what we can before Mrs. Schneiderman gets here.”

  “Who?”

  “The dog lady.”

  “Mrs. Schneiderman is dog?”

  “Rudolpho is the dog. Mrs. Schneiderman is the owner.”

  For the trick-cage illusion to work properly, a large animal was required. Some magicians used tigers, but Emma was happy to settle for a big dog—preferable one smart enough not to bark prematurely and give the game away. Sergio would go into the cage; the dog would come out; the audience would marvel and be amazed at how the one animal turned into the other.

  After working her way through sheepdogs, bloodhounds, and German shepherds, Emma had found that Saint Bernards produced the biggest oohs and ahs. It hadn’t been practical to take Morris, their regular Saint Bernard, all the way to Phoenix for this booking, however. Fortunately the AKC had directed Emma to a local dog owner, Blossom Schneiderman, who had agreed to rent out her Saint Bernard, Rudolpho, for the gig several weeks ago—and at a much better price than Emma usually paid.

  “When dog lady coming?” said Sergio.

  “Actually, she’s supposed to be here now,” said Emma, glancing at her watch. “But it doesn’t matter if she’s a little late. The trick cage is in the crate that’s missing.”

  “If cage missing, how we make Sergio disappear?”

  “Maybe we’ll just give him a condom and point him toward the nearest waitress,” Emma muttered under her breath as Sergio walked away admiring his triceps.

  While her assistant unpacked their gear from the three crates, Emma walked each inch of the stage. She inspected the lights, the meager fly system, and the sight lines, trying to visualize how each illusion would work in the unfamiliar space.

  At least the sound equipment seemed to be working. Emma set up her tape—mostly Mozart and a little Grieg—and spent the next hour running through the hundreds of carefully planned steps, gestures, and actions that constituted each illusion. Everything was choreographed down to the second. Only occasionally did Emma need to remind Sergio of the little details he was prone to forget—like the difference between right and left and how his feet interacted with one another.

  At eight o’clock, the Phoenix Grand Marquis’s own Howard and two porters appeared with the missing crate, which had been located in a basement storeroom. Mrs. Schneiderman and Rudolpho, however, still had not arrived.

  Leaving Sergio alone with his reflection to unpack the trick cage, Emma went looking for a pay phone. She finally found one down the hall outside the Painted Desert cocktail lounge, which —judging from the droves of aftershave-soaked men and dolledup women cruising in packs—seemed to be a local hotspot. It was time to find out what was keeping their Saint Bernard.

  “It’s Emma Passant, Mrs. Schneiderman,” said Emma when she reached the woman. “Why are you still there at home? You and Rudolpho are supposed to be at the hotel tonight to rehearse with me.”

  “Oh, dear,” replied the childlike voice. “Didn’t they give you my message? I left a message with the hotel operator this afternoon. They said you hadn’t checked in yet, but they said that they’d give you a message. They promised.”

  “I’m sorry, but I didn’t get any message,” said Emma, her palms suddenly breaking into a sweat, her heart plunging into her stomach. What now?

  “Well, I called. I did. I really did.”

  “I’m sure you did, Mrs. Schneiderman,” said Emma, resolving to steal a few towels from the Phoenix Grand Marquis to thank them for all their good work. “I hope there’s not a problem. You can still do the show, can’t you?”

  “Oh, I can do it, yes …”

  “Thank God.”

  “ … it’s Rudolpho who won’t be able to make it.”

  “Please don’t tell me that.”

  “Oh, but I have to. He can’t do your show.”

  “Well, I’m afraid he has to, Mrs. Schneiderman,” said Emma, raising her voice and putting a finger in her ear against the blare of music that came from the cocktail lounge each time someone opened the door. “We had an agreement. I paid you in advance. We’re all depending on you.”

  “Well, I know that,” said Mrs. Schneiderman, sounding at once guilty and defensive, “but Rudolpho has come down with something. He’s as sick as a dog.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be okay once he gets here. He’s just nervous. It’s just stage fright.”

  “But he’s listless and his nose is warm.”

  “Oh, they’re always like that,”
chuckled Emma, trying to sound doctorly. “Every dog I’ve ever worked with. You know what we say in the business? Warm nose, cold feet. Believe me, there’s nothing to worry about. He just needs a little rehearsal to get his confidence up, that’s all.”

  “But his eyes are all glassy.”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  “His coat has lost its luster.”

  “No one will notice.”

  “He keeps throwing up, and he’s had diarrhea all over the house. I nearly passed out from the smell.”

  “I think we may have a problem here,” said Emma.

  Emma spent the next five minutes trying to console the sniveling Mrs. Schneiderman, though she secretly hoped the woman would catch whatever it was that Rudolpho had. By the time she hung up, Emma had a pounding headache and the small consolation of Mrs. Schneiderman’s promise to return the money Emma had paid her.

  A girl in a party dress swept by into the cocktail lounge, releasing another burst of rock music. A porter dressed like a renegade from the French Foreign Legion rolled by with a rack of luggage.

  Suddenly everything that Emma had been trying to forget from the past week crashed down on her: her grandfather’s cold gray face at the morgue; the endless questions from the police; those horrible first few nights in the house alone, listening for Pépé’s footsteps, knowing they would never come again.

  It was too much. Emma sat down cross-legged on the floor beneath the pay phone, trying not to cry.

  It was ironic, she thought. This was precisely one of those times she would have called him. When everything was going wrong on a job, her grandfather was the only one who could make everything seem better.

  “Is not this the beautiful college graduate who makes men to disappear with her smile?” Pépé would have said when he got her anxious call. “But how could there be anything so grand as to bother her? What problem would not tremble in his shoes at such a pretty sight?”

  Somehow it had always been all that Emma had needed, just to hear the pride in her grandfather’s voice, to imagine the twinkle in his eye. She’d go back and fix the sound system or the lights or the equipment. She’d pretend she wasn’t worried about the endless little details that made up this exhausting, thankless business.

  But there was no one to call now.

  What was she doing here? Emma asked herself, burying her head in her hands. What was the point? It was always like this. If it wasn’t missing crates and no-show dogs, it was clients whose checks bounced and drunken hecklers. And for what? So she could go out onstage for an hour with her stomach in knots, bracing herself against the ten thousand things that could go wrong? What kind of life was that for a person? Where was the fun? Where was the magic?

  “Why the long face, little lady?”

  Emma lifted her eyes off the floor and found herself staring at a tooled-leather cowboy boot emblazoned with the name ED in gold letters. She thought that maybe if she kept very still it would walk away by itself. It didn’t.

  “You lost, honey? Is there something that Big Ed can do for you?”

  Big Ed had squatted down now, and Emma found herself staring at a man in his indeterminate forties wearing a cowboy hat. She could instantly see why he was called Big Ed. He was built like a refrigerator, had several more chins than anyone could possibly use, and was flashing a smile as wide as all outdoors.

  “Got a dog, Ed?” Emma asked weakly.

  “Shucks, that all you need?”

  “That’s all. Just a dog. A big, smart dog.”

  “Hell, I got me the biggest, smartest dog in Phoenix. This dog is the biggest thing since Pepsi Cola. This dog is so smart, I can’t let him fetch me my newspaper in the morning anymore.”

  Emma knew she shouldn’t ask, but after ten seconds of silence she couldn’t stand it.

  “All right, I’ll bite. Why can’t you let him fetch your paper anymore?”

  “’Cause when he reads it, he leaves it all dog-eared.”

  “That’s very funny.”

  “Well, it does kind of give you pause. P-A-W-S? Get it?”

  “I got it,” said Emma, trying to smile.

  “Then you got a real sense of humor, you know that, little lady?” said Big Ed, sitting down beside her. “I like that in a representative of the fairer sex. You don’t mind if I sit down here for a spell, and join you, do you? Now don’t worry. I promise I won’t sell you a Chevrolet.”

  “This is something I should be worried about?”

  “Hell, girl, you’re looking at none other than Big Ed Garalachek, the top Chevy salesman in all of Phoenix. Big Ed’s the Chevy King. But, like I say, I’m just sitting down here ’cause I’m weary, though I must admit you get a pretty nice view from this angle. Would you look at the legs on that little filly over yonder, yee-haw.”

  “Yee-haw,” agreed Emma.

  “And who might I be having the pleasure of addressing, if I can be so bold as to inquire?”

  “Emma Passant,” said Emma after a moment, too proud to give him a phony name, as all her instincts screamed for her to.

  “Please to meet you, Emma Passant,” said Big Ed, tipping his big hat. “Gorgeous name for a gorgeous gal. They call me Big Ed.”

  “Well, it was nice meeting you, Ed, but …”

  “Now I’m gonna tell you the truth, little lady, ’cause I want us to be friends. Don’t be fooled by this getup. I’m not really a cowboy—I actually got a year of dental school under my belt. It didn’t work out, though. My hands was too big to fit properly into people’s mouths. See, I want us to start out on a honest basis. Honest Big Ed Garalachek, the Chevy King, that’s what they call me. What about you? You come here often?”

  “This is my first time, actually, and now I really have to get back to—”

  “How ‘bout you letting me show you around then? I know this hotel like I know the trunk dimensions of a Caprice. It’s a great place to meet people, to see and be seen. C’mon. I’ll show you all the sights. You seen the pool yet?”

  “No, and it’s really very kind of you to offer, Big Ed, but I think I’ll have to pass.”

  Ed didn’t answer right away. For the first time since he had sat down, his big smile disappeared.

  “What you really mean is you don’t think you’d care to have anything to do with a fat old Chevy salesman like me,” he finally said, shaking his head.

  “No, that’s not it.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, Emma honey, it ain’t your fault. That’s the way it always goes for Big Ed. Lucky at cars, unlucky at love, like the saying goes. It’s okay, though. Takes a lot to break a big ol’ heart like mine. Guess I’ll be seeing you around.”

  Big Ed started to struggle to his feet. Emma stopped him with a hand on his sleeve.

  “You really have a dog, Ed?” she said. She knew that this crazy idea really was a crazy idea. But what choice did she have?

  “Sure do,” said Ed, sitting back down, his smile returning, bigger than ever.

  “And he’s really smart?”

  “Sure is.”

  “And he’s really big?”

  “Little lady, to me, Lionel is the single biggest thing in this whole sweet mystery of life.”

  “Would you consider renting him?”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Would you consider renting Lionel to a very nice and highly responsible woman magician? I need a big smart dog for a show I’m doing here tomorrow night.”

  Ed sat back and regarded Emma with a mixture of skepticism and awe.

  “You funnin’ me,” he finally exclaimed. “You really a magician?”

  “You really a Chevy salesman?”

  “If that ain’t the darnedest thing,” cackled the Chevy King, actually slapping his knee. “I knew there was something special going on here when I sat down, I just knew it. And now I know what it is. It’s magic! That’s what it is. Pure unadulterated magic!”

  “So what do you say, Ed?” said Emma, leaning forward. “Would you rent me Lionel?”<
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  “Well, that all depends,” said Big Ed, massaging his chins.

  “Depends on what?”

  “On what you’re offering for Lionel’s services.”

  “Well, the usual fee is a hundred dollars,” said Emma. “How does that sound?”

  “Hell, I don’t want your money,” said Ed, rearing back with indignation. “I got all the money I need. Besides, I don’t like to take money from a lady. Unless she’s buying a Chevrolet, of course.”

  “I’m not going to buy a Chevrolet, Ed.”

  Ed smiled sheepishly.

  “How ’bout your having a little drink with me, then?”

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Emma. “If Lionel works out okay, I’ll have two drinks with you. After the show tomorrow night. And I’ll buy. What do you say?”

  “I say you got yourself a deal, little lady,” exclaimed Big Ed, grabbing her hand and pumping it.

  “How soon can you have Lionel here?” asked Emma, relieved. Maybe there really was some magic in the world. Maybe things were going to work out after all.

  “No time at all,” said Big Ed with a big grin, reaching into the pocket of his coat. When he took out his hand, it was filled with a little brown Chihuahua. Before Emma could scream, cry or faint dead away, Lionel blinked sleepily and licked the end of her long, pointed nose.

  4

  The show that night was a smash.

  Every trick worked perfectly. Emma got all her laughs and not a single proposition from a drunken guest. Sergio missed only two of his cues (a new record). Even Milt Stallings, the developer whose wife had thrown him the party and whom every speaker extolled as being the “toughest son of a bitch in the Southwest,” had a good time. Apparently he didn’t attach much significance to his wife’s celebrating his birthday by hiring a woman who made men disappear.

  True to her bargain, Emma met Big Ed Garalachek for a drink after the show in the cocktail lounge. Emma had fixed it so he could watch the show from the light booth.

  “Didn’t I tell you Lionel had talent?” Big Ed exclaimed, taking the little Chihuahua into his big hands and exchanging sloppy wet kisses with him. “You gonna be a star, you know that, boy? We gonna sell the Chevy franchise and take you to Hollywood!”