Magic Mansion (10 page)

Kevin allowed the timer to run an additional five seconds, as if to prove beating Sue was no big deal, before he released the water, popped the top on his box, and breathed.

All the magicians seated off to the side took a deep, sympathetic breath.

“Well done, magicians,” Monty said emphatically. “Well done. Let’s check the scoreboard.”

FISHTANK CHALLENGE

1. Kevin Kazan 7:09
   
2. Sue W. 7:02
   
3. Ricardo the Magnificent 4:30
   
4. Muriel Broom 4:22
   
5. Bev the Math Wizard 4:18
   
6. Professor Topaz 4:02
   
7. Jia Lee 3:02
   
8. Fabian Swan 2:49
   
9. Ken Barron 2:43
   
10. Chip Challenge :59
    
11. Amazing Faye :49
    
12. Charity Young and Oscar :05
    

Iain conferred briefly with Monty, handed him some props, and settled back behind the monitors. “Kevin Kazan,” Monty announced, “at seven minutes, nine seconds, you are the winner of tonight’s challenge. Not only have you established yourself as a force to be reckoned with…you’ve also earned yourself a place in the spotlight as the leader…of the Red Team.” He held up a gold medal on a wide red ribbon, and Ricardo’s world narrowed to the glint of the floodlights off the surface of the plating. Once upon a time, all he wanted was a chance at the Winter Games in Lillehammer. He hadn’t felt such sharp pangs of ambition at any point in his Magic Mansion journey (probably because he was distracted by Professor Topaz) but now, there they were, as plain as the shine on his patent leather shoes.

Magic Mansion was Ricardo’s Olympics.

Was anyone else as choked up as he was to see Monty holding that red ribbon meant for Kevin Kazan? Someone else there must have been an athlete once. The Professor—John—might understand, but John was behind him. He could hardly turn around and make eye contact without the cameras zeroing in on what he was doing. He glanced covertly at the magician seated to his right. Charity Young was there, holding her puppet, Oscar, at eye-level. She moved him gently, as if he was breathing.

Okay, not too many likely athletes among them.

Kazan approached Monty in front of the scoreboard and ducked his head to receive his medal—and Ricardo felt such a sharp pang of envy, it was a strain to force a smile. He would much rather have lost to Sue; at least she played fair. The only reason Kazan was on the show at all was because he’d cheated.

While it was a strain to keep the smile on his face, he held his head high with the knowledge that he had won his third place fair and square.

Monty held up a silver medal on a gold ribbon, and said, “Sue, come on up and take your place…as the leader of the Gold Team.”

Sue approached, a bit stiffly, possibly because her double-stick tape was finally giving way, and ducked to receive her medal. Ricardo felt a slight twinge of envy, but nowhere near as debilitating as the one he’d felt watching Kazan take his medal. The gold ribbon complimented her pink lamé nicely.

To Ricardo’s left, Jia Lee murmured, “Thank God they’re not going to make us wear those huge T-shirts in ugly team colors, like they do on Weighty Matters.”

And then Ricardo saw there were actually ten more medals waiting for them, twelve in all—six red, six gold.

“Or baseball caps,” Chip Challenge said, patting the watery wreck of his pompadour. “’Cos that would seriously cramp my style.”

“Kevin,” Monty said, “who will be your first pick for the Red Team?”

“Fabian Swan.”

Marlene’s voice threaded in through the monitors. “Kevin, act like you need to think about it. That goes for the both of you. I don’t care what you’re actually thinking about. Just look at everyone for a couple of seconds before you blurt out your answer and give our editors something to work with. You’re professionals. The less I have to coach you about timing, the sooner we can all go to bed.”

“Go ahead,” Iain told Kevin.

Kevin stared at the group of magicians waiting for their medals in the folding chairs—some of them wet, some of them fish-nibbled, all of them exhausted. Stared was probably the wrong word, Ricardo thought. More like he was gloating.
I came in first. And you didn’t.

Jerk.

“The first magician I want on my team is…Fabian Swan.”

Fabian approached the podium, and Kazan placed the Red Team medal around his neck like some kind of hip-hop king granting a knighthood. Ricardo could relate to ambition; he’d been a competitive guy, back when he was skating. You couldn’t get very far without ambition. It wasn’t Kazan’s ambition that rubbed him wrong—it was the smugger-than-thou attitude.
 

He wanted Kazan to go down so badly he could taste it.

Monty said, “Sue, your first choice?”

Sue gazed out over the group, her hair in straggles, her mascara creeping, and a bright, triumphant smile shining through it all. She stared at Ricardo for a full two seconds, so excited she was fit to burst, before she finally announced, “Ricardo the Magnificent.”

Ricardo made sure to bow low to receive his Gold Team medal so Sue’s double-stick tape didn’t fail as she placed the ribbon around his neck. He might not have won the first event—but he did get picked first for his team. That mollified his newly-awakened ego. Somewhat.
 

“Pick Professor Topaz next,” he told her.

And then he saw Kevin Kazan was looking right at him. Kazan gave Ricardo a private smirk, gazed out over the magicians for an adequate pause, then announced, “My next pick is…Professor Topaz.”

Ricardo told himself to smile for the cameras, but his mouth simply would not comply. Kazan was lucky he didn’t treat him to a smack upside the head.

Sue squeezed Ricardo’s hand and whispered, “That’s okay, I just want to make sure I’ve got my girls with me.”

Ricardo squeezed back, hoping it wouldn’t be professional suicide to be known as “one of the girls.” He did his best to pretend it didn’t matter to him in the least when Kevin Kazan hung the Red Team medal around John’s neck.

_____

While everyone in the Mansion was an adult, and Marlene presumed they’d be able to handle sharing a dorm room with a member of the opposite sex, the network preferred to keep the kiddies separate, boys on one side of the invisible line and girls on the other. However, they’d also expected the gender ratio on the teams to be more or less equal. After all, if the last magician standing in Magic Mansion would be male, then any strategic player would load their team up with men first. And so the executive producers had fit the dorms with space to sleep three to four magicians each, just in case some unfortunate team ended up with more women than men.

They hadn’t planned on a girls versus boys situation.
 

Or mostly so, anyway. If they’d been divided cleanly down the middle, then it wouldn’t have been an issue. Both Red dorms would be all-male, and both Gold dorms would be all-female. But no. There was an odd man (or woman) out on each team. Jia Lee on the Red Team—probably because Kevin Kazan wanted to get down her pants, and Ricardo the Magnificent on the Gold Team. His teammates wouldn’t have thought twice about rooming with him, but come on. It was prime time. And someone somewhere in small town America would be shocked to learn the Gold Team considered Ricardo to be an honorary member of their tribe because he was g-a-y.

So Ricardo and Jia would get their own bedrooms, while Marlene racked her brain trying to come up with a way to score some bunk beds at two in the morning, since the other magicians would be crammed in five-deep.
 

Or would they? Maybe not for long.

She texted DOUBLE ELIMINATION? to the execs.

Within moments, she received the reply: DO IT.

_____

The grandfather clock in the mansion had just struck two by the time Iain led the magicians into the grand foyer. John felt the reverberation of the chimes hanging in the air that was sharp with the smell of anticipation and a new coat of paint. A fountain bubbled in the center of the room with blue lights making the chemical-laced water look much cleaner than it probably was, and the cracks in the plaster walls were hidden behind the boom operators.

Some of the magicians were clearly exhausted—either they were normally more diurnal, or the frenzied preparation for the show had drained their natural reserves. Ricardo, though, looked as if he had enough energy to go perform a set. And then go out for drinks.

And once the bars closed…maybe more.

When John was younger, he would have attributed Ricardo’s stamina to the lifestyle of a performer. But now he saw signs of strain in many of the younger performers who should have been able to pull a late night: squinty eyes, slightly red. A deepening of the faint lines around their mouths. A yawn when they thought no one was looking.

Not Ricardo, though. He looked…magnificent. Even with his water-tousled hair.

Especially with his water-tousled hair.

Casey had always been the same way, able to go without rest for as long as need be, as was John. Which led him to believe it had something to do with True magic rather than the ability to ignore exhaustion. In fact, he could probably look around and see if anyone else seemed raring to go…but that hardly seemed as important as picking up on Ricardo’s signals, which so far seemed positive beyond John’s wildest hopes.

Iain had the magicians gather around the fountain, then went off to the side to confer with his headset, one of the writers, and Monty. The larger camera rigs were currently unmanned, though two cameramen with handhelds circled the group. Perhaps that was as close as they would come to being alone for the rest of the filming. It was easy enough for John to sense when the lenses were on him. And when they weren’t, it was impossible to look at anything but Ricardo.

“Are we gonna get a smoke break?” Chip called out in a very un-Elvis like way. “We’ve been on for five hours without a break.”

“You had to go and mention it,” Charity Young said in her falsetto voice while working her puppet’s mouth. “Now I gotta take a leak.”

Sue, and then Ricardo, laughed uneasily in support of their teammate, but then Charity said even louder, “Tinkle. Pee. Whiz. Do a number one. Drain the main vein.” It grew so awkward that eventually the laughter stopped and everyone simply stared. Charity rolled her eyes as if to say,
Puppets. You can dress ’em up but you can’t take ’em out.

Iain broke the huddle, Monty was positioned off to one side of the group looking fresh-faced and alert, though possibly that was because his body clock was running on Australian time, and the larger cameras rolled. John managed to tear his eyes from Ricardo. But only just.

“Well done on your first challenge, Magicians,” Monty enthused. “You’ve all had a long day, and no doubt you’re eager to avail yourselves of the mansion’s many comforts. But here’s the thing about being waited on hand and foot: if someone gets to relax, that means someone else needs to do all the work.”

John could think of someone he’d happily wait on hand and foot. But a camera was hovering at his side, and he put on his most stoic face.

“Kevin and Sue, you’re tonight’s big winners, which meant you got to pick your teams. But what about tonight’s biggest losers?”

Cameras swarmed as, no doubt, several of the magician’s faces registered panic.

Monty beamed at the group for an unnaturally long pause, until Iain murmured, “Go ahead.”

As easily as if he’d just taken a breath, Monty went on in his crisp Aussie accent. “Eight of you will enjoy hors d’oeuvres and nightcaps before you turn in. And who better to serve them to you than the four lowest-scoring players?”

Moaning and groaning and jeering broke out around John, but the thing that caught his attention was Ricardo looking back over his shoulder and catching John’s eye, and then his on-camera smile went ever so slightly…naughty.
 

As if to say,
We’re having a drink. You and me.

As if the rest of the mansion, the boom operators, the camera crew, the producers, the production assistants, the host and the other contestants—none of them even existed.
 

And then the lights angled into Ricardo’s eyes, and the iris glinted the most haunting shade of dark blue, like the Pacific under a stormy sky, and John could hardly quell a smile in return.

Thankfully the production assistants began gathering them into the ballroom for the next leg of shooting before John succumbed to the urge to throw caution to the wind and cover their tracks so he could slip Ricardo aside into a place where truly, only the two of them still existed.

Unfortunately, that place would be tricky to find, especially while they were filming a segment.

And especially when the rest of Ricardo’s team was present. Sue and Bev immediately flanked him on the couch, and he would need to wait for a natural opening to break away and come to John if he wanted to avoid being completely obvious.

But then Fabian parked himself beside John, and wherever Fabian went, Kevin and his “bling” were sure to follow.

While the top-scoring magicians jockeyed for position, Chip Challenge, Ken Barron, Amazing Faye and Charity Young were taken aside by Iain. The lowest scoring men were given paper diner-hats, and the women ridiculous frilly aprons—but with a quick whispered negotiation, Chip and Charity swapped so that Chip could wear the apron as a gag, and “Oscar” could be the one handing out canapés. Though his puppet-hands were controlled by sticks, and couldn’t actually grasp anything.

John almost felt sorry for the Gold Team. But he presumed the deadweight would fall away soon enough.
 

Unlike Chip and Charity, Ken and Faye seemed to be taking their roles quite seriously. Ken mixed drinks strong enough to singe off eyebrows, and Faye tottered up to deliver them on spiked heels with her derrière thrust out and her apron cinched tight. When she handed John his Manhattan, she bent low, so as to bathe him in her perfume and treat him to a prolonged glimpse down her neckline.

Despite the artificiality and the hint of desperation, Faye was actually quite an attractive young woman. No doubt the sex-kitten act would get her somewhere with someone. After all, everyone was somebody’s “type.” Apparently, and against all odds, even John.