Magic Mansion (32 page)

Iain, already in place with a bullhorn, said, “There’ll be time for autographs after the show. For now, just act excited and cheer as each contestant walks from the limo to the building. Magicians, one at a time.”

John watched each of his competitors disappear through the limo door to bursts of raucous cheering. Of everyone, Ricardo did seem to inspire the most adulation. When John unfolded himself from the confines of the limo and donned his top hat, the crowd actually went silent for a moment, staring up at him as if they were startled by his physical presence…but then someone called out, “Professor!” and a cheer rang up for John.

He nodded to the fans as he strode regally up the red carpet—particularly the youngest of them. He’d always connected well with children who hadn’t yet had their sense of wonder stolen from them. Though he did note, as he stepped into the theatre, that the crowd cheered just as enthusiastically for Kevin.

Chapter 29

BLAST FROM THE PAST

John waited stage right for the lighting techs to finish their tweaks and the audience to be seated. He peeked out at the theatre, a new 120-seater on Le Brea, red velvet upholstery disappearing behind the fans as they filed in and found their places. Kevin, Jia and Bev were positioned in the front row with a pair of empty seats buffering them from the rest of the crowd, and a handheld parked in front of them to capture their reaction to whatever was about to unfold. Ricardo and Sue were sequestered off-stage. Apparently they were to receive their “surprises” separately.

Unless the surprise was, as Ricardo had guessed, simply an opportunity to perform. John found a gap in the curtains and scanned the audience while a sound man miked him. Not a full house. But almost. Not bad at all for a weekday matinee. It had been at least five years since John had performed in a venue as classy as this. And as Iain cleared the stage and gave the lighting tech a final note, the house lights dimmed, and John found the dread in his heart begin to lift…and eagerness take its place.

Monty stepped out from stage left, followed by a spotlight. Applause rang through the auditorium.

“Welcome, Mansioneers, to a very special taping of Magic Mansion in which you’ll get to know your favorite magicians…a little bit better.”

An assistant told John to hit the mark stage right. John stepped out to a blinding spotlight and a swell of applause. Monty was polished and handsome in the intense stage lighting, and for all that he and John had never spoken more than a few pleasantries over the crafts service table, it felt comfortingly familiar to see him in this strange and public context.

“Professor Topaz,” he said, “your career in magic spans the longest of anyone in the Mansion, stretching all the way back to the fifties, when you handled doves for your uncle, Illusionist Glen Forrest.”

The lighting engineer killed the spotlight, and a slide appeared on the wall behind John, twenty-five feet high. It was so oversized, it took him a moment to recognize it—though it was perfectly clear to the audience. It was a shot that had appeared in Hugard’s Magic Monthly in 1958—the halftone big and grainy at this size. Glenn, Rose, and John in the middle, with Glenn’s too-big top hat sliding over his eyes.

“Your act took a detour when you went off to college…” The slide changed. John in his cap and gown, with hair past his collar and the then-new beard he’d grown so attached to. A draft dodger if ever there was one. “…which led to your stint teaching at Berkley that earned you the name ‘Professor.’”

Two semesters as adjunct faculty in the English and Lit department. Hardly a stellar career.

“But the call of magic ran deep in your veins…and soon it was no longer enough to wow your audiences on weekends and semester breaks.”

The shot of John performing at Marin County Sunflower Fest in a skin-tight long-sleeved T-shirt with hair down to his shoulders flashed onto the wall. Well, it was fashionable then. Where did they get these snapshots, anyway?

“Many magicians take assistants, but you preferred the focus and intimacy of solo performing and close-up illusions.”

The ubiquitous promotional shot John used for most of the eighties covered the wall. Tuxedo, top hat, gloves, and a single coin poised between his fingers. Aside from the ruffles on the tuxedo shirt and the absence of gray streaks in his beard, he looked very much like he did today.

“Although when you were forty-four, you finally did take on a partner.”

Of course not. John always performed alone.

And then a shot of John and Casey on the beach in Laguna appeared. Shirtless. Laughing. In shell necklaces and horribly dated hair. With their arms around each other—clearly more than just good friends.

“Casey Cornish was known as the Gentleman Magician—quick with a joke and a smile. The complete opposite of the ultra-serious Professor Topaz. But as they say, opposites attract.”

Another shot of them dancing at their neighbor’s wedding, Casey in a white tux and John in black. Slightly drunk, judging by the way they were clinging to one another. Only marginally less intimate than the photo of them feeding each other wedding cake that they would hide when Mrs. Cornish visited.

Someone in the audience gasped. But other than that single indrawn breath, it was quiet enough to hear the whir of the slide projector fan and the backstage murmurs as crew shuffled people around behind the curtains.

Monty said, “Those were some very good years…”
 

More photos. A few performances, but more personal shots of Casey and John. The Halloween they had dressed up as each other (John had even shaved for the occasion—their friends went crazy over that). Their fifth anniversary in Maui. The two of them posing with the red convertible Casey had surprised John with when he turned sixty—where they’d christened the front seat. And the minuscule back seat. And the hood.

“…until last year, when your partnership came to a sudden…and tragic…end.” Before the final image shone forth, John knew with cold certainty what it would be.
 

Casey’s obituary.

He felt the shape of it as its projected image covered his body—Casey’s last promotional headshot, smiling wide, blond and blue-eyed and devastatingly handsome. And the headline,
Beloved Entertainer, “The Gentleman Magician” Casey Cornish, 64.

John’s name hadn’t appeared in the article. A few highlights of Casey’s career, a brief mention of the accident, the fact that he was survived by his mother, Irene Cornish, and donations to cover the expense of the cremation requested in lieu of flowers. What the obituary hadn’t said was that everything Casey had amassed in those sixty-four years of his—including the trip to Maui, the red convertible, and indeed the very townhouse where they lived—had never been paid for. Certainly, Casey had intended to settle his tab—someday. But he’d always presumed he had plenty of time to chip away at the debt, since undoubtedly, he would live forever. He was an optimist that way.

Quite the opposite of John.

John was aware, distantly, that the stage lights had come up. But the shock of seeing his life so crassly splayed across the stage and summarized in a few glib sentences had left him completely and utterly stunned.

“Professor Topaz?” Monty said quietly.

John forced himself to focus…and only then noticed the tension in Monty’s shoulders, and the fine lines of strain around the eyes. And that he’d clenched his own hands into fists. He took a deep breath and released them. His palms stung where his fingernails had dug in.

“Your friends tell us it’s high time for you to spread your wings and make your big comeback, and they’ve elected one of your oldest and dearest pals to come and wish you well…in person. Your agent, Dick Golding.”

Well. That explained where the photos had come from. Dick would never stop pestering John for that big gay memoir now.

John turned to watch Dick’s appearance stage left, and Monty added “…and your late partner’s mother, Irene!”

But….

John’s mind stalled on the very notion of seeing Casey’s mother—even as she appeared, with her ninety-year-old’s bursitis gait, waddling across the stage toward him on Dick’s arm.

I don’t even know what to call her.

Monty turned to Dick and said, “How does it feel watching the Professor on prime time TV?”

“I always knew he had it in him, Monty. He’s got star quality. Always had it.” He locked eyes with John. “You’re doing great, John. Keep it up. Hang in there.”

“Irene, what do you think Casey would say if he could see Professor Topaz now?”

There was a lag between the question and the answer, as there usually was with Mrs. Cornish. Her hearing was not what it had once been, and it took her a moment to piece together whatever she’d lip-read with the context and come up with an appropriate response. “My son would be dreaming up all the ways he could spend the quarter-million grand prize,” she declared loudly. The audience laughed; they thought she was joking.

Monty thanked them for coming, and then Dick stepped up for a handshake that turned into a hug while the audience applauded. And John supposed he would need to hug Mrs. Cornish too—though when he’d attempted it thirteen years prior, she’d stiffened up so badly he hadn’t tried it since. She felt a lot smaller now—but this time she actually leaned into his embrace and held him for a moment, and patted his back with a few good whomps. “Come by the house when you get a chance,” she said, no doubt thinking that speaking directly in John’s ear negated the fact that she was miked. “The yard looks terrible.”

___

Ricardo wasn’t sure who he thought Dick and Irene were as they waited together in the wings. John’s agent and Casey Cornish’s
mother
? Wouldn’t have occurred to him in a million years.
 

He was too busy trying to wrap his head around the fact that John and Casey had been a couple! Of course Ricardo was familiar with Casey—the Gentleman Magician embodied a kind of dazzling flamboyance another gay magician could hardly miss. Ricardo should have figured out John’s passions ran deep, but John was so impenetrable, it took a hand down the front of Ricardo’s pants for the attraction to register. And of course John hadn’t been single all this time just waiting for Ricardo to show up. But before he’d seen the photos, he would have found the notion of Casey and John together totally implausible.

There they were, though. Holding one another. Laughing.

What hit Ricardo the hardest was the knowledge that John’s smiles hadn’t always been mostly sad.

John, Dick and Irene exited stage right as the slide changed to an adorable blonde majorette, and Sue stepped out, dazzling in four-inch heels and a glittery silver gown with a plunging neckline.

“If you’re planning on making a move on her,” a voice behind Ricardo whispered, “think again.”

Ricardo swung around nearly expecting Kevin Kazan…though Kevin was in the front row. Plus the fake ebonics weren’t there. The guy behind him—decidedly Caucasian in his Brooks Brother suit—was most definitely not Kevin. “What are you talking about?” Ricardo said.

“Whoa, just kidding.” The guy shifted a dozen pale yellow roses to his left hand and presented his right for a handshake. “I’m Gary. Sue’s boyfriend.”

Ricardo shook Gary’s hand numbly. He was still reeling from the John-and-Casey revelation.

“You are gay,” Gary said. “Right?”

“What do you—? Yeah. So what?”

Gary wiped his brow in an exaggerated “phew” gesture. “You know how it is with magicians. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.”

Sue’s slideshow began, though of course, it wouldn’t span nearly as many years as John’s. She was barely twenty-three years old. There she was, adorable in a peanut costume. And jumping on a trampoline with her sister. And chubby-cheeked and pot-bellied in a pink leotard and ballet shoes.

“Every time your theme song comes on,” Gary said, “I have a good laugh.”

“What?”

“Your theme song. You and Sue.”

“Gold Team had a theme song?”

“No, no, no…when you guys are holding hands or whatever. Lovebird music.”

Sue playing a grand piano at a recital. Sue with a Miss Teen North Dakota sash and rhinestone crown—she actually
had
been a Midwestern beauty queen. Ricardo had just been wrong about the state. Wow.

“So how’s she doing, really?” Gary said. “What do you think her chances of winning are?”

Did this Gary guy not realize Ricardo was competing for the same prize? “Fine. I guess.”

“Because there’s really no money in magic. Not unless you’re one of the top acts. But the two-hundred-fifty grand would really launch her modeling career.”

All she ever talked about was wanting to take the stage at Magicopolis as more than just an assistant. “She never mentioned modeling to me.”

“Not yet. She needs some work. Shave a little off the nose, some lipo around the waist, and she’d be damn near a perfect ten.”

What? Ricardo turned and took a better look at Gary. How old was he, twenty-five? His hairline was already starting to recede.

Onstage, Monty said, “And now, Sue, your very own cheering section is here to root for you…can you guess who it is?”

Sue smiled widely. “Is it my parents? My sister?”

The moment during which Sue and Monty held eye contact stretched—another of those pauses where a commercial break could be inserted—and then Monty exclaimed, “It’s your
boyfriend
, Gary.”

Sue’s smile shifted. Even from where he stood, Ricardo saw it go brittle.

Gary didn’t notice. He strode out onto the stage and presented Sue with the bouquet, and said, “Golden flowers, for the leader of the Gold Team.” When she accepted the roses, she looked every inch the starlet—how dare that balding douchebag say she needed work? She bent to accept a kiss on the cheek, taller than him in her heels. And she stood with her arm around him and proclaimed, when Monty inquired how she felt, that it was a good thing she’d made such great friends in the Mansion to keep her from getting homesick.

The “happy couple” exited stage right. An assistant told Ricardo to take his place, and Ricardo put on his broadest smile and walked out onto the stage. The audience erupted into applause—not just applause, but a standing ovation. His smile went wider still, genuine now as he sketched a magician’s bow for them, theatrical and good-humored, and the applause swelled even louder, sustained for a moment, and finally ebbed enough for Monty to begin speaking.