Real Magic (17 page)

"Show me," Vincent said, his shoulder blocking Ben from a clear view.

"Then you'll be my spectator."

"Wouldn't have it otherwise."

Duncan started to deal cards into a pile. "You know how this goes. Stop me when you want." As he dealt the cards, Duncan silently counted them out. They stopped on the twelfth card.

"Now what?" Vincent asked.

"I've counted out twelve cards."

Morty clapped Duncan on the back. "You're counting. That's good. That's right."

"And Vincent's trying to screw me up by stopping on an even number. But it doesn't matter. With an even number of cards, I simply take the thirteenth card and make that the card I turn up and call the 'magic card'. If you had stopped on an odd number, I would've turned over the top card on the dealt pile." Duncan took a card from the deck and turned it over — the Eight of Hearts. He then dropped the rest of the deck on top, just as he had when performing the Twin trick. Now, like the Twin trick, Duncan turned his back and let Vincent deal out a selection card, return it, and place the rest of the deck on top.

"I now deal alternating piles and the key is the secret number — the number of cards I dealt out at the beginning. You had me stop at twelve. So there are twelve cards between the selection and the 'magic card' and as I deal out the deck, I have to pay attention to where the 'magic card', the Eight of Hearts winds up. There it is on my left." Duncan finished dealing out the deck. "I pick up the packet on the left and count off six cards because that's half the secret number and we've split the deck in half. I show them to you with some crap about these not being your cards, but the real reason is so I can move them to the bottom of the packet. If the Eight of Hearts had been on the other side, I'd do the reverse. I'd pick up the right packet and count of half the secret number plus one from the bottom and put them on the top. Either way, this forces the 'magic card' and your selected card to be in line with each other. Now all I have to do is keep turning over cards from each pile until I reach the Eight of Hearts. All based on a simple force using the number of cards between selections." Duncan turned over Vincent's selected card and folded his hands on the table. All eyes shifted to Vincent.

Vincent scratched his chin before breaking out a wide smile. He slapped Duncan on the back. "Welcome to the Club."

"Woo!" Morty yelled, hugging Duncan around the shoulders. Even Lucas raised a bottle for Duncan.

Ben held back a beer belch and nodded toward the blue door. "Let's show him the club."

With a flurry of his hands, Vincent produced a key out of the air. He bowed before Duncan, and in a magnanimous voice, said, "You have earned the right to unlock the secrets behind the magic club door."

Duncan took the key and went to the blue door. He felt the others crowding behind him, and despite their hokey moment, Duncan had to admit a bit of pride sprung inside him. Placing the key into the lock, he turned the knob and peered in on what he hoped would be a major step toward home.

The clubroom consisted of a space large enough for a single table and four chairs. An icebox sat in the back corner next to a storage closet. A half-open door revealed a dingy bathroom. Old show posters adorned the walls — Houdini, Cardini, and Holden. Along the back wall, Duncan spied a beaten couch — the leather torn open on one cushion, and a box filled with decks of cards.

As the rest of the group filed in behind, Duncan did his best not to show his disappointment. Perhaps it had been false hope, or perhaps it had been a bit of Nelson Walter's desire, but something had set Duncan up to expect a grand room of secrets and mystery — or at least, an attempt to create such an atmosphere. Instead, he got the boys' poker room.

Vincent sat at the head of the table with Lucas to his right. Morty kicked back on the couch while Ben leaned against the bathroom door frame. They all fit comfortably in their chosen spots. Duncan suspected they always ended up in these positions.

"One last thing before we can reveal the club secrets," Vincent said. "The oath."

"Oh, yeah," said Morty. "I almost forgot about that."

"It's a simple oath. All we want you to do is swear on anything you consider holy that you will never divulge the secrets of any tricks you learn here at the club and that you will do all you can to protect these secrets from being revealed by others. Will you make that oath?"
Duncan put his hand over his heart. "I make that oath." The guilt inside churned his stomach. Soon he would have to break this oath or face the ugly end of a golf club.

"Well then," Morty said, "let's have some fun."

For several hours, they traded tricks — performing and explaining for each other until they grew tired and hungry. Lucas and Ben left for their homes. Morty decided to catch a bite at a street diner down a few blocks and Vincent joined him.

"You coming along?" Morty asked Duncan.

Vincent must have caught the look on Duncan's face because he said, "Just you and me, Morty. Our new club mate has my sister on his mind."

Duncan winced a bit at the phrasing but did not deny the statement. He wanted to clear everything up with Lucy. The idea that he might soon be traveling back to his time and not have made things right unsettled him. So, after locking the blue door, he climbed the stairs to her apartment.

She answered on the first knock. Her smile warmed him more than the July sun. "Congratulations. You're in the club."

"Was there ever any doubt?"

"Vincent can come up with some tough tricks to crack. With you, I'm sure he gave something extra hard. So, yeah, I had my doubts."

Duncan stared at her, unsure how to take her comment. Was she merely stating a fact or was she trying to put some distance between them? At least she stepped back and allowed him to enter the apartment. He had to believe that was more than mere courtesy.

"You want a drink?" she asked. "We don't have much but Vincent has some beer in the icebox. I'm sure he wouldn't mind."

"I had a beer to celebrate joining the club."

"Oh."

An uncomfortable silence formed between them. Once more, Duncan faced the uniqueness of Lucy, the way every experience with her landed him in unknown territory. And though card cheating required him to pretend to know the answers even if he didn't, he decided that would not work in this case. Even if it did, he didn't want to treat her like a mark.

"I tried to say this downstairs. I'm sorry."

"You did say that downstairs."

"I'm just trying to —"

Lucy put a hand on his arm. "It's okay."

"No, it's not."

With a sigh, Lucy sat at the table and waited for Duncan to sit, too. She examined her hands, glanced out the window, and finally said, "I'm the one who should be apologizing. I didn't mean to make things so strange between us, and really, everything is okay."

"Then what happened?"

"Nothing happened."

"Something happened."

"We kissed."

"I know. I was there."

"We kissed ... and ... oh, this sounds so stupid now."

"Please stop judging this for me. Tell me what's going on and let me decide for myself how it sounds."

Lucy took a shaky breath. "When I was five, my brother would go off fishing at the pond. It was a big pond about a half-hour walk from our house. During the summer, he'd stroll out there, be gone all day, and when he returned, he'd have fish for us to eat. Daddy worked all day and sometimes into the night, and I was stuck at home with Mother. I hated it. I absolutely hated it. It was boring and dusty and in the worst of the summer, it was sticky hot. And of course, fishing sounded like a heck of a lot more fun than cleaning house. So, I begged to be allowed to go off with Vincent.

"Vincent didn't want me to go along. He liked his freedom back then almost as much as he does now. What did he want with a whiny five-year-old? But whiny prevailed through sheer stubbornness, and when I went with him the next day, he punched me hard in the arm. Left a big bruise there, but I refused to cry about it.

"The problem, though, was that Vincent didn't know a thing about how to handle a little kid like me, let alone actually look after me. We couldn't have been at the pond for more than ten minutes before I had a fishhook stuck through my top lip."

Duncan chuckled. "I wondered how you got that."

Lucy lifted a hand over her mouth before consciously putting it back on the table. "I got teased a lot growing up. It's not so bad now, but the scar looked a lot worse on my growing face. It's faded a bit now, too."

"Was that what this was about? You were afraid what I would think of that scar?"

"A bit."

Duncan reached across the table and clutched her hands. "I don't care about a scar."

"But doesn't it feel wrong to you? When we kissed, your mouth made a little motion, like it disgusted you. And I wouldn't blame you. I've had boyfriends who said kissing me felt weird."

"Kissing you felt wonderful. Whatever motion my mouth made, it was only trying to get more of you. Honestly."

Lucy allowed a smile to crack through her lips. She raised her head. "Really?"

Duncan couldn't believe this was what had caused the problem. Was a woman's life so limited that such a minor thing like a facial scar could cause her so much strife? It never occurred to him before that the reason women fought so hard against an inequality he never noticed was because throughout history their lives had been reduced to worries like this.

He kissed her hands. "You are incredible. Don't worry about your scar. I don't care."

"I'm glad to hear that. Because when I got to thinking about all of this, the scar and growing up and all, I realized I needed to tell you. Not only because of what happened but because it's important for you to know about me. And when I realized that, I knew we had a problem because I don't know anything about you. Every time I start to get close to you, you pull away. You're so full of secrets."

"I'm a magician," he said but chastised himself for his earlier thoughts. While he didn't doubt the plight of women in the 1930s, he should have given Lucy more credit than he had. She had a feisty quality that wouldn't let something as ridiculous as masculine standards get in her way. Nor would she accept his lame attempt at misdirection through humor dissuade her. One glance at her stern eyes told him that. "It's not that I'm trying to hide from you. I simply don't want to hurt you."

"And knowing even a little detail about you is going to hurt me? That doesn't make any sense."

"Ice cream," he blurted out.

"What?"

"You want to know about me, right? I don't like ice cream. Never have. Cake, pie, chocolate are all good but not ice cream. Don't know why. It's not like my sisters tortured me with ice cream down my pants or anything. I just never had a taste for it. So, now you know something about me."

"Now I know two things about you."

"Oh?"

"You don't like ice cream, and you have sisters."

Duncan forced a smile. This was why he had held back saying anything. He never knew what might slip out.

But Lucy did not give him time to regret for long. She launched into his arms and they began kissing in earnest. She smelled lovely, and he held her tight on his lap, his hands roving along her legs and up her side. She surprised him by using her tongue in the kiss, driving his mind to focus on nothing more than his mouth and his hands. But when he cupped her breast, she slid off his lap with an embarrassed grin.

"Didn't you want know about that door trick?" She smoothing her summer dress as she regained control of her breathing. "You're in the magic club now, so I can tell you all about it."

No other words could have sobered Duncan faster. As much as he wanted her to return to his lap, he wanted to get home more. He understood life back there. Good and bad, he understood it. This life he had led for the last few days felt more like a vacation than reality. A trip to 1934 as a break from the daily grind. But he needed to get back home to feel normal.

Thinking about it all in these terms also helped put his feelings for Lucy into perspective. It was a vacation fling. They didn't belong together. They both knew it. When the excitement, the danger, wore off, they would no longer desire each other. Better to go back to 2013 and have the fond memory of Lucy than bring her with him and watch her fall to pieces at the changes in the world. It had been strange enough for him coming back in time. He couldn't imagine how she would cope with the future.

"Please," he said, zeroing in on the only thing that should matter. "Tell me all about the door."

Lucy nodded and got out the papers for Vincent's magic book. She sat on the opposite side of the table from Duncan. He knew what she was thinking — that his words had been a signal that he had regained his composure, that she did not have to fear him trying to get more kisses, and more everything.

She handed him the paper with the sketch of the door. "It's called the Door of Vanishing trick and, according to the legend, it was perfected by The Amazing Verido. He started out young as a close-up, sleight-of-hand magician working out of Virginia. Barely had whiskers but he fooled a lot of seasoned professionals. When he was eighteen he hit the road with a traveling show and started performing all kinds of illusions. This, the Door of Vanishing, was his greatest trick. It baffled everyone who ever saw it."