The Art of Disappearing by Ivy Pochoda (popular romance novels .txt) 📕

room—with a man. I couldn’t even clearly recall my last date. It was probably some bungled affair toward the end of art school. As I began to shave my legs, I wondered whether Toby and I had actually dispensed with the awkwardness of the dating process—negotiating each other’s likes and dislikes, the fear of revealing our true opinions.

I turned off the water and let myself drip dry. Then I stepped out of the shower and listened for sounds from the next room. I wrapped a towel around my head and leaned into the mirror. I parted my lips, hoping to think of something to say to the magician that would make him stand by our decision of the night before.

I put on my dress, pulled back my hair, and opened the bathroom door. Toby was sitting in one of the chairs with his legs crossed and one hand on the telephone. He was wearing all black again, a T-shirt instead of his Western shirt. He’d flung open the curtains, and the sun brought out the strange blue highlights in his skin.

His eyes lingered on my dress. Suddenly embarrassed, I said, “I should have worn it last night. It’s the closest thing I have to a wedding dress.”

“I like it.”

I opened my mouth, but Toby got there first, his words tripping over mine. His eyes were sparkling. “It’s finally happened.”

I waited for him to continue.

“I just got off the phone with the shark who calls himself my agent. With my strange reputation, he’s the best I can get. Anyway, he got me a gig. Here in Las Vegas.” He stopped speaking, as if startled by his own words. “I can’t believe it.” Then Toby’s eyes narrowed. His lips twitched. “You did this.”

I shook my head.

“Yes. I’m sure of it.”

“I don’t know how.”

“When I was a kid, I thought I couldn’t have it both ways. I couldn’t have love and magic. And after what happened with my last assistant…” Toby broke off and stared out the window. “It’s strange. A magician can conjure anything but success. It took meeting you.”

“I’m flattered,” I said.

“It’s not the classiest casino, but it’s Las Vegas. And Las Vegas is what I’ve always dreamed of.”

I looked at Toby, trying hard to imagine him entranced by all the neon outside.

He caught my eye and smiled. “I know what you’re thinking. It’s a strange dream. For anyone but a showgirl or a magician, that is.”

I laughed.

“The gig starts the day after tomorrow.”

“That great,” I said, wondering where I fit into Toby’s tomorrows. “And I have the perfect way to celebrate.” I retrieved the plastic bag and handed it to the magician.

Toby removed the champagne glasses and held them up to the window. “The MGM. I’ll get there one day,” he said. “Well, I—” Toby stuttered. “—I have something for you, too.”

He opened his palm. In the center of his hand was a silver band set with a single turquoise stone. He placed it on my finger.

“When did you have time—?” I began.

Toby shook his head, silencing my question. “I was worried that you thought it was a mistake.” He stared out the grimy window. “That you weren’t coming back.”

I shook my head. “It didn’t cross my mind,” I said, speaking more honestly than I’d meant to.

Now Toby’s lips trembled, and his words were filled with static. “So, what do you think?” He stopped. “About this. The motel. Las Vegas.” He looked at my hand. “Your ring…The wedding.”

“I’d always imagined something a little more formal.”

Toby laughed. “But seriously.”

“Seriously,” I said, “I wonder what comes next.”

Toby pursed his lips. “I don’t know.”

“But you’re the magician. I expect you to know.”

He shook his head. “I never got into fortune-telling or spirit cabinets. I can’t look forward or back.”

We held up our empty glasses.

“To us,” Toby said.

“And to your name in lights,” I added.

We stared at each other, and the distance between us shrank, just as it had in the Old Stand Saloon, until Toby’s lips were pressed against mine and we fell backwards onto the bed. That’s when the details of the magician’s face imprinted themselves in my mind—the swirling blue eyes surrounded by their premature creases, the purple tint in his waterfall of black hair, the small twist in his aquiline nose, his symmetrical lips, the vertical divot in his chin. “I’ve been thinking about this all morning,” he said as his kiss dissolved the heat and cooled the insistent desert sun.

Despite the weak air-conditioning and the pressure of Toby’s body, I felt cool. I looked down and saw that the bright poppies on my dress had changed into snowflakes that sent delightful icy tingles across my legs and chest. Then with whatever magic he possessed, Toby lifted me out of the dingy motel room and high above the swirling sands. When we returned to the worn reality of the Laughing Jackalope, the magician said, “Now it’s time for a honeymoon, Las Vegas style. But first, let’s get some champagne to fill—and I guess, destroy—these glasses.”

We spent the rest of our wedding day on an around-the-world tour. We rode the taxicab roller coaster in New York, New York, climbed the Eiffel Tower outside the Paris, examined the mock sarcophagi at the Luxor, and relaxed in a gondola in the Venetian. We wound up at the ALL YOU CAN EAT SEAFOOD buffet at the Rio, where—having told one of the servers that we were newlyweds—we received a complimentary bottle of sparkling wine and a miniature wedding cake draped with carnival beads.

While fortune—good or bad—and intrigue follow a magician, paving the way for his next trick or move, the rest of us must stick to the laws of nature and necessity. So I spent the rest of the morning on the phone to hotels and textile companies, looking for work that might keep me busy in Vegas. I got lucky with an outfit called Fabrication, with contracts out to the larger hotels in the West. I held the receiver away from my ear