Magic Mansion by Jordan Price (best fiction books to read .txt) 📕

had been storyboarded, and focus-grouped, and finally pencilled in to a production schedule.

Ricardo was eager to show off his sliver rings. They lent themselves to all kinds of kick-ass poses.

He wondered what Professor Topaz had pinpointed as his own signature move—although, technically, Topaz didn’t have one. With the Professor, it was more of a word. “Behold.” The way he said it, as if he was alerting you to the moment when your perceptions about the world would be turned upside down and inside out, sent chills down Ricardo’s spine. Hell, even the memory of him saying it left Ricardo light-headed. Unfortunately, the Professor wasn’t taping his intro that morning, so Ricardo hadn’t seen him since the fateful encounter after the audition. Or maybe it wasn’t so unfortunate after all. Ricardo knew he was one of the lower-ranking magicians in the pack; he didn’t think he could afford to be known as the guy in the intro with the boner.

Three other magicians were currently in the studio. Ricardo assumed they were expendable too. They were all women—and women were usually relegated to the role of “assistant,” regardless of how talented they might be, or how much of the act was supported by their slender, glitter-rubbed shoulders. Stage magic was an old boys’ club, no two ways about it, and while male magicians (like the Professor) only seemed to grow more authoritative with age, in the eyes of the public, the female performers simply got old.

Which made it bizarre that the women seated to either side of Ricardo were his mother’s age. To his right, Muriel Broom sat browsing last week’s tabloids in her bangles and fringe. In a time where mediums did their best to seem relevant and modern, with new age MP3 downloads and cable talk shows shot in sterile studios, Muriel decked herself out in yards of brocade and dozens of clattering pendants inscribed with mystical symbols. When she announced that she was a spiritualist, he believed her.

And he wondered if she did trick table-rapping like the Victorians, or if she was more of a “I’ve got a message from your late grandmother” type of magician.

Either way, Ricardo had no idea how her specialty would translate into a competition.

Though Muriel’s spiritualism seemed like a more marketable selling point than Bev Austin’s act. Ricardo had initially taken Bev for a producer or a director. She wore a tea green pantsuit and a simple white blouse. Her gray hair was cut short, and a pair of pearl stud earrings and a wedding band were her only jewelry. Ricardo couldn’t quite tell if she was a lesbian, or just an older woman who’d never gone for the whole dresses and tresses thing. She hadn’t specified whether she had a husband or a wife, and it seemed tacky to ask.

He did ask about her act, though. She’d said, “I’m the Math Wizard,” as if he must surely have heard of her. He plastered on his most polite smile, and she added, “I’ve performed at every public library in the four-county area.”

And so, there he sat, Muriel Broom to one side and Bev Austin to the other. And there in front of the green screen, rounding out the bottom of the barrel, was a complete and utter newbie. Ricardo almost asked Muriel what the girl’s name was, but Muriel sat with her eyes closed, and the tabloid opened on her lap to a very fat-looking candid photo of Oprah. Either Muriel was communicating with the Other Side, or she’d also needed to get up at 4 a.m. to make it to the studio by seven. Ricardo leaned over to the Math Wizard, nodded to indicate the girl in front of the camera, and whispered, “What’s her name?”

“Sue Wozniak.”

“No…her stage name.”

“She didn’t say. She works in the gift shop at Magicopolis. Maybe she doesn’t have one.”

“But how could she…?”

“Look at her,” Bev said. “She’s just a kid. She doesn’t know any better. She hasn’t had the type of life experience we’ve had.” She indicated Ricardo and Muriel with a tilt of her head.

Ricardo gave his best gracious smile, and he supposed he should feel grateful that he was part of a “we” this early on in the process. Though the thought that the “we” included two older women with acts that looked none too promising was not exactly a comfort.

Iain and his annoying retro glasses were guiding the magicians through their shots today. He was trying to capture something elusive about Sue Wozniak that involved “twirl and smile.” Between takes, poor Sue looked like she was succumbing to the spins. She smiled bravely, though, and did whatever was asked of her. She was pretty and blond, but not Hollywood-pretty or bombshell-blonde. She was the type of girl who’d break hearts in Topeka or Gary or Appleton…but not the type anyone would look twice at in L.A.

“Swing your hair, smile. Great. Okay, Sue, we got it. Go take a seat.”

Sue wove back to the seats, still smiling, and said, “Wow, that was intense! Do you think I looked okay?”

“You looked great,” Bev reassured her automatically, while Ricardo said, “Totally cute.” She’d looked nervous, actually. But maybe that wouldn’t be too obvious once they floated in the graphics and effects.

“Next up,” Iain said, “would be Bev…where’s the chalk?” He turned to an assistant who looked young enough to be in high school. “Did you get the chalk?”

“We couldn’t find—”

Iain swung around to face the magicians, and with his clipboard rigidly between them, said, “Bev, could you stand up for just a sec and pretend like you’re writing on a chalkboard?”

Bev went still for a moment, and Ricardo felt a spike of panic from her. The performances at the public library had not likely prepared her for her time in this studio as much as she’d hoped. But like all of them, she was eager to please. She stood and did as she was told.

She was a numbers-person, however—not a mime. It just looked like she was waving