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

lives that night. Hers and mine. I couldn’t work for months after what you did. All my bookings were canceled.”

“That’s because I was the main attraction.” Toby’s words sliced through the dark.

“Times have changed, Toby. I’ve got my own tour now, and you’ve barely got the Castaway.”

“He’s booked the Winter Palace opening,” I said.

Swenson looked from me to Toby. “Do you think that’s such a good idea?”

“Why not?” Toby asked.

“Your secret isn’t going to remain yours for long. People are starting to talk.”

“Only because you are gossiping,” Toby said.

Swenson smiled. “If you really were a perfect magician, the things you made disappear would stay that way.”

Toby clenched his fists. I heard the crackle of glass, and a waterfall of crystal splinters fell from his cuffs.

“Kinda dangerous, don’t you think?” Swenson asked me.

The Desert Princess moved deeper into the little canyon. The echo of the music and the churning paddlewheel grew louder. Toby turned around. Swenson drew his face close to Toby’s. For an instant, the canyon was illuminated by a blue light, and their shadows appeared on its wall.

“An interesting choice, restyling yourself as a ladies’ magician. You think that by drawing all these women to you, you can make up for the one you sent away.”

Toby’s hands were still. “I’m not trying to compensate for anything.”

I looked past his shoulder, watching the walls of the canyon widen behind us.

“Good, good,” Swenson said, sucking his cheeks with a clicking sound. “It would never work anyway. Neither of us would forgive you.” He rubbed his hands together.

“Us?” Toby asked.

“You think when she came back, she’d return to you?” Swenson smiled broadly and nodded. “Yes, yes. When she came back.”

The two magicians looked at one another. Toby’s eyes narrowed. Footsteps echoed from the other side of the deck. He glanced over Swenson’s shoulder as a long, thin shadow stretched toward us from the open door.

Eva was silhouetted in the stairwell. The first things I noticed about her were her perilous heels and her immaculate hairstyle—a crisp bob that framed her jaw.

Toby blinked, then squinted in the dark. He shook his head. “No,” he whispered.

“Wouldn’t that be simpler?” Swenson muttered.

I tried to catch Toby’s eye.

“Why do you look so surprised?” Swenson asked. “Every good magic trick needs a resolution. Even if it’s years too late.”

“Eva.” The name barely escaped Toby’s mouth.

Eva looked nothing like a magician’s assistant. With her dark suit and red lipstick, she looked as if she belonged at the head of a conference table instead of under stage lights. Her small features were accentuated by dramatic makeup—a streetwalker palette, my mother would have called it, of bright red and smoky black.

Eva said nothing as she came to stand in front of Toby. She cupped the bottom of her hair in one hand, then let go and waited.

“Eva,” he repeated.

“Toby Warring,” she said in a precise, quiet voice, like that of a long-distance operator. I stepped away.

“I have always wondered…,” Toby began.

“What you would say when I turned up.” Eva linked her hands together and let them hang below her waist.

“Where you went,” Toby said.

“Where you sent me, you mean.”

“Yes, where I sent you.”

“I have never felt anything like the sensation of plunging into that tank of water. It was as if everything fell away from me. I never hit the bottom. You said I wouldn’t.”

Toby nodded.

“But you didn’t tell me what would happen.”

“I didn’t know,” Toby admitted. “Everything always turned up where I expected it.”

“People are not things,” Eva said. Her voice was calm. “It was as if I was skydiving. I was spinning and rotating. A hundred black-and-white movies seemed to be rewinding through my head. I felt as if I were in a plummeting airplane.” She pulled down the cuffs of her suit jacket. “I arrived on a mesa. Yes, a mesa. So perhaps, Toby, your instinct was right, to look for me here in the desert. But I always wonder why it took you so long to start searching.”

“I didn’t know how.”

Eva shook her head. “If you try to lose someone into thin air, you better learn how to look for her.”

“It’s not something I’d ever try again,” Toby said softly.

“You would have found me on a mesa, the bleakest place I can imagine. I felt suffocated by the absence of people.”

“I’m sorry,” Toby said.

“How did you do it?”

“An accident,” he repeated.

“As if that explains anything.” Eva smoothed her immaculate hair. “I was absent for eleven months. It was both an eternity and a millisecond.” She wrapped one hand around her forearm. “Sometimes, I wonder if I’m even back. Maybe this is just somewhere else, another place from where we began together. Anyway, Toby, you’ve moved on,” Eva said, turning in my direction.

“Mel, yes.” Toby stumbled over my name.

I nodded.

“Don’t worry, Toby. I’ve no illusions. I’m just hoping you play safe from now on.” She looked at me with cool eyes. “Especially with her.”

“I would never,” the magician began.

“You see, I always knew you preferred magic to me.” She smiled. “That trick was just more important to you. Imagine, what it takes to make someone disappear for good. It’s easier than loving her forever, right?”

“Eva, you make it sound like I did this on purpose.”

She shook her head. “No. I’m just saying you didn’t understand your own intentions. And if you’re not careful, you’ll do it again.”

“No.” Toby’s voice was firm. “Never.”

“Careful, Toby. Don’t get carried away by your tricks.”

Toby turned away from Eva and stared at the looming canyon wall. After a moment, he said, “So how did it end? How did you make it back?”

“I’m not sure. Slowly people began to appear. And one day, I felt the same nauseating whirl and the desert where I’d found myself literally came to life. There was wind and tumbleweed. A car drove past. I flagged it down. The driver told me the date. Eleven months had passed. I hadn’t even noticed.”

Toby shook his head.

“Do you know what the worst part is?” Eva asked. “No one believes me.