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

one with the tea. Sitting in that booth.” Greta rolled her eyes across the diner. “The one in black. Don’t know how you can walk in shoes like that.” She tapped her nails. “Well, unless you work the Strip.”

I tried not to laugh.

“Hey, ma’am,” Greta called, inching down the counter. “More tea?” It was a condemnation, not a question.

The woman turned. Her coiffed hair was unmistakable. In an instant, Eva was on her feet, heading toward the kitchen.

“Greta,” I called.

“Paula,” she reminded me, flicking her name tag.

“Is that an exit?” I pointed in the direction of the kitchen’s swinging door.

“Not really,” she replied.

I stood up to follow Eva.

“I mean, not for you,” Greta said.

But I had already pushed through the swinging door and was standing in the steamy kitchen. Eva wasn’t there. At the far end, near a walk-in refrigerator, was another door, which probably led outside. The teenaged cook tried to stop me as I passed him.

After the steam of the Red Rock’s kitchen, the Vegas heat was strangely refreshing. The grimy parking lot was littered with Dumpsters for various businesses. At the far end, I saw Eva, her slim black figure opening the door of a car.

“Eva,” I called. “Wait.”

To my surprise, she stopped.

I hurried toward her. “Please,” I said.

“I’m waiting.”

For a moment, we looked at each other.

“You’re expecting the circus girl Toby probably described?”

I shrugged.

“People change. Can you tell me what you want?”

I was staring at the fleur-de-lis motif on her stockings and shoes. “Not really. I thought you were leaving Las Vegas.”

“So did I.” Eva laughed. “But it’s difficult for me to go when and where I please.” She looked at me, searching for some sign of comprehension.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I came out here.” I looked back at the door of the Red Rock.

“Not jealousy, I hope.”

“No,” I replied, “not at all.” I ran my fingers through my hair, which next to Eva’s seemed brittle and unkempt. “I guess I thought talking to you might help me understand Toby a little better.”

“You’ve married someone you don’t understand?”

“Maybe.”

Eva smiled, and suddenly I got a glimpse of the person who got lost inside one of Toby’s tricks—a captivating woman who commanded the audience’s attention while the magician put the finishing touch on his latest illusion. She walked around to the driver’s side of her car, opened the door, and got behind the wheel. The window on the passenger’s side rolled down. “Get in.”

Eva drove fast, zigzagging through the traffic on the Strip. We shot out of Vegas in the direction of California. Using the rearview mirror, she applied her murky red lipstick. Then she lit a cigarette. “You haven’t known him long, then,” Eva said.

I shook my head. “A couple of months. We met in a small town a few hours from here.”

“I don’t think I ever really knew Toby at all. I was a different girl back then. I wanted a boyfriend. That’s what you want when you’re young, isn’t it?”

“I guess,” I said. I fiddled with the clasp on my seat belt. “Where are we going?” I asked.

“Somewhere important.” She tossed her cigarette out the window and exhaled a last burst of smoke. “Maybe you and Toby will have a life—” She paused. “—a normal life. I don’t know. But he told me when we first got together that love and magic don’t mix. After a few months, we both forgot about this. When it was too late, I realized that the kind of magic Toby aspires to leaves no room for others.” She looked at my wedding ring. “But he hasn’t quite figured that out yet.”

“You’re wrong.”

Eva shook her head. “How can you be sure? You didn’t know him before.”

“I know him now.”

“It won’t last.”

“How do you know?”

The car sped along a two-lane highway.

“Toby has the ability to pull the perfect person to his side at the perfect time.”

“I don’t see it that way.”

“So you think it’s a coincidence that you two met in some middle of nowhere?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Eva’s words were bitter. “Keep in mind, if he is able to pull you to his side, he can send you away again.”

I decided not to respond.

“He might not mean to. In fact, he absolutely wouldn’t mean to. But he will.”

I glanced at the speedometer and wished Eva would slow down. Or stop. “You sound jealous,” I said. I unrolled my window to breathe the air outside. “In fact, maybe you are. I’m having no trouble staying at Toby’s side.”

Eva put her foot on the brake. The car fishtailed to a stop in the middle of the highway. “Mel,” she began. I was surprised that she remembered my name. “I live inside a magic trick. I have no jealousy.” Eva stared at me. “I’m not trying to frighten you.” Then she pressed on the gas. “I’m just trying to help you. When Toby sent me into that trick, he destroyed a part of my will. I don’t want that to happen to you.” She glanced in the rearview mirror. “Or to anyone else.” Eva lit a new cigarette.

“Why would that happen?”

She exhaled. “Toby doesn’t understand the sacrifices he is willing to make for his craft.”

I looked out the window and wondered about the truth of this.

The sunset began to spread at the far edge of the desert, sending long shadows across the sand. If I squinted, the land looked tiger-striped.

“I was a city girl,” Eva said. “I never thought I’d spend so much time out here.” She laughed. “I was popular, too. Now it’s simpler to know no one.”

“Me, too,” I replied.

“You, too, which?”

“The part about the desert.” The other part was true as well, but I didn’t want to admit it. Eva looked at me out of the corner of her eye. Her glance told me she knew better.

I wanted to ask how much farther we were going, but I knew she wouldn’t answer. What I asked instead was, “What was he like?”

“You assume that the magician