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

from the rest of the crowd, and a handheld parked in front of them to capture their reaction to whatever was about to unfold. Ricardo and Sue were sequestered off-stage. Apparently they were to receive their “surprises” separately.

Unless the surprise was, as Ricardo had guessed, simply an opportunity to perform. John found a gap in the curtains and scanned the audience while a sound man miked him. Not a full house. But almost. Not bad at all for a weekday matinee. It had been at least five years since John had performed in a venue as classy as this. And as Iain cleared the stage and gave the lighting tech a final note, the house lights dimmed, and John found the dread in his heart begin to lift…and eagerness take its place.

Monty stepped out from stage left, followed by a spotlight. Applause rang through the auditorium.

“Welcome, Mansioneers, to a very special taping of Magic Mansion in which you’ll get to know your favorite magicians…a little bit better.”

An assistant told John to hit the mark stage right. John stepped out to a blinding spotlight and a swell of applause. Monty was polished and handsome in the intense stage lighting, and for all that he and John had never spoken more than a few pleasantries over the crafts service table, it felt comfortingly familiar to see him in this strange and public context.

“Professor Topaz,” he said, “your career in magic spans the longest of anyone in the Mansion, stretching all the way back to the fifties, when you handled doves for your uncle, Illusionist Glen Forrest.”

The lighting engineer killed the spotlight, and a slide appeared on the wall behind John, twenty-five feet high. It was so oversized, it took him a moment to recognize it—though it was perfectly clear to the audience. It was a shot that had appeared in Hugard’s Magic Monthly in 1958—the halftone big and grainy at this size. Glenn, Rose, and John in the middle, with Glenn’s too-big top hat sliding over his eyes.

“Your act took a detour when you went off to college…” The slide changed. John in his cap and gown, with hair past his collar and the then-new beard he’d grown so attached to. A draft dodger if ever there was one. “…which led to your stint teaching at Berkley that earned you the name ‘Professor.’”

Two semesters as adjunct faculty in the English and Lit department. Hardly a stellar career.

“But the call of magic ran deep in your veins…and soon it was no longer enough to wow your audiences on weekends and semester breaks.”

The shot of John performing at Marin County Sunflower Fest in a skin-tight long-sleeved T-shirt with hair down to his shoulders flashed onto the wall. Well, it was fashionable then. Where did they get these snapshots, anyway?

“Many magicians take assistants, but you preferred the focus and intimacy of solo performing and close-up illusions.”

The ubiquitous promotional shot John used for most of the eighties covered the wall. Tuxedo, top hat, gloves, and a single coin poised between his fingers. Aside from the ruffles on the tuxedo shirt and the absence of gray streaks in his beard, he looked very much like he did today.

“Although when you were forty-four, you finally did take on a partner.”

Of course not. John always performed alone.

And then a shot of John and Casey on the beach in Laguna appeared. Shirtless. Laughing. In shell necklaces and horribly dated hair. With their arms around each other—clearly more than just good friends.

“Casey Cornish was known as the Gentleman Magician—quick with a joke and a smile. The complete opposite of the ultra-serious Professor Topaz. But as they say, opposites attract.”

Another shot of them dancing at their neighbor’s wedding, Casey in a white tux and John in black. Slightly drunk, judging by the way they were clinging to one another. Only marginally less intimate than the photo of them feeding each other wedding cake that they would hide when Mrs. Cornish visited.

Someone in the audience gasped. But other than that single indrawn breath, it was quiet enough to hear the whir of the slide projector fan and the backstage murmurs as crew shuffled people around behind the curtains.

Monty said, “Those were some very good years…”

More photos. A few performances, but more personal shots of Casey and John. The Halloween they had dressed up as each other (John had even shaved for the occasion—their friends went crazy over that). Their fifth anniversary in Maui. The two of them posing with the red convertible Casey had surprised John with when he turned sixty—where they’d christened the front seat. And the minuscule back seat. And the hood.

“…until last year, when your partnership came to a sudden…and tragic…end.” Before the final image shone forth, John knew with cold certainty what it would be.

Casey’s obituary.

He felt the shape of it as its projected image covered his body—Casey’s last promotional headshot, smiling wide, blond and blue-eyed and devastatingly handsome. And the headline, Beloved Entertainer, “The Gentleman Magician” Casey Cornish, 64.

John’s name hadn’t appeared in the article. A few highlights of Casey’s career, a brief mention of the accident, the fact that he was survived by his mother, Irene Cornish, and donations to cover the expense of the cremation requested in lieu of flowers. What the obituary hadn’t said was that everything Casey had amassed in those sixty-four years of his—including the trip to Maui, the red convertible, and indeed the very townhouse where they lived—had never been paid for. Certainly, Casey had intended to settle his tab—someday. But he’d always presumed he had plenty of time to chip away at the debt, since undoubtedly, he would live forever. He was an optimist that way.

Quite the opposite of John.

John was aware, distantly, that the stage lights had come up. But the shock of seeing his life so crassly splayed across the stage and summarized in a few glib sentences had left him completely and utterly stunned.

“Professor Topaz?” Monty said quietly.

John forced himself to focus…and only then noticed the tension in