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

Monty’s shoulders, and the fine lines of strain around the eyes. And that he’d clenched his own hands into fists. He took a deep breath and released them. His palms stung where his fingernails had dug in.

“Your friends tell us it’s high time for you to spread your wings and make your big comeback, and they’ve elected one of your oldest and dearest pals to come and wish you well…in person. Your agent, Dick Golding.”

Well. That explained where the photos had come from. Dick would never stop pestering John for that big gay memoir now.

John turned to watch Dick’s appearance stage left, and Monty added “…and your late partner’s mother, Irene!”

But….

John’s mind stalled on the very notion of seeing Casey’s mother—even as she appeared, with her ninety-year-old’s bursitis gait, waddling across the stage toward him on Dick’s arm.

I don’t even know what to call her.

Monty turned to Dick and said, “How does it feel watching the Professor on prime time TV?”

“I always knew he had it in him, Monty. He’s got star quality. Always had it.” He locked eyes with John. “You’re doing great, John. Keep it up. Hang in there.”

“Irene, what do you think Casey would say if he could see Professor Topaz now?”

There was a lag between the question and the answer, as there usually was with Mrs. Cornish. Her hearing was not what it had once been, and it took her a moment to piece together whatever she’d lip-read with the context and come up with an appropriate response. “My son would be dreaming up all the ways he could spend the quarter-million grand prize,” she declared loudly. The audience laughed; they thought she was joking.

Monty thanked them for coming, and then Dick stepped up for a handshake that turned into a hug while the audience applauded. And John supposed he would need to hug Mrs. Cornish too—though when he’d attempted it thirteen years prior, she’d stiffened up so badly he hadn’t tried it since. She felt a lot smaller now—but this time she actually leaned into his embrace and held him for a moment, and patted his back with a few good whomps. “Come by the house when you get a chance,” she said, no doubt thinking that speaking directly in John’s ear negated the fact that she was miked. “The yard looks terrible.”

___

Ricardo wasn’t sure who he thought Dick and Irene were as they waited together in the wings. John’s agent and Casey Cornish’s mother? Wouldn’t have occurred to him in a million years.

He was too busy trying to wrap his head around the fact that John and Casey had been a couple! Of course Ricardo was familiar with Casey—the Gentleman Magician embodied a kind of dazzling flamboyance another gay magician could hardly miss. Ricardo should have figured out John’s passions ran deep, but John was so impenetrable, it took a hand down the front of Ricardo’s pants for the attraction to register. And of course John hadn’t been single all this time just waiting for Ricardo to show up. But before he’d seen the photos, he would have found the notion of Casey and John together totally implausible.

There they were, though. Holding one another. Laughing.

What hit Ricardo the hardest was the knowledge that John’s smiles hadn’t always been mostly sad.

John, Dick and Irene exited stage right as the slide changed to an adorable blonde majorette, and Sue stepped out, dazzling in four-inch heels and a glittery silver gown with a plunging neckline.

“If you’re planning on making a move on her,” a voice behind Ricardo whispered, “think again.”

Ricardo swung around nearly expecting Kevin Kazan…though Kevin was in the front row. Plus the fake ebonics weren’t there. The guy behind him—decidedly Caucasian in his Brooks Brother suit—was most definitely not Kevin. “What are you talking about?” Ricardo said.

“Whoa, just kidding.” The guy shifted a dozen pale yellow roses to his left hand and presented his right for a handshake. “I’m Gary. Sue’s boyfriend.”

Ricardo shook Gary’s hand numbly. He was still reeling from the John-and-Casey revelation.

“You are gay,” Gary said. “Right?”

“What do you—? Yeah. So what?”

Gary wiped his brow in an exaggerated “phew” gesture. “You know how it is with magicians. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.”

Sue’s slideshow began, though of course, it wouldn’t span nearly as many years as John’s. She was barely twenty-three years old. There she was, adorable in a peanut costume. And jumping on a trampoline with her sister. And chubby-cheeked and pot-bellied in a pink leotard and ballet shoes.

“Every time your theme song comes on,” Gary said, “I have a good laugh.”

“What?”

“Your theme song. You and Sue.”

“Gold Team had a theme song?”

“No, no, no…when you guys are holding hands or whatever. Lovebird music.”

Sue playing a grand piano at a recital. Sue with a Miss Teen North Dakota sash and rhinestone crown—she actually had been a Midwestern beauty queen. Ricardo had just been wrong about the state. Wow.

“So how’s she doing, really?” Gary said. “What do you think her chances of winning are?”

Did this Gary guy not realize Ricardo was competing for the same prize? “Fine. I guess.”

“Because there’s really no money in magic. Not unless you’re one of the top acts. But the two-hundred-fifty grand would really launch her modeling career.”

All she ever talked about was wanting to take the stage at Magicopolis as more than just an assistant. “She never mentioned modeling to me.”

“Not yet. She needs some work. Shave a little off the nose, some lipo around the waist, and she’d be damn near a perfect ten.”

What? Ricardo turned and took a better look at Gary. How old was he, twenty-five? His hairline was already starting to recede.

Onstage, Monty said, “And now, Sue, your very own cheering section is here to root for you…can you guess who it is?”

Sue smiled widely. “Is it my parents? My sister?”

The moment during which Sue and Monty held eye contact stretched—another of those pauses where a commercial break could be inserted—and then Monty exclaimed, “It’s your boyfriend, Gary.”

Sue’s smile shifted. Even from where he stood,