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

were once familiar surroundings. I feel myself written out of my own past. I have no idea how to catch up with this present.

Still lying on the quilt, I fumble for the telephone. I dial Leo’s number. I need to hear a familiar voice, even if, in this world, we are strangers.

It’s Olivia who answers, her voice warm with sleep. “Hello?”

“It’s Mel,” I say.

I’m met with silence at first. “Hello?”

“It’s Mel. You don’t remember me, do you?”

“Mmmm.” I can imagine Olivia scrunching her eyes and wrinkling her nose, trying to tease my name out of her memory.

“Or maybe we haven’t met.” I suggest.

“Maybe not. That would make it hard to remember you.”

I want to tell Olivia all the things I know about her. I want to do anything to keep her voice pressed into my ear. But then she says, “I think you have the wrong number.”

“I probably do.” The line goes dead, adding its silence to the fabrics’. I let the receiver tumble from my hand and dangle toward the floor. Soon I can hear the rhythmic buzz of the busy signal. I let it go on.

Eighteen

I’m lying in the middle of the king-sized bed, legs and arms spread wide. A castaway on a raft floating in the empty Cherry Orchard Suite. There’s a knock at the door. I pull on one of the plush bathrobes with gold braided belts. I expect to see the magician. Instead I find one of the bellboys carrying the clothes I’d abandoned in Sandra’s office.

Out on the Strip, the neon illusions of the Las Vegas night are gone. The harsh sun reveals the city’s trickery, exposing the miniature skyline outside the New York, New York and the small Eiffel Tower in front of the Paris for cartoonish approximations. I weave between slow-moving tourists and pass the Mirage, where the volcano’s lava roar is still sending more heat into the baking day. Finally I come to Fremont Street and enter the covered esplanade. As I knew it would be, Fremont is empty save for a few hard-nosed gamblers still at the tables since last night and those who set their alarms to catch their lucky dealers.

The Castaway is a swamp of cigarette smoke. The carpet is sticky with spilled drinks and trampled ash. I pass through the pits, listening to the hollow drop of coins. Men and a few women are hunched over at the tables, considering their cards. I arrive at the door to the small theater and push it open. Inside, I find a tangle of discarded furniture. Three-legged craps tables are turned on their sides. One-armed bandits stare blankly from the dusty dark. I look at the stage where the Ladies’ Magician had performed. It’s a jumble of fallen stage lights and discarded gels.

As I sit down, I hear someone approaching from the back of the theater. I hope for Toby, but it’s Eva, gracefully negotiating the mess that separates us.

“You thought he would be here?” she asks.

“I wasn’t thinking.”

“Toby’s shows at the Castaway exist in a time that cannot come again.”

I nod while Eva lights a cigarette and takes the seat next to me. “So, you, too, were sent into one of Toby’s tricks.”

“How can you tell?”

“Because we’ve already met inside the magician’s imagination. I’ve seen it all before.”

“Seen what?”

“The show at the Winter Palace. The other outcome. And you were there.”

“That wasn’t his imagination. That was real.”

Eva shakes her head, sending smoke from side to side. “Maybe for you. For me, it was just another intersection of his tricks.”

I look around the theater. “All of this is an accident. Toby didn’t mean for me to follow him.”

“Follow him where?” Eva sounds uninterested.

“In Amsterdam, he discovered a trick called the Dissolving World. It can take him to any point in his memory.

“Toby never needed a trick to do that. He’s done it before. Except it was me he sent there, not himself.” Now Eva laughs with a sharp, cutting sound. “And after all this, he chooses to come back here.” She shakes her head and squints into the dust. “I guess saving her life is more important to him than fixing mine.”

“You’re alive, aren’t you?” I give her a cool look.

Eva exhales toward the ceiling.

We are silent for a moment. Then Eva kicks up her legs and places them on the seat in front of her. I watch dust settle on her patent leather heels. She smooths her stockings. “He came back here, but he doesn’t know you. But you know him. Maybe your love is just stronger than his.” There’s a sharp edge to Eva’s voice.

I shake my head. “He didn’t know I was coming. He told me not to follow him.” I looked down at my hands. “I guess he never imagined that I’d be part of this world when he stepped into it. He didn’t create a place for me here. But we’ve met again.”

“And it’s all running so smoothly.” Eva doesn’t want a response. “Don’t get too comfortable. You are always going to be an outsider. But you must have already figured that out. Your memories and Toby’s can’t line up. Your worlds will always be slightly different.”

I don’t reply. Despite last evening with Toby, I know Eva’s right.

“The more time you spend here, the more edges will blur, corners will melt, and places will vanish. Because you are meant to be elsewhere, you will not be able to remain in one place for long. When Toby banished me to the mesa, the trick eventually broke. I was returned to reality. But I’d been gone for so long, reality and I no longer clicked. For your sake, I hope this trick ends sooner rather than later.”

“What if I don’t want that?”

Eva narrows her eyes into the dim light. “What happens when something goes wrong for Toby this time? Will he rewind time, send himself somewhere else, forget about you again?”

“Toby didn’t mean to forget me.”

Now Eva places a