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

glance over the panorama. “If you let me take you somewhere first.”

“Where?”

I’m not going to tell. We step into the elevator, and my stomach rises as we slide back down to earth.

I don’t let the magician know how relieved I am to see his beat-up brown minivan, that he has not left it to rust at the edge of the desert. As I climb into the passenger’s seat, Toby looks over at me. “Seems odd to see someone riding shotgun.”

“I don’t believe I can be the first.” I crack the window. It’s what I’m supposed to say.

“Magic doesn’t leave much room for relationships. Especially my kind.”

“Of magic or relationships?”

The magician laughs. “I was thinking magic. But that might change.”

“You’re going to change your magic?”

He shakes his head. “Maybe slightly.”

“Why now?” I ask, as if I’ve known Toby forever.

“I’m tired of banishing things.”

Toby puts the car into drive and slides from the parking lot onto the Strip. I direct him out of town, in the opposite direction from the suburban sprawl I’d seen from the Stratosphere.

“Magic is a lonely business. Can you imagine what it was like being a magician in high school?”

I fiddle with the door lock.

“Magic cut me off from my stepmother, my classmates. And then when I went to circus school, I discovered that my kind of magic cut me off from my peers.” We come to the end of the Strip and roll past the famous Las Vegas sign. I crane my neck to see the Laughing Jackalope Motel shrink into the distance. “Loneliness is part of what we do. It’s our job to make things disappear.”

“But you are supposed to find them, too.”

Toby nods. “I wish it were that simple.” He presses on the accelerator, and with a familiar shudder, the van picks up speed. “It is also a magician’s job to pretend a certain cruelty or danger on stage—to make people believe that we are cutting our assistants in half, shooting them, or impaling them on spikes.”

“Fake danger.”

“Usually.” Toby exhales a slow and steady breath. “Last night, something changed. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way, the volunteer jumping out in front of me.”

“Greta?”

“You know her.”

“Not really.”

“I’d seen her around. I guess you could say she was a fan of mine. Came to a bunch of my small shows.” The familiar static creeps into his voice. “She’s supposed to stay put, stay behind me. Her presence is just a gimmick to highlight the trick’s potential danger. Then she jumped.” He shifts his grip on the steering wheel. “My magic is all about potential, the potential of anything to be anywhere at any given time. Mastering possibilities is what excites me. But this girl, she interfered. And instead of ruining my show, everything slid into place. It was as if I had been waiting for this moment. Sometimes my hands act unbidden, but this was different.” He pauses. “Do you know what happened?”

I do. Sort of. But I want to hear it from Toby.

“Someone cried out in the audience.” He turns to me and smiles. “You. And then I reached out and caught the bullet. Not caught it. Withdrew it.” He draws out these last two words. “It was as if you were telling me to do so.” Toby’s voice changes, becoming confident. “I must sound ridiculous.”

“No.”

“Then I ran into you at that classy bar, and things sort of fell into place.”

I know now that if I tell Toby that I cannot stay with him, I will break his heart. If I tell him I’m going to leave, will he follow?

“I’ll never top last night’s performance. And I can’t shake the feeling that somehow you made it possible.”

“I can’t imagine how.”

“Neither can I. But if you hadn’t called out, maybe…” Toby’s voice trails off as he imagines the scene I’ve replayed in my head hundreds of times. “So,” the magician continues, his voice bright, “where are you taking us?”

Us. The word sounds fantastic, full of settled possibility. “I’m not telling.”

We stop at a trading post by the small highway and pick up some food. Kachina dolls by local artists are arrayed on shoddy display cases. While the shopkeeper hunts for a bag for our groceries, Toby makes two of the dolls circle each other in a ceremonial dance. The dolls rattle the shelves as they settle back into place.

The shopkeeper looks up, his eyes flashing with disapproval.

“Too much?” Toby asks.

“Maybe you shouldn’t mess with ceremonial objects.”

The magician accepts the groceries with a smile that is not returned.

We continue down the dusty highway.

“Still no hint?” Toby asks as his fingers reach for mine over the shift.

I shake my head. I’m starting to worry that the blue ranch house will no longer be there. Or that someone has moved their life into our place. I’m worried most of all that imposing my memory of the ranch house onto this reality will make me seasick, as I was on the Stratosphere tower.

The van rattles over the uneven dirt, shaking as it hits ruts and rocks. The little blue house comes into sight. Again, I’m struck by its improbable color—a flash of cornflower—framed by two rusty mesas. I can tell that Toby is captivated by the house’s improbable charm, just as he was the day we accidentally discovered it.

We try the front door. It’s unlocked.

“What is this place?” Toby asks as we step into the strangely cool interior.

“Somewhere I’d once planned to live.”

The house is empty, but not barren. Plates, cutlery, and glassware are stacked neatly in their cabinets. Dish towels hang from a rack along the wall. The immaculate silence reminds me of our visit to Toby’s childhood home inside the Dissolving World—a sensation of otherworldly abandonment. The only difference since my last visit here is that the fabrics no longer sing to me.

“You changed your mind?”

“Something like that.”

“Do you think you’ll change it again?” Toby drums his fingers along the table.

I shake my head. “I love this place.”

“So—”

“It’s hard to come back.”

Toby walks into the living room. The