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

novel…and wonderful. At the end of the long, physically demanding days, they fell into the narrow bed, and held each other, and were simply together. Content.

All John was willing to say was that his act was going “very well.” But he said it with an eager sparkle in his eye that made Ricardo wish they wouldn’t be performing simultaneously, so he could focus on Professor Topaz’s new act without worrying about his own.

And finally, the day came when they were woken at four a.m. for their charter flight to New Jersey. Although he’d barely slept, Ricardo was too excited to nod off on the plane—and so were all the other magicians. Kevin sat alone. Jia sat alone. But although there was certainly room enough for Ricardo to have a pair of seats all to himself, he sat beside John, instead. If any of the crew had an opinion about it, they didn’t remark on it. The ever-present handheld cameras were there. Ricardo hardly noticed them anymore.

Well…maybe he noticed them a bit, when John slid his hand into Ricardo’s. And Ricardo squeezed it, feeling defiant, and proud.

A bus whisked the magicians and crew to the boardwalk, where separate staging areas awaited them all. Through the divider curtains, he overheard Kevin talking to his stylist in low, surprisingly respectful tones. “You think this works? A’ight, but tighter here…” and Jia saying, “Make sure my hair doesn’t move.”

“Are you nervous?” Ricardo’s wardrobe stylist whispered to him.

“I think so.”

“You’ll be great.” She trimmed a stray thread off his bowling shirt and stepped aside for the makeup crew to take over.

Once Ricardo was painted and powdered and pompadoured, he heard Iain’s voice directing the crowd, giving them instructions via bullhorn. “You’ll have one point to award in each category. First, the magic. How cool are the tricks? Second, the act. It’s a brand new routine, and they’ve had less than a week to put it all together. How successful is it? How well does it fit the surprise theme they’ve been given, historical magic? And third, the magician’s performance skills. Are they smooth? Are they convincing? Do they draw you in? You can award your points to different magicians or the same magician, but be sure to focus on the category and analyze what it is about each act you like. Every five minutes, you’ll hear this sound.”

He tooted an airhorn. Great. Because it wasn’t enough to do a brand new act in a brand new location. Now they’d need to hear an airhorn every five minutes.

“When you hear that sound, switch magicians. We want you take a good look at all four. Any questions?”

Ricardo strained to hear what the unamplified voices were saying, but a PA hustled him off to the side before he could make sense of anything. “The performance area is marked off into four quadrants,” the assistant told Ricardo. “Make sure you stay in your quadrant. You’ll have Professor Topaz across from you, Kevin Kazan kittycorner, and Jia Lee….” She positioned Ricardo in front of a curtain just as another assistant in headphones brought Jia up beside him. He felt like a racehorse in a starting gate, casting sidelong glances at Jia. Red. Very red.

“When the curtain opens, you’re on.”

The assistants turned away, murmuring into their headsets, and Ricardo inhaled deeply and steeled himself to take a good look at Jia. He turned. She was sizing him up, too. And she looked fabulous.

“You went with your signature dress,” he said, surprised. Because she’d managed to take her trademark costume and completely transform it with hair and makeup. Same dress…but now she looked like she’d stepped out of a silent film.

“It’s called a cheongsam,” Jia said. She touched her hair, which had been shellacked into finger waves. It didn’t look like it was going anywhere—much like Ricardo’s pompadour. “This was how they were cut in the thirties. Pretty similar to today.”

“You look great. It’s very…you.”

“My mother hates it. She says it makes me look like a cocktail waitress.”

“Oh.” Ricardo wasn’t sure what he’d expected her to say…but definitely not that. It hadn’t occurred to him that anyone else might be anything other than one hundred percent confident.

She gave the fan in her hand an experimental flick. It opened with a loud snap. “Like I told you, people are gonna look at me and see a Chinese girl, no matter how I try to present myself. So I decided that’s what I’m going to give them. A real Chinese girl. Chung Ling Soo, the most famous Victorian Chinese conjurer? He was a white guy from Brooklyn.”

“Actually, I think his biggest claim to fame was getting shot doing the bullet catch.”

“Yeah, well…once people see me, they’re gonna say ‘Chung Ling Who?’”

The assistant brought out Ricardo’s five silver hula hoops and stacked them on his forearm, while out beyond the curtain, Monty’s voice rose and fell, welcoming the crowd to the spectacular live Magic Mansion event. “Maybe he was popular in his day,” Ricardo said. “But now he’s basically known as a fraud.”

Jia snapped her fan shut and considered what Ricardo had said, then shrugged and looked him up and down. “Those jeans look good on you.”

“Thanks.” Even as he said it, Ricardo realized he was standing with his hip thrust out, a posture he’d been working to downplay the past three days. Because his ass looked amazing when he stood that way. And to anyone with a clue, he also looked unequivocally gay. Just as he shifted his weight to center, the curtains parted, and Monty called out, “And here they are, to amaze and astound you: Magic Mansion’s Final Four!”

And as the crowd’s eyes fell on him, and he held his weight carefully balanced so as not to telegraph his sexuality, it occurred to Ricardo…who was he to call anyone a fraud?

Chapter 35

BOARDWALK MAGIC

The sea of faces surrounding Ricardo was less of a blur, and more of a kaleidoscopic jumble of frowns. Hopefully they were just focused frowns, and not “you’re so