Magic Mansion (13 page)

Faye strutted up to the tape in her silver high heels and thrust out her chest. Charity took her place between Faye and Chip, who greeted Oscar, and even shook his puppet-hand. Beside Chip, Ken shifted uneasily and cracked his huge knuckles, pulling each finger so hard it looked as if he might rip it right out of its socket.

With a nod from Iain, Monty said, “Magicians must be able to endure a certain amount of bodily discomfort, whether that means holding their breath, or keeping calm inside a confined space. Amazing Faye, you held your breath for less than a minute. Not only that, you didn’t mega-charge your tank with fish, or even turbo-charge it with water.” He gazed at Faye pityingly, and said, “You didn’t even try.”

Ouch. It was a scripted admonishment, no doubt. But still. Ricardo would have died inside to have someone tell him he hadn’t even tried.

“Charity,” Monty said, “you suffer from claustrophobia, a most unfortunate phobia for a magician. Sadly, that condition has cost you.”

Charity looked down at the floor. But Oscar’s mouth was moving, as if the puppet was whispering in her ear. And right next to it, Chip looked rather puzzled.

Monty turned to the men. “Chip, while it’s true that the King packed on some extra weight in his later years, your faithfulness to his legacy has done you no good. You held your breath for an unhealthy fifty-nine seconds.”

Chip did some Elvis-like posing while the cameras focused on him, tugging on his forelock, planting his foot so his bell-bottomed trousers flared noticeably. But even as he tried to take advantage of his moment in the unwanted spotlight, his attention was drawn away from the camera yet again by Oscar.

Monty went on as if he didn’t notice. “Ken Barron, you’re an escape artist by trade. And while everyone has an off-night once in a while, yours picked a pretty bad time to show up.”

“This is bullshit.”

This time, Chip wasn’t the only one to be distracted. There was no mistaking that creepy falsetto. And it wasn’t Charity they were looking at, either. It was Oscar.

“We weren’t told about no elimination round. This ain’t fair.”

Faye blushed to the roots of her flaming auburn hair, and said, “Any of us can get eliminated at any time. Deal with it.” She was talking to Oscar, too.

“This is BULLSHIT.”

In a very good Elvis-like Tennessee drawl, Chip said, “Now if we can all just calm down a minute.”

“BULLSHIT!”

Faye held up her hand as if to shield herself from Charity, and said, “You think having a puppet in your hand gives you the right to act like a spoiled little brat?”

“It’s not me,” Charity said in a quavery voice, a completely different voice from Oscar’s, and an actual tear rolled down her cheek.

“THIS - IS - BULLSHIT!” Oscar’s head popped up and down like he was on a pogo stick.

“Okay,” Iain told Monty, “That’s good. Go on, now. And talk over her if you need to—your mike will pick it up—but switch the order of announcing the vote-offs from the way we had it written…for obvious reasons.”

“BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULL…SHIT!”

Monty nodded succinctly while Charity carried on via Oscar, and when she paused for a breath, he said, “The first player voted out of the mansion by our studio audience is…Chip Challenge.”

Everyone went quiet. Even Oscar.

Chip nodded, gave a sad smile, and dipped his head in a brief bow. “Thank you—thank you very much.” He swaggered forward from the rest of the lowest-scoring group, and turned to wave goodbye with one fringe-trimmed, rhinestone-studded arm—to the Red Team, to the Gold Team, to Monty, and finally, to the cameras.

“Oh, right,” Oscar’s shrill voice cried out as Elvis left the building. “Vote off the only member of the whole cast who’s actually entertaining!”

Faye covered her face with her hands and said, “This is not happening.”

“One more player is going home tonight,” Monty said, “and that magician is…Charity Young.”

It felt as if everyone—the cast, the crew, the room itself—held their breath. The moment hovered there, filled with mortifying possibility, while Charity gaped at Monty, stunned.

And then her face twisted, and the tears started flowing in earnest.

Sue hadn’t been kidding when she said cameras swarmed a weeper like flies on…poop, or whatever she’d called it.

The weird part was, Charity was definitely crying. Hard. Huge, wracking sobs, with tears and even snot running down her face. But through it all Oscar, somehow, was still screaming.

“Big surprise. Vote Charity off first to keep her from winning.”

Iain said, “Just let her keep going ’til she wears herself out.”

“The first challenge was a joke!” Oscar hollered. “Charity had all the talent! You never gave her a chance to perform! You never gave her a fucking chance!”

Faye backed away, returning to her team without Iain’s permission, and hid behind Ricardo. She was shaking. Ken Barron was left alone in the middle of the room with Charity and her meltdown, and he watched in rapt horror as if her tirade had frozen him to the spot.

“This mansion is a joke! Set dressers try to make it look fancy, but it’s all a sham. Half the rooms are falling apart, there are mice in the walls, and the first floor smells like a petting zoo!” Charity swung around and looked at the Gold Team, and Ricardo’s bemused shock turned to dread, as he wondered if he’d somehow managed to incur Oscar’s wrath, and he was about to be outed in front of the cameras. “You probably won’t win,” the puppet said—not to any specific teammate, but to the team in general. “Not without Charity. But if one of you does…hire yourself a good lawyer. This whole place is a joke, and they’ll probably try to cheat you out of the prize money.”

Charity, meanwhile, wept. She stumbled toward the exit, then paused in front of the Red Team, and let Oscar shrill, “Your captain’s an asshole. They’ll probably rig it so that he gets crowned the Grandmaster Magician.”

And with that, they strode out the door, Charity sobbing, and Oscar with his head held high.

Chapter 14

METAMORPHOSIS CHALLENGE

Cast, crew…everyone stared at the empty doorway in shock once Charity Young departed. Iain was the first one to speak—into his phone. “Yeah, we need security up here to escort the rejected players off the property. We’ve got a sore loser.”

Ricardo shuddered.

“Well,” Muriel said placidly, “I didn’t see that coming.”

“Maybe it’s an act,” Bev suggested.

“No,” Faye said. She was so spooked, she looked close to tears herself. “No one’s that good. That was a real freakout. Maybe a psychotic break.”

“We have been under a lot of stress,” Bev said.

Sue cocked her head, considered the tape mark on the floor, and said, “But you’ve got to admit. She was a really good ventriloquist.”

“Okay, everyone,” Iain called out, “deep breath. Think of it as trial by fire. You’re going to see some weird things over the course of the game. That’s good. In fact, that’s preferable: it’s engaging TV. No one’s gonna tune in to see you guys sipping tea and playing tiddlywinks. Got it?”

Tea and tiddlywinks—what the hell did that mean? Ricardo wondered if it was a veiled homophobic remark…or if Iain was just a dismissive prick who thought insufferable-hipster-producer was a more respectable career than magician. Probably both.

Iain turned to some grips and said, “Wheel in the boxes.” The burly assistants went behind Monty, into the room blocked off by the fabric screen, and wheeled out a pair of trunk-sized boxes. One black and gold, one black and red. Ricardo was more proficient at juggling than cabinet tricks. Even so, he could think of a dozen possible ways for the painted boxes to play out. Once the trunks were parked in front of their respective teams and the hand-carts were rolled away, Iain said, “Ken, get back with your team. Everyone, stand up straight and listen. Monty, you make the next announcement.” He sat down and steepled his fingers. “Action.”

“Now that the poorest performers have been eliminated from your teams,” Monty said, “it’s time to show off your magician skills by performing a classic trick that takes flexibility, timing, and precision.”

A camera swept the Gold Team as its members eyed the box. Across the room, another cameraman did the same to the Red Team.

Once the cameras got whatever it was they were looking for, Iain told Monty, “Go ahead.”

“This illusion has been around since 1865, when it premiered with the name The Box Escape. When Houdini borrowed the trick in 1893 and put his own spin on it, he re-named it Metamorphosis, which it is still known by today. In this trick, a magician seals an assistant in a bag, places them inside a trunk, ties the bag shut and climbs up top. A curtain is then raised to block magician and trunk from view. When the curtain falls—usually just a second or two later—the assistant, in an entirely different costume, has taken the place of the magician. The trunk is untied, and then the bag, so the magician can show off a costume change of his or her own.”

Iain said, “Both teams, step up to your cabinets. Open them, tap on them, check them out.”

As Ricardo approached his box, he heard Bev whisper, “That’s it. I’m finished. I don’t even know how it’s done.”

Muriel shushed her, and said, “We’ll work it out.”

Sue explained quietly, “This lid slides open while the magician straddles it, see? Right between the legs. The rope holding the top on isn’t really tied on tight. The slack is hidden in the box. By the time the magician is standing on top, the assistant’s changed costumes and ready to hop out and take his place. That’s why they spend so long securing the bag shut. It gives the assistant time to swap her wardrobe.”

Ricardo glanced at the Red Team while his teammates explained the trick to Bev. All five of the Red Team members poked and prodded their box as if they were on a car lot shopping for a new Ferrari, and though they looked like they’d probably done the trick a hundred times before, they probably wouldn’t mind taking their red and black box for a spin.

Once everyone had a good look at their prop, Monty said, “While Houdini performed Metamorphosis underwater, we wouldn’t dream of making you get wet two challenges in a row. Besides, the trick has as many variations as it has performers. One thing those variations do have in common: they’re done behind a curtain. But since you’re all magicians—and you all know the secret—that’s not going to be the way we do it today. You won’t be aiming to impress an audience. You’ll be trying to beat each others’ times.”

Ricardo felt a twinge of queasiness. Bev was adorable, no doubt. But he had a hard time picturing her doing a wardrobe change in a box. And Muriel said the funniest things…but she wasn’t exactly quick on her feet.

“Confer with your teammates, and pick two magicians to represent your team in the Metamorphosis Challenge.”

“Yes,” Ricardo hissed—and though he worried that maybe he’d offend his older teammates by doing so, when the Gold Team huddle formed, they looked just as relieved as he felt.

One of the Gold Team members, Amazing Faye, had been a magician’s assistant for an unspecified number of years before she got sick of playing second fiddle and decided she should be running the show. Ricardo assumed she was somewhere around his age, mid-thirties, though under all the concealer and glitter it was kind of hard to tell. She seemed like she was in great shape, and that’s what mattered. Plus she had a lot of experience. “I do Metamorphosis all the time,” she said. “I’m so fast I can even pop out with a different lipstick on.”

Things were looking better and better.

“I could do it,” Sue said. “Normally.” Her voice went a little wobbly, and she said, “But, guys? I’m so sore from that awful massage I can hardly even move my arms.”

“Hey.” Ricardo squeezed her hand. “I know the trick. It’s been a few years since I’ve done it, but even if they don’t let us practice it, I’m fast.”

“You don’t mind?” Sue said.

“Are you kidding? Lemme at it.”

“Thank God,” Bev said. “Because if Gold Team had to rely on me, we’d be up a creek.”

“Any day I don’t get stuffed into a pine box is a good day,” Muriel agreed.

“All right, Gold Team,” Monty said. “Who is the first player to represent you in the Metamorphosis challenge?”

Sue squared her shoulders, though it probably pained her to do so, and said, “Monty, the first team member who will represent Gold Team is…Amazing Faye.”

Monty said, “Faye, can you tell us a bit about your strategy?”

“Well, Monty, it may not look like it’s possible, but I’ve been performing Metamorphosis for over fifteen years. I can get in and out of that box in no time flat. It’s like this challenge was tailor-made for me.”

“Very good, Gold Team. Now, we’ll check in with your competition. Red Team, who is the first team member you have selected?”

Kevin Kazan puffed himself up, crossed his obnoxiously-muscled arms, and said, “Our first pick is Ken Barron. The man’s an expert at escape, and if anyone can change costumes in a bag, it’s him. Plus, it’ll give him a chance to prove himself after the major fail of his first challenge.”

Ricardo wondered if anyone on the Red Team wanted to slap Kevin Kazan as badly as he did. But then he realized he should probably formulate what he wanted to say for himself when Sue announced him as their second competitor. That he was eager to perform such a classic? That he was game to try to see what kind of score he could make? He didn’t want to sound like a braggart, so—

“And now,” Monty said, “here’s the twist.”

Oh God.

“You’ve each picked someone to be the second performer in your act…but your competitors might have someone else in mind. Teams, you will decide who the second person to perform for the opposing team will be, and you will have sixty seconds to do so. Your time starts…now.”

Gold Team re-formed their huddle, though Ricardo was so numb with panic he was practically on auto-pilot. With Sue injured, he was the only member of the team other than Faye who was capable of doing the stunt in a reasonable amount of time. The only one.

“That’s it,” Bev said. “We’re done.”

“Forget about that,” Muriel said. “We can’t worry about which one of us they pick. We can only try to pick someone worse from their team.”