Magic Mansion (33 page)

“Ricardo the Magnificent—better known then as Ricardo Hart—got his start in the frozen north, in St. Paul.” The stage lights dimmed, and a shot of kindergartener Ricardo, his cousin Joey from Minneapolis, and a skinny, grayish snowman with a decidedly weird look on its face appeared behind them, filling the far wall.
 

“Ricardo’s love of show business was apparent early on.” A third-grade Ricardo dressed as Dracula for Halloween replaced the snowman shot. Ricardo stared at the saucy tilt of his head, and deep in his gut, recalled the exhilaration of donning the cape and dabbing on his mother’s lipstick. Even then, clearly, he’d been gay. He never realized his infatuation with men in tuxedos had begun
that
early.

“But he didn’t always want to be a magician.”

“Yes, I did,” Ricardo said under his breath.

“Ricardo’s first love was sports. A powerful competitive skater, Ricardo placed in the Marshall’s World Cup, took second prize at Campbell's International Figure Skating Classic, and even trained for the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer.”

A shot of Ricardo with a mullet and Krista with extreme mall hair in painfully nineties black-and-aqua costumes mugging triumphantly around their Campbell’s trophy filled the stage as the audience murmured. “Krista Franke, his skating partner and high school sweetheart, the recipient of the prestigious McLoraine Figure Skating Scholarship, was the perfect match for Ricardo’s athleticism and flair.”

Another shot of Ricardo and Krista, this time in a spiral sequence, Krista in a catch-foot position and Ricardo in an arabesque. Good form.

“Unfortunately, life had other plans for them. Accepted by different colleges, the pair found the distance between them prevented their Olympic dreams from becoming a reality.”

And the Tom of Finland comic book might’ve had a little something to do with it, too.

“But there was another arena in which Ricardo could put his athletic skills, and his discipline, to work.”

Ricardo smiled and nodded, baffled by the way Monty’s script kept emphasizing what a jock he was.

“Magic.”
 

A publicity shot of Ricardo juggling rings in his first and only headlining show appeared. Ricardo’s costume was so clingy you could bounce a quarter off his athletic ass. Someone in the audience wolf-whistled, and then a spate of laughter rippled through the crowd.

“And here he is today, at the height of his career.” A bachelorette party photo with a drunk bridesmaid on either arm appeared. Thank God he was wearing a tux, and not a g-string full of dollar bills. There were certainly enough of those pictures to go around.

“Ricardo, how would you rate your chances of taking Magic Mansion’s top prize?”

Better than he’d ever dared hope. Pretty damn good, in fact…but Ricardo knew better than to gloat. “Hard to say. There’s some tough competition here, but I’ll do my best, Monty.”

“That’s the spirit—the competitive spirit!”

Ricardo didn’t
think
he’d just said anything particularly competitive.

“And to celebrate, we’ve arranged for someone to be here who’s always fueled that competitive drive!”

The stage lights came up, and curtains parted stage right…framing a small dark-haired woman in an elegant black gown and a gold corsage. It wasn’t until she’d walked halfway across the stage that Ricardo realized it was Krista Franke.

Ricardo embraced her, flashing back to all the times he’d lifted her on the ice. It hardly felt real. Monty asked her what she’d been doing—coaching skating, and raising two beautiful girls—and Ricardo stammered out how great she looked, and after a few more lines about who might win the grand prize in Magic Mansion, Monty bid the audience goodbye, the house lights came up, and the cameras turned off.

Iain strode out with a wireless handheld microphone and said, “That’s it, folks, thanks for coming. You can pick up your posters in the lobby—and the magicians will meet you there for photos and autographs in ten.”

Krista Franke on one side of him and Iain on the other—it was like Ricardo was half in and half out of a dream. “You really do look great,” he told Krista. “All grown up.”

“And you look like you’ve aged about two years in the past twenty,” she said. An assistant directed them backstage, and they made their way toward the dressing room. “It’s kind of weird, actually, watching you on the show. It’s like the only thing that’s changed is your hair. I thought you might look different in person. More made-up. But you don’t.”

Ricardo blotted his forehead, which felt clammy now that the hot spotlight was no longer on him. “The years have been great to you, too. You’re in fabulous shape. Two daughters. Wow.”

“Our oldest, Michelle, is fourteen.”

“Wow.” It was the only response Ricardo could think of.
 

“When they flew me out here, she was dying to come. I had to tell her no, she needed to stay in school. She was so devastated she cried until she threw up.”

Ricardo turned to look at Krista to try to figure out what the sudden edge to her voice was all about. “Teenagers,” he said.

“You think I care if she misses a few days of school?”

“I don’t—”

“I couldn’t stand the thought of her fawning over you—because you are
all
she ever talks about these days. She eats, sleeps, lives and breathes
Ricardo the Magnificent
.” Krista glared at him while he scrambled to figure out what she expected him to say, and then she turned away and whispered, “Just like I did.”

“Krista….”
 

She was stiff when he gathered her into his arms, but eventually she relented, and allowed herself to sag against him. “I told myself I wouldn’t cry.”

“Seriously, don’t. The cameramen can sense it a mile away.” Ricardo waited while she took a few deep breaths to try to stave off the tears, and then he whispered, “I really am sorry about the way it all turned out. You were my best friend. The last thing I wanted was to hurt you.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling myself all these years. That you couldn’t help it. That you didn’t know. That you never intended to hurt me.” She did look up and meet Ricardo’s eyes, then, and fresh tears glittered on her lashes. “And now, here you are, doing the same exact thing to Sue.”

“Hold on—Sue? This is about
Sue
? Krista, she knows I’m gay—and as far as Gold Team’s concerned, I’m one of ‘the girls.’ I’m crazy about Sue—she’s my best friend in the mansion. But that’s all she is.”

“Then why are you going along with this whole ladies-man persona? Are they paying you? Did you sign some kind of contract? I figured you’d finally be in touch with who you are—but now you’ll need to keep playing it straight to appease all your…your…
fans
.”

A handheld wandered in when Ricardo was trying to comfort Krista, and Ricardo snapped, “Just give us a minute.” An assistant followed, and told him he needed to get to the lobby for autographs. It was hard to say whether any amount of explanation would make Krista believe he’d had no idea he was being butched up in post-production. Or, for that matter, whether anyone else would believe it…or they’d simply presume Ricardo didn’t have the integrity to be as open about his true self as John.

“C’mere, Krista,” Ricardo said. “Look up.” He fixed her eye makeup with a few dabs of concealer. Her face had matured, but her eyes were still the same. “I haven’t even seen the show. I hadn’t realized anyone was putting a spin on me. And now that I know, I’m putting an end to it.”

The autograph session wouldn’t have been nearly as uncomfortable if Ricardo hadn’t known about Krista’s fourteen-year-old. But now when a dozen high school girls mobbed Ricardo in the lobby, he found himself baffled by the intensity of their adoration. Unlike Ricardo’s fans, Bev’s came in all ages, from children to retirees. Jia attracted mostly Asian girls dressed like her, and leering men of every race…who would be nearly as happy to pick up a Jia-lookalike as they would be to score with The Scarlet Dragon (as she was now being called) herself. Sue’s fans were mostly twenty-somethings, both men and women, and Kevin’s fans were mostly overweight males, and a couple of girls with boob jobs and too much makeup. John had the fewest fans gathered around him…although the ones who approached him were in tears.

The staff had told the small crowd to get their posters signed and move along, but the teenagers had plenty of practice at being devious by hiding whatever it is they did from their parents. A cluster of girls in gold-sparkle hoodies positioned themselves so that they were blocking the view of Ricardo from the nearest assistant, and the one in front whipped out a shiny pink scrapbook and said, “Can you autograph this instead?”

“Sure.” Ricardo hoped he didn’t screw it up. It looked like a lot of work had gone into it.

The girl fanned it open…and Ricardo saw it was full of photos. Photos of him. Every publicity shot from his website had been printed on glossy photo paper, pasted in, and surrounded with glittery dove and star stickers. The bachelorette party shot where his silk shirt was open to his navel was featured…on at least half the pages.

He hadn’t realized how creepy the adulation of a group of teenage girls might actually feel.

“There’s a good spot,” he said, and signed it quickly so she could get it out of his sight.

Then her girlfriend said, “Can you sign my arm?” and all of them giggled.

Ricardo glanced up at Kevin Kazan. The women flanking him were more the “sign my tits” type. The thought of these kids shedding their acne and awkwardness and braces, and growing into that sort of fan, made it difficult for Ricardo to write his own name. He suggested signing the backs of their hands—which they thought was a stellar idea—and then posed for a photo with his arms around all of them holding up their autographed hands proudly like glittery pink-nailed gang-signals.

It was barely three by the time the Magicians were loaded back into the limo, but Ricardo felt worn out and used up, as if he’d just done back-to-back matinees. The other contestants looked just as beat. Although the handheld had stayed behind and the players were all alone, no one spoke until they pulled into the Mansion’s circular drive. And then, just before the limo door opened, Jia turned to Kevin and said, “So, genius, you still think the Professor’s sticking it to Marlene?”

Chapter 30

AFTERMATH

Marlene scrolled through the latest script, gearing up for the next elimination. As the weeks went on, emotions flared high as the audiences’ favorites started getting knocked out of the competition. Still, the fewer contestants she had to deal with, the easier it was to divide the face-time between each of them.

The trailer door banged open, killing her concentration. “What is it,” she asked Iain, “here to gloat about the look on Ricardo’s face when you paraded his old girlfriend out?”

“So that’s what the two of you do in here.” Definitely
not
Iain, given the sharp Australian accent. Marlene dropped her PDA and turned. Monty stood in the doorway, hands on hips, looking pissed—and surprisingly threatening for a vapid blond him-bo. “Figures.”

The very last thing Marlene wanted was a big scene. “C’mon, get in here. Close the door behind you.”

Monty slammed the door. “It’s not right, what you did.”

“Let me explain something to you. The contestants’ contracts are nothing like yours. You’re an announcer. You say your lines, and you go enjoy your work visa. What they signed up for was different. Anything goes.”

“Just because you
can
do something doesn’t mean you
should
. You’re driving down the street and a puppy runs across the road. Which way’re you gonna swerve?”

“Although I doubt you’re willing to let me convince you, I’m being honest when I say these were not random acts of cruelty. We de-villainized the Professor from the taint of the Red Team, and helped Ricardo into the heartthrob role he was meant to play.”

“Yeah? And what about Sue?”

Ah…so that’s what was eating him. “I seem to recall advising you to wait until she was eliminated…and remember what you told me?”

“This is all a big power trip for you, right?”

“You said, ‘Sue’s a big girl. And there’s nothing here that says we can’t see each other.’ Sound familiar?”

Monty held himself so taut he was shaking, and Marlene prepared herself for a barrage. But after a few careful breaths, he only said, “She’s gonna leave him, you know.”

“Then you have nothing to be upset about.”

Monty probably had a few more angry accusations to hurl, but instead he just shot Marlene his best blue-eyed prettyboy fuck-you glare, and turned toward the door.

“Since you’re here,” Marlene supposed she really shouldn’t give in to the urge to be catty, but she didn’t take very kindly to threats, “I have a note for you. Read
all
your lines. Seems that you skipped one in your conversation with Professor Topaz, when you were supposed to ask him how seeing his boyfriend’s obituary made him feel.”

“Yeah?” Monty headed out of the trailer, then tossed back over his shoulder, “There must have been something in it I didn’t know how to pronounce.”

___

Funny, how things could turn on a dime. Earlier that week when Ricardo had slipped through the kitchen into the old servant’s quarters, his belly had been aflutter with the giddy prospect of being alone with John. Now it felt like it was full of lead.

He stared at the paper star with
Mr. Topaz
written on it for a moment, and considered simply turning back around and soldiering on through the rest of the show…but the thought of doing that made him feel even worse than he already did. And so he knocked.

John answered. He’d hung up his tuxedo jacket and removed his cufflinks, and his bare wrists flashed through the cuff plackets—fodder for Ricardo’s fantasies if ever there was any. But that wasn’t why Ricardo was there.

Tears? No, John was dry-eyed. As somber as it was humanly possible to be? Yes, that. And Ricardo wouldn’t have realized the depth of John’s sorrow were it not for all the shots of him smiling and laughing that had just played across the backdrop of the stage. “Are you okay?” Ricardo asked.