Trance (13 page)

“It’s still online?”

She shook her head. “No. But if his career takes off, there are plenty of journalists who’ll have all that stuff, and if they find out you’re dating, you know they are going to bring it up. You don’t want that.”

I couldn’t tell him. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to. Why did I have to?

“Then I’ll just have to sabotage his career so he doesn’t get too famous. Dating me should do it.”

Lacey knew I was joking by the way she looked at me. “If you want to take this further, tell him.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to go further with me. Maybe it’s already over. He did just tell me to come home with you, rather than him. He obviously doesn’t want to be around me anymore.”

I bit my lip. That wasn’t true, was it?

An oversized fan with soft plastic fins stood on its side in our garage. Its height was just short of hitting the ceiling, and its width about the same. Bigger than Lacey’s closet, although definitely not as colorful. It had been made specifically to my grandfather’s specifications, and had cost a small fortune. That wasn’t the most expensive fan he’d ordered though.

The blades of this fan spun slow and lazy. On
its lowest setting it took more than two seconds to make one full rotation. On its highest, it would spin three times that - this was barely enough to make any wind to cool you. Not that its purpose was breeze creation.

The idea was my grandfather would step through a similar fan, with blades of sharp steel, just missing them so he wouldn’t be sliced to sausage meat. His arms would be cuffed, his eyes blindfolded. Only his sense of timing, listening as the blades whizzed
past, the breeze on his face would tell him when to step, when to make the journey through.

We had
practiced the routine for three days, and he still wasn’t fast enough. His hip slowing him down every time.

“Let’s do the saw trick instead,” I said. “You don’t need to do this one.”

“If I’m to be remembered, I have to do something big. Something no one has done before.”

“Well, I’d like to remember you in one piece.”

He grinned. “We still have three weeks, I’ll get it. Have I ever flubbed a trick yet?”

“Of course not, but you’ve never had a hip injury before either.”

“Ye of little faith. My hip is barely bothering me now.”

That was a lie. I’d seen him use the cane to walk many times when he thought I wasn’t watching.

“Try it without the blindfold,” I said. “Until you get the right rhythm.”

“Poppycock. I need to learn to do it the way I’m going to do it on stage.
Otherwise, I won’t learn anything. I have one whole second to get through. It’s more than enough.”

I placed the blindfold back over his eyes. “Step now,” I whispered.

He took one step and then another. His body sagged to one side as he moved forward. He paused inches from the plastic blades and then strode through.

The fan creaked, making a ticking sound as my grandfather’s foot caught the blade, trapping it against the edge. I sighed and
freed him again, lifting the blindfold so he could see his mistake.

“You’re going to have your foot chopped right off if we move to the metal fan.”

“Nonsense, I need to practice more, that’s all.”

“The fan will be twice the speed as this one.”

“And you’ll distract the audience as the fan slows down for the second I step through. We’ve been over this.”

“Or we could paint this one. I’ve seen some pretty realistic effects with paint. It could look just like stainless steel. The audience wouldn’t know.”

He glared at me.

I sighed. “Fine, let’s try it again.”

We’d practiced different magic tricks all day and I was tired. My grandmother had made dinner and after picking over the selections, I glanced up at the clock. It was just after seven. I wondered if Lacey was still home. I could do with hearing her voice about now.

I made my excuses, walked into my bedroom while
dialing her number.

It rang five times before going to messages. She must have left for her date already. I was hoping I’d catch her before she left, but that wasn’t to be. I wondered what else I could do this evening. I really didn’t want to spend another of it at home.

I lay back on the bed, scrolling through all my messages. That wasn’t exactly true, I was looking for specific messages. Messages from Jason.

After our date at the Mexican restaurant, the night that I acted crazy, I hadn’t seen him again. I missed him more than I
realized, but it had been my own fault that I’d gotten so weird and pushed him away. Story of my life.

I read over the last one he’d sent me - two days ago. ‘Weather is freezing here. Show is going well. See you when I get back, maybe.’

Maybe. That word spun through my head over and over trying to figure out what message he was really sending. Did it mean he might get around to it, if he had time? Or was he trying to gauge my interest again, just waiting to catch me being ‘hot and cold’ as he put it.

The day after our date, I called him. Lacey made me do it, she said I needed to stop letting him do all the chasing. This wasn’t the dark ages, she said, girls were able to chase boys without playing stupid hard to get games. The problem had always been, however, I was never playing.

He was polite on the phone, asked how I was doing, if I needed anything. I was about to make plans to catch up again when he burst out the information that he’d be doing an out of state show for two weeks.

I wished him luck and success and said goodbye. What else was I meant to say? Don’t go? We’d only just started seeing each other. Who the hell was I to tell him what to do or don’t do in his career after such a short time together. So I didn’t, of course. Like any normal person would.

Problem was I didn’t think I acted much like a normal person these days. Especially since I couldn’t stop thinking about him, or reading old text messages from him trying to decipher hidden meanings in random words. I sighed and threw my phone to the end of my bed, looking up at the stars on my ceiling. The only real way to see if we have any sort of future was to have another date. A date where I didn’t act all crazy and freak out over nothing.

Was that even possible with me?

I woke with a jolt. There was a song playing somewhere near my feet. I looked down - my phone was ringing. I groggily picked it up looking at the screen. Lacey’s picture flashed at me. It was 12.19 am. After midnight already - jeez did I sleep that long? I hadn’t even gotten
out of my clothes I’d worn during the day yet. I pressed the answer button.

“Hello.” I yawned.

“You were asleep? You little old lady, it’s still early. ” 

“Early for who? Nothing good happens after midnight, didn’t your grandparents ever tell you that?”

She clucked her tongue. “I’ve been involved in plenty of delicious things that have happened after the clock strikes twelve as you know. Anyway, you should be thankful you have a friend like me to keep you young. Get over here - I have half a tub of ice-cream that has our name on it.”

A shook my head trying to get the fogginess to disappear. “What happened to your date?”

“Ice-cream first. Gossip second. And, believe me, once you hear about this gem of a date, you won’t think you’re such a freak anymore. Now hang up, wake up, and mosey on over.”

“I think I’m too tired to drive.”

“Find something to wake you up then. A good cold shower always works for me.”

I stared at the bathroom. I didn’t have the energy for that. “I’ll be there soon. Don’t let it melt.”

I stood up. My room felt dreamlike as I looked around for my car keys, the only light coming in from the street light outside. I spotted a glint of reflection from my keys, they lay on my clothes drawer next to the mirror. I walked over to get them, noticing my reflection and how my hair bunched up in a weird angle at the side of my head where I’d slept on it. I tried to pat it down, but it seemed determined to do its own thing.

I walked out of my room and into the house that was quiet. My grandparents would have gone to bed long ago. I opened the door to outside and shut it behind me as quietly as possible. I still needed to wake up properly so took a deep breath of the midnight air.

The light to the garage, where we had been practicing the fan trick, was still on. My grandfather had forgotten to switch it off, or I had forgotten. I couldn’t remember. The fan stood in the middle of the room. I shook away the sleep and turned it on. The low motor purred into life and the blades spun as groggily as I felt.

I stood in front of it, with only the hint of breeze barely touching me. One, two, three, I stepped through.

The fan creaked as it caught me, full body against the side. I couldn’t even get mostly the way through - how on earth was my grandfather going to do it? At least it had woken me up.

I freed myself and shut it off, making sure I turned the garage light off and locked the door before walking outside and toward my car.

Lacey had lied. She had two tubs of ice cream, not one. And they were both full to the brim. She handed me a spoon and a tub of Cherry Garcia, keeping the Banana Split for herself. The outside of the tub was still frosty and little specks of ice melted in my hand when it made contact with me.

She sat on the couch cross-legged and took a mouthful, winking at me. “Got them on the way home. They were out of the Strawberry Cheesecake flavor. Bastards.” She took another spoonful and I did the same, letting the cherry flavor with its tart crispness blend with the creamy texture of the ice cream.

“If you’re buying fattening food after a date, it can only mean he was sweet and charming. Which of course you’d never be interested in.”

“Damn straight. Gotta do one bad thing tonight, and if it’s not going to be rolling around with whipped cream on my stomach, it’s his loss and my taste buds gain.”

“So tell me what this sweet nobleman did, or rather didn’t do.”

She groaned, although I couldn’t tell if it was because of the ice cream or what horror she was about to tell me.

“He still lives with his parents. And he volunteers at a homeless shelter.”

I frowned. “I live with my grandparents.”

“Yeah, but you’re you. Plus you’re interesting, being an illusionist.”

“Magician’s assistant,” I corrected.

“Right, whatever. Look the homeless thing wouldn’t have bothered me so much, if he hadn’t have bagged up his dinner without touching it, and proceeded to ask me if I’d finished mine and then put my leftovers in another bag he had. Who does that?”

“Yeah that’s pretty strange.”

“Also, all he talked about was saving up money so he could travel to
India to help some impoverished village.”

“Well, that’s nice, isn’t it?”

“Not when he expected me to pay half my meal and leave the entire tip.”

“Oh, right.”

“So now you can see why this was an ice cream emergency.”

“Indeed.”

She sighed. “Why can’t I find a nice bad boy?”

I grinned. “Keep looking, I’m sure your prince imperfect will show up.”

“You better be right.”

She took another mouthful, closing her eyes as she let the ice cream swirl in her mouth. Watching her I tried to stifle a giggle. She could be a lot to handle, I wasn’t sure many guys could.

“Jason messaged me yesterday,” I said, casually.

“Oh yeah?
How’s that going?”

“Still messed up.”

“When’s he back?”

“Another week.”

“Good. Then you can get back to where things left off, talk to him and smooth things over, and rip your clothes off again. You need that. God, I need that.”

I blushed. “I think he’s cooling off. He’s being vague.”

“Probably still doesn’t know where he stands. That’s why you need to tell him how you feel. Just tell him you like him but you’re scared. He’ll understand.”

“What if it’s too late?”

“If it’s too late, then so what. What have you lost?”

“My dignity.”

“You should invite him over for ice cream late one night. Or take it on a picnic, like the last one.”

“It’d melt.”

“That’s the idea.”

I grinned although the thought of having cold sticky ice cream dripped over my body didn’t sound quite as romantic as Lacey made it sound. I could just imagine it sticking to my clothes or staining my top. Not a good look if you were trying to be sexy.

“Anyway, he said we could catch up, maybe.”

“He used the word, maybe?”

I picked up my phone and showed her the message.

“Ouch.”

“It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“Well, I’m sure it can be salvaged. But you need to do some fast work. Oh, and probably new underwear. I’ll get you something super sexy.”

“No. I’m going to pick out my own outfit next time.”

“The hell you are. Look what happened when you chose your outfit, it turned into a disaster.”

“I’m not sure that had to do with my choice of clothing.”

“You can’t be too careful, and look the first time I dressed you, you met, and the second time you had an amazing date. Every other time you’ve seen him, it hasn’t gone your way at all. Face it, I’m your lucky stylist.”

“I guess.”

“A week. Oh yes, I could pull something spectacular together for when you see him by then. Something that will knock his socks, his shirt, and his pants off. He’ll be in your arms and you in his heart in no time at all.”

A shiver ran over the back of my neck. “Okay.” I would have let her choose and outfit anyway, since it was true that she had bought me luck with everything she’d picked out for me so far.”