the crowd quickly dispersed. I stared down at the check, shaking my head.
“That was classy as shit,” Rico said.
I nodded.
“And it’s way more than you’re worth.”
I swatted him again.
Liam knocked back the last of his Sprite and said, “How are you going to spend all that?”
I thought for a moment. “I’m going to buy some drugs.”
EPILOGUE
Eight Months Later
THE SUN WAS JUST BEGINNING to set when I grabbed my water bottle and stepped out onto the tiny balcony of our new Las Vegas apartment. A wall of August heat hit me like the blast from a giant hair dryer, and I reached back to put up my hair, only to remember that I’d cut it short a week earlier—not out of some cliché need for emotional resurrection or anything like that. Vegas was just fucking hot.
When we moved back, Dad had vetoed my trailer-park idea, and we ended up in a two-bedroom on the third floor about six miles east of the Strip, not far from where I’d interviewed Renée Turner half a lifetime ago. I had absolutely hated it—until I stepped out onto the balcony. From up here, I could see the whole Strip, from Luxor to Stratosphere. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night, missing the rumble of the big diesel engine beneath me. But then I would come out here to look at the lights, and it felt like home.
A hot wind kicked up, so I poured the contents of my water bottle into the shriveled cactus on my balcony and went back inside to stand in front of the AC vent with my eyes closed and my head titled back.
Dad knocked on my bedroom door—I had an actual door!—and poked his head in.
“Are you heading out?” I asked. “I thought curtain wasn’t until eight o’clock.”
“Indeed,” he said, glancing at his old, but newly functional, gold watch. We’d paid the pawnbroker before we even started making a dent in Dad’s hospital bills; I had insisted. “But I want to run through Sub Trunk a few times before the show. My new assistant lacks your sense of timing.”
After the Live Retrospective, Dad got several job offers, including a headliner slot at the Four Jacks. But Dr. Houts insisted that he couldn’t go back to work full-time, so he had to decline. Then one night, Jif Higgins invited us over for dinner and offered Dad a show at his hotel, the Maxim, and said he could make his own schedule. He was thrilled—so now he worked three nights a week in a 250-seat theater. I had never seen him happier.
I, on the other hand, had been completely inundated with offers. I got calls from half a dozen casinos on the Strip, three in Atlantic City, and a touring company in Asia.
I turned them all down.
Dad was right; performing was in my blood. But I was scared of putting all my eggs in that basket. What if, even on meds, I couldn’t deal? I needed something stable to fall back on. I wanted to get my diploma, and then I had my sights set on UNLV’s theater design and technology program. That way, if performing didn’t work out, I could give Rico a run for his money in the consulting business.
So I enrolled at Nevada Virtual Academy, and then I called the number Flynn Bissette had scrawled on my palm in Sharpie. He offered me a job on their development team, designing new tricks for their Vegas residency, but there was a condition: I had to open for Flynn & Kellar, performing close-up magic at the Havana six nights a week.
I almost turned him down, too.
Bipolar II warps my self-image and distorts my judgment. For a long time, I was ashamed of what I perceived as a weakness. Sometimes I still am. Sometimes, when I’m down, I still think about holding myself underwater.
Our apartment has a shower, but no bathtub.
I told Flynn what I was dealing with, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He sweetened the deal by adding full medical insurance for me and my dad, including mental-health care. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.
Dad cleared his throat, reached down, and adjusted the cuff of his sleeve. “Want a ride to work?” he asked. He had bought a used green Hyundai with some of our TV money. It was the same model as Heather’s.
“I’m off today,” I said. “Liam’s driving up. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”