move because Mom died. Years later, I discovered the truth.
Dad had been grinding out a living at a small casino when he was offered the opportunity of a lifetime: a guest spot on Late Night with Craig Rogan. If it went well, he could finally move into a big theater on the Strip and see his name glowing alongside the greats’: Lance Burton, Flynn & Kellar, Daniel Devereaux. He spent a month designing a brand-new illusion—but on the night of the live taping, it went horribly wrong.
My memories of the incident were like fragments of a bad dream. Probably I had manufactured them, cobbled them together from YouTube videos and overheard conversations. But they seemed real to me. Looking down at Dad onstage now, I wondered if he was wearing the same black tie he’d worn that night.
The lights came up, and the wedding guests began to applaud. I remembered the faint smell of burning dust in Craig Rogan’s studio, the heat of the overhead lights. I tried to repel the memories of that night, but they pushed against my mind relentlessly, like a song, until I closed my eyes and let them come.
I’m holding my mother’s hand as the curtain ascends. When the lights come up on my father, standing center stage, she kisses my cheek, lets go of my hand, and crosses to him. As she turns to acknowledge the audience, her smile is luminous in the glare of the lights. She selects a volunteer, who binds Dad’s wrists and ankles—and then a second curtain goes up, revealing an old red Chevy pickup truck and an enormous Plexiglas tank filled with water. My mother helps Dad into the truck, and a winch hauls it toward the rafters.
The hush of the crowd, the gleam of chrome—and the splash as the truck hits the surface and sinks until the water is over his head.
Laughter from below jarred me back into the moment. Dad was finishing his new opening bit: dropping a red toy truck into a half-filled fish tank. The audience responded with a bout of laughter; it had worked.
When our gigs had begun to dry up, we’d had to do something to address Dad’s reputation problem. To point out the elephant in the room right at the top so everyone could move on and enjoy the show. But Dad was proud, and it had taken me a long time to persuade him to try the Toy Truck Drop. When he finally relented, it worked perfectly. Audiences laughed, relieved by his self-deprecating humor. They trusted him again, and he was able to perform with his old vigor and panache. For a year or so, the bookings picked up. But then they began to evaporate again, until we had only one gig on the calendar. This one.
I watched Dad step off the stage and circulate among the attendees, picking cards and finding coins to their delight. Most of the guests were older, probably friends of Princess Becca’s parents. The bride herself sat at a high table next to her pasty, corn-fed husband, smiling for pictures and picking at her salad. Overhead, the clouds threatened to break open, but luckily for her, they hadn’t yet.
I spotted Liam near the stage, holding court with a pair of girls. I recognized the pretty blonde; she’d been one of the baseball groupies at Eastside. She took his arm and started to lead him into the house, but then he glanced up to where I stood on the balcony.
Reflexively, I shrank away from the railing—but I was pretty sure he’d caught me watching him. God, I was embarrassing. What was I doing? Liam had been nice enough to me during Damn Yankees rehearsals, but once the show was over, he’d ignored me completely. Besides, that had been a year ago. It was ancient history now.
Liam and his girls had looked like they were making plans to escape the reception. I envied them; I had never had a group of friends, or any hope of escape. I had precisely one friend, who I knew only by his avatar and his voice.
I pulled out my phone and found the Millers’ Wi-Fi, thinking I should call Ripley as promised—but the network was password protected. So I sent a text instead.
Me: No Wi-Fi. :( Can you text?
I stared at the screen for two solid minutes, but Ripley didn’t reply. I imagined him lying back on his bed, texting with someone else instead, some new IRL bestie at his IRL high