“It’s almost eight.” Joan takes my forearm lightly, my skin firing underneath her touch. Stop it, Alex, focus. “The stagehands are bringing in the mirror stand now. We should get ready.”
The troupe exchanges words of encouragement, divides, takes their respective places around the performance space, and waits for the crowd. I follow Joan over to our circular stage, the one the audience will see first and, given our trick, no doubt flock toward to watch. Our tilting mirror stand has already been placed in the center of our performance stage, but instead of a mirror inside it, it holds a long, narrow piece of glass. Joan and I each settle on opposite sides of the glass and smile at each other through it. Waiting.
You need to make sure, in the midst of all the tricks and manipulations, that you’re not fooled yourself.
Keep your eyes open—for McEvoy, for Agent Frain. Something’s going down, maybe something tonight. Remember your purpose—don’t get distracted.
In minutes, the doors open. The stagehands have dimmed the lights, taken their places behind the liquor bar to serve a complimentary cocktail to our patrons. A staccato-like jazz begins to waft from a phonograph next to the bar. And then, in clusters, the patrons begin to pour into the space.
They come in, dressed in their evening best—polished, powerful-looking older couples, furs and gems on the ladies, fedoras on the men. Crowds of youngish professionals and new-money gangster types, each one of them willing to throw away fifteen dollars to get lost in magic for a night. They burst through the door hungrily, flood around the bar, buzz around the stagehands. Soon they’ll be on to us.
Joan takes a long look at me through the glass. Despite the confident smile I’ve managed to glue on, perspiration starts dotting my forehead, and my throat is tight. I can feel the jump of my heart through my borrowed silk vest. I’ve been onstage a long time in one sense, for months, played all sorts of venues. But something about being under these hot lights with the music playing and the audience closing in, it starts to turn me inside out. Almost like it’s too fitting, too much.
“Alex, you’re going to be great,” Joan stage-whispers around the mirror stand. “The first show was hard for me, too.”
“It’s nerves. I’m fine.” I flash her that false smile again.
But I can’t seem to calm down. Working over Howie, working over Win, working over McEvoy—it was careful work, nuanced, and personal. This is a performance in the truest sense, big and bold, and with a huge audience. My eyes scan the room for the underbosses I’m here to tail, to spy on—can anyone tell I’m here to bring this Den to its knees? Can anyone see right through me on this stage?
Christ, I actually might vomit—
“Alex,” Joan says as she walks quickly around the glass stand dividing us. Now she’s inches away. Her eyes flit to the crowd at the bar. “You just need to focus, okay? Don’t make this about more than it is, like proving McEvoy wrong. You are talented. It was his loss, letting you go.” She grabs my hand and I puff out a breath. She thinks I’ve got stage-fright. That I’m paralyzed over what happens if McEvoy’s discarded street sorcerer can’t earn his way to stay working at the Den. She’s as right as she is wrong.
“I understand what you’re feeling”—Joan drops her voice another octave and squeezes my hand—“like you’re on your last legs, like everything’s riding on one night. But just focus on one step at a time, all right? Keep your focus on me, me and you, right here, right now, just like practice.” Her eyes are warm, encouraging, almost needy. Like she’s depending on me.
Just her and me.
Joan is right, I need to focus. Alex the agent doesn’t survive another day without Alex the performer. All I need to think about is this trick, this show.
Joan flashes me one more encouraging look, drops my hand, and walks back across our circle. A small crowd has gathered around us, and I hear whispers, speculation about the new boy onstage with Joan, attempting a trick they’ve never seen before.
I can do this, just like everything I’ve managed to do to land me on this stage.
And then Joan and I begin. We approach the stand, stop when we’re a few inches away from it, and press our palms against our respective sides of the glass. At the same time, we take a breath and whisper, “Capture and divide, befit to enchant.”
The glass trembles, glimmers just the slightest shade brighter before it settles, spellbound, in between us, as a double-sided trick. But unlike a double-sided trick that links two objects into one, like two doors into a passageway, this is a separation: it takes one object and divides it into two. On my side, the image of Joan is now trapped in the glass, my easel to use and manipulate, like a mirror that gives me back the wrong reflection. On her side, my image in the glass will remain fixed and provide my own replica as her canvas. The audience immediately starts murmuring, some of the polished, painted women in the front getting off their benches to make sure they see both sides.