“Hello, Mom.”
“I just got off the phone with Mrs. Blackman. She’s very upset.”
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t want to go on the blind date in the first place.”
“She said that Arnold liked you very much.”
“Tell her to set him up with another friend’s daughter and he’ll be just fine. Look, Mom, I don’t want to talk anymore about Arnold. Is there anything else you want to talk about?”
“Oh, yes. I almost forgot. Your grandfather is putting on a magic show this afternoon at three. I think you should be there.”
Her mother had mentioned a while back that her grandfather had wanted to become a magician, but she had figured he might forget about it before the idea took root. Papa, as she affectionately called him, was always coming up with some new harebrained scheme. He was such a child at heart. A Dennis the Menace with liver spots instead of freckles, he was forever playing practical jokes on everyone. Grandma had given up on him a long time ago, which was no big surprise, for they had always seemed so different. She was quiet and reserved, hardly ever having to raise her voice. All she had to do was give Abby one of her special looks and Abby knew she was in hot water. Abby figured her grandmother grew old much too quickly to understand a person like Papa. Grandma merely treated Papa like an overgrown child, which didn’t seem to bother him at all.
Papa was always too busy coming up with some new crazy scheme. Abby chuckled thinking about the time he enrolled in a lion taming school. Grandma nearly had a stroke and nipped that outrageous idea in the bud. There was also the time he decided to take up farming and ordered a ton of peat moss to be delivered to the house. The mound had been so high it had come to the top of the windows on the second floor. It would have been a great idea had the garden been bigger than a three foot square. So now Papa wanted to be the next Houdini. Poor Grandma.
That afternoon, Abby drove to her mother’s house, not actually knowing what to expect. The two-family house she grew up in was ten minutes away on a quiet tree-lined block. No two houses were the same. Her mother’s, a lovely brick house, was nestled between one with a stucco facade and another with plain white vinyl-siding.
She sat in the car looking at the house she’d grown up in with the rest of her nutty family. There wasn’t one straight branch left on her family tree–except for her, of course. Her dad had run away when she was about six-months old. To tell the truth, Abby wondered how he managed to stay around as long as he did. Putting towels just so on a rack and storing food according to a chart in the refrigerator had probably been too much for him to handle over an extended period of time. In bed, Mrs. Minton probably desired to have sex by the numbers, as well.
As for Aunt Raelene, Abby had been told that she was once in love with a man named Jasper Klinger, who happened to be a traveling brush salesman. They’d dated for a while and there’d been talk of marriage. Abby wasn’t certain what happened to Jasper, but supposedly, he was Alycia’s dad. One day he simply disappeared.
Abby had realized at a young age that she wasn’t like the rest of her family. The first indication was the simple fact she wasn’t afraid of getting up in the morning to face what the world had to offer. However, it was her lack of facial tics that further convinced her.
Her aunt and mother resembled a pair of matching bookends. As crazy as it seemed, her mother had a tic in her right eye, while her aunt had one in her left. However, when Abby spoke to her aunt, she had to select one of her eyes to speak to, for her left eye pointed to the left and her right eye sort of did its own thing.
As for Alycia, she had a habit of scrunching up her face and blinking constantly. Having had to share a bed with her on occasion as kids, Abby had been kept awake listening to the cacophony of her teeth gnashing and grinding together like gears needing oiling all night. It was a wonder she hadn’t ground them all down to the gums by now. All this led Abby to wonder if she’d been switched at birth at the hospital and placed into the wrong family.
Abby got out of the car and walked into the house. The magic show was to take place in her mother’s living room. There were fifteen people sitting on folding chairs in the living room waiting for Papa the Magnificent to make his appearance. Papa had probably walked throughout the neighborhood inviting everyone, while Grandma had tried to stop him from inviting the entire world. Papa didn’t care much about occupancy laws and such. Abby suspected her mother had hoped most of the neighbors wouldn’t come. The tic in Mrs. Minton’s right eye was fluttering so fast that it looked like she was tapping out an SOS. Abby half-expected her to jump out of her chair and scream.
Abby kissed her mother and aunt and sat down, looking around her. Cousin Alycia was dressed in her camouflage fatigues and combat boots. Her earphones, which were connected to her iPod hidden in her fanny pack, were covered with aluminum foil to keep out the microwaves transmitted by the alien pod people. Abby’s brother, Steven, the wannabe wiseguy, was clad in his basic navy-blue Mafia suit, complete with silk black tie and hat straight out of the Godfather. Abby also noticed a man sitting and writing something in a notebook, looking even more suspicious than her own family. She sincerely hoped he wasn’t casing the joint.
Alvin, the six-year-old boy who lived next door, took a plastic kazoo from his pocket and tooted a fanfare. Papa shuffled into the room dressed in a tuxedo, a black, red-lined cape and a silk black top hat perched precariously on his head. Being a size too big, it kept slipping down. In his hand he held a long black wand with a white tip. Abby thought Papa looked more like a vampire than a magician.
Papa bowed to the clapping and his hat fell off and rolled into the audience. Abby retrieved it and gave it back to him. The show had officially begun. The first set of simple tricks that he performed worked rather well. Abby could see even her grandmother was impressed. Papa beamed with pride and was now ready to perform the finale. Of course, he needed a volunteer from the audience. Alvin jumped out of his chair, waving his arms, and Papa selected him. Alvin wore black glasses with thick lenses and was Papa’s little sidekick, despite his mother’s constant protests.
Papa asked Alvin to help him roll a tall, black box resembling a phone booth into the living room. He then opened the door to the box and showed the audience that it was empty inside. Alvin stepped inside and Papa closed the door. Using his magician’s voice, he called to Alvin. “You okay in there, sonny?”
A muffled, “Yes,” was barely audible and Abby heard a sigh come from the direction where Alvin’s mother was sitting.
Papa spun the box around three times and counted to three. “Abracadabra! Open Sesame Street!”
When he opened the door to the box, the kid was gone. Alvin’s mother, Mary, fainted dead away.
While Abby’s mother fanned Alvin’s mother, Grandma told Papa to bring Alvin back. Papa said his magic words again and opened the door to the box. To the horror of the audience, it was still empty.
“Papa,” Abby whispered. “I think you’d better get Alvin back here before Mary comes to.”
Abby watched her grandfather wave the magic wand across the door of the box for the third time. From where she was sitting, she could see beads of sweat forming across his forehead. People were beginning to look around the room for the kid, under chairs and behind them.
“What’s wrong, Papa?” Abby whispered.
“I think I really made Alvin disappear.”
“So, you don’t know where he went?”
Papa shook his head. “Maybe I’m such a good magician that he went into another dimension like on Star Trek.”
Just then Mary regained consciousness, but when she realized Alvin was still gone, she fainted again. Abby ran into the kitchen to get a cold compress. There, she found Alvin parked at the kitchen table devouring spoonfuls of chocolate mocha ice cream.
That performance turned out to be the last for Papa the Magnificent.
Chapter