Chapter 4
The water fountain was located at the entrance of the building, and ringed with wooden benches. The owners heated it just enough to keep the water flowing year-round, and a haze of steam covered the surface where the warmth hit the cold air. Children going in and out of the building would make wishes on coins and toss them into the water, and I thought I’d heard somewhere that the owners would donate the money made on the fountain to the children’s hospital. Tonight, the fountain was lit with red and pink lights for Valentine’s Day, and heart and Cupid decorations hung from the lamp posts.
We sat on a bench where we could watch the water and the passing people. The clientele changed over as families with young children left the building and older teenagers and adult couples arrived. I reached over and clutched Derrick’s big hand in mine. Ball mishaps aside, I really was enjoying the date. Derrick was easy to spend time with. I didn’t feel a need to impress him as I’d often felt when dating fellow musicians. Remembering how angry I had been with him just that morning, I realized I’d forgiven him somewhere along the way. It was hard to stay mad at the big guy, but I still wanted answers to why he had bailed on me those other times. Through our few aborted attempts and our sporadic text conversations, I realized I knew very little about the Mysterious Derrick. I knew nothing about his friends and family. He never talked about himself. I knew he was some sort of magician, but what did that mean? Stage shows, little kid birthday parties, national tours? Shit, what if he was like “David Blain” famous, and I didn’t even know it?
“You know,” I said. “I just realized I don’t know anything about you. Tell me about yourself.”
His palm grew damp in mine, and he pulled it away to wipe it discreetly on his jeans. “Me? Oh, I’m boring. Let’s talk about you. When’s your next show?”
I side-eyed him. “Don’t try to change the subject. I’m serious. Tell me about your family.”
“I don’t have much family to speak of.”
“Why not?”
He sighed, seeming to accept that I wasn’t giving up on this. “Fine. I never knew my dad. He split before I was born. My parents were only in high school when my mom got pregnant. She did the best she could raising me, but I could always tell the responsibility got to her. She worked as a receptionist in a doctor’s office. When I was about sixteen, she up and married one of the doctors in the practice. He didn’t have much use for me, and with me being mostly grown, neither did she. I started working as a magician, and once I was able to support myself, I left home and didn’t go back. We mainly see each other at Christmas dinner and that’s about it.”
How sad. My own parents were older when they had me, and they were both gone now, but we’d been close while they were alive.
“So, you’re an only child like me?”
“As far as I know. My father might have gone on to have other kids, but I wouldn’t know about that.”
“And tell me about your magic. When did you start doing tricks?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A long time ago. When did you start playing the violin?”
I glared at him. “Why do you keep doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“Changing the subject?”
“I don’t want to dwell on all that past bullshit. I just want to be here with you.”
“How is it dwelling on past bullshit to ask you about your magic?” He didn’t answer, just stared at the fountain. “If you don’t want to talk, what is this whole date about? You only in this to see if you can get laid?”
He turned to me, mouth open, but didn’t speak.
“That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t want to really get to know each other, you just want sex. Well, fine then. I want it; you want it. Let’s quit wasting time!” I grabbed him by the lapels and crushed our mouths together in a hot, angry kiss. When he kissed me back, I pressed my tongue in his warm mouth and tasted him for the first time. I barely got a chance to melt into the kiss when a jet of lukewarm water blasted us, sending us sputtering apart.
It took me a moment to realize the water came from one of the fountain jets, and before I could jump out of the way, I was soaked to the bone.
One of the workers shouted for someone to shut the water off, and others ran out to see if we were all right.
“I’m fine! I’m fine.” I yelled, batting their hands away. But I wasn’t fine. My wet shirt felt like it was rapidly freezing to my nipples, and the spots on my glasses clouded my vision.
Derrick, just as wet as I was, looked guilty, but for what, I didn’t know. Towels appeared from well-meaning staff, and we wiped ourselves down as best as we could. My makeup left flesh-colored streaks on the cloth and my hair flattened to my scalp. While I surely looked like a drowned rat, Derrick just looked sexier wet. He’d taken his jacket off and his shirt clung to his fabulous chest. Knowing mine was nothing to look at, I left my jacket on. A chubby manager guy waddled out from the complex to fuss over us.
“I’m so sorry, gentlemen! Nothing like this has ever happened before.”
A janitor, now wading in to inspect the water nozzle, said, “I don’t get it, boss. It’s appears to be perfectly fine.”
“It’s okay,” Derrick said.
“No, it’s not,” I muttered.
The manager pressed a couple of business cards into our hands. “Please, send the dry-cleaning bills to us. We are so sorry.”
I wanted to go home. Forget this night! Every time we turned around, something went wrong. I wanted to get out of these clothes, pour myself a giant glass of wine and settle in with a good book.
“I’m leaving.”
Derrick’s face fell. “What about dinner?”
“Dinner? You think Chez Roux is going to let us in like this?” I gestured to myself as Exhibit A.
“Well, no, but we’re both hungry. It wouldn’t be right if I took you home without feeding you.”
The manager, eager to make us feel better, piped in, “Why don’t you gentlemen come into our bar and grill here. I’ll seat you at the table beside the fireplace, so you can dry out. And your dinner is on the house, of course.”
I wanted to say no, but at the mention of dinner, my belly growled, reminding me that I’d skipped lunch that day in anticipation of a multi-course French dinner. And as usual, I didn’t have much in the house to cook. Dinner at the restaurant inside the recreation complex would have to do.
We followed the manager inside, where he led us to a table beside a gas fireplace. Normally, it would have been too warm for me, but with the wet clothes, I grudgingly had to admit it felt nice. I wiped my glasses on a napkin and felt mildly better once I could see straight.
A waiter scurried over with a bottle of wine, compliments of the manager, and poured us two glasses. He took our orders – we both got the steak and an appetizer of twice-baked potatoes – and returned to the kitchen.
“To second chances,” Derrick said, raising his glass.
“More like third and final chance,” I muttered and swallowed a big gulp, barely tasting the wine. I was being a brat, I know. Rather than being annoyed with me, Derrick just smiled. “Sorry. I’m being a dick now.”
“It’s okay. Why don’t we start over?”
“Right…okay. We can start by discussing your emergencies that took you away from our other dates.”
“Emergen— Oh, yeah! Sorry. Everything is fine now. Why don’t you tell me about your family?”
“No. Back up. You told me that night at the movies that you had an emergency and had to split. What was that about?”
This time, Derrick’s expression turned sheepish. “Oh, it was just something that came up with work.”
“You had a magic emergency? Did a rabbit get stuck in a hat? A coin lodged in a kid’s ear? Have a woman sawed in half, and unable to get her back together?”
He leveled a blank stare at me.
I leveled one back.
“Here you go,” The cheery waiter said, placing our appetizer in front of us. “Be careful, the plate is warm.”
“Thank you,” Derrick said. He gave a waiter a grateful smile. I barely resisted kicking him in the shin.
Derrick unrolled the cloth napkin that had been wrapped around his utensils and spread it across his lap. Taking up his knife and fork, he cut off piece of potato and took a bite.
“What?” he asked between chews.
I shook my head, more than a little peeved. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“What question?” He sipped from his wine.
“You know what question!” I practically growled through my clenched teeth.
Just then, his phone sitting on the table vibrated. He snatched it up before I could read the incoming message. He studied it and set the phone face down on the table.
“No!” I exclaimed, stabbing my meat with my knife. “You’re not leaving me again.”
The couple from the next table gawked at me, and I flashed them a mind-your-own-business glare.
Derrick took a deep breath. “No, I’m not leaving. It was just a notification from Facebook.”
I let out the tension from my shoulders with a sigh. “Good.” I looked at my knife impaling my dinner and felt silly. “Sorry. Thought it was an accident with the clown car or something.”
“I don’t work in the circus.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know, because you never talk about yourself, do you?” I popped a bite of mashed potatoes in my mouth. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you blow past my question again.”
“Fine. I’m a magician… on the side. There’s a club downtown where I perform. It used to be more often, but now I’m down to only a few times a year. Mostly, I do it because I think it’s fun, and I want to keep performing a part of my life. But my actual job is more of a… consultant role.”
“A magic consultant? Like helping other magicians set up tricks?”
“No, nothing to do with magic.”
“Then, what?”
He paused for a beat. “That, I can’t tell you.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I slapped my fork down on the table, harder than I had intended, setting off a chain of actions that my brain could barely parse.
The force of my hand striking the table caused it to shake, sending the delicate wine glass toppling in my direction. The red wine sloshed and spilled out of the glass, running across the white table cloth, and rushing toward my lap. But before the wine could reach me, it changed course and rolled back to the glass, which itself then reversed course, returning upright.
I stared at the full glass of wine, noted the unstained, white table cloth and looked to Derrick, his hand outstretched.