She didn’t say yes, but she didn’t say no either. He showed her a better dealer’s grip, moving her fingers into position around the deck—her fingers were like ice. He showed her how to fan out half and control the first card returned on top of the selected card. He adjusted her little finger as it held a gap in the cards near the back of the deck. “When you set up the break—I know it’s cold out here, but try to use just the tip of your little finger and don’t let me see it. You see there? Tilt the pack up toward my eye level so I don’t see it, and watch for the people on your right. Use your right hand to cover. Now …”

Slowly, one step at a time, he guided her hands through the moves. “Okay, try the count again, and move in deeper with the right hand. That’s it. Right hand covers the steal. Oops, don’t let that edge hang out. Try again. Keep that left hand moving so it draws the heat. They’ll tend to watch the hand that’s moving. There, that’s it!”

He took her through the routine up to the finale, the selected card mysteriously transferred into his hands. She’d have plenty of homework to do, if she did it.

But now her eyes were tearing up as she slowly shuffled the cards. He hurt her feelings. “You okay?”

She just nodded. “I am veree sankful, sir!”

“I hope I haven’t offended you.”

She shook her head emphatically. “Oh, no, no sir! I am just so glad zat you cared … to show me. Eet ees just as my faw-zere used to show me.”

“Well, I showed you the trick, but …” He hesitated. “But, uh …”

She was listening, her eyes on him. And she was shivering.

“You need to get home, you’re freezing. You live around here?”

“I am staying at—”

“No, no, don’t tell me. Never tell a stranger where you live. Uh … oh, brother, just hold on a second.” He dug into his bag and pulled out the wool sweater. “Here.” He draped it around her shoulders. It was big on her, but right now that was a good thing. “Listen, I gotta go. You’re getting cold and I have some more stops to make, so just let me tell you for your own good—I’m being honest, okay? This … this gig is all wrong. You’re going to freeze out here and the season’s over—if there ever was one.”

She just listened, dabbing her eyes and pulling the sweater close around her.

“You need to get some indoor gigs, maybe kids’ birthday parties. Kids are always having birthdays and parents talk to each other so they’ll be your best advertising. You work as an independent contractor, you set up your own gigs, you do your own payroll and taxes. It’s great experience, it can be good money—not great money, but good money, and steadier than this. Warmer, too. But you need another persona, a better shtick. This, this Gypsy fortune teller thing, the costume, the accent … it’s not marketable. Moms and dads won’t want you around their kids and the businesses—the fun zones, right? Chuck E. Cheese, a theme park, a, a family center—they aren’t going to want you in their establishment because you’re not … you’re not ‘family,’ you know what I mean? You represent deception, dishonesty, maybe a little bit of temptation, you know?”

She looked as if she were trying to be brave even as tears came to her eyes again.

“No, no, please, I’m all for you, you understand? I want you to come out of this thing a winner. But the other thing about the Gypsy shtick is … well, it just isn’t you. You’re just not wearing it well. You need to be yourself. Find who you are and be that, and then—”

He saw a city police car coming their way down Sherman. “Do you have a permit?”

“A permeet?”

“Did you get a permit from the city to be out here doing business on their sidewalk?”

That stung her. “I didn’t know about zat.”

“Ehh, you don’t look like it.” He went for his shopping bag again and produced the wool cap. “Better put this on, right now.” He put it on her, covering most of her head, her scarf, and her face. “Take this bag and walk with me.”

She picked up the shopping bag and walked alongside him, face toward the storefronts as the police car passed by.

“I don’t know what the rules are in this town, but you’d better find out. You don’t want to get in trouble with the cops. But I was starting to say, magic isn’t just tricks. It’s a whole experience; it’s a story, an adventure that draws people along. You’re not going to hold people’s attention as long as you’re performing in fragments, just, you know, tricks. Did you notice how you had to run after me? The people see you do one trick, they think you’re done, they move on, and you get nickels and dimes instead of dollars. And you think they’re going to spread the word about you? They need to see a show, something to hook ’em and make ’em stay even if it’s only five minutes long.”

He stopped and looked into those eyes. “Listen. I wish you the best. But keep learning, and …” He indicated her Gypsy outfit. “Don’t settle for this. You find … find the real person inside you, the one God made. I think people will like her.”

She thought that over a moment, a strange sadness in her eyes, and then she stopped and shed the sweater. “Sank you so much. I should go.”

“No! No no, you keep the sweater, keep the hat.”

She pulled off the hat. “No. I cannot be owing to you.”

“No! Keep ’em. Please. I’m going. I don’t want anything else from you. I’m just … I’m going. End of encounter.”

She looked at him, the tears starting to streak her makeup. “Are you sure?”

“You’re going to take good care of them, right?”

“Always.”

“All right then. Square deal.”

She worked on that a moment, but apparently the cold—and now being able to protect herself from it—persuaded her. With a quaking sniff, she pulled the sweater back around her body and the hat back on her head. “Sank you,” she said in a feeble Gypsy voice. “You are so very kind.”

“I’m so sorry if I hurt you.”

“No, no, eet ees not you. You have not hurt me. You have helped me. Sank you.” She gave him a little bow.

“You’re very welcome,” he said.

“You are right. Eet ees cold. I should go home now.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. Get warm.”

“May God bless you.”

“And God bless you, too.”

“Sank you again, so much.” She gave him a polite bow and started up the street, wiping her eyes, quickening her step to get away.

He watched her go until he thought he might be staring and looked down at his shopping bag, hanging open. He grabbed it up. Much lighter now. He looked up the street again, but she was gone.

chapter

11

The girl who called herself Eloise stepped quickly, keeping her face toward the storefronts and away from the street. That was all she needed, another run-in with the cops, and dressed very, very far from normal—as usual! So much for playing a Gypsy. She was playing embarrassed now, and vulnerable, and awkward, and … well, naked wouldn’t be that far off. This didn’t feel much different from that day on the fairgrounds. She hung a left and took the first cross street to get off Sherman.

Who was that guy? Out of nowhere, in no time, he hit all the right buttons to make her cry: he gently touched her, taught her, reminded her of her father, told her to find the real person inside. And she didn’t even get his name!

Keep walking, keep walking… .

She found any excuse to scratch her neck, brush her hair from her face, hold her cap on her head, anything to block a view of her face from the street.

A few blocks north, a right turn, two more blocks, and she made it safely to Sally and Micah Durham’s place, a halfway house run by the nicest family on the planet and her home for the past two weeks. She felt safe once she got inside the door—“Hi, it’s Eloise, I’m home!”—safer once she chucked the Gypsy outfit, and safest of all after a shower where the Gypsy face went swirling down the drain.