The Magician

Martha donned her black cape with the red velvet lining and packed her bag of essentials. There was no doubt that this would be a make-or-break career opportunity. She’d landed this gig by pure luck and she wasn’t about to mess it up. She checked herself in the mirror before she left her house, making sure there wasn’t any spinach in her teeth. The crowd tonight would be discerning and scrutinous. The event was a dry one, and without alcohol to smooth over any rough edges within the audience, she had to be perfect.

She arrived a few minutes early and was greeted at the door by the event’s host, Mr. Woodsmith. The evening’s celebration took place in his luxurious suburban home.

“Are you up to the challenge?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Of course,” Martha said with a bow. She pulled a bouquet of flowers from her sleeve to demonstrate her skill and appease her employer for the evening.

“Save it,” he said curtly, ushering her inside.

Mr. Woodsmith did not enjoy the antics of magicians like the other patrons. A clown stole his nose when he was in the second grade and from then on he despised these sorts of performers. But his wife, the good Mrs. Woodsmith, insisted that they hire Martha.

“She comes highly recommended,” Mrs. Woodsmith had implored.

Mr. Woodsmith just grumbled.

In the foyer of the Woodsmith home, Martha could hear the low hum of chatter from the guests of the private event. They were milling about in the backyard, enjoying hors d’oeuvres in the late summer evening.

“We have you booked to go on at seven,” Mr. Woodsmith said, checking his watch. “A thirty minute set.”

“You won’t be disappointed,” Martha said with an earnest smile.

He grumbled and retreated into his study.

Martha didn’t take it personally that he was not enchanted by her craft. A magician’s work is nothing short of, well, magic. And some folks just don’t have the magic in them. Mr. Woodsmith, though he was paying for her to be there, did not have the magic in him.

But this performance wasn’t for him. It was for Nathan Woodsmith.

Nathan Woodsmith was a discerning fellow, much like his father. He enjoyed the finer things in life, like a crustless PB&J sandwich, a fresh juice box from the fridge, and only the finest Saturday morning cartoons (streamed from the Apple TV of course). The young man would follow in his father’s footsteps and attend a mid-level university, earn mostly B’s, and eventually end up in some corporate job breathing down the necks of the employees below him.

But as it was, this was his tenth birthday party. And though it would be another decade before he could appreciate the nuance of corporate finance strategies, it didn’t stop him from asking for the best of the best at his birthday celebration.

“I want her to saw Dexter in half!” Nathan whined, grabbing his classmate by the arm and dragging the other boy to where his mother stood with an ornately arranged platter of snacks.

Dexter wriggled free, grabbed a handful of crinkle-cut potato chips, then darted away onto the lawn. He’d been to other birthday parties with magicians and did not trust them. He was mostly concerned about the welfare of the rabbits. Did they live in the hats all the time? And if so, what did they eat? And don’t even get him started on the sawing-a-person-in-half trick. That was just way over the line. Dexter would have none of it. He took his chips and burrowed into some of the bushes against the fence, wishing he’d worn his camo t-shirt. Unfortunately, it was in the laundry.

Martha saw a collection of child-sized lawn chairs arranged in a semi-circle on the grass in front of the deck, which had been decorated to look like a stage. It was the nicest performance venue Martha had been at in a while. She was still working towards the required number of hours to enter the Guild of Colorado Magicians. They didn’t just let anyone in, you see. You had to prove your mettle as a magician before they’d grant you membership. And boy did Martha want that little laminated card with her name on it beneath the GCM logo.

If her performance at the Woodsmith birthday party was successful, she’d be that much closer to her goal. Unfortunately, she did not bring her saw-a-person-in-half trick. She thought it would be too gory and scary for a child’s birthday party. Rookie mistake. This was why she’d not earned her GCM membership card yet.

Martha began to set up her props on the deck as children milled around, playing with bubble wands, operating RC cars, and drawing crude images with chalk on the fence. Someone drew an arrow to point out where Dexter was hiding and he retreated to a spot behind some trees on the other side of the yard.

Mr. Woodsmith appeared and tapped at his watch as he stood in the back door to the house. Mrs. Woodsmith called the children over and had them take their seats for Martha’s performance. Nathan sat front and center, a wicked smile on his face. Martha wasn’t sure what to make of it. Mr. Woodsmith did not have the magic in him, but did his son share the same trait? She swallowed down the mounting pressure. No one seemed to notice that Dexter was absent.

Martha began her performance with some simple card tricks, which seemed to go over well with the audience. Mrs. Woodsmith passed out small cups of worms and dirt– chocolate pudding with crumbled Oreo cookies and gummy worms. Great. If things went south and the kids flung spoonfuls of pudding at her, she’d have to get her cape dry cleaned. It wouldn’t be the first time that happened.

However, the show continued on without a hitch. The children laughed. Mrs. Woodsmith seemed pleased that she’d fought to hire Martha. Even Mr. Woodsmith cracked a small smile at one point. But only when his son was utterly bamboozled by a particularly crafty illusion. Perhaps the only magic the man understood was that of fatherhood.

There was one patron, however, who was not having a good time. Dexter wanted a worms in dirt snack. Envious of his peers who gobbled theirs down during the show, he decided to emerge from his hiding spot and attempt to secure a cup. But Mrs. Woodsmith’s platter was empty. The only worms in dirt cup remaining was the one she’d set aside for Martha. It lingered just to the side of Martha’s bag of props, on a white plastic chair at the side of the deck.

Carefully, Dexter snuck up through the bushes and reached a hand out to covertly steal the cup of pudding. But before he could, Martha snatched it up, unknowing of the potential poacher in the greenery. She incorporated the snack into her next illusion, intending to make the cup and its sugary contents disappear.

Dexter was not only devastated to miss out on the snack for a second time, but felt an impulse to save the chocolate dessert from whatever fate might befall it when Martha made it disappear. The gummy worms deserved better than that, he reasoned. Though no bunnies had been pulled out of hats, nor children sawed in half, Dexter’s mistrust of magicians persisted.

Just when Martha went to place a cloth over the cup of pudding, he bolted out the bushes and crashed right into her knees like a linebacker. She immediately toppled over and the worms in dirt cup flew out of her hand and into the air. The children watched with stunned faces as the magic show took an unexpected turn.

Much to the shock of all, the pudding cup hurtled straight for Mr. Woodsmith and splatted right into his balding head. He fell backwards slightly, his elbow jostling into Mrs. Woodsmith who was only just then coming into the backyard holding Nathan’s birthday cake.

The cake fell to the ground and splattered onto the deck in a magnificent explosion of white frosting and sprinkles.

Mrs. Woodsmith gaped in horror. Mr. Woodsmith wiped chocolate pudding off his head and unhooked a gummy worm from his ear. Dexter yelled something incoherent about liberating rabbits from top hats as he laid sprawled on the deck. Martha got caught up in her cape and fell forward into the slippery cake remains.

The audience of children erupted into cheers, finding the humiliated magician and destroyed cake ten times funnier than any of the acts Martha had performed. Some perhaps thought the scene was even part of the show.

Martha believed her career as a magician was over. No one would hire her after this debacle. The Guild of Colorado Magicians would frown upon how she’d besmirched the hallowed craft of illusion and magic.

Then she received an unexpected phone call from the Clowns of North America.

“We heard about what happened at the Woodsmith birthday party,” the man on the phone said in a very serious tone. “The GCM has blacklisted you.” The words stung more than Martha expected them to. “However,” the man continued, “we think you may have a future in clowning. The CNA wants to give you a shot.”

“Clowning?” Marth replied.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “It’s a very serious business, being a clown. But our senior chairman, Mr. Boing-Boing thinks you have real potential. Buttons, Bubbles, and Calico Catastrophe, our advisory board, all agree.”

“Alright,” Martha said with a grin. “I’ll do it.”