Anything by Lou Aronica

Author:Lou Aronica
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2017-09-18T20:53:08+00:00

Chapter 13

A Different Magic Trick

I felt very alone in this world. Paul was different. The people in my office saw me as someone I hadn’t been for a long time. Even the cat’s attitude wasn’t the same. Meanwhile, Melissa was impossibly far away, seated behind her grand piano practicing in some rehearsal hall or perhaps the glass-enclosed great room of a magnificent villa out west (her online bio was no more specific than that). I needed to connect with someone who knew me, someone who knew who I really was.

I went to see Stephon.

“I was wrong,” he said with a patient smile when I stepped into the store. “I guessed you’d be here yesterday.”

“I was too stupefied to come in here yesterday.”

He dipped his head and nodded. Stephon seemed a little different too—different beyond his businesslike clothing. Had I somehow changed him as well? Did it have something to do with the jewelry I didn’t buy for Melissa, that bauble he went out of his way to get for me and then I ignored altogether? Or was it something else entirely, something about the trip he’d sent me on?

“Tell me what you’ve found,” he said softly.

“You really don’t know?”

“I really don’t know.”

I approached the counter slowly. I don’t think I’d ever walked this far into the store without my eye landing on some remarkable item or other. Today, the only thing I noticed was the carpet.

“She’s gone,” I said. “Completely gone. We never met, she doesn’t live in Washington, and she has a completely different, completely fabulous life without me.”

Stephon seemed touched by the news. “You knew this could happen.”

“To tell you the truth, I had no idea this could happen. I mean, after seeing Melissa and Hoffman, I didn’t think about much of anything other than destroying that horrible woman.”

“You did save Melissa from her, didn’t you?”

I shook my head sadly. “I did.”

“And you say she has a great life now.”

“She certainly seems to. She’s a professional musician. I never knew it, but this is what she always wanted.”

“Then you did a great thing for her.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Yes, I did.”

“But?”

“But I did a terrible thing for me. Not to mention what’s happened to my friend Paul, or that my assistant thinks she works for an unfeeling jerk, or that my cleaning person needs to wear a HazMat suit every time he comes to my apartment.”

“I tried to explain to you that there could be unfortunate consequences to your actions.”

I threw my arms up in the air. “I know you did. I mean, I heard you say it, though I didn’t really comprehend it. There has to be something I can do. There has to be something you can do. Don’t I get a third wish or something?”

Stephon smiled dimly. “That’s a different magic trick, and not one I’m capable of performing, I’m afraid.”

“You can send me back again, can’t you? There has to be a way to set this up. I’ll give it a huge amount of thought this time before I go.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.