Page 23 of Skating and Fake Dating
“Ahh! I appreciate your enthusiasm, miss. You and your gentleman, please step forward.” He gestures toward us.
I point at myself. “Me?” I’m not her gentleman.
Bailey links her arm through mine and drags us into the small circle surrounding the magician. He asks our names and then presents us to the crowd.
“Such an attractive couple. Aren’t they?” he asks everyone gathered.
They give a rousing round of applause.
The magician asks, “Have either of you ever been arrested?”
“Does that disqualify us?” Bailey asks.
“Not in the slightest. You’ll see it gives you credibility in this instance,” the magician answers.
“Unfortunately,” I mutter.
Bailey stares at the floor.
I tuck my chin. Has she been arrested? I cannot imagine thissweet and adorably disheveled yet professional woman being thrown into the back of a police cruiser.
With a chummy grin, Bailey supplies, “He stole a piglet.”
The crowd laughs.
Eyes wide, I ask, “What did you do?”
Clearing her throat, she whispers, “It was a crime of passion.”
Who is this lady? I imagine I have cartoon googly eyes right about now.
The crowd leans in, intrigued.
“My ex was holding my favorite sweater hostage, so I let myself into his apartment to retrieve it. He came home. Bad timing, right? And called the police. He charged me with breaking and entering.”
With the way she winces. I’m not convinced that’s the entire story.
“Then you will both be familiar with these.” The magician dangles a pair of handcuffs for everyone to see. “State-issued handcuffs to bond any common criminal.”
They look like the real deal, but I imagine some gimmick like a hidden button to override the locking mechanism.
Sensing where this is going, I nudge Bailey and say, “Fascinating. But we should probably get going. The clock is ticking.”
Eyes bright with amusement, trying not to move her lips, she says, “Come on, this will be fun. They’re obviously not real. He’s just going to cuff us together, wave his hands, they’ll disappear, everyone will gasp, and we’ll be on our way.”
My stomach clenches in the same way it has whenever I’ve been presented with a potentially dangerous idea—bungee jumping, tractor races, piglet stealing. By the way, I returned it to Farmer Jones with a proper apology.
The magician slides the cuff around Bailey’s left wrist, clicking it into place. Turning to us, but loud enough for the growing audience to hear, he says, “Do you trust each other?”
“Sure! Hook us up!” Bailey thrusts her arm toward me.
But do I trust the magician? However, before I can object, the other cuff locks around my right wrist.
He demonstrates that they’re secure, wiggles his fingers to show that he does not have a key, and then says, “In one simple move—” Waving his hand across the links of the cuffs, my pulse skips and then plummets.
Nothing happens.
A consummate professional, he declares, “That was to show that no ordinary person has the ability to free these people from their bonds. No, it takes a special flick of the—” He motions again, and I expect the handcuffs to drop from our wrists, but they remain fixed, locked.
