Vanishing Acts
Prologue
I was six years old the first time I
disappeared.
My father was working on a magic act for the
annual Christmas show at the senior center, and
his assistant, the receptionist who had a real
gold tooth and false eyelashes as thick as
spiders, got the flu. I was fully prepared to
beg my father to be part of the act, but he
asked, as if I were the one who would be doing
him a favor.
Like I said, I was six, and I still believed
that my father truly could pull coins out of my
ear and find a bouquet of flowers in the folds
of Mrs. Kleban's chenille housecoat and make Mr.
van Looen's false teeth disappear. He did these
little tricks all the time for the elderly folks
who came to play bingo or do chair aerobics or
watch old black-and-white movies with
soundtracks that crackled like flame. I knew
some parts of ... read full excerpt from Vanishing Acts ebook
