Corey looked behind him and everyone laughed. He sighed and joined Tal on the stage.
“So this is why you asked me to wear Speedos?” Corey said into the mic. “And boy, am I glad I didn’t.”
More laughter from the audience.
“I’m going to ask Corey to select a member of the audience who can ask me to multiply two large numbers, divide two numbers or find the square root of a number. I should be able to beat your calculators.”
Wow.Corey picked out a woman with her hand up. Then a man. Then Jefferson. Tal was quicker every time.
“Now I’ll tell you which day and month you were born,” Tal said. “Put the day of your birth into the calculator, multiply it by two. Add five. Then multiply by fifty. Now add the month, so one for January, two for February, etc. Hand up when you’re done.”
He turned to Corey. “Pick anyone to tell me the number they have in their calculator.”
Tal got the date right every time. How did he do that? Everyone applauded.
“Now I’m going whisper the secret to my lovely assistant and see how he does,” Tal said.
“Maths?” Corey yelped and everyone laughed.
Tal put his mouth to Corey’s ear. “Take 250 from the number they say. First one or two digits are the day, next one or two are the month. So 01 would be January.”
Tal picked out an audience member.
“1259,” a man called.
“Tenth of September,” Corey said.
There was buzz of amazement.
“862,” someone else called.
“Sixth of December.”
After four more, Tal took Corey’s hand, bowed and they left the stage.
“That was amazing,” Corey said.
“Not really.”
“Hey! It was. I can’t do long division or multiplication in my head. However you managed to do it, it was incredible.”
The next act was a husband-and-wife duo, with the husband playing the piano. They did a tuneful rendition ofWhite Christmas. They were followed by a magician—not bad, a comedian—not good, which made Corey feel for him, and then Jefferson called Corey back to the stage to finish off the event before the dancing started.
“You outshine them all,” Tal said.
Corey playedRunand sang to Tal. About singing for the last time, about Tal being the only right thing in all he’d done, about running for their lives, saying long goodbyes…Light up…Tal made him light up. But Corey knew their time together was limited.
“You want to dance?” Tal asked.
Corey was desperate to say yes, but he had a headache. In any case, he could see Tal didn’t want to dance.
As they made their way upstairs, the pain in Corey’s head increased to a point that made his vision waver. He stumbled and grabbed the banister to keep from falling. A couple coming down the stairs slowed as if to help him and for a brief moment, Corey thought it was his mum and dad. Her lovely smile and his green eyes… Green eyes he saw in the mirror every day. But how could it be? He turned but they were already moving away. He wanted to go after them, but Tal had caught his arm.
“Are you okay?” Tal asked.
“My head hurts. It’s because you made me do maths. Ugh.” Corey managed a smile. Just.
Tal chuckled.
