Page 16 of New Orleans Rush

She slowly removed his top hat from engulfing her head. “It doesn’t fit anyway.” But goofing around had kept her from glancing at the large auditorium and imagining it filled with people.

He stalked toward her and snatched the top hat away, cape swishing around his jeans. “It’s time to move on. I’m getting the zigzag box.”

Bea didn’t know what a zigzag box was, but if she could hide inside it, performing might be easier. When she realized he was heading for the prop room behind the stage, her nerves switched tracks.

She’d barely slept last night, thanks to that amazing room and an artistic epiphany that had finally coaxed beauty from her fingers. If she’d left evidence of her paints while tidying, Huxley would likely kick her out. She might struggle to paint again, which was unacceptable.

Bea had been a starving artist since birth. Chocolate syrup finger paintings and mashed potato carvings had occupied her early years. Icing smeared walls and peanut butter sculptures followed. She’d built chewing gum castles and Skittles worlds, all to her mother’s delight, using every available food source, choosing art over eating. Starving for her craft.

Then she’d found paint. Glorious, bold, titanic paint. She’d painted windowsills, doorknobs, cutlery, toothbrushes, using surfaces to study portions of people and animals. She’d stolen sections of the world to make them shine. The past seven years, she’d worked odd jobs, while exorcising the muses from her mind and finishing high school through evening classes. She’d saved her pennies and planned to attend the California Institute of Art.

Until Franklyn Baker had ruined that dream.

But dreams were intangible things. They could bend and stretch, appear in black-and-white or color. At twenty-eight, the notion of saving for school again had lost its luster, but the larger problem, the devastation plaguing Bea the past month, had been her creative rut. Since her father had undermined her kindness again, everything she’d painted had been bland, like all her colors turned taupe the second they hit a surface. Lifeless studies. Flat portraits.

An artistic dry spell that had ended last night.

All it had taken was found two-by-fours of wood, her minimal paints and brushes, and a cacophony of magical inspiration. Her mind had bloomed with imagery, the brush an extension of her hand. Squatting at the Marlow Theater was no longer a last resort. She needed this assistant position. She needed this splendiferous building to feed her soul, even if it came with a surly Huxley Marlow and a raging case of stage fright.

A standing coffin-box rolled from the wings, Huxley walking behind it. The frame was electric violet and black, with a white female figure painted on the surface. A cut-out at the top awaited a human face. Two smaller holes—one at the waist, one by the head—seemed to be for hands.

Huxley positioned the box beside her. “This classic illusion has been performed since the sixties. It’s called Zigzag Girl, and we usually do it every show. Since Fox doesn’t fit in this box, we did the sawing-in-half piece last night, but you should fit fine.”

He barely glanced at her while speaking, an oddity he’d exhibited all day. He’d talk to her knees, her elbows, her shoulders, getting grouchier with each interaction. He held this particular conversation with her hair.

She tried to meet his eyes. “Why is it called Zigzag Girl?”

He palmed the middle section and shoved. The painted body divided into three, its tummy zigging to the right. “That’s why.”

She beamed. “Give me a sec while I take a picture.” Without an audience and her curmudgeonly tutor, this magic gig wasn’t half bad.

But Huxley said, “No.”

She froze partway to her phone. “I just want to send a quick text to my mom. She’ll think this is really fun.”

His rigid stance drooped slightly. “I don’t have time for texts or fun.”

The wistfulness on his face squeezed her heart. “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

He finally met her eyes, a piercing gaze that made her feel like she’d eaten a handful of Pop Rocks. “Sadder than passing a homeless child on the street?”

She refrained from rolling her eyes. “Don’t be obtuse. And I said heard not seen.”

“Shall I be isosceles?”

“I’d say you’re equilateral. The even-steven sort. And a serious stickler.”

His lips pulled up at one side. “A stickler, you say?”

“Of the anal sort.”

This time he chuckled. “That could be, but it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t have time for fun.”

“Do you want to have fun?”

His attention fixed on her lips. His cheeks hollowed and his breath stilled, like he was slowing his pulse to pass a lie-detector test. “I very much want to have fun.”

Yep. Bea had a serious case of Pop Rocks, and she didn’t want to frustrate him further. She would photograph the painted box tonight. Text her mother with the tagline, Guess who’s getting zigzagged? Her mother would probably reply with a picture of a pig’s face or fried crickets, or whatever daring meal she’d recently enjoyed, with an equally cheery description.