Recipient of Houston Baptist University's Danny Lee Lawrence Award in April 2018 and published in Houston Baptist University's Writ in Water in April 2019.
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There is a boy at the carnival who asks Lauren to pick a card, any card, but her cards have always been picked for her. She looks at him as she stops walking by. He’s young — too young to be working here.
"Do you have a booth?" she asks, raising her eyebrows at him.
"Well, uh," he collapses the fan of cards he'd been offering her and drops his hands by his sides, "No."
Her presence is taller than his, even though he has a few inches on her. She tilts her head, feigning confusion, "You don't work here?"
"No," he admits, sheepishly, "I'm just… hanging out."
"Why?"
"I wanna practice my magic.”
Lauren glances at the carousel beside them. "Next to the Merry, Merry-Go-Round?"
He motions at the line of people still waiting for their turn, "I planned on catching people while they wait. Seemed like a good idea."
"But," the boy frowns as he glances at the line of carousel-goers, "Nobody wants to see my magic."
"I do," she says, seriously, nodding slightly when he looks at her in surprise. The enthusiasm in his eyes reminds her a bit of Antonio, but she lets that thought slide because she's spending the day away from the apartment on the pretense that she's out looking for a job, which she clearly isn't.
"Okay, um," he holds out his finger at her and puffs his chest up, asking in a wavering faux-performer voice, "First, what's your name?"
"Lauren," she answers with a brief chuckle.
"Lauren, do you believe in magic?" When she raises her eyebrows, he tsk’s at her, "You have to believe in magic for this to work."
She thinks about the magic flowing in her veins — the belief in fate that brought her home to a family she had never known — that could move mountains, but never her demons. It’s probably not the kind the boy is thinking about, though. "Yeah," she shrugs, "I believe in magic."
"Good," the boy fans out his deck, holding it out to her, "Now, pick a card, any card."
Lauren isn't in control of her destiny, but she reaches out and picks a card. She peeks: ace of hearts. Slipping the card back into the deck, Lauren watches as the boy shuffles. She can tell there's a few seconds where he almost drops the entire deck but doesn’t, but she just stands there and stays patient.
When the boy is done shuffling, he pulls a magic wand out of his back pocket, "Abracadabra!" He twirls the wand fancily, taps the deck, and sticks the wand back in his pocket. "Your card is now at the top," he declares, and she smiles at his rising confidence.
He shows the top card at her: a seven of clubs, "Is this your card?"
Lauren stares at the card for a long moment, unsure of what to tell him. His eyes search her face for an answer, for the disappointment that she's sure he's prepared himself for, and she doesn't have the heart to break his. "Yes," Lauren says, finally, giving him her brightest smile, "That's my card.”
"Oh, okay—" he starts, his face falling, but then his brain catches up with her words, and he blinks, "Wait, really?”
She laughs, shaking her head, "Yes, really."
He looks between her and the card in his hand and whoops. "Oh, man! You don't know how happy that makes me," the boy exclaims, and Lauren decides that it was a good thing to tell him a lie. Sometimes, that's what it takes.