08 Illusion by Frank Peretti

on a second.” He dug into his bag and pulled out the wool sweater. “Here.” He draped it around her shoulders. It was big on her, but right now that was a good thing. “Listen, I gotta go. You’re getting cold and I have some more stops to make, so just let me tell you for your own good—I’m being honest, okay? This … this gig is all wrong. You’re going to freeze out here and the season’s over—if there ever was one.”
    She just listened, dabbing her eyes and pulling the sweater close around her.
    “You need to get some indoor gigs, maybe kids’ birthday parties. Kids are always having birthdays and parents talk to each other so they’ll be your best advertising. You work as an independent contractor, you set up your own gigs, you do your own payroll and taxes. It’s great experience, it can be good money—not great money, but good money, and steadier than this. Warmer, too. But you need another persona, a better shtick. This, this Gypsy fortune teller thing, the costume, the accent … it’s not marketable. Moms and dads won’t want you around their kids and the businesses—the fun zones, right? Chuck E. Cheese, a theme park, a, a family center—they aren’t going to want you in their establishment because you’re not … you’re not ‘family,’ you know what I mean? You represent deception, dishonesty, maybe a little bit of temptation, you know?”
    She looked as if she were trying to be brave even as tears came to her eyes again.
    “No, no, please, I’m all for you, you understand? I want you to come out of this thing a winner. But the other thing about the Gypsy shtick is … well, it just isn’t you. You’re just not wearing it well. You need to be yourself. Find who you are and be that, and then—”
    He saw a city police car coming their way down Sherman. “Do you have a permit?”
    “A permeet?”
    “Did you get a permit from the city to be out here doing business on their sidewalk?”
    That stung her. “I didn’t know about zat.”
    “Ehh, you don’t look like it.” He went for his shopping bag again and produced the wool cap. “Better put this on, right now.” He put it on her, covering most of her head, her scarf, and her face. “Take this bag and walk with me.”
    She picked up the shopping bag and walked alongside him, face toward the storefronts as the police car passed by.
    “I don’t know what the rules are in this town, but you’d better find out. You don’t want to get in trouble with the cops. But I was starting to say, magic isn’t just tricks. It’s a whole experience; it’s a story, an adventure that draws people along. You’re not going to hold people’s attention as long as you’re performing in fragments, just, you know, tricks. Did you notice how you had to run after me? The people see you do one trick, they think you’re done, they move on, and you get nickels and dimes instead of dollars. And you think they’re going to spread the word about you? They need to see a show, something to hook ’em and make ’em stay even if it’s only five minutes long.”
    He stopped and looked into those eyes. “Listen. I wish you the best. But keep learning, and …” He indicated her Gypsy outfit. “Don’t settle for this. You find … find the real person inside you, the one God made. I think people will like her.”
    She thought that over a moment, a strange sadness in her eyes, and then she stopped and shed the sweater. “Sank you so much. I should go.”
    “No! No no, you keep the sweater, keep the hat.”
    She pulled off the hat. “No. I cannot be owing to you.”
    “No! Keep ’em. Please. I’m going. I don’t want anything else from you. I’m just … I’m going. End of encounter.”
    She looked at him, the tears starting to streak her makeup. “Are you sure?”
    “You’re going to take good care of them, right?”
    “Always.”
    “All right then. Square deal.”
    She worked on that a moment, but apparently the cold—and now