The Blue Magician

Miguel gasped as Maricela approached the shop. Her silky black hair bounced off her back as she walked toward him. He reached under the counter for a bundle of orchids.

“Mari.” Miquel averted his eyes and offered her the flowers.

“I’m getting married in a week, Miguel.” She held up her hand to refuse his gift. “How many times have I told you? We. Are. Just. Friends. We have always been just friends. Maybe not even that, anymore.” Her shoulders drooped. “I come here because I have to. This is the only real art supply store in town.”

Miguel fidgeted with the flower stems and tucked them back under the counter.

Her words sliced him the way machetes clear a path in the jungle, leaving behind trampled and ragged brush. He swore he’d been in love with her in grade school, sitting next to her when they were six. Learning numbers, four coconuts, five papayas, six avocados, she colored within the lines, vibrant green and yellow. Miguel’s papayas had looked more like a bird’s nest than a tropical fruit. She’d sat in her desk with the posture of a princess and spoke with an English lilt.

After Maricela left, a man bent over the counter and motioned to Miquel. Miquel leaned in to hear the man whisper “Find Ikal. He’ll help you with your love problem.”

“The street vendor?”

The man nodded.

Merchants around the plaza knew of Ikal as el hechicero azul, the blue magician, as he did magic tricks for tourists who purchased his souvenirs. Everyone else called him abuelito listo, clever grandpa. He wore a soiled blue apron with pink fringes and pulled a cart filled with snacks and everything else from souvenirs to fresh fruit and peppers. His inventory and his location changed daily, but folks who needed him always managed to find him.

Miquel spotted Ikal, a flash of blue across the crowded plaza. A wooden spoon stuck through his bun of gray hair. His eyes twinkled when children clapped for the disappearing coin tricks. A pet rooster strutted around the cart and hopped into Ikal’s lap when he sat down.

“You’re not a tourist,” Ikal said without looking up at Miguel.

“No.” Miguel took a bag of pistachios from Ikal’s cart and held out exact change.

“You didn’t come for pistachios, did you?”

“No.” Miquel ripped open the bag of nuts. “Some old man told me to find you.”

“Hmm.” Ikal set down his rooster and walked to the other side of his cart to search through a box of trinkets.

“It’s that--I’m in love with a girl. I’m desperate. Any advice?”

Ikal nodded. “This girl—she doesn’t return your feelings, I take it?”

Miguel lowered his head. “It’s too late, anyway. She’s getting married next week, but I don’t think I can live without her.”

Ikal walked to a nearby bench and sat down. He bit the end off a cigar and held it with his teeth. He spoke through the side of his mouth, puffing mouthfuls of smoke until the end of the cigar glowed red. “Advice? Well, the best advice I can give you is don’t fall in love.” Smoke billowed from his lips as he grinned. “You don’t even love yourself. How can anyone else love you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you weren’t sent here for advice from an old solitary man. Come back tomorrow. Same time.” Ikal walked back to his cart and pushed it down the street.

Miguel tossed and turned, trying to fall asleep. He sweated on his cot underneath the open window. The heat of midday lingered into nighttime under the first full moon of summer. He imagined himself as the groom, Maricela walking toward him in a wedding dress, her lips the color of laelias, a crown of peonies in her hair. He fell asleep, as he did every night, thinking of her, but in his dreams, he saw Ikal instead. Come back tomorrow, he said over and over again.

During his lunch break the following day, Miquel ate his sandwich, his eyes on the clock, asking himself why he should return to the old street vendor. His curiosity, no, his undying love for Maricela, compelled him to find Ikal again, but what was the point?

The blue in Ikal's apron burst through the crowd like yesterday. His was cobalt blue, deeper than the faded turquoise of the bakery walls, more vibrant than the yellow dresses on the girls in the plaza.

Without looking up from his cart, Ikal remarked “You’re back.” He pulled a bundle of wax paper from a bin beneath the fruit rack.

“What’s that?”

Ikal peeled back the wax paper. “A slice of chocolate cake.” He handed it to Miguel. “Baked with the finest cacao, black chilhuacle chiles, izote flowers and magnolias.” He looked into Miguel’s eyes. “Charmed—or hexed—whichever it turns out to be, by the witch on the rock.”

“Chocolate cake. It’s Maricela’s favorite.”

“All you have to do is give your girl this cake to eat. Dessert or poison. If your love is true, she will love you, too. If not,” he shrugged “the bitter taste of poison.”

Miguel considered this for a moment and laughed. “My love is real. There isn’t anyone who has ever been more in love with someone.” He stared at the cake. “Really? She will love me?”

“You remind me of my grandson—young and stupid.”

“How old is your grandson?”

“Sadly, he is passed.”

Miquel let out a nervous laugh. “How much do I owe you?”

“For the cake or the magic?”

“Either, both.”

“That all depends on how it turns out.”

Miquel rushed home. He threw open the cabinets, searching for his mother’s fine plates and arranged the cake. He also grabbed one of the silver forks his great grandmother passed down to his family. Once presented like a pastel in a nice restaurant, Miguel returned to work, knowing Maricela would come today to get her order.

He smelled her perfume before she entered the doorway. He could feel his heartbeat in his throat, hear its thrum on his eardrums. “Mari.”

“Hi Miguel. Just here for my order.“ She placed a slip of paper on the counter. Oils, Cadmium red, lamp black, burnt umber and ultramarine.

“You must be painting something big.”

“It’s a surprise gift for my fiancé.” She looked away.

“I’ve been thinking. We’ve known each other—”

“Miguel, don’t. I’m marrying Antonio. I’ve never been happier in my life.”

“No, no. I’m saying, I’m glad we’re friends. My—mom made some cake. Chocolate. Your favorite. Consider it a wedding gift. It’s all I could afford.” Miguel lifted the plate.

Maricela cocked her head the way a dog does after hearing a sharp noise. “Um, thanks, but I have to fit into my wedding dress. Chocolate cake isn’t on my diet.”

Miguel lowered his head.

“Oh, one bite wouldn’t hurt.”

Miguel raised his gaze to see the fork slide from Maricela’s lips, leaving a streak of chocolate on her upper lip that she pulled into her mouth with a swipe of her tongue.

“Wow. That’s delicious cake. And it’s got a bite to it.” She waved her hand in front of her mouth before placing the plate back on the counter “Thanks. I do hope you’ll come to the wedding.”

Miguel waited for a sign. He watched her leave the shop wondering how long it would take to kick in. Would she run to him, jump into his arms, or would it take a while like a stew where the meat softens long after the chiles.

A few days passed without seeing Maricela. Then came her wedding. She married Antonio and ran off on a honeymoon with a smile spread wide across her face.

Miquel’s love was real. She’d eaten the cake. It wasn’t poison. But her feelings for him never changed. Witches and magicians, nothing but hucksters and frauds, but he hadn’t paid Ikal anything.

Nothing happened.

Miguel returned to the plaza searching for Ikal but couldn’t find him. He asked tourists if they’d seen a man in blue performing magic. He bugged the locals about abuelito listo, but no one had seen him for a couple of weeks.

Miguel first saw Maricela when she returned from her honeymoon. She shopped the store for paints and brushes as usual, happy, a bounce in her step. Something had changed in her, a small thing but noticeable. He wasn’t as attracted to her anymore, not like before. He spoke with her about her trip, about her latest paintings and what married life was like. He didn’t feel that twist of the knife in his gut when he’d pined away for her since childhood.

The next day, it was Ikal who sought out Miguel.

“Time for payment.” Ikal nudged Miguel toward his cart.

“Nothing happened. She ate it. And nothing. At all.” Miguel shook his head. “Why should I pay?”

“Why should you get a free piece of cake?”

“Well, since you put it that way.”

Ikal held up two fingers. The same price as the sack of pistachios on Miguel’s first visit.

Miguel dug through his pocket for coins and handed them to Ikal. “The going rate for charmed cake?”

Ikal laughed. “That cake was from the bakery down the street. Just an ordinary pastel de chocolate.”

“Huh? Why?

“How much is your freedom worth?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that If your love had been true, you would never have given your love something that might be poison.” He tapped Miguel on the chest. “You were in love with the idea of her. Now that you know you aren’t truly in love with her, you are free of her.”

Ikal picked up his rooster and tucked him into the crook in his arm. “Now that you understand that you don’t even understand your own feelings, find yourself, as the sages say, before you find someone else.” Ikal grinned and walked away, pushing his cart.