Page 75 of The Best Trick

Zeus beamed at me. “Could be.”

I looped my arms around Odin and Thor. “You guys!”

“It hasn’t happened yet,” Thor warned.

“What's the first thing you wanna do when our name is cleared?” I asked Zeus.

“Buy the house I grew up in. Fix it up and make it beautiful,” he said.

“But what about our hills hideaway?” I asked.

“The hideaway would be our main home, but the other house could be like a cabin—a home away from home. My father had all these dreams about things he’d do to make the house beautiful, and I want to do them.”

“I want to set up that westernmost room in our hills hideaway as an art studio,” Odin said. “And I want to buy the hugest blank canvas that they'll sell me—ten by ten, maybe even bigger. I've been drawing these tiny drawings in my notebook for all this time, but I like to work on large canvases. I never appreciated what a luxury it is. A man on the run can't work on a large canvas.”

“And you could get art books again,” I said, remembering the Rembrandt book that he so loved at that secondhand store in Baylortown.

“What about you?” Zeus asked.

“The first thing I’d do is go back and see my sisters,” I said. “I’d go sit at that kitchen table and we'd drink apple cider and I’d make them tell me every dorky little thing about their lives.” I turned to Thor. “What would be your first thing?”

Thor gazed out at the horizon where the setting sun had left behind a bright glow. “We shouldn't be talking like this unless it’s gonna happen,” he said.

“If you want something, what’s the harm in dreaming of it?” I asked him.

“Remember when you desperately wanted to see your sisters from afar, but you also didn't, because it would be too painful? To see them and not be able to hug them?” he said. “You wanted it too much.”

I nodded. I remembered that well.

“That's how I feel about this whole exercise. What will we do when we're free? It’s bullshit.”

“Because you want it too much,” I said.

“We all do, don’t we?” Thor said.

I reached out and grabbed his hand, squeezed it tight.

Another ping on Zeus’s phone. He picked it up and groaned. “Sue. Asking what we're doing,” he said.

Odin rolled his eyes.

“Tell her we're eating,” I said. “The truth for once. What a concept!”

Zeus texted her back. His phone pinged again, and again he groaned. “She’s swinging by to drop a gift off.”

“Tell her to fuck off,” Odin said.

“We can’t get a shitty guest rating,” I warned. “She just wants to give us a gift. Let her.”

“She’s the one who should get a shitty rating. She shouldn't be bothering us. And now we have to put on our Newsome disguises?”

“At least she’s telling us when she's coming over instead of popping in. This is behavior that I want to encourage,” I said. “And maybe, after this week, we won’t have to worry about our guest rating anymore.”

* * *

I was tuckingthe last wisps of hair into my Sarah Newsome wig when Sue knocked. Thor and Odin were playing chess out on the porch, both in their proper disguises; Zeus was at the kitchen island with his phone and bald head. Glaring—not at anything specific so much as the situation.

I opened up the door. “Hi, Sue!” I said.

---