Free Petty Magic by Camille Deangelis

though I haven’t heard this before. Like the names of all the classic film stars, ours generally sound as if we’ve made them up.
    We arrive at the Blind Pig Gin Mill, a cozy, dimly lit pub where the blue-collar barflies and their lively sports chatter are a welcome alternative to the stodgy pretensions of the Harveysville Inn. The bartenders tease you if you order anything besides the swill they’ve got on tap, though the Harbinger girls are more or less exempt; I order a dry martini and the boy behind the counter nods without so much as a twitch of the mouth. Justin orders a pint of Miller Lite.
    He tells me he’s excited to be working for his uncle and that he’d like to travel the world “going picking.” He admits he doesn’t have much of a head for business, but he hopes it’s something that can be taught. “Have you ever seen my uncle deal with somebody trying to make a return?” he asks, and I laugh. “He’s a total hardass. I’d never be able to do that.”
    “You’ll learn, I suppose.”
    Over and over he impresses me with his swiftly acquired knowledge of the Fawkes and Ibis inventory, his stories of crisscrossing Europe on a series of night trains and of the oddball customers in the secondhand record shop, and his impeccable manners. He’d held the door open for me, of course, he listens raptly to my own little anecdotes, and when my shawl falls off the back of my chair he bends automatically to retrieve it.
    “How was your beer?” I ask as he drains his pint glass.
    “Awful. But it’s gone to a better place.” He pauses. “Are you okay? You just went all pale.”
    That had always been Jonah’s peculiar expression, from the day I met him ’til the night before he died. Whenever you asked Jonah how he’d liked his hearty lamb stew, his brandy, his just-finished cigar (on those rare occasions when there was a cigar to be smoked), he always responded with “gone to a better place”—no matter how much, or little, he’d actually enjoyed it. I’ve never heard anyone else use that expression except at the funerals of ordinary people.
    “What is it? What’s wrong?”
    I take a breath to steady myself. “Nothing. I’m all right. It’s just … I knew someone once who used to say his food and drink had ‘gone to a better place.’ It … always made me laugh.”
    “I thought I’d made it up,” he says a little ruefully.
    I sigh. “I’m sure he did too.”
    He has the tact to say no more. Yes, I am impressed.
    But I can tell you one thing: no matter how innocently he may present himself, this boy’s got a bag o’ tricks. How can he remind me so much of Jonah, then? It isn’t only his eyes, his face, his fingers. He carries himself just the same—easygoing on the surface, but watchful underneath. I had often wondered what Jonah was like when he was a younger man, but I never thought I’d get the chance to find out.
    The memory of that phone call in the shop this afternoon gives me pause, and I raise my eyebrows when he rests his hand on my bare knee. “You’re being rather presumptuous, wouldn’t you say?”
    “Hmm?”
    “How do you know I don’t have a boyfriend?”
    He withdraws his hand with a frown. “When you came into the shop, you … well, you didn’t look at me as if there was somebody else.”
    “I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean. But what about you , Mister Kiss-and-Run?” He turns red. “I suppose you picked her up at a bar. Am I right?”
    He glances away, gives a slight nod.
    “Let’s try this, then: why don’t you show me how you did it? I find this all very interesting from an anthropological point of view.”
    “I don’t—I didn’t—”
    “Don’t even bother trying to tell me you didn’t use some slick sort of line. Now, seduce me exactly as you seduced that poor girl on the telephone earlier.”
    “But—”
    “Go on! I won’t make fun.”
    He gives me a look, as if he can’t figure out if he’s walking willingly into