Whole Foods Delivers

I was sitting in the Whole Foods cafe last night with a half hour to kill before meeting R. for a drink and the ballet. My book was engrossing, my tea pleasantly minty, but peace was lost when a shot of wheatgrass plunked down in front of me and a voice boomed, "You must drink a lot of this stuff to get legs like that!"

Such openings rarely lead anywhere I want to follow. But when I looked up, I beheld a fantastic set of silver Salvador Dali mustachios trembling above a green silk cravat and three piece suit, and realized that I was going to have to go along with this one.

Salvador is a magician, it turned out, and a world famous one. When I expressed laughing disbelief he instantly set about a demonstration.

"First trick. I'm going to prove to you that the hand is quicker than the eye. How did that feel?"

oh dear god

"For my next trick, I want a kiss. But you probably think you don't know me well enough yet." He handed me a piece of filter paper. "Give me a lip print on that, will you?" I voiced certain concerns relating to DNA extraction and cloning. Assured that no duplicates would be made, I kissed the paper and handed it over. With that he lit the paper on fire and tossed it in the air [this to the considerable dismay of the man nose-deep in tofu to my right] and from the ashes conjured me a Hershey Kiss.

"Now," he said, unnerving me with the swiftness of his attack, "When are we going dancing? I'm a fantastic dancer. My dance partner Heather thinks she's a great dancer, but really I just keep her around for the massages."

I intimated that ballroom dancing is not my preferred activity, due to being dropped while attempting a dip early in my career.

"I dropped Heather once; you could hear the boom for miles. Thought for sure they'd get me for manslaughter."

I expressed regret that such a track record did not bode well for our future partnership.

"You'll love it, I promise," he said, and executed a small cha cha by way of convincing me.

I began to make vague movements suggesting imminent departure, but was waylayed as Salvador produced a stack of pictures. There was my friend with the Donald, Paul Newman, Benny Goodman, and as a heavily mustached infant. "Your mother must have been very proud," I said. "Oh, she was tickled to death."

As was I, leaving Whole Foods with a business card emblazoned 'MC: Magician to the Rich and Famous and [this hand-written] Dance Stud' in my hand.