The gleam in Madeline Kane's eyes—as she flipped through her college yearbook, twenty years after having graduated—was all that Judy Flowers needed to see. Madeline, she knew, was trying to set her up...again. But Judy had had it with her best friend's intervention in her love life. For the past six months, Madeline had paired Judy up with every Tom, Dick, and Harry she could find. By hook, or by crook, Madeline was going to get Judy engaged by the end of the year.

Ha! There was a laugh. Judy had gone out with so many "unweddable" men that Madeline sent her way, they were coming out of her ears! The last thing on Judy's mind today was dating.

Sure, Judy had appreciated what Madeline was trying to do. After all, Judy knew how difficult matchmaking could be for someone close to you—she had henpecked her older brother Evan, the same way about finding a girl. But this was different. Judy had found the right woman for her brother; Madeline, on the other hand, was batting minus 1,000 in the beau department for Judy.

"What do you mean you don't want to go, Judy? Tickets to see 'Iggy the Great's Magic Show' tonight are sold out. We're only able to get in, because I personally know him."

"Iggy?" Judy said, gazing at Madeline with disbelief, then passing a glance over the picture of "the guy" in the yearbook that Madeline was pointing out. "Oh, he looks like a real catch."

"You have to have an open mind about this, Judy," Madeline said, closing the book, and hurrying over to the couch on which Judy was sitting. "You know," she added, wiggling her fingers at Judy, "he makes coins disappear, and birds fly out of an empty hat. It'll be fun."

"For the birds, you, or me?"

"Oh, come on, kid," Madeline said, putting her arm around Judy's shoulder. "He's a good magician."

"Going to a magic show isn't my idea of a fun Saturday night, Madeline," argued Judy, shrugging away to a standing position.

"Like you really had other plans," Madeline snipped, stepping after her. "You know, that's why you haven't gotten married, let alone engaged, Judy. You're too pigheaded."

Judy's mouth fell open. "Pigheaded?"

"Yes."

Judy crossed her arms and held silent, staring at Madeline.

"Well...so what if he's not..."

"Houdini?" Judy assisted, jokingly.

"Houdini?" Madeline asked, baffled.

"Yes...Harry Houdini. Everybody's heard of him."

Madeline's brow wrinkled. "No. I don't think so."

Then what about like Blackstone? Is Iggy like him?"

"Blackstone?"

"Yeah...Harry Blackstone, Junior. Remember? We saw his Broadway show years ago in New York with 'our' parents."

"Duhhh. I know."

"Well...?"

"No. Iggy's not like Blackstone, Junior," replied Madeline with a down-turned face. "And so what if he's—"

"Not as unconventional a magician as Penn and Teller?"

"Penn and Teller?"

"Yeah, you know. The tall guy and his sidekick that doesn't speak. We saw them in Vegas."

"No," Madeline said, shaking her head. "Iggy the Great's nothing like those two."

Judy shook her head regretfully.

"Well...he could be...maybe...one day," said Madeline through an uneasy scrunch of her face.

Judy stared at her, deadpan. "That's supposed to make me feel he's 'the guy' for me?"

"Oh, come on, Judy," said Madeline, stepping about the room, as though a lawyer making a closing argument in a court case. "So what if he doesn't make a plane disappear—like David Copperfield used to do. Or, levitate like Criss Angel. Or, amaze like David Blaine. I graduated from college with Iggy. Tonight's magic act is his first big break!"

"Twenty years in the making? I don't think so."

"Not everyone is an overnight success, hon."

A glazed look of despair clouded Judy's face.

"Come on, Judy! You deserve a night out."

Judy knew that Madeline was right. And she couldn't remember the last time she hadn't complained about not having a boyfriend. Still, was she supposed to just entertain with this "Iggy," because Madeline was pushing him her way? Madeline hadn't been right, so far, about finding romance for her.

"Did you hear me, Judy?"

"Yes."

Madeline sighed. "Well...? You know your biological clock is ticking. If you wait any longer to get married, by the time you have children, 'you're' going to be their grandmother!"

Judy laughed. She knew that Madeline had a point. After all, her best friend had two teenagers: Laura and Mason. Good kids. Bright kids. The apple of mom and dad's eye kind of kids. She thought it funny, though, how she hadn't realized it until now why Madeline had been trying so hard to find her a boyfriend: marriage and kids. Madeline having a husband and children were what made her very happy, and she wanted everybody—especially her best friend—to be just as happy .

"Believe me, Judy. You have nothing to lose with Iggy, and everything to gain."

*     *     *

Madeline and the audience were anxiously awaiting the appearance of "Iggy the Great" to the stage. Judy, however, was rolling her eyes and sinking more into her dilapidated front-row seat as cheesy, crackling, phonograph-playing carnival music played.

https://youtu.be/zjedLeVGcfE

On their trip over, Madeline had made it sound as though Iggy were going to be performing in an elaborate theatre, on a magnificent stage. Ha! The reality? The stage was only five inches higher than the broken-tiled floor, the forty-seat theatre was also drab; and the entire arena was sandwiched between two condemned buildings. Yet, at the moment, Madeline's face beamed as she jumped up and down with joy, clapping for Iggy to appear.

Beside herself studying Madeline, Judy wondered about her friend's excitement. Was it all due to her feeling that Iggy was the perfect guy for her? Or, was it because she was out without her husband and children, and having a great time alone?

Perhaps your family life isn't that happy, Madeline. Could that be why you've been telling me it is, so that I'll get married, have kids, and be just as miserable as you?

That "marriage" thought, oddly, made sense to Judy here. So much so that she set herself to give her friend a piece of her mind, for having led her to believe that marriage and having kids was great. But before she could, and walk away from Madeline forever, a "poof" sound caught Judy's attention.

Focusing her eyes directly ahead, she saw a giant puff of smoke clouding the the stage. The silhouette of a person standing inside "the cloud" then stepped from it.

How original. No doubt you came through a trapdoor.

Glancing over at Madeline, Judy watched in stunned silence as her best friend chanted: "Iggy, Iggy, Iggy!"

"What's so special about how he materialized?" grumbled Judy, starting to stand, setting to flee.

Then....

"Whoa!" Judy shouted.

Madeline had grabbed her by the arm, holding her still.

The eyes of all focused on Judy.

"Show's not over yet!" Madeline shouted in a harsh, friendly whisper, pulling Judy back into her seat.

With reddening cheeks, Judy sank low, covering her face with fanned fingers, as she peeked toward the stage.

"Decided to stay, I see," Iggy said, his light eyes setting on Judy, as he removed a shiny black top hat from his head. "You could really hurt your back sitting that low."

The audience collectively laughed, but Judy was too entranced with Iggy to have realized anything—except her dancing heart.

Am I attracted to this guy?...

"I'd really like to start the show, Miss," Iggy chided sweetly, danced his brow, and then produced a white dove from his empty hat.

The audience gasped in amazement as the bird flew about the area. Then, when Iggy snatched a walking stick from thin air, just as the dove disappeared, every mesmerized person was his as they wondered just how he turned a bird into a cane-like aid, and all thunderously applauded...except Judy.

Good. They forgot about me interrupting him.

Sinking even lower in her seat, Judy hoped that the next two hours of magic would go by fast. They did, but not without incident.

*     *     *

"What do you mean you don't know what happened to her, Iggy?" Judy challenged, irked by his cool, aloof manner, as she stood before him backstage after the show. "You asked for a volunteer. You put Madeline in a box. Made her disappear. And now you can't find her? What kind of a magician are you?"

Iggy's blue eyes set on Judy's grey ones—just like at the start of his magic act hours ago. Yikes! Butterflies instantly fluttered in Judy's stomach. His pale-gold sensitive face weakened her knees. She turned away. If she didn't, she was going to fall into his arms, and she hardly knew him.

Well, you have been looking for a boyfriend.

"When I should be looking for Madeline!" Judy blurted out, answering her internal declaration.

"What's that?" asked Iggy, bemused.

"Nothing."

"I'm a pretty good magician, since you asked," he said, in response to Judy's "magician" question, stepping around to see her full face. Then he pulled a bouquet of flowers from her hair.

She grinned and accepted them.

"I'm Iggy Gold," he said, his eyes shifting to the floor as he smiled shyly, then looked back at her, his eyes twinkling. "'Iggy the Great,' that is."

She giggled. "Judy Flowers."

His smile broadened in approval, as he cocked his head at the bouquet. "How appropriate."

Their eyes held on each other for several moments, then Judy reached up to Iggy's ear and, magically, pulled a quarter from it.

Iggy's eyes popped.

"Something that Blackstone, Junior had taught me backstage, after I had seen his Broadway show as a kid," Judy said.

"And you remembered how to do the quarter from the ear trick?"

Judy shrugged, smiling simply. "Sure."

"Wow," Iggy uttered, visualizing her in a magic-act costume. "You'd really make a wonderful magician's assistant."

What was Iggy doing? Flirting? Well, how about Judy? She didn't make her way backstage to win over a guy; she was there to find Madeline...right?

For the next thirty minutes, as they talked, Iggy and Judy searched high and low for Madeline.

"Does it happen often," asked Judy with a hint of sarcasm, as they looked behind a Zig-Zag-Lady Illusion trick, "that you lose an audience volunteer?"

"No," said Iggy, just as playful. "But it is the way that I lost my wife."

Judy gaped back at him.

Iggy smirked.

Judy felt that he was joking about losing his wife that way, but she still had to ask, "You were married?"

"No. But you ask a silly question—"

"And you get a silly answer," Judy chuckled interrupting.

"Don't worry," Iggy said, as he led her through a tunnel under the stage. "We'll find her."

"Your wife?" teased Judy.

"Perhaps," Iggy toyed back.

Just then, Madeline stepped forward from a corner darkness.

"Where were you?" Judy asked, indignantly. "We've been looking for you for some time."

"You passed by here twice."

"What?" said Judy and twisted to Iggy.

An innocent little wince held on his face as he shrugged with upturned hands.

"Did we really?" she asked, her attention back on Madeline. 

Disregarding Judy, Madeline stared hard at Iggy. "That trapdoor button next to your foot there, Mr. Magic," she said, pointing to it, "didn't do anything when I stepped on it."

Judy's eyes followed Madeline's finger point, and she spied the words "Re-entry to Stage" painted on the large-sized floor button.

"It must've gotten stuck," said Iggy through a sulky pout

"Then this is the first place you should've looked for me and not just passed by without finding me."

"But then I wouldn't have gotten to know the lady of my dreams," Iggy said, his gaze falling to Judy.

In the corner of her eye, Judy noticed Madeline's growing smile. "You planned this, didn't you? Getting locked down here, I mean, so we'd look for you, and get to know one another."

Madeline chortled. "I knew I'd get things right for you sooner or later, Judy. You two are a good 'magic' match, no?"

Judy sidestepped to within inches of Iggy's shoulder.

He interlocked his arm with hers.

"Know any other ways to make Madeline disappear?" Judy asked, facetiously .

"No," said Iggy, his eyes sparkling, his finger pointing down toward the "Re-entry to Stage" floor button. "Just us."

Judy's glance followed Iggy's finger point, as her heart sang with delight. "I'm right with you, magic man."

"Hey! Wait a minute," pleaded Madeline, a flash of humor in her words. "What are you guys up to? You can't leave me down here!"

"Ah, but we can," Judy toyed.

Then, Iggy, with a wave of his hand, caused a "poof" sound, and a puff of smoke appeared.

Without hesitation, Judy stepped down on the "Re-entry to Stage" floor button, and both Iggy and she were gone in an instant—up toward the stage, and into a magical romance together.

https://youtu.be/2MhsRV5IAzo