Nina took a deep breath and another, her fingers curling tight.
“It’s fine, Miss Beaulieu, don’t fret,” Hector said, and as he spoke, the cards returned to their place on the floor in the same pattern they had been before she lost control of them.
“I’m sorry. It’s hard to focus on a single one.”
“I know. You need to use your hands.”
“My hands?” she replied.
“Yes. Use your hands to direct the objects, a bit like a conductor with an orchestra,” he said, making a motion with his right arm as he spoke. “The hands don’t do anything per se. It’s your mind. But they help you focus your actions. I don’t always use my hands, because I’ve been doing this for a long time, but in your case it’s different.”
“How should I move my hands?”
He had been observing her, arms crossed, at a distance. Now he moved next to her and held her arm, lightly raising it in the direction of the red card.
“Point.”
Nina extended her index finger. His hand was on her wrist. He moved it in a sweeping arc, left to right and back again, though it accomplished little. He paused, his hand still resting on her wrist.
“When you manipulate an object, what is it like? What do you feel?” he asked.
“It’s strange. It’s like a tug,” she replied.
“The same feeling you get when you walk with your eyes closed and you are about to hit a wall.”
“Or the feeling you have when someone is coming behind you,” she said, turning her head slightly and looking up at him.
“It’s almost like you touch the surface of a still glass of water and there is this slight resistance until your fingers sink in the liquid. But when you move an object, you don’t break through the surface, you are gliding over it.”
“Like the pond skaters, when they walk on water.”
“The what?” he asked, looking down at her.
It was then Nina realized, abruptly, how close they were to each other. She felt an intense animation but did not dare move a muscle.
“You’ve not observed those bugs?” she asked, and managed not to stammer the words, although her nervousness must have been obvious. But he was busy looking at the cards now, which she was ruffling, unthinking.
“It’s not one of my hobbies, no.”
“They do glide on water,” she continued, and she had to bite her tongue to stop herself from detailing their life cycle. When she was flustered, she tended to go on.
“It’s like that, isn’t it? You have to feel the tension, but you must glide. Too much pressure, you lose control. That is fine for the unexpected shoving of dishes off the table, but not for purposefully manipulating an object. Miss Beaulieu, let’s trace the path you want that card to take and make it glide.”
He moved her arm again, left to right, gently. Nina decided to focus on the task at hand; otherwise, she was going to break into giggles or blush a terrible crimson. She looked at the card, felt the weight of his fingers against her wrist, felt the tug and the pressure he had mentioned. The red card slid across the floor.
“Remember to breathe,” he said.
She did. She breathed in and out, slowly, and the card continued to slide until it hit the frame of a painting left upon the floor. Hector stepped back and she dropped her arm.
“It works,” she said, spinning around to look at him. “It really works.”
She forgot for a split second that she’d been nervous, that he was close to her, that he’d touched her. She simply reveled in her triumph. Hector smiled, full of cheer; his gaze grew deeper. The remoteness he wore upon his shoulders like an ornate mantle had dissipated. He was truly there, not just physically, she thought, but absolutely. Then he appeared to recall something and ran a hand through his hair, glancing down at the floorboards.
“Yes, but the key is practice. You can start with one card, but you should move to two, three. Shuffle them without touching them, things like that,” he said, bringing his hands up. The cards, following his motion, assembled themselves into a neat deck. He retrieved the box from which he’d taken the deck, placed the cards inside, and handed it to her.
“Here,” he said. “You can keep this.”
Nina held the deck tightly, nodding. She had not been nervous when she walked in, but now it was as if a fiery red spark had started burning in her, and he spoke with a voice that was cool, in contrast to her warmth.
“You also need to remain collected. I could see the tension in your body when you failed to do it properly. You need to breathe. You need to calm down. I’m sure your bug does not skate across the water by thrashing around,” he said.
“No, it’s graceful,” she said, dearly wishing to stretch out a hand and touch his arm, but he was spinning around, looking for something on the table.
“You can be graceful, too, Miss Beaulieu,” he said, but he was not looking at her.
She smiled, delighted by his words. Grace was not her strong point. Women like Valérie could glide across the room, as if they were swans, but not Nina.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
A tall grandfather clock chimed, another echoing it somewhere in the vastness of Hector’s home.
He nodded. “I have to head out soon. I have a business lunch.”
“Yes,” Nina said, feeling mortified now that she considered the whole situation. She had barged in on him without caring to ask if he had affairs to attend to. “I’m awful, intruding on you the way I did.”
“Do not worry.”
They walked back toward the entrance. Hector kissed her hand quickly, bidding her good-bye, and Nina turned toward the stairs. She stopped and turned back.
“You won’t forget the invitation?” she asked, wishing to prolong their encounter.
“I’ll remember.”
“And I haven’t upset you, have I? For asking about the card trick.”
“No. It’s not every day I meet a lady who could toss all my glassware onto the floor without touching it,” he replied in a neutral voice.
“You are teasing me,” Nina said, smiling. “I’ll practice. I most definitely don’t have two left feet.”
“I don’t think you do.”
She thought, she hoped, he might edge closer to her. She felt dazed and giddy, and it was a miracle her talent had not manifested and sent a chair scampering across the floor. But it was there, she thought, this feeling, like the scent of the coming rain, all around them.
Hector did not step closer. He held firm by the door, insulated, far away. She guessed this was the gentlemanly, proper attitude a man should have and was disappointed.
“Good-bye, Miss Beaulieu,” he said with a slight inclination of his head.
“Thank you,” she said. “Good-bye.”
He smiled at her, and her disappointment turned to joy because he looked pleased with her, happy.
When the door closed and Nina was alone, she took two steps down, then rested her back against the banister, the box with the cards pressed against her chest. She’d lost her train of thought and remained there for a bit, until she recalled that Valérie might notice her absence. She’d be flayed alive, boiled in hot oil, if Valérie knew she had gone out without a chaperone to visit a man. Nina hurried down the stairs.