A Thousand Doors

by J. T. Ellison

  My mind drifts. Mia should have entered Us in the nonfiction category, because it’s true. At least most of it. Of course, she changed the ending, in real life and in the book.

  There’s always a chance for a sequel. But she won’t be the one writing it.

  I open my purse. The voice inside me, the one I can no longer control, says, “Good girl.”

  Mia

  The emcee, an overly dramatic man with over-the-top hand flourishes and a too-tight tux, has presented all of the awards except for the one in my category. The lonely trophy glistens onstage, mocking me.

  “This is it.” Tom squeezes my hand. The game has ended. His team won, that much I know. At this moment, he’s paying attention.

  “I suppose it is.” I take a drink of water. There is no possible way my book can win this thing. I mean, sure, the book struck a chord: right place, right time, love and all that. It’s very sweet, hopeful. I wish life could be that easy.

  Of course, with any success, there is more to the story than meets the eye.

  I hear the emcee’s voice calling my name.

  I’ve won. Oh my God.

  I’m going to come clean. That’s it. It’s a sign. I’ve gone too far this time, that’s why I saw Beth outside tonight. It’s why I can’t sleep.

  I was going to tell her, I was. I only meant to keep her diary for a little while, and then send it to her. And the letters? Well, those belonged to Tom, didn’t they? She sent them to him.

  “Mia, you need to go onstage.” Tom helps me up, walks me to the stage. My legs are rubber, my mind is a blank, and everything is happening so fast. I close my eyes, hoping this is a bad dream. I reach the center of the stage, dazzled by the light after sitting in the dark for so long.

  “Congratulations, Mia Anderson. Please, honor us with a reading from your novel.”

  The emcee hands me the heavy award and a copy of my book. He steps to the side and I’m alone at the podium.

  I lean forward, my lips almost touch the microphone. “I really can’t accept this award.” The audience laughs at what I’ve said. They’ve heard it before. But I’m serious. This is a nightmare.

  The emcee pats me on the back and smiles, whispering, “Don’t be silly. Start your reading.”

  My eyes meet Tom’s. He mouths, “Read!”

  My husband is embarrassed. I open my book. I begin to read with a shaking voice. “It was love at first sight. The moment we locked eyes at the coffee shop we knew there was a connection. Could we sustain that over a six-month separation? That was the question only time could answer.”

  I’m distracted by a shadow moving onstage and into the spotlight. A woman crosses in front of the emcee and stops two feet from me. I recognize her but I can’t place her. Is she another contest judge? Another author? She’s beautiful, with short blond hair and a long green dress.

  She steps forward. “That question was never answered, was it, Mia?”

  The audience begins to murmur as the emcee grabs the woman’s arm. “Beth, what is the meaning of this?”

  “I’m here so Mia will tell you all the truth.” Beth points her finger at me. “Tell the audience whose story this is. Whose life you’ve stolen.” She turns to the crowd. “This woman is a fraud. She lured my boyfriend into a relationship while I was in Italy. She stole my life, kept my diary, and then she wrote my story. And you’re giving her an award.”

  The emcee backs away, and there are only two of us in the spotlight, Beth and me.

  I lean into the microphone. “She’s right. I’m sorry.”

  Gasps from the crowd are followed by screams.

  Beth is pointing a gun at my head.

  “It’s too late for apologies. You knew what you were doing all along. You thought you could get away with it. You were wrong.”

  Time is suspended. In my mind, I am backing away from her, but in reality, I’m frozen standing next to her. I stare into Beth’s eyes, but I don’t see anything but rage.

  I swallow. I lift my hands in the air. I wonder if she’ll shoot me in the face, or the heart. I wonder what Tom is doing? In the audience I hear voices and chairs scraping as people run. I still cannot see anything beyond the barrel of her gun.

  Beth holds the gun with both hands and the barrel moves to point at my chest. “You took my ideas, my thoughts, my most precious feelings and pretended they were yours. You printed my letters?” She shakes her head and yells, “They aren’t your words, Mia. They’re mine. This isn’t your love story at all. And now it’s over.”

  I take a step back, shaking. Behind her I see a black shape, a SWAT officer in position. A man’s voice commands, “Drop the gun! Now! Hands in the air.”

  Someone leaps on me from behind, and we crash to the stage as I hear Beth scream.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” the man who has tackled me to the floor asks before climbing off me. He offers his hand.

  I try to grab him, but my right hand hangs at an odd angle, thrumming with pain. My wrist must have broken when we both landed. It’s a small price to pay. He hoists me to standing.

  “Thank you for saving my life.”

  “No problem. Sorry about your wrist. We’ll get a medic here for you. Hang tight.”

  I stand next to the officer and watch as Beth is handcuffed. She glares at me, her green eyes flashing. “This isn’t the end.”

  Tom steps up beside me and wraps his arm around me. “My God, are you okay?”

  Beth and I lock eyes and I realize now I saw her when we arrived. I wonder how long she’s been following us, waiting for her revenge. I also wonder why I spent so much time worrying she’d write a bad review. She had other plans.

  Beth is being led away by half a dozen officers, yelling behind her, “You can’t steal other people’s lives. I’ll beat this, and then I’ll come for you again.”

  I burrow into Tom’s side, but I can’t let her have the last word, can I? “Why don’t you send us some letters from prison? That could make for an interesting book.”

  Beth tries to charge at me, a crazy animal sound coming from her mouth, but the cops drag her offstage. She’s a little terrifying, actually.

  “Why did you say that to her?” Tom asks. “That was cruel.”

  “She almost killed me.” I believe that justifies a bit of snark. Tom will come around.

  Before Tom can formulate a response, two paramedics appear onstage. “Are you hurt, ma’am?” one asks me as I shake my head.

  “It’s just my wrist.” I hold it out to him. As I focus on it, a painful throbbing begins. I look away as tears fill my eyes.

  “Let’s tape that for you and then get you to the hospital for X-rays.”

  I glance at Tom. I can’t tell if he is mad at me or relieved it’s over.

  Tom’s story and mine have overlapped and blurred, intersecting with his story with Beth’s, past and present. I suppose every great love starts with a great story. It’s the ending that causes the uncertainty. Beth didn’t imagine me coming between them, stealing her fairy-tale ending, just as I never dreamed she’d appear to ruin the best day of my life, up to now. I’m not sure whether I’ll still receive the award, but I suppose if it’s a criminal’s word against mine, I’ll probably win.

  I wince when the paramedic wraps my wrist.

  Tom sits down next to me and holds my other hand. “I still can’t believe that happened.”

  “Me either.”

  The paramedic finishes his ministrations. “We can transport her to the hospital, or you can take her.”

  “I’ll drive her. Thank you.” Tom helps me to stand. “Oh, wait. We can’t forget this.”

  He grabs my award from the podium, holding it proudly as he wraps his arm around me. As if nothing has happened. As if the room is filled with clapping admirers. As if I’m his literary-star wife. As if I didn’t steal som
eone else’s love story.

  I tilt my head, hesitating.

  “What? You won. They gave you this award, so we’re taking it. Phil’s out back. This way.”

  Tom leads us backstage and out a door I didn’t know existed. Phil and Tom settle me into the luxurious back seat and close the door. As the men talk outside the car, I reach into my purse and pull out my powder compact.

  Tears fill my eyes as I look at my reflection in the mirror. Tom must know Beth was telling the truth about the novel. He knows I’m a liar, a thief, a fraud. He’s decided to ignore it. He will carry on, as if his wife is a literary award winner, as if this never happened. He will want me out of a cast as soon as possible, that much I also know, to erase any bad memory of this night in other people’s minds. He’s likely already called his PR team in to handle damage control. There won’t be a bold headline on the front page of tomorrow’s paper screaming, Deranged Ex-Lover Tries to Murder Millionaire’s Wife Onstage. Instead, the story will be buried, and there will only be polite coverage of the Literary Star Award winners.

  Tom doesn’t care about the truth, only appearances. I guess that means we’re perfect for each other. As my wrist thumps with pain, my mom’s words spring into my head: You’ve made your bed, now you’ll have to lie in it.

  I shake my head and chase her words away.

  Phil jumps in the driver’s seat as Tom opens the passenger door and slides inside next to me.

  He pats my knee. “We’ll head to the hospital now. Get your wrist fixed up. And then, home. Don’t worry about anything. It’s handled. If an embarrassment ensues, with what happened onstage tonight, I’ll move to the San Francisco office. With you, of course. A fresh start for both of us. As you know, appearances are everything in this world.” He touches the award on the seat between us.

  And just like that we’re driving to the hospital. We’re creating our own unique type of love story now. As charmed as the story may be, our relationship won’t win any awards.

  But I’ll make it work. And I’ll enjoy the trappings.

  The Lawyer

  Catherine McKenzie

  I’m driving to work when I make the decision.

  It’s funny, because it seems like a small leap given the day I’m having. The life. But premeditated murder never is a small decision, even if the steps that lead there are an accumulation of smaller things.

  Maybe I should’ve started there: I’m going to kill my husband.

  Lots of women think this, I’m sure. I have too, once or twice. But I mean it this time. I’m determined. I haven’t worked out all the details yet, but by the end of this day I will.

  Here’s why.

  ————

  I’m feeling a bit emotional right now—emotional woman, of course, that explains it. As if women don’t have a thousand reasons to be emotional, as if reacting to messed-up things with equanimity is some sort of virtue that only men possess. Which is total bullshit because, as a colleague once put it, men are the criminal justice system’s best customers.

  If men can do it—react emotionally to the screwed-up moments in life—I can, too.

  Only, I need to keep my wits about me. Emotions are what cause mistakes. Emotion are what lead to getting caught.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  I might meander a bit; bear with me. While plotting to kill your husband has a satisfying rightness to it, it also takes up a lot of space between the ears. As it should.

  Anyway.

  I asked for paint supplies for my fourteenth birthday. This wouldn’t seem relevant, but trust me, it is.

  I forgot that until last night when I was trying to sleep. I always have trouble sleeping the night before a big trial, and today is the biggest. A two-week trial with me in the pole position, millions on the line. It’s what I’ve been working toward for the last ten years. If I nail it, I’ll make equity partner. If I lose, cases will be shifted away from me, my hours will flag, and I’ll be out in a year or two, another woman who couldn’t cut it.

  So there I was, not sleeping. It was coming up on midnight. My husband, Mike, was deeply asleep next to me, but my brain was whirring like the fan in an overheated laptop. I was scrolling through my newsfeed on Facebook on Mike’s iPad, and there it was—one of those ads for miracle products like they show on late-night TV. Paint supplies that would somehow make me into an amazing artist. No aptitude, no lessons? No problem. Just send us $79.99, no, wait, $49.99 in the next ten minutes, and you’ll be on your way. As I watched the ad, something was scratching around my brain like a mouse caught in the walls, and then the memory popped up. Me and my paint supplies at fourteen, which I used exactly once, then shoved in my closet, hoping my parents would forget that I’d asked for such an expensive gift that I never ended up using.

  The thing is, I have no talent for painting. I don’t know what made me think, then, that if I had the right supplies, that would change. It was probably my first real bout of magical thinking. That’s what these advertisements are about, right? Use our product and you can change what you’re no good at; lose that weight; have fantastic eyelashes; hair that curls in just the right way.

  Magical thinking. If you want something enough, it will happen. And also: If you push hard enough against something, it won’t.

  Neither of these are true, but I can’t stop wishing they were.

  It’s funny how things work sometimes.

  If I hadn’t had the trial today. If I’d been able to sleep. If I hadn’t opened his iPad. If I hadn’t been distracted by the ad for the stupid paint supplies, which led me down a rabbit hole of searching for videos of that trippy seventies painting guy because I thought his soothing voice would lull me into sleep…

  It took all of these things, each tiny event, for me to be awake to receive a text that would change my life forever.

  That would leave me wishing that magic was real, and that thinking was enough to change the course of my history.

  That would have me plotting murder.

  ————

  The oddest thing is that the text was from Mike. When the notification popped into my screen my first thought was: How is Mike texting me?

  I was tired, like I said.

  Then I read the text.

  I can’t stop thinking about you.

  The text was not from Mike my husband, obviously, because he was asleep, and even when he was awake, he wasn’t the kind of guy to write a text like that. Even in our first six months, when he was chasing me, he wasn’t big on texting or sharing his emotions. See, men again. Anyway, a text from Mike even then was more likely to be something like: Reservation at 7. Not that he couldn’t be romantic in person, but his prose was limited.

  So not from my Mike. Someone was writing to Mike. Another Mike.

  A man? Was my husband gay? Was my husband having some gay affair with a man with the same name? That seemed a bit narcissistic to me, but also, somehow, maybe forgivable, in a way, because somehow my-husband-is-actually-gay infidelity seems better than my-husband-is-just-a-selfish-lying-prick infidelity. But Mike, my Mike, the Mike I’m going to kill, isn’t gay.

  And the Mike who wrote the text is really Mikahla, a woman I didn’t even know my Mike knew, and she’s also married, but young, of course young and…

  I’m getting ahead of the story. You see what I mean about my brain?

  I scrolled through the possibilities quickly after reading the text, Mike, man, Mike, gay, Mike, affair, Mike, gay-affair, Mike-not-gay, Mike-must-be-a-woman, Mike-and-Mike-having-an-affair. Husband-affair.

  What?

  I said it out loud, which I only realized when the real-life Mike mumbled next to me.

  I clenched my jaw. And then my fingers flew over the screen’s keyboard, and this is what came out:

  What are you thinking about?

  That little bubble
appeared. Mike was writing back!

  You. The way you feel inside me.

  My hand came up instinctively, holding the bile inside my mouth. I flew to the bathroom and made it to the sink on time.

  I don’t recommend reverse pad thai.

  I don’t recommend texting with your husband’s lover, either.

  But as I sat on the bathroom floor trying to find the strength to rise and clean up the leftovers of my dinner, I couldn’t help myself.

  I played along. I played my husband. I gathered details. I learned her name.

  I got her picture.

  ————

  She’s not as pretty as me.

  I think I have the right to say this. I wasn’t looking my best when I first had that thought, sitting on the bathroom floor wishing I had the strength to brush my teeth, but it was still true. She had a gap between her teeth, and her face was a bit too round, and she looked, from the shot she sent me, like she could stand to lose a few pounds.

  I know, okay, don’t judge me. This woman is sleeping with my husband. I think I have the right to be critical of her appearance.

  Besides, you’d agree with me.

  Today, I look good. I’ve got my armor back on—a tailored suit that accentuates my height. The right makeup to frame my heart-shaped face. My dishwater-blond hair is styled back at the nape of my neck, just loose enough to soften me and make me approachable, but still intimidating.

  My court look. My battle dress. Maybe even the clothes I’m going to commit a murder in, though it wouldn’t be the natural outfit. I think you’d want something with more pockets, for one thing.

  But regardless, I am ready to do battle.

  That’s probably what cost me my nanny this morning.

  In my defense, it’s been a rough twenty-four hours. Big trial. No sleep. Husband cheating with woman I was sexting with last night on his behalf. You know all that. Keira doesn’t. When she arrived twenty minutes late, my sons, Jake and Epping (a family name from Mike’s side of the family that he insisted we call our second son, with a pedantic obsession that I should’ve seen as a sign of something), were running around the living room in one pair of pajamas. Jake was wearing the top, Epping the bottom. The clothes I’d tried to force them into were sitting in a heap on the floor, and the sounds of their yelling were echoing around the living room.