Writer’s Digest 93rd Annual Competition Genre Short Story First Place Winner: “Good Reason”
Congratulations to Jillian Grant Shoichet, first-place winner in the Genre Short Story category of the 93rd Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition. Here’s her winning story, “Good Reason.”
Good Reason
by Jillian Grant Shoichet
It was reasonable to assume the man was asleep.
Who doesn’t fall asleep in the second half of The Nutcracker during the Sunday matinee, when the smell of wet boots, children’s bodies, and centuries-old wood panelling lingers in the upper balcony of the Royal Theatre, warmed by hot stage lights and the exhalations of five hundred ticket-holders in seasonal finery?
She’d have fallen asleep herself if she wasn’t supporting the heads of two sugarplums of her own: Maddie on her shoulder; Zee snoring in her lap.
When the house lights came up, she didn’t join the surge towards the exits. She sat for a few minutes, savouring the rare opportunity to not do, not rush. She watched as other parents shook their children awake and trooped down the steep balcony stairs.
The man in front of them also seemed content to doze.
Only when she shifted Zee’s head from her lap did she begin to wonder otherwise. She studied the man’s still form as she slid Maddie’s left boot closer to her foot. Zee whimpered, as she always did after a too-hot, too-sweaty afternoon nap.
She touched the man’s right shoulder. “Sir?”
She applied a bit more pressure. “Sir?”
The man’s head dropped forward. In the space between his ear and his tartan scarf was a trail of dark, viscous fluid. She inhaled sharply and drew her hand back as if she’d been stung.
“What’s wrong, Mum?”
She hesitated. “He’s sleeping. Let’s not disturb him.”
Zee began to whine. “But the show’s over. He has to leave the theatre!”
“He’ll be fine.” Jenny fumbled with the buttons on Zee’s coat, stuffed a program and a wayward ball of yarn back into her purse.
She grabbed Maddie’s hand and nudged Zee forward.
She risked a backward glance as they made their way down the stairs. The man’s head was still slumped forward, chin on chest. One of the spotlights was directly over his chair. It looked as if he was on stage, lit from above.
The usher smiled brightly as they approached the door. “Enjoy the show?” she asked.
“Yes!” said Zee.
“No!” said Maddie.
“There’s a dead man in Row R, seat 34,” said Jenny.
She hustled the girls out of the exit without waiting for the usher’s response.
At 8:30, there was a knock at the door. The girls were in bed. Jenny was clearing the table of an uninspired dinner of cut-up hotdogs in Campbell’s tomato soup.
She wasn’t surprised by the knock. She imagined they’d track down all the credit card holders linked to rows P through T. It was probably straightforward police procedure.
But she couldn’t shake her sense of unreality as she opened the apartment door to two uniformed police officers. Nothing remotely like this had ever happened to her before. She ushered the men into the tiny kitchen and offered to put the kettle on. Both officers refused.
She put the kettle on anyways and told them she always made tea in the evenings.
She didn’t always make tea in the evenings; that was a lie. She wasn’t sure if she lied out of nervousness or defiance. Who wouldn’t be nervous with two officers at the front door? And lately she was defiant in the face of male authority—or, as Tess would say, whenever she faced anything with a pair of balls.
She was compensating for the past, said Tess.
Whichever the case, making tea gave her something to do. She puttered at the counter, fussed with the canister and the teapot, got out the milk and sugar and three mugs and three spoons—in case anyone changed their mind.
From there, the conversation progressed just as she imagined these conversations did.
Yes, she was Jenny Folkes. Not Jennifer, just Jenny. Yes, she bought tickets to The Nutcracker matinee. She sat in S34, her daughters were in seats S33 and S35. Maddie-short-for-Madeline and Zee-short-for-Zoe. They weren’t Folkes, they were Burke; Jenny was separated.
No, they didn’t leave their seats during the first half, but they left for intermission early because Zee had to pee. That’s what Zoe always said when she needed to go: Zee has to peeee! No, they didn’t leave during the second half; both girls fell asleep.
No, she didn’t speak to the man in R34. No, she didn’t pay much attention to who was sitting beside him. She remembered young children but it was a matinee of The Nutcracker so she supposed a vague memory of children wasn’t helpful. She remembered thinking the man was probably someone’s grandfather.
She snapped her fingers: Wait, the family to his right didn’t come back after intermission, she just remembered.
No, she wasn’t immediately concerned when the man didn’t get up to leave; she thought maybe he wasn’t someone’s grandfather after all. Yes, she touched him on the shoulder to wake him.
Of course, when she saw he was dead she didn’t touch him again; she got the girls out of there as fast as she could and alerted the usher. No, it didn’t occur to her the man might not be dead; she saw the blood and just assumed. Oh good lord, she should have checked! Oh my god, was he not dead?!
No, no, the officers assured her. He was definitely dead.
Thank goodness, she said. Then she got flustered: why on earth had she said that? They’d think she was a lunatic. She poured herself another cup of tea to cover her agitation.
No, she couldn’t think of anything else. Yes, she’d call the number on the card if something more occurred to her.
She closed the door behind the officers and flipped the deadbolt.
Then she finished drying the dishes. She emptied the teapot and threw the teabags in the garbage.
She swept the floor.
She tied the garbage bag closed, opened the apartment door, and walked the bag down the stairs and out to the bin in the back parking lot. She wasn’t worried about leaving the apartment unlocked. Everyone in the building looked out for one another.
Jenny met Alexei Boudjikanian six years ago, on her first shift following her maternity leave. She was anxious about leaving the baby at home with Adrian, but Maddie was a good sleeper and she figured picking up a few night shifts would be better than going back to days.
Dr. Boudjikanian was older, suave, new to the Jubilee. Tess had mentioned him, but not in any particular way. She hadn’t mentioned that his gaze was penetrating, or that just standing next to him at the nurses’ station would make Jenny’s hands sweat. But Tess wasn’t affected by men the way Jenny was. Jenny was a sucker for an authoritative male figure.
Not so much now that things were different. But she’d met Alexei Boudjikanian at a time in her life when an authoritative male figure was just the sort of thing she thought she needed.
Since then, she’d come to see her life through a therapist’s eyes: a string of mid- to long-term relationships, each new relationship beginning before the previous one ended, and always at a point when she felt beaten down, vulnerable, no longer good enough.
The new man would sweep her off her feet, tell her she needed deeper love, gentler nurturing, better sex—things that he could provide and her current man couldn’t. She wasn’t just good enough, the new man would say, she was perfect: any man who couldn’t see that was a fool.
She fell for it, every time.
But while Alexei swept her off her feet, he didn’t carry her away. When she started to hint to him that her marriage wasn’t happy, Alexei told her his marriage was—if not happy, then at least content. He had no intentions towards Jenny beyond their stolen moments in the linen supply closet and a frantic “night shift” or two at a nearby hotel.
Jenny found herself in that uncomfortable space between unhappy marriage and unsatisfying affair.
As days went by, Jenny became insecure. Alexei wasn’t as hungry; he no longer told her she was perfect. One shift, Alexei’s gaze left hers to follow the rump of a new intern as it disappeared down the hallway behind her and she knew, suddenly, that she’d been the biggest fool of all.
By then, she was pregnant.
There was a chance the baby was Adrian’s. This is what she told herself as Alexei’s attentions tapered off. This is what she held onto when she opened the door of the linen supply closet a few weeks later and met the wide eyes of the new intern, Alexei’s head buried between her thighs.
This is what she told herself in the delivery room, even as she held dark-eyed, olive-skinned Zoe to her breast for the first time.
It’s what she shouted after Adrian as he stormed out the front door two months later, got in the truck, and drove off. The next morning, he froze her out of their joint back account.
The bastard didn’t even bother sending divorce papers. He just disappeared.
Jenny didn’t return to the Jubilee. She couldn’t face Alexei Boudjikanian and his flavour of the month. She applied at Saanich Peninsula Hospital and moved to a smaller apartment. When the girls were old enough, she enrolled them in the elementary school down the street.
She was in a much healthier place now.
The morning after The Nutcracker, on the way back from dropping the girls off at school, she bought a newspaper. Usually, she just scrolled through headlines on her phone. But today something compelled her. Maybe she’d make a scrapbook, point to the clipping years from now, and say to the girls, We were at this performance. The man was right in front of us! Can you imagine?
She found the story on page A-2, but it was hardly worth the dollar-fifty: “Man Found Dead Following Matinee.” The reporter made it sound as if older men died at The Nutcracker all the time.
She’d told Tess about the upcoming matinee a couple of weeks before. Tess, loyal Tess, had followed her to Saan Pen after Jenny left the Jubilee.
Like always, Tess stepped a few feet off hospital property for a cigarette. Jenny was counting stitches because she thought she’d dropped one.
Wouldn’t it be nice, Jenny said. Nothing fancy. Just the upper balcony—in the middle so we can see everything. When I can afford it, I’m going to take the girls.
The next day, at the end of their last shift together before the holidays, Tess gave her a Christmas card. Inside was $250 in cash: For the Nutcracker. Love, Tess.
She should have gone straight to the box office. But she bought a few groceries on the way home and then didn’t have enough cash for the tickets, so she deposited the remaining money in her account and paid off just enough of her credit card bill to be able to buy the tickets over the phone. To be honest, she could have used the money for more groceries, or a new coat for Maddie, whose wrists were sticking out the ends of her sleeves, but she knew Tess would ask her how the ballet was and she didn’t want to say they hadn’t gone.
She wasn’t finished reading the paper when there was a knock at the door. She opened it to the same two officers who’d come the previous evening.
She folded the newspaper and set it aside.
“We have a few more questions,” said the shorter one.
“I haven’t remembered anything new.”
“Do you recall anything more about the family to the man’s right? You said they didn’t return after the intermission.”
“Yes. Zoe was thrilled. She could see the stage. Not that it mattered. She was asleep within fifteen minutes of the lights going down.”
“Can you remember anything about the family? How many there were, maybe?”
“Five? There could have been four. There was definitely more than one kid. I notice if a family has only one kid.”
“Why is that, do you think?”
Jenny shrugged. “I don’t know. Envy, probably.”
“Do you remember who sat closest to the man in R34?”
Jenny snapped her fingers. “The father. That’s why Zoe couldn’t see.”
“Why didn’t you move?”
“Excuse me?”
“You could have switched seats with your daughter.”
“What good would that have done? I was behind a tall man too.”
“She could have sat on your lap.”
“Do you have children, officer?”
“I do. My first was twelve weeks old yesterday.”
“When he turns five, why don’t you come back and tell me how much you enjoy having him sit on your lap for a two-hour ballet performance?”
There was an awkward silence. Tess would have shaken her head: There goes Jenny, defiance in the face of balls.
The taller man took a photograph out of his notebook. “Do you recognize this man?”
She studied the liquid brown eyes, olive cheekbones, and greying temples of Alexei Boudjikanian. Even after six years, the eyes held her.
“I’ve never seen him before.”
“Take your time.”
She looked again and then sucked in her breath. “Is that the man from R34?”
“So you do recognize him?”
“Not really. But you’re obviously asking for a reason. The skin colour is the same—and the hair. I never saw the man’s eyes. Who is he?”
“Alexei Boudjikanian. An internist at Royal Jubilee. You’re a nurse, aren’t you? You work at—” he looked down at his notes. “Saanich Peninsula. How long have you been there?”
“Six years.”
“You ever run into Dr. Boudjikanian?”
Jenny shook her head. “I’d have remembered the name. There’s no internist on staff at Saan Pen. It’s a pretty small hospital.”
The taller one tucked the photo back into the notebook and stood up. “I think that’s all for now, Ms … Folkes, isn’t it? We might have more questions later.”
Jenny also stood. “Why did you ask me about that family?”
“We’re just trying to identify the people who had seats nearby.”
“Couldn’t you trace them through their credit card? Like you did for me?”
“You’d think so, but R35 through R40 were paid for in cash. Believe it or not, some people still use cash.”
As she flipped the deadbolt, Jenny thought to herself, Dammit, some people are smart.
During her second therapy session after Adrian’s departure, the therapist commented on her hands.
“I’ve always bitten them,” said Jenny. “I even tried that stuff that tastes bad when you put your fingers in your mouth. Nothing works.”
Not your fingernails, said the therapist, your hands.
In the two weeks since Adrian left, she’d had to ask her parents for a loan, retain a lawyer, file custody papers, and hire a private investigator to try to locate the absent Mr. Burke. Her skin was sloughing off her hands in white flakes. She’d started wearing gloves to bed; otherwise, she’d wake up in the night to find herself scratching until she bled.
Why don’t you take up knitting? suggested the therapist. There’s lanolin in sheep’s wool. It might help.
It wasn’t a bad idea. She’d learned to knit in college—some liberal university club devoted to reviving the cottage arts. Now that she was a woman of modest means, she might as well start knitting sweaters for the girls.
Two weeks later, her hands were so much better that her therapist commented again.
And your nails, said the therapist. You’ve stopped biting them.
That’s the thing, said Jenny. It’s hard to bite your fingernails when you’ve got a fully loaded pair of knitting needles in your hands.
Since then, she always had a project on the go—sometimes several. Every handbag she owned had a set of needles and a ball of yarn. She taught the girls how to hold a pair of knitting needles before they could hold a pencil.
When the officers knocked on her door for the third time, she was ready. The kettle had boiled, the three mugs were in the drain board. She set them on the table before she opened the door.
They wasted no time.
“Why didn’t you tell us you knew Alexei Boudjikanian?”
“What do you mean? I don’t know Alexei Boudjikanian.”
“You worked with him at the Royal Jubilee.”
“I did? I left the Jubilee six years ago. Most of the last two and a half I was on mat leave. I don’t remember a Dr. Boudjikanian.”
“You worked the same wards. The same shifts.”
Jenny shrugged. “Sorry. It wasn’t an easy time. I had two babies in eighteen months and then my husband left me. I don’t remember very much from that period of my life.”
Outside the kitchen window there was a low growl of an engine and the hiss of hydraulics as the garbage truck nosed its way into the narrow courtyard. With a metallic whine, the arms of the truck extended, lifted the bin off the ground and dumped the contents into the truck bed. The cacophany of glass and metal and plastic made conversation impossible.
The truck deposited the empty bin on the pavement with a loud bang and reversed slowly out of the courtyard with a series of warning beeps. Then, it drove away.
Jenny took a sip of tea. “I don’t know an Alexei Boudjikanian. I didn’t recognize the man in R34. But I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at him. I didn’t want the girls to know something was wrong.
“My shift starts in half an hour. If you aren’t going to have tea, and you don’t have any more questions—and you’re not going to arrest me for the death of a man who happened to be sitting in front of me at The Nutcracker—then I really have to get to work.”
Take that, balls.
She flipped the deadbolt behind them.
After the girls used the toilet during intermission, Maddie asked if they could go back to their seats. Jenny, still sitting in one of the stalls, felt a stab of anxiety. But Maddie was a responsible seven: she remembered where their seats were, she knew not to dawdle and not to talk to strangers. It was hard to imagine a safer place than a matinee performance of The Nutcracker.
Straight back to our seats, okay? And hold hands.
The girls left the crowded women’s bathroom, and Jenny rushed to finish up. She dried her hands on her slacks because there were no paper towels.
When she started up the steps, she saw the girls were already in their seats. Zee, the little minx, had struck up a conversation with the man in front of them. She was leaning over the seat back of R35, and the man had turned to face her. They were engaged in an animated discussion. Maddie was reading the program.
As she got closer, she heard the man say to Zee, “Where’s your father? Didn’t he want to come to the ballet?”
Then the man turned and locked eyes with Jenny, and Jenny felt herself grow cold with shock. Here was Alexei Boudjikanian, the father of Zee, chatting with his daughter as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
“This lovely woman must be your mother,” said Alexei.
Zee whipped around. “Mom! This is Dr. Boudjikanian. You said we can’t talk to strangers so I told him my name and he told me his.”
Alexei held out his hand. “I’m very pleased to meet the mother of two such articulate and self-assured young women.”
It took Jenny a moment to realize that Alexei Boudjikanian had no recollection of her at all. He clearly expected her to introduce herself, to be charmed and flattered by his attention.
He didn’t have any doubts she would take his hand in hers.
Which she did, of course, because she was a sucker for that sort of thing. She took his hand and immediately felt her knees go weak.
The chime signalling the end of intermission sounded over the speakers. Zee tugged at her sleeve and she extracted her hand from his and reached into her purse as if she were looking for something important. Her hand closed around the ball of yarn and the pair of knitting needles and suddenly her knees were no longer weak.
She sat down in her seat and Zee settled herself in hers. Maddie closed the program and the lights dimmed. With a last smile into her eyes, Alexei Boudjikanian turned to face the stage, leaving Jenny to stare at the back of his head, still working the ball of yarn in her hand.
#
Looking back, she doesn’t recall the opening scene of the second half. What she does recall is the back of Alexei’s head. She thought about the feel of his salt and pepper curls between her fingers. She imagined tearing those curls out by the roots—or better yet, wringing the neck beneath them.
When Zee dropped a program over the back of the now empty seat in front of her, Jenny stood to retrieve it, eyes locked on the back of Alexei’s head. She leaned forward and the scent of his aftershave caught her in the back of her nasal passages.
She gagged. All the anger she’d ever harboured towards him rose up like bile in her throat.
She struck.
In the future, she might tell someone—a lawyer, maybe—that she struck without thinking, but she knows the description wouldn’t hold up in court. For one thing, she was holding a knitting needle. The fact that she was holding a knitting needle but not knitting with it looked suspiciously premeditated. She might testify she didn’t know the knitting needle was in her hand, but what jury would believe that? Second, she stabbed an unsuspecting man in the ear and shoved the knitting needle all the way through his brain. This isn’t possible to do without thinking, even if someone is fuelled by strong emotion. It’s not like she bashed him on the head in a fit of rage. She calculated the entry point, the force, the angle; she was devastatingly precise.
She might say, perhaps, that she wasn’t in her right mind. But in fact, at the moment the needle perforated Alexei Boudjikanian’s ear drum, she felt remarkably right, as if she’d just righted a lifetime of wrongs.
She might say she hadn’t intended to kill; any medical practitioner knows the odds of killing a man with a knitting needle to the brain are exceedingly low. At best, she might hope to cause life-altering injury.
But she knows, deep down, that she intended to kill him. She saw his ear to her left, felt the needle in her right, took aim, and fired the knitting needle into his brain with all the intention of a hunter firing a gun.
Then she sat down in her seat and watched Alexei Boudjikanian die to Tchaikovsky.
After the police officers left her apartment following that initial visit, she placed her purse and its contents—the bloody knitting needle, the yarn, and everything else except her cards and her keys—into the kitchen garbage. Then she tied the bag closed and took it out to the bin.
Back at the table, she transferred her cards to an old wallet. She had a few days before someone worked out her connection to Alexei. First they’d discover they worked together. Eventually, someone at the Jubilee would mention their affair.
If anyone saw Zoe Burke and did the math, well, game over.
She fingered her driver’s licence. She hadn’t ever taken Adrian’s last name—she’d always preferred her own.
But the marriage certificate was still in the bureau. If she wasn’t arrested in the next few days, then maybe, after all, it was time for Jenny Folkes to disappear and for Jennifer Burke to take her place.