Million Little Mistakes Read online

  MILLION LITTLE MISTAKES

  HEATHER MCELHATTON

  FOR COLIN

  CONTENTS

  How to Read this Book

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  61

  62

  63

  64

  65

  66

  67

  68

  69

  70

  71

  72

  73

  74

  75

  76

  77

  78

  79

  80

  81

  82

  83

  84

  85

  86

  87

  88

  89

  90

  91

  92

  93

  94

  95

  96

  97

  98

  99

  100

  101

  102

  103

  104

  105

  106

  107

  108

  109

  110

  111

  112

  113

  114

  115

  116

  117

  118

  119

  120

  121

  122

  123

  124

  125

  126

  127

  128

  129

  130

  131

  132

  133

  134

  135

  136

  137

  138

  139

  140

  141

  142

  143

  144

  145

  146

  147

  148

  149

  150

  151

  152

  153

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Heather McElhatton

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  HOW TO READ THIS BOOK

  Don’t read this book straight through, as you would a “normal” book. If you did, it would seem like a collage of many different stories, none of them making any sense. Instead, start on page one, and at the end of that section you’ll have a choice to make. Make it, and turn directly to the corresponding section. In this way you’ll control the story and the outcome of your chosen life.

  As in real life, good behavior is not always rewarded and bad decisions can sometimes lead to wonderful (and not-so-wonderful) results. When you reach the end of your journey, return to the beginning or anywhere else along the way where you’d like a second chance. The trick is to never turn back and always follow your gut. You never know what life may bring, or what miracles are up ahead, speeding toward you as fast as they possibly can.

  1

  You win twenty-two million dollars in the Big Money Sucka! lottery. You’ve been playing the same numbers for years, always knowing nothing would happen, always cursing your bad luck, dumb luck, tough luck, no luck, wondering why nothing good ever happens and then Crack! Luck lands like knuckles across your jaw.

  There’s a phone call, thumping on the door, news cameras, TV lights, a lottery man handing you an oversized check, cameras flashing, and your whole world is forevermore changed. Twenty-two million little green songbirds are now singing in your bank account.

  Big money and you’ve been hungry. Not for food, but for something else. Something you always wanted to do, or get, or see and thought you would’ve by now—if only things had been different. If you’d had more money, more time. Fewer detours. Better passengers. Fewer accidents. That thing you dream about that sits aching ice-bright in the greasy little waiting room of your heart. Your dream deferred and almost dead … but not quite.

  You know the one.

  Now you can do it. Pay off bills, get out of debt, help friends and family with various disasters. You can finally afford to dream. You’re set. You’re stable. You’re free. So, should you quit your day job? You like what you do, it pays well and you’ve advanced far, but you can leave now. You’re financially secure. Money is a lullaby. Small soothing words whisper in your head, a chorus repeating: You’re safe. You’re safe. You’re safe.

  If you quit your job, go to section 2.

  If you keep your job, go to section 3.

  2

  From section 1

  You knew quitting would feel good, but you had no idea how good. When you go into work and officially tender your resignation, ten years peel away from your posture, twenty pounds lift off your body, and you look every penny of fifteen million dollars richer. (Your lump-sum payment of twenty-two million got corn-holed by applicable taxes, cutting the winnings to fourteen million nine hundred and five thousand dollars [$14,905,000.00]. But hey, almost fifteen million is a lot more than you had before, right?)

  The receptionist, who’s never even said good morning before, gives you a quick little beauty-queen wave and all your coworkers say, “Congratulations!” or “Hey, Rockefeller!” and there’s backslapping and hugging but there’s also something strange in their faces. Micro sneers, quizzical glances, flashes of envy. Sharp shadows darting across their faces so quickly you wonder if it’s real.

  It’s real.

  They hate you. They hate you because you were the lucky one and if you didn’t exist then the whole universe would shift one soul over and they might have won the lottery, and don’t they deserve it more? Don’t you know how many kids they have? College tuitions? Medical bills, leaking roofs, crumbling foundations, divorce lawyers? They’ve worked here longer, suffered more, and are far more deserving than you. Who the hell are you, anyway? According to these faces, you personally have deprived everyone of a windfall and are keeping them from sending their children to private schools and taking dream vacations and retiring early.

  Your boyfriend, Aidan, reminds you that you’ve worked hard and you deserve a break. Ignore anyone who thinks you don’t deserve it! Some people just can’t be happy for other people’s success; they think there’s a limited supply of luck in the world and your gain is their loss. Screw them. You can’t help it if you’re lucky. You should enjoy yourself!

  He’s right. You deserve a silver Mercedes convertible. So you buy one and drive it right off the lot. Then you drive it into a tree. The whole front fender is crunch
ed, your coccyx is sprained, and you’re confined to the couch for a few days, where you stay up late eating chocolate ice cream and pepperoni Bagel Bites while trying to keep the cat off the remote control and ordering stuff off the Home Shopping Network. You purchase a Stadium Gal (a mobile urinary station so you don’t have to get up from the couch), an Apple MacBook, a matching set of Prada life accessories, a plasma flat-screen TV (size: insane), a king-sized memory foam mattress with enough silk bedding to swaddle a baby elephant, a Kenmore washer/dryer with antimicrobial misting cycle, a Segway scooter, a George Foreman grill with a year’s supply of hoagie meat, a motorized armpit razor with ionizing magnets, and a twenty-four-week sex-therapy video series with free “vibrating walnut”—a remote-controlled device that stays “in place” and can be turned on and off from a nifty device in your purse.

  Not that you’ve been doing anything sexy recently—your love life (as Aidan likes to continually point out) has been nonexistent since the accident, and before that it wasn’t much to brag about either. You’ve been with Aidan for quite a while now, so long that the initial white-hot thunderstorm of attraction and romance has faded into more of a comfortable, lukewarm bath. There was a lot of passion at first and maybe there still could be; it’s hard to say. You’re grateful he’s been so dependable all this time, and you don’t fight much, so there’s really nothing to complain about—but sometimes you see other couples and you think, Is this it? Is this all I get?

  You’re about to embark on a brand-new chapter of your life. A time to start fresh and take chances. Do you want to stay with Aidan and work things out, or brave this new world with your trusty vibrating walnut?

  If you end your relationship, go to section 4.

  If you keep your relationship, go to section 5.

  3

  From section 1

  You keep your job. You like the security, especially since your lump-sum lottery payment got shredded by taxes. More like amputated. After the government takes what “they’re owed,” you’re left with a measly $14,905,000.00. You’re angry. Disillusioned. But your boyfriend, Aidan, points out that while “almost fifteen million” dollars sounds like a lot less than twenty-two million, it’s a lot more than you had before, and by keeping your job you’re just adding equity into life, a chance to gild, to enhance while keeping your foundation solid.

  That Aidan. He always knows what to say.

  When you tell your boss that you’re staying, however, he stares at you for a minute and then asks if you’re crazy. Why aren’t you quitting? Why not take all that money and do something amazing or at least amazingly stupid? It’s almost like he and your coworkers resent you. You make their worlds just a little bleaker, reminding them of what they don’t have, of what didn’t happen, of who they can’t be.

  Aidan tells you to ignore them. The monkeys shriek, but the circus rolls on! He suggests hiring a financial advisor—someone to help you with your finances and investments. It’s not a terrible idea and the lottery board has a list of advisors they recommend, but you’re not sure. You’ve heard horror stories about some of those consultants. One lottery winner in Ash Flats, Arkansas, hired a financial advisor who ended up murdering him and running off with every penny. Authorities found him living in Mexico with a harem of pubescent concubines.

  Another firm advised a Powerball winner in Chickasaw, Oklahoma, to invest in a well-respected slow-growth mutual fund. Nine months later it was exposed as a Ponzi scheme and all the lottery money was gone, along with every penny of her life savings. The upshot is, there are good money managers and bad. Hire the right one and you have an ally for life; hire the wrong one and they’ll rob you blind. Plus, you can always manage this newfound money circus by yourself.

  If you hire a financial consultant, go to section 6.

  If you manage your own money, go to section 7.

  4

  From section 2

  You kill the relationship softly. First, you start ignoring Aidan’s calls and pick random days when you just don’t answer the phone. When he asks what’s wrong, you say he sounds like a crazy stalker. You also sigh frequently, so he knows something bad is coming. When you’re finally ready to lower the boom, you write him a short but earnest letter, which you’ll present at the perfect moment, outlining the various reasons you’re leaving.

  You take Aidan out for a fancy dinner and wait for that crucial window of time when the dinner plates have been cleared but the dessert plates have not yet been set down. Then bombs away. You give him the letter and he reads it while you entertain yourself with text messaging. Despite your carefully chosen words, however, he gets redder and redder in the face. He’s furious. He jumps up and bursts out of the dining room, forcing you to stay there and eat an entire chocolate fondue by yourself. Terrifically thoughtless. Well, that’s Aidan for you. Always being negative.

  Now that you’re a free agent in this world, sponsored by fat cash and unhindered by people who bum you out, you really want to change things up. But where do you go? One idea might be to book passage on one of those around-the-world luxury cruises. A voyage of epic proportions that navigates the globe with grace and style. Not to mention an all-night shrimp bar. It would not only be a good way to see the world, it would be a good way to see millionaires. How do they live? Where do they go? What do they eat? Who do they marry? After all, you have no idea, and why would you? Up until now, your idea of luxury was pretty much relegated to double-ply toilet paper and occasionally getting a bikini wax.

  Another idea presents itself on eBay. Apparently, some well-heeled blue-blooded socialite in New Orleans has decided to sell her life. All of it. At first it sounds strange, but the aristocrat’s life offers you a rare opportunity to step into shoes that simply cannot be bought. Shoes that would otherwise take a lifetime to put on. A staffed antebellum mansion filled with heirloom antiques, family jewels, a full-service limo with driver, a vintage yacht harbored at the New Orleans Yacht Club. (Usually someone has to die before one of these coveted slips opens up.) A country club membership, plus social introductions, political connections, and power lunches with the mayor. It’s a meticulously built life of elegance and ease, and you can have it all for a cool ten million.

  If you go on a luxury cruise around the world, go to section 8.

  If you buy the aristocrat’s life on eBay, go to section 9.

  5

  From section 2

  You don’t break up with Aidan. The relationship isn’t perfect, but what relationship is? Besides, everything is different now. You have enough money to start your life over. You can do anything you want.

  First of all, you’ll get out of debt. Completely and totally. All your credit card balances will be zero, and just thinking about those bloodsucking leeches at the credit card companies losing your carcass as a feed bag makes you giddy with joy. Those life-killing, muck-dwelling, pus-producing parasites would gladly turn this entire society into a blank-faced tribe of debt zombies who must endlessly work at jobs they hate so much it makes their eyes bleed just so they can pay their minimum credit card balances.

  Imagine when the overlords discover they lost a zombie! Sirens sound! Shouts are heard! They were going to use your initial credit card purchase of seventy-dollar Rollerblades over ten years ago as a seed fund for at least two of their CEO retreats in Aspen!

  You could pay off all your family’s bills, too. I mean, it’s your family! Family sticks together, and haven’t they always stuck by you? They need things! They have medical bills and missed mortgage payments and children with crooked teeth! They have broken water heaters and dogs with hip dysplasia!

  They’d like you to take care of them, just like they took care of you. After all, you made it safely to adulthood, didn’t you? Nobody drowned you, did they?

  You are family and family takes care of each other, right? Now it’s time for you to take care of them. The lists of requests pour in. One cousin needs money so she can open a miniatures store at the strip mall. It’s he
r lifelong dream. Your mother has always wanted a state-of-the-art houseboat, the kind with a GPS navigation system and a whirlpool bathtub. Your dad, who put you through college, would also like a state-of-the-art houseboat, so he can go fishing with grandpa. Your uncle says he needs an emergency loan to pay his property taxes and his three daughters need college educations or they’ll end up giving twenty-dollar Hanoi Hannahs at the truck stop.

  To cover everyone’s mortgages, credit cards, medical bills, and school loans—it’ll cost a lot. Then, if you give everyone some money for all the things they want/need/will die without, like new houses/new cars/better vacations/college funds for the kids, it would eat up a lot of your money. You couldn’t buy anything wild and crazy for yourself, no fleet of monogrammed Bentleys or luxury safaris, but there’d probably be enough cash left over to buy a nice house, and you could have everyone over for big dinners—and if no one had any debts, no credit card bills or looming mortgage payments, your mother’s withering dream of having a family dinner where everyone got along might actually come true.

  Then again, how many people get this opportunity? Here the unbelievable has happened, you won the freaking lottery, and for the first time in your life you can do anything you want. No budgeting, no scrimping, no pussy “five-year plan” to get something cool started. The engines are rumbling and the thrusters are ready. Buy yourself something ridiculous! So what if you break your mother’s heart? She’s used to it! The angel on your shoulder says you should help your family, but the devil says it’s time to tell everyone to go to hell and make your weird-ass dreams come true.

  If you buy yourself something ridiculous, go to section 10

  If you pay all your family’s bills, go to section 11.

  6

  From section 3

  You meet with two highly recommended financial consultants. First, there’s Mr. Cook, from the lottery board. He looks like a nervous woodland creature with a shy, bright pink face and ears like soup bowl handles. He’s from a respectable law firm that specializes in wealth management, and even though he can’t reveal the names of his clients due to confidentiality laws, he assures you he works for the very wealthiest families.