“If you’re like me, nondairy creamer in your morning coffee is a sad excuse for the real thing.” Miles looked sternly into camera three. We were on a commercial break, and because Miles was delivering the spiel of one of our sponsors live in the same studio as our show, we all had to make as little noise as possible. I rummaged around in my snack drawer with quiet and delicate fingers until I found a blueberry muffin.

Miles had paused for a dramatic beat before allowing his face to open up with a broad grin. He lifted a small cardboard carton.

“I’ve changed my tune,” he said into the camera. “And I’m sure you will, too.”

He was pitching some abomination called Impossible Cow, an opaque pearly fluid made from some sort of seed or nut.

Back when we started Serpientes y Escaleras, the Network wanted me to do all the commercials. I put a stop to that nonsense day one. Boundaries are essential in this business.

Sal would have loved to increase her screen time as a pitch-woman, but it was decided that she lacked the human warmth for such work.

Miles, however, was a perfect salesman. The man oozed human warmth.

While gently removing the plastic wrapper from my snack, I realized I felt good. I attributed my sense of buoyancy to the weekend jaunt out to the country. It left me invigorated. Ready to dive into my grand plan. My important work.

But first, I needed a timeline of when Ida Mayfield would return to LA. I wanted to be free from the Network’s scrutiny.

Of course the problem wasn’t just Network snooping. I mean, even if all Network employees left town, I would still have a cluster of people who couldn’t be trusted—and I had hired many of them. I’m not saying they’d go snitching to the Network, nothing like that. It’s about that deeper level of trust. I wanted to be surrounded by people with vision. Curiosity. People who, when learning of my subversive scheme, would respond with giddy excitement.

I’m getting ahead of myself.

Anyway, I had somehow managed to surround myself with mediocrity. True, some of the team, like Myra, can be fiercely focused, yet still lack that necessary component of inspiration. Even Hal is good enough at his job, but, vision? Let’s get serious. I mean, this isn’t a fairy tale.

I had Sal, of course. And now there was Rose—she and I were on the same page, even if she didn’t know it yet. Raul was certainly a possibility, but I just couldn’t see his particular skillset being of much use. What I really needed was someone with more of a technical mind. There were experiments I needed to do, and—I’ll be honest here—I could barely tell the difference between a Phillips-head screwdriver and that other kind. I might talk myself up, but the truth is, I’ve no more knowledge of electricity than a parakeet. Electricity, that was some dangerous stuff!

As I ate my muffin, I let my gaze drift over to Rose.

She stood in the center of the stage staring at her shoes. Her head bobbed as if in time with a sluggish waltz. Was she counting her breath? Some sort of relaxation exercise?

During our time at the cabin, Rose conveyed her frustrations. She felt that she should be more accomplished in her Reading skills. Able to get deeper into the heads of the contestants.

Sal explained to Rose that she would improve. First, she needed to get past the side effects, and those would begin to dissipate over the next few days. That had surprised me. I was not aware of the headaches and the dizziness. But it made sense that one could become exhausted with all that popping in and out of people’s noggins.

Rose must have noticed me watching her, because she walked across the stage to me. I handed her a tangerine flavored Gummy bear.

Miles was still flogging fake bovine products, so I kept it to a whisper.

“The glycerin lubricates the vocals cords,” I told Rose, pointing to the little candy. “Learned it from an aging soprano. It did wonders for his vocal fry.”

She popped it in her mouth.

“So, how's it going?" I asked.

“The vertigo is hard to shake,” she told me.

Raul came to kneel in front of me so he could adjust my belt. The buckle had shifted a couple of inches to the side. Raul was a stickler for symmetry.

“Vertigo?” I asked her. “I thought that only came at the end. You know, when you're telepathically connected to the contestants when the magic door is shut.”

“That’s the worst, sure,” she said. “But it also happens every time Saligia severs the connection.”

That sounded awful.

Suddenly Raul gasped and grabbed my wrist.

Apparently I had been about to wipe my fingers on my jacket.

“How many times have I told you?” he hissed. “No greasy food.”

I had to smile. I was looking down at a handsome and dapper man on his knees in front of me cleaning my fingers with a moist towelette. Raul’s criticism of my muffin-eating was loaded with just enough fussy maternal frustration as to almost—but not completely—dispel a mild sensation of erotic frisson.

Funny, that. My doctor and my tailor agreed on the same thing. No greasy food. Well, for different reasons.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Sal walk over to join us.

“Rose,” she whispered. “You’re doing it again.”

What was she talking about? Rose was just staring off into space. Ah. No, she wasn’t. Rose was looking over at him.

“You need to keep your focus on the stage.” Saligia placed a hand on Rose’s shoulder. “I need you to be present.”

“Sal’s right,” I said. “You keep looking over at your beau.”

Meaning August.

He had been seated in the front row today.

“He makes me think of an owl,” Rose said softly. “And I’m a little mouse, alone in the middle of a field.”

That surprised me. I thought Rose liked our mystery man. Or at least felt pity toward him.

“You’re no mouse,” Sal told Rose. “But, dear, every time you catch a glimpse of him, a bit of his inhuman iciness drifts through my brain like a fistful of razor blades.”

They both really did not like that poor fellow.

“I’ll keep my eyes on our two contestants,” Rose said.

“Or me,” Saligia added. “If you find yourself adrift, look at me.”

“Don’t forget me,” I said. “I can be looked at, too.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” Raul muttered. He stood up and tilted my head a couple of inches to the right. He licked the corner of a handkerchief and scrubbed some crumbs or something from my cheek. “Over here snacking and making a mess.”

“Will we get a repeat performance tonight?” I asked Rose. “Watch again as you remain mentally connected when the winner is sent to the great beyond?”

“Wait,” Raul said with keen interest. “You can do that?” He looked at Rose. Then at Sal.

“Why would I want to do that,” Sal said dismissively. “It’s not like any of us will ever be going through those doors.” But I knew that Sal was afraid. With her it was that simple. In the push and pull between curiosity and fear, her fear always triumphed.

“But….” Raul wouldn’t let her off so easily. “A chance to take a peek into that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns.”

I do like a man who can quote Shakespeare.

Sal just shrugged. So Raul turned to Rose. Brave Rose.

“You’ve done this before?” he asked her.

Rose’s gaze had drifted back to August. She shivered slightly, and then shifted so her back was to the audience.

She looked at Raul with some hesitation. I realized that after our weekend retreat, Rose had come to trust me and Sal. She wasn’t so sure about sharing her secrets with others. Of course, everyone loved Raul, so she relented.

“Just a bit,” she told him. “Tentative, at first. A little taste. When one of those doors slams shut on a contestant, there is this surge of prickly electricity.” She brushed a finger across her temple. “In the beginning, I let the mental connection break because it’s really uncomfortable. That’s why Michael disconnects even before the door closes. Though for him, it’s just mild dizziness.”

At the mention of his name, I looked over at Michael. He stood next to Ida, bobbing his head in slack-jawed agreement to whatever she was whispering in his ear.

“Well, of course,” Sal told Rose. “That’s because Michael never connects deeply enough to feel much of anything.”

“But you persevered,” Raul prodded.

Rose nodded.

“When the door closes,” she said, “that’s when the contestants leave. Some automatic switch on the door, I guess. They fall. Sort of. They have this sensation of falling inside themselves. I don’t get any fear from them. More of a sense of surprise. On my first three days, that was the point when I would disconnect. However, Thursday night, I stayed in that man’s head—but just at the surface of his consciousness—all the way. Luckily, no one noticed over the commotion—Sy playing music, the audience cheering. I had no sense of up or down. I had to stand absolutely still or I’d fall over. And then, the winner arrived. Somewhere. And I had the weirdest sensation. I felt like someone had shoved me into a vat of frigid syrup. I was absolutely paralyzed. I was no longer connected to him, but, still, that paralysis lasted for the entire duration of the credits.”

“And tonight,” Raul said cautiously, “you’re doing it again?”

“That’s the plan.” Rose looked around at the rest of us to see if anyone would dissuade her. I think she was hoping me or Sal would do just that. But we did not. “However tonight,” she added quietly, nervously, “I want to get as deeply as possible into the mind of the winner before the door closes.”

“Is that safe?” Raul asked with a hushed gasp. He looked at me, then at Sal.

“She’ll be fine,” Sal said. “But,” she turned to Rose, “if you vomit, you’ll have to clean it up yourself.”

I personally loved how Rose approached life. Like a scientist. Well, a mad scientist. I just hoped she’d keep sharing the fruits of her experiments with me.

“Wait.” Raul’s voice had an edge to it. “What if your contestant goes through the other door? Now that can’t be safe.” His eyes nervously darted from Sal to me. “Can it?”

He had a point. But before I could offer some advice—though I’m uncertain what that advice would be—Myra waved her hands toward our group like she was chasing flies from a picnic table. Raul headed back to his racks of clothes along the back wall. Rose and Sal returned to their places on the stage.

Miles was wrapping things up over in the corner where we shot the commercials. Yammering on about how “it holds the essence of the charcoal,” “is perfect for summer cookouts,” and “plays nice with all condiments, be they mustard, mayo, or the most exotic of salsa!”

It seemed Impossible Cow had a line of faux meat as well.

All eyes in the studio settled upon Myra as she began the ten second countdown for the return of Serpientes y Escaleras from the commercial break.

Camera three was pivoted on its well-oiled casters away from Miles, and then it was rolled in my direction. I started up the theme music with some fancy Liberace finger-play across the keyboard. Ed took up his position in front of the seated audience. He clapped his hands to the music and grinned like he was possessed. Immediately the audience was as excited as Ed.

Michael nodded to Rose as he walked past her, and then he placed a hand on the shoulder of one of our two contestants, Jerome. Rose did the same with the other, Priscilla.

And by whatever spooky powers Sal had control over, she sent her hoodoo into and through our two Readers, causing both the contestants to return to their somnambulant and dreamy trance.

When the red light came to life atop the camera pointed at me, Ed and Valerie had the audience in top form. Cheering, applauding.

I was, of course, already into my performance. Up on my toes, leaning over the keyboard, mashing out chords. I wondered if we could get one of those bubble machines like Lawrence Welk used to have.

I gave Rose a wink, mouthing the words: You got this one!

Slowly, I swiveled to face the camera. I always felt a surge of electricity whenever I peered deep into the camera lens. The curved glass elements shimmered with concentric iridescence all the way down to the black metal bushing protecting the photodiode substrate of the image sensor. A fierce hunger overcame me as I confronted something deep inside there. Something so toothsome, so luscious. I never attempted to hide my rapturous and ravenous recognition. Way down in there was the most delicious thing on Earth.

My beloved audience.

“Welcome back to Serpientes y Escalerrrrrrras!”

I looked over at Saligia. She ran her hands down her thighs, smoothing her skirt.

She indulged me those sweet and protracted moments when it was just me and the people—all over the city, and maybe cities beyond—sitting in front of their television sets as they allowed my words to drift intimately into their ears. I admit I felt an energy that I can only think of as supernatural. I still haven’t figured out if I had power over my audience, or they, over me.

I held that final chord in a sustained reverberation. My grin melted into a soft, seductive smile, the one you reserve for that special someone when the both of you are separated by a flickering red candle on a small table in a shadowy and smoky cocktail lounge.

I let my eyes lose focus a bit. My pulse thrummed along strong and steady in my neck.

When the studio audience had quieted down, I spoke in a whisper, my eyes cutting toward Sal.

“Why don’t we jump right back into the action. What do you think, Saligia?”

She nodded and stepped forward into a pool of magenta light.

“Our contestants are all set,” she said, her voice strong but soothing. She looked from me to the camera trained on her face. “Priscilla has the board for this next round, and she is in the lead!”

I lifted my arm to indicate the lighted game board, displayed above the stage.

“True,” I said, my voice ripe with untold possibilities. “But competitor Jerome could take the lead at any time. There are no certainties in Serpientes y Escaleras, are there, Saligia?”

Saligia nodded in vague agreement. Her eyelids struggled—as if from her generously applied mascara as well as the psychogenic burden of cosmic energies—and then her eyes closed. She lifted her arms with the palms open to the heavens like a priestess in ritual adoration to some dark deity.

I knew the spooky stuff was happening. I could see the change come over the Readers. Michael’s face took on the irritation of a commuter jostled by a fellow passenger on a train. But Rose embraced it—she wore an expression of dreamy alertness.

The connections had been made.

I tried to be present and follow the successes and setbacks of our two contestants, but their life stories failed to hold my attention. Lies, infidelities, shoplifting. Probably some virtuous behavior as well. But mostly I just went through the motions. Playing occasional interstitial music, pushing buttons to advance the lights on the game board, applauding in delightful affirmation, shaking my head in grim commiseration.

The very basics to earn my paycheck.

My mind was plunging into the future, struggling to give shape to my Plan.

Part of it concerned a better understanding of these portals. The ones downstairs through which our contestants arrived, as well as these two through which they departed. And here Rose was—completely unprompted by me!—doing important reconnaissance into the weird realm beyond those departure portals.

Finally, the show came to an end, bringing us closer to Rose’s little audacious experiment.

Priscilla won. And by their impassioned cheers, the audience felt she deserved it.

The contestants were then led to their respective doors through which, once opened, they willingly stepped inside. Michael stood beside the loser’s door; Rose, the winner’s. They waited patiently on my instructions.

I could feel that my toupee had slipped half an inch. I gave it an expert tug and pressed down where I knew the double-sided tape to be. When the camera cut to me, I was ready.

“Adieu to you both, winner and loser,” I said with grim gravity. I lowered my chin as I expect would some Victorian judge passing a verdict (though in a much more ornate wig). “Michael, Rose, do the honors and send these two off on the next leg of their grand journey.”

“Serpientes y Escaleras,” Saligia intoned in such a low register it might as well have been, and may God have mercy on your souls.

Both the contestants peered out from those little rooms. Their nervous expressions were the last we saw of them as Rose and Michael, in unison, slammed shut Door Number One and Door Number Two.

As I played us out with a shameless pastiche of Bert Kaempfert’s “A Swinging’ Safari” (but in a disconcerting minor chord), I watched Rose. She faced the camera, but I knew her eyes barely registered on anything in the studio. Rose was with Priscilla, inside her head. And Priscilla, as they say, had left the building. Perhaps to some other dimension? Another plane of existence? The pillowy clouds of high heaven? But if Rose’s stiff-limbed stance—she looked like a cat frozen in surprise when it has found itself upon a waterbed—was any indication, I would have to say Priscilla had not yet arrived at her destination.

Saligia, I saw, held her jaws tightly clenched. Was she struggling to keep from picking up those stray thoughts as Rose hitched a psychic ride through that mysterious portal?

I wondered if Rose enjoyed riding that transdimensional wave. Did she have enough presence of mind to savor it? Or was she just holding on for dear life? She had said that the time before when she had done this (though not so intimately connected), that just as the theme music ended, she arrived. Somewhere. And the mental connection had been severed. I hoped the same thing happened this time to jerk her back to her body. If not, what? Would I have to try dousing her with that bottle of warm orange soda that had rolled to the back of my snack drawer? That would be an inauspicious return to the real world after learning the secrets of the universe.

I could see on the television monitor above the audience that the credits were just about to end. There, the twin logos of the Network, and my very own Silver and Brown Productions.

Ah! Rose was back.

“That’s it, we’re out,” Myra said with a staccato snap of her tongue on the final T.

Ed and Valerie moved among the audience—those still-unchosen contestants—praising them for their good work, getting them to their feet, leading them out of the studio. The camera crew glided their bulky equipment over to the far wall. Hal—visible in his booth at the back—put his feet up on the switcher board and I could just make out the flask as he tipped it back. Michael had found his way to Ida’s side—if he were a dog he’d be rolling on his back in a desperate submissive display. Saligia had already slipped out. I knew she’d be on the elevator to the penthouse to get one of her cold compresses from the refrigerator—she kept a stack of them right beside the bottle of vodka.

And Rose. She stood motionless, still beside Door Number One. She looked down on the floor at the pool of magenta light where Sal had been standing last. When a crew member shut off all the lighting instruments on the overhead grid, Sal’s spotlight vanished. Rose pulled back, startled. Her right hand trembled slightly. She looked down at it with irritation before making a fist a few times to get the blood flowing.

That’s when I knew she’d be fine.

Raul was watching her, as well. A look of paternal concern softened his features. Then he looked over at me. I shook my head. We should let Rose process whatever she had experienced. If she needed any of us, she knew where we were.

She took a deep breath, and without acknowledging anyone else, she walked through the exit door.

I have to say, I envied Rose her wild ride.

I felt it only proper to give her some space. But not for too long. I wanted to know everything she had learned.

It would likely figure into the Plan.