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- [00:08]
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There is a time to be big, brash and bold, and then there is a time to do less. I'm Meg Wolitzer, and coming up on Selected Shorts, fiction about caution, when to exercise it, and when to throw it to the wind. Stay with us. You're listening to Selected Shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time. Have you heard that phrase, move fast and break things? It's something Mark Zuckerberg came up with over a decade ago, and in a lot of ways it's come to define the ethos of the Silicon Valley crowd. While that may be a successful business strategy, in life we often have to concern ourselves with the consequences of our actions. This means we do things only after thinking them through and moving slowly once we've made that choice. Or to put it another way, move carefully and don't break anything if you can help it. The fiction on this show is about this sort of careful ethos taken to an extreme. While many of us may be naturally cautious and do our best not to act rashly, the characters in today's stories take their concerns to the limit. In one, a father goes to unbelievably great lengths to keep his family safe, and in another, a widower takes almost imperceptible steps toward a new life. Our first story is by George Saunders. He's a devotee of the short story and over the years has been a great friend to this show. His novels include Lincoln and the Bardo and his latest Vigil, and he's written several collections of stories, including 10 December. This satirical story is a favorite of Short's fans, which is why we gave it to a new reader years after the original performance. This time around, we asked the actor BD Wong to try his hand, and he really digs into the story with vigor. Wong is known for series including Law SVU and Mr. Robot, and his many films include multiple Jurassic park movies. And now BD Wong performs Lars Excessively Fearful Father and Husband by George Saunders.
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Lars Farf, Excessively fearful father and husband Lars Farf had not always been excessively fearful. Originally, he was just normally fearful. Then one day he came in from the fields and found his house reduced to a pile of smoking ash. Where was his wife? Where were his children? Fortunately for him, his wife and children were not at the bottom of the pile of smoking ash, but sprinting joyfully up the road, relieved to find that he wasn't at the bottom of the pile of smoking ash. But the damage had been done. He was now excessively fearful. When he rebuilt the house, he made some changes. The new house had no fireplace. No matches were allowed inside. The house had no stove. And all cooking was to be done in a little shack several hundred yards away. The family was not allowed inside the cooking shack. Every hour, one of the servants was required to walk around the house dousing the walls with water from a special fire dousing bucket, just in case. Then, doing some further research on fire, Farf learned that fire was caused by friction. After that, no friction was allowed in the house. Special smooth shoes were bought to slide across special smooth floors. Nothing was allowed to be cut or scuffed or even rubbed slightly against any other thing. No cheek kissing, back patting or book sliding was allowed. And if your bottom itched, you had to step outside to scratch it. All friction generating activities were to be done in the friction shack next to the cooking shack. And family members had a 32nd limit after which they had to come out so far could ensure they weren't on fire. One day, reading a newspaper, he read about a great flood. A great flood, he learned, involved huge amounts of water. All of a sudden that night, he dreamed that his family was happily thanking him for their fireproof house, when suddenly a great amount of water came. And as his family was swept away, he heard them pathetically calling his name. Next morning, he had all the plumbing removed from the house, as well as all sinks, bathtubs, cups and sponges. The dog was no longer allowed to drool inside the house. All crying, sweating and drinking had to be done in a third shack built between the cooking shack and the friction shack called the wetness shack. Still, he worried he had taken care of fire and floods. Yes, but surely these weren't the only bad things that could happen. How could he prevent all bad things from happening when he didn't even know all bad things that could possibly happen? So he bought a book called a compendium and began studying. The first thing he did was raise the house 200ft above the ground to make it truly flood proof. But because this brought the house closer to the sky, which was where lightning came from, he built a special anti lightning canopy. And because the anti lightning canopy was so heavy, he had to put in special thick canopy supporting beams. And to prevent the canopy supporting beams from falling on, crushing and killing his family, he built special beam catching devices which he installed between the tornado predicting nodules. And to keep out bands of evil marauders, he hired a special team of 11 reformed evil marauders. And to keep an Eye on the reformed evil marauders in case one of them went back to marauding. He hired a team of 22 marauding assassination assessment specialists. And to keep out poisonous snakes and or rabid dogs, he hired a team of ditch diggers to dig a 200 foot deep anti snake anti dog trough around the house. Then installed a bear discouraging gate across the hurricane proof bridge spanning the anti snake anti dog trough. Now it was Mrs. Farf and the Farf children's turn to worry. They wished Farf would go back to being the man he'd been before the fire. A round cheerful guy, only normally fearful, who kept them awake at night with his booming laughter which filled them with irritable confidence as they lay there wishing he would get tired and go to bed. But even with all the new improvements, Farf was not at peace. He stayed up nights rushing between the fire friction and wetness shacks, checking the various canopies, beams, modules, marauders and marauder assessment specialists on the lookout for genius snakes and or dogs who had somehow defied his trough. Then one day, Farf had a revelation. Nothing could possibly happen to his wife or children if they were enclosed in elevated impervious uncrushable personal protection pods. So he hired a team of carpenters to build five heavy oak personal protection pods with copper food slide in chutes and oxygen supply vents and tiny glass out viewing portals so the family, while being kept completely safe, could continuously scan the area for potential threats. Once his wife and children were safely inside, the pods were raised to a level where well above bear and or wolf level, but low enough to prevent death if one of the three fail safe. Hoisting ropes snapped and the pot crashed to the ground. Finally, everything was perfect. Nothing bad could possibly happen to his family ever. Of course, nothing good could ever happen to his family ever either. But to Farf, who had finally begun sleeping through the night, this seemed a worthwhile trade off. For the first time since the fire, life felt good. Until one afternoon he found two of his marauder assessment specialists playing checkers when they should have been assessing his reformed marauders. Suddenly, he didn't entirely trust his marauder assessment specialists. So he hired a team of marauder assessment specialist observers to watch the specialists. Then, not entirely trusting the marauder assessment specialist observers, he hired a team of monks to watch the observers. And not entirely trusting the monks who were suspiciously bald and never spoke. Hired a team of levitating holy men to watch the monks, then made all of them the marauders. The marauder Assessment specialists, the marauder assessment specialist observers, the monks and the levitating holy men wear a system of leg irons and cement shirts so they couldn't make any sudden moves if they suddenly decided all at once to betray him. Also, he hired some snake, dog, bear, wolf monitors to make proactive scouting missions into the woods around the house, and hired a team of optometrists to constantly check the eyes of the snake, dog, bear, wolf monitors so the monitors wouldn't miss anything, and issued an order that not only must all snakes, dogs, bears and wolves be apprehended, but anything even vaguely resembling a snake, dog, bear or wolf must be apprehended, including, but not limited to all snake, dog, bear, wolf resembling sticks, branches, stones and or boulders. Then one fateful day, a cry came from personal protection pod number four, which contained Gwen, the middle Farf daughter. Upon closer investigation, Farf determined that Gwen had run her hand over the inside of her personal protection podcast and gotten a splinter and was bleeding. The poor thing. What a fool he'd been. What kind of inattentive, reckless father builds a personal protection pot out of oak, which being wood, not only tends to splinter, but also could conceivably burst inexplicably into flames? Stupid, stupid, stupid, thought Favre, rushing off to town to commission five new personal protection pods of metal. Town was a nightmare. Everywhere people were brushing against one another, mopping things with water from buckets, sweating right out in the open. He saw a child who must have had some sort of death wish, rubbing two sticks together in close proximity to a very dry looking old man reading an extremely flammable newspaper. What were people thinking? Did no one love life? Meanwhile, back at the Farfs, the levitating holy men taking pity on the Fars, had released the Fars from their personal protection pods for the afternoon. The Farfes were having a party which was getting for them a little wild. They drank glass after glass of water, danced without their anti friction slippers, flamboyantly scratched even though nothing itched, and when it got dark, brought up the fire dousing bucket, filled it with hay, made a fire and stood roasting marshmallows over it, which was when Farf arrived home. It would be hard to express just how shocked he was to see his family behaving with such utter disregard for their own safety. He rushed them into their new personal protection pods, which in addition to being made of gleaming friction resistant metal, had improved Riley padlocks and also the out viewing portals had been eliminated. Since it was conceivable that Looking out, the Farfs might see something that would frighten them with respect to the elimination of the out viewing portals. Farf soon noticed another advantage. Not only could his family not see out, he could no longer see.
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In
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not seeing his family, he was reminded less and less of his deep love for them. And loving them less, grew somewhat less worried that something terrible would happen to them. Which was when he discovered what eventually came to be known as the Farfetch Hypothesis. Love, he discovered, causes fear. Loving someone, we fear the loss of them. Stop loving, the fear decreases. Hence, to eliminate fear, it was only necessary to stop loving. Which is what Pharf now attempted to do. He stopped going from pod to pod every hour, verbally confirming through the oxygen supply vents that all was well, since he found that hearing the voices of his wife and children every hour tended to keep his love index elevated. Instead, he hired a verification associate to perform the hourly verbal confirmation and deliver the family's meals and tiny thimbles of water. But Far soon found that the very sight of the pods reminded him of his wife and children. And so he had the pods shrouded with huge swaths of cloth, but soon found that the very sight of the swaths reminded him of the pods underneath. So had the pods relocated to a spot behind the house. With his family safely inside the pods behind the house, under the swaths, Farf felt his love index steadily declining. Soon, entire days passed when he didn't worry about his family at all. For the first time since his marriage, Farf felt almost completely free from fear. Then one morning, the verification specialist rushed in to report that Gwen was dying.
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Who?
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Said Farf. Who's dying, Gwen? Said the verification specialist. Pod number four. I don't know it, Egwene, said Farf. But the verification specialist saw that Farf's eyes were full of tears. What is this person Gwen dying of? Asked Farf. Boredom? Loneliness? I'm really not sure, said the specialist. Pod number four was opened and Gwen was removed. Seeing her, Farf's love index spiked, and he realized with a sinking heart that he had just undone months of hard work. Then, as predicted by the Farf hypothesis, there came a corresponding spike in his fear rating related to how pale and weak Gwen looked and the fact that even after months in the pod, she still seemed happy to see him. Open the pods, Farf commanded in a choked little voice. Open all the pods. And the pods were opened and the Farfs were brought out, looking pale and weak. At that moment, Farf saw that the Farf hypothesis was undeniably true love did cause fear. The more you loved, the more you feared the loss of the thing you loved. But what was one to do? Live with the fear. Love in spite of the fear, wake up every morning knowing that today could be the day on which someone you loved might be lost. Then Far caught sight of himself in one of his security mirrors. He looked absolutely crazy. His hair was sticking up and there was a coldness in his eyes. And because for many weeks now there had been no one to remind him to trim his beard, his beard hung down to his chest. And because there had been no one to cough softly and indicate with their eyes, his beard, his beard, had bits of bread in it and also part of a candy bar and somewhat inexplicably, a rubber doorstop, which was when Farf discovered the far from corollary, which, though less elegant than the Farf hypothesis, was equally true. Living without love, you get gross things in your beer. Farf very humbly kissed each of his family members on the head, asked for their forgiveness, and then had the pots destroyed and the various shacks, canopies, beams and modules removed, fired his marauders and specialists and observers sent away the monks and levitating holy men and filled the anti dog, anti snake trough with water so the Farfs could, if they chose, go swimming. But not when there was a thunderstorm or the possibility of a thunderstorm, and not without their life jackets which contained special built in shark alarms, and not before they had signed the swimming log, which they had to be signed again when one was done swimming, even if one just got out briefly to eat something being cooked on the outdoor fire, which Farf tended very carefully, clenching the fire dousing bucket at all times, even on that rare occasion when quickly, cautiously, He went for a swim himself.
- [21:27]
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That was BD Wong reading the George Saunders story. Lars excessively fearful father and husband. I'm Meg Wolitzer. A satire like that, one can play for laughs. It can build toward some kind of moral, or it can do the trickiest thing, take its characters and us readers beyond the laugh and the moral to acknowledge something fundamental about human nature. And you thank thankfully Saunders is that kind of writer. Now I could pretend that this story, which uses helicopter parenting, no, maybe helicopter family ing to explore the costs and effects of fear, is simply gently satirical and that I cannot see myself in it at all. And yet I'm afraid I can. Did you notice that I just used the word afraid? In simple fable like prose and with a whimsical tone, Saunders deftly and wittily grapples with fear, themes that are pertinent to our modern, fast moving life. Not only fear, but also attachment, independence, love. Not to mention the risks we take when we think we're being risk averse. When we return the Misanthrope's Guide to Love I'm Meg Wolitzer. You're listening to Selected Shorts recorded live and performance at Symphony Space in New York City and at other venues nationwide. Welcome back. This is Selected Shorts where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction one short story at a time. I'm Meg Wolitzer. This week our stories are about love and approaching it with an abundance of caution. Thankfully, when we love a story, we can love it with abandon and our caution is rarely required. If you're ready to find more stories to love, the Selected Shorts podcast is basically speed dating. We post a new episode every week and many more recent episodes available to stream online. Visit us online@pledshorts.org or or just search for selected shorts on your favorite streaming audio platform. Our second piece is by writer Lilly King. She's the author of five novels, including Writers and Lovers, and her 2025 bestseller Heart the Lover. We'll hear the title story from her very first story collection, Five Tuesdays in Winter, which was published in 2021. Reading it is Justin Kirk. Kirk is an actor with an impressive list of shows and including succession Perry Mason and the Angels in America miniseries. And now Justin Kirk performs Five Tuesdays in Winter. By Lilly King.
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Five Tuesdays in winter Mitchell's daughter, who was 12, accused him of loving his books but hating his customers. He didn't hate them, he just didn't like having a chat with them or lead them to very clearly marked sections. If they couldn't read signs, why were they buying books while they complained that nothing was arranged by title? His daughter loved the customers. She sat behind the counter at the cash drawer every Saturday, writing up receipts in an illegible imitation of his own microscopic hand and chatting like an innkeeper. She was too tall and too sophisticated for a main preteen. She made him uneasy. She had recently learned the word reticent and used it on him constantly. Isn't he the most reticent person you've ever met? She asked Kate, his only other employee. Maybe not the very most, kate said, not looking up from her pricing. But he's that's enough, Paula, he said, then, feeling an unexpected pulse of blood to his cheeks, fled to the stock room. Mitchell had good ears, and just before he shut the door behind him he heard Kate's gentle reprimand. I think, as a rule, people don't like being spoken of in the third person. He'd hired Kate three months ago. She'd recently moved to Portland from San Francisco for a man named Lincoln. On their answering machine, Lincoln sounded high strung and full of anticipation, as if he only ever expected good news after the beep. Despite her strong resume, Kate had unexpected gaps in her knowledge of books. She'd never read the Leopard or the Go Between. She'd never even heard of the Machado d'. Assis. Once he overheard a customer ask how many lines were in a sestina and she didn't know she was a reader. She borrowed and returned as many as ten books a week. But not a speller. At the end of the day, when she stapled the credit card receipts to the ticker tape totals, she didn't always align the edges evenly. She let the mechanical pencils run out of lead. She had thin, sometimes dry lips that she picked at when she was thinking deeply and that he would have liked to kiss. Wanting to kiss Kate was like wanting a larger savings account for Paula's college education or one of those infallible computerized postal scales for mail orders. It was a persistent, irritating, useless desire. He'd been on one date since Paula's mother left over five years ago now. It had been a setup. A friend of a friend. They'd gone to an Italian restaurant for a pasta puttanesca. She had picked out all of her capers, explaining that she was allergic to shellfish. Then she wanted to talk about his wife's departure. The story his college buddy Brad coming to visit from Australia and leaving two weeks later with a box of live lobsters. And Mitchell's wife seemed to arouse her. He couldn't bear to take her out again and lost the mutual friend as a result. He hadn't been devastated when his wife walked out. People vanished. It had been happening all his life. His mother died when he was 6, his father 9 years later. His best friend from childhood, Aaron, had found a lump on his back. Mitchell himself had spotted it first on the beach, and he was dead by Labor Day. Even Mitchell's favorite customer, Mrs. White, had died within a few hours of the shop's opening. Mitchell stood at the stock room's one window and watched three gulls flap restlessly above the harbor. Thick, broken slabs of ice the size of mattresses had been pushed to the shore by the tide. Out farther beyond the frozen crust, the open water shimmered a luminous summer blue. In these kinds of cold spells, everything seemed confused. Even the gulls overhead seemed lost. Later that afternoon, Paula said, kate speaks Spanish. Kate demurred from where she was shelving, but Paula overrode her. She does? Did you know that, dad? Mm. He was going through a mildewed carton a student had just brought in. They were good books, without writing or highlighting on any page, but the bottom edge of nearly everyone had a pen and ink drawing of a hairy testicle. That's my icon in my frat, the student said. I know what it is. Mitchell was sharp, even for Mitchell. Paula Gloward. She was trying to train him to be more forgiving of his patrons. That was her campaign, ever since she'd grown tall, learned words like reticent, and found him flawed. After the frat boy had gone, Paula said, I was thinking Kate could help with my Spanish conversation. Kate approached the counter as if she were a customer. I'm not a teacher. I just lived in Peru for a couple years. Are you fluent? Mitchell could see from her face that it was a rigid question. By the time I left, I could pretty much say anything I wanted. But it's been six years now. She would have been living in Peru when his wife left. He hoped with an uncomfortable swell of feeling that Kate had been happy there, that if his and Paula's life had been redirected like the course of a river, Kate had been the recipient of those higher waters. Full of this fervent thought, he headed for for a reason he'd forgotten to anthropology. Paula found him there, staring blankly at the spines on the shelf. She said she could come on Tuesday evenings. Can she? If you think it'll help. To the store, Kate wore faded, untucked shirts and jeans slashed at the knee. He was often tempted to tease her, tell her that just because she sold used books she didn't have to wear used clothes. But he thought she might snapped back with a crack about the pittance he paid her, so he refrained to the first Spanish lesson. However, Kate walked up the path to his door in wool pants the color of cranberries. Tuesday was her day off. Perhaps she had a late lunch date downtown with Lincoln. Worse, she might have had a job interview. It was an easy thing to find out. She was the type who could not take a compliment. If he told her she looked nice, she'd give the reason instead of saying thank you. But he was the type who could not give a compliment, so he just said hello and let her in. Paula came flying out of her bedroom and dragged Kate down the hallway the door clicked shut and he heard no Spanish, just peals of laughter for the next half hour. He had planned to do some paperwork before starting dinner, but when he sat down at his desk he pulled out Kate application instead. Two hours, 1468. Just as he'd remembered. She was well into her 30s, plenty old enough to be Paula's mother. So what was she doing in there, giggling like a seventh grader? Her birthday was coming up on Valentine's Day, no less. Maybe she'd quit before then. She might expect a gift, or he might want to give her a little something and she would take it the wrong way. They emerged from Paula's bedroom from flushed and watery eyed. Entonces nos vemos el sabedo, no, kate said. Sabado, si. They passed his desk without noticing him. Bueno, hasta la vega, Paula. She added an extra half syllable to his daughter's name. Adios, Caterina. He waved from his chair, not wanting to break the flow with clunky English. When she came to their house the next Tuesday, she wrote down on a slip of paper from her coat pocket her new phone number. She said she was moving closer to the store. With Lincoln? Paula asked, and Mitchell for once was grateful for her prying. No, kate said, as if she might say more, then didn't. Long after she left, he got up from his reading to start supper and realized the slip of paper was still cool, crushed in his hand. He listened to Kate's new message in the back office when she was out front of the register. Hi, I'm not here. Say something funny and I'll get back to you. But her voice was not hopeful. It was the voice of someone stuck in Maine for no good reason. He hung up before the beep. The only time he ever got any information about her was on Tuesdays and Saturdays, the rest of the week without Paula. They worked together, together in uninterrupted professionalism. It was as if she'd never stood in his living room or giggled in Spanish with his daughter. He often hoped that Paula would bring up Kate's name in the evenings, let something slip about her he didn't know, but she never did. She spoke instead of teachers, friends, projects, a concert she wanted to go to. On the third Tuesday, as Kate was leaving, the phone rang. Paula Rand answered. It was for her, of course, so Mitchell walked Kate to the door alone. She was dressed up again. She had put her coat on carefully so as not to wrinkle her soft ivory shirt. She had thin, straight hair that she probably complained about all her life, but that was clean and shiny and soft. Looking again, he wanted to say how nice she looked, but instead said that he hoped she was keeping a careful record of her tutoring hours. She nodded. She was told him he didn't have to keep reminding her. He was embarrassed. It was his default line. It came out of his mouth when he wanted to say other things to her. He watched her walk to the car, which during the lesson had received a light coating of snow. He wondered if she'd brush off all the windows or just the front and back. She didn't do any of them. She just got in the car, put on the wipers, and without looking, looking sideways to see him standing unconcealed at the window, drove away. Kate has a date, paula said, catching him in the act of watching her car disappear around the corner. Lincoln? He asked hopefully more comfortable with an old rival than a new one. They're over some guy she met at the store. My store. She just said Tienda, but I think so. She told you this? In Spanish. That's why she's here, isn't it? See? Mitchell ventured uneasily. The next day he told Kate she'd have to start addressing postcards for the sale he had every April. I don't mind at all, but you do know it's only the 1st of February. He remembered her approaching birthday and the dilemma about Valentine's and said there are over 1,000 to send out, so we should get started on it. He set her up in his office in the back and waited on the thin stream of customers himself. Call if you need help, she said before he shut her in.
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I will.
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But he knew even if there was a line 10 deep, he wouldn't call. Around 2, a young man in a dark green parka came up to the counter. Mitchell knew he was going to ask for Kate, and when he did he explained that she was busy at the moment. Unperturbed, the man asked where the art section was, then slowly made his way to toward it, lingering at the new arrival bin, the poetry shelves. Mythology, Psychology. Before arriving at Art, if he pulled out a book, he replaced it exactly as it had been, but he had bad posture and snarls in his hair. Mitchell could see Kate looking at her watch as she came out of his office. He couldn't think of any way to keep her from coming forward. She looked down all the aisles until she found him. Hey, mitchell heard her say. How you doing? A little disoriented, she flexed her hand, the one that had been addressing flyers for the Past five hours. Let's go, she said to the young man. Mitchell's spirits plummeted. She hadn't mentioned leaving early. She had to stay till six. She came around the counter to get her coat and scarf. I'm gonna grab something at Westy's. Want anything? Oh, he'd forgotten all about lunch. No, he said, even though he was suddenly starving. Only mushroom soup. It was a very small joke they had once, about four years ago, Westy's had served for one day the most delicious mushroom soup he had ever tasted. They had never offered it again, but he never stopped looking on the specials board for it. Every time he went in the edges of Commercial street where were covered in a thick, lumpy layer of ice, and he watched them cross it slowly, without touching. But they were talking a lot. Blue puffs came out of their mouths at the same time they opened the door to Westy's and disappeared. They would probably eat at one of the booths. He couldn't very well complain if once in the three months she'd been working there, she ate her lunch out instead of bringing it back. There was a couple in the far room, whispering in fiction. He had been pricing a stack of books he had just bought from a composer, but now that Kate was gone, he lost his concentration. He went down the aisle her friend had chosen and pulled out, one by one, the books he'd looked at. Each one was a decent book in a C, he acknowledged with familiar shame of mediocre books he would have liked to have had an intensely intellectual selection. No confessional poetry, no mass market psychology, no coffee table crap. But as it was, business was precarious. Most intellectuals were, like the composer, selling, not buying. A few days ago a woman had come in with swatches of fabric and asked him to find her books only in those colors. Last week a man had been looking for War and Peace, and when Mitchell explained he was temporarily out of anything by Tolstoy, the man asked if he had it by anyone else. It was a terrible time for books. Hey, where are you? Kate pulled on his sleeve. I got it. Mushroom soup. She held up two containers. She was smiling as wide as he'd ever seen. Her nose was red and dripping and beautiful. It better be as good as you promised. Hadn't she already eaten? Where was the guy in the green coat? How much did he owe her? Questions swarmed, but stayed behind the tight knot in his throat. There was always one stool behind the counter and another he used to prop open the door in summer, which now stood by the coat rack nobody ever used. He'd once wanted the store to be a homey place, the sort of place where you come in and hang up your coat, stay a while. But it never had been. He'd never given any customer the impression that he wanted them to stay a while. The two stools were now side by side, with a cup of mushroom soup on the counter in front of each one. She took a sip, her eyes closed. I would wait four years for this soup, she said. He felt as if he would burst. He read about this feeling in novels, but but he was sure he had never experienced it. Meeting his wife had brought him pleasure, or a sort of relief, the mystery of whom to spend his life with solved, or so he'd thought. But he'd actually been fairly content before he met her, talking on the phone with Aaron, eating tuna in his little room, reading from the stacks of books he borrowed from the store he now owned. Mitchell wished his cup of soup would never end. They took a long lunch. Customers, as always, were irritating and disruptive. They were worse in this kind of weather. When an elderly woman finally made it out the door, Kate grunted, imitating the way he had responded to her gratitude for finding her a book. It was Middlemarch, he explained, which is a great book. Which is. I know it's a great book. He was aware of how much like Paula he sounded when he whined. But shouldn't she have read it by now? She's only 137 years old. She could be reading it for the 137th time. Or she could be giving it to her granddaughter, her great granddaughter. She seemed amused, entirely uninterested in changing him. He knew it was like that at first with anyone. He also knew it might mean that she didn't care about him at all. He tried to think of what it really was that had bothered him about the old woman. For once in his life, thought turned instantly to speech before he could stop it. I miss Mrs. White. Kate looked up from her soup. An old woman who used to come in here. What was she like? Mitchell hadn't thought about the actual Mrs. White in a long time. When he thought about her now, it was just a feeling, not a person, just a deep longing. He hadn't known her very well. At ease, she used to say to him when she came in, she'd sit on a hard pink chair in science, reading Stephen Jay Gould. They had shared a laugh once when a girl a few years older than Paula moved swiftly through the store to the picture of Thomas Pynchon that hung on the back wall and burst into tears. It was the only picture of Pynchon available then, and not many people had ever seen even that a reproduction of his high school yearbook photo. Teeth like a donkey's. The only person who should cry over that picture is his mother, Mrs. White had said. Kate allowed him his silence. She didn't try to reframe the question or ask another. Mrs. White would have done the same thing. What was she like? She was like you, he realized, watching Kate scrape out the last sip of soup with a plastic spoon. She was like you, he said, incredulous. The following day he couldn't bear her to be so far from him and told her, at the risk of finding more dates, she didn't have to spend more than an hour a day addressing flyers. He stayed at the counter with her, but they spoke very little. He pored through the boxes of books people lugged in from their cars. She took money from the customers, and in between they priced in silence. Just before closing, a customer came up to the counter and asked if they were related. You two have the exact same kind of eyes, he told them. He was drunk and the comment was preposterous. Kate had warm, thick lidded brown eyes, and his were a narrow, suspicious green. The man didn't have a coat, and they watched him lurch away into the frozen air. They were careful not to look at each other's eyes. It was only yesterday, the day of the mushroom soup, but it was already far away. Mitchell comforted himself with the thought of Saturday, when Paula would be there with them. But that night she told him she had play practice in the morning. She'd been cast as Rooster in Annie, and her friend Holly had invited her over afterward. Once he recovered from that blow, he saw on his calendar that 14 February fell on a Tuesday, the fifth Tuesday of Spanish lessons. Saturday. Then Tuesday came and went without change. On Wednesday and Friday it snowed. He woke up in the middle of the night thinking about snow clinging to the end of Kate's hair, and then and then scolded himself. Until dawn he tried to think of how to mention offhand to Paula that Kate's birthday was approaching, but as usual she was three steps ahead of him. I completely forgot to tell you, she said at dinner. I asked Kate to stay for dinner this Tuesday. It's her kumpleanos. Her birthday. He feigned uncertainty. Have you been listening at the door, dad? He wished he had the nerve. What should we get her? Paula asked. How about a brooch? He suggested. A Brooch? What's that? You know, as sparkly. He put his fingers on his pin thing. Oh my God, you are not serious. Well, then make her something. Like what? I don't know. A drawing, a necklace. Or how about doing what you used to do to the gravel dad? He knew he'd have to drive Paula to the mall. They saw Kate there that Sunday in the in the food court. She was eating a burrito alone. Both he and Paula had the same irrational impulse to conceal themselves for fear that she would guess their purpose and shadow her through the shops in order to discover her preferences. After lunch she went to the perfume counters in Macy's. A saleslady offered her some powder on a brush, but Kate shook her head and said something that made the woman and laugh. They watched her weave through the smaller stores with their red streamers and glittering hearts and loud reminders like sweetheart and something special. She seems sad, paula said. Mitchell was relieved she'd noticed. He thought it was just his own wishful thinking. Kate didn't buy anything. They watched her leave the mall, scan the parking lot for her car, and then head toward it. They There was nothing outside, not above or below or in the trees below the mall that wasn't some shade of gray. The cold had eased, and everything that had been solid was now a thick, filthy sludge. That's an awful time of year to have a birthday, paula agreed. They stood at the door. Kate had walked through. She unlocked her car, lifted her long coat in behind her, shut the door, and sat for at least a minute before starting the engine. Kate had been born in Swanton, Ohio. She'd had her appendix removed when she was 9. She didn't like cooked green peppers or people in costumes or anything by Henry James. She had a mole on her scalp just where her part began. With only this handful of facts, he admitted to himself as Paula drew heart in the clouds, she breathed on the plate glass. He had begun to truly care for her. They bought her a brooch and went home. His wife had left because, she claimed, he was locked shut. She said the most emotion he'd ever shown her had been during a heated debate about her use of a comma in a note she'd left him about grocery shopping. There was no reason why anything would be different, why he'd be able to make anyone happier. Now he was the same person he'd always been the same person. He marveled at how in books people looked back fondly to remembered selves as if they were lost acquaintances. But he'd never been anything but this one self. Perhaps it was because physically there had been little change. He'd lost no hair, gained no weight, grown no beard. He'd read a great deal in the past 20 years, but nothing that threatened his view of the world or his own minuscule place within it. Still, on the fifth Tuesday as Mitchell made dinner during the lesson, the lasagna noodles quivered in his hand as he placed them in the pan. Nervous as a schoolgirl. He wondered where that expression came from, for he had never seen Paula behave this way. Nervous as a 42 year old bookseller was how this sanctioned go. Kate had arrived with a small heart shaped box of chocolates which he'd set on a table in the living room. He'd been so startled by the gift, he hadn't taken in the rest of her, and now he couldn't picture her in Paula's room, sitting at the foot of the bed where they always sat. He was just putting the lasagna in the oven when Kate flew past. Where you going? He said, unable to conceal his horror as she flung her coat over her shoulders without bothering to fit her arms in the sleeves and reach for the door. I'll be right back. The door slammed shut. He heard her holler from the walkway. She'll be fine. He went to his daughter's room. The door was open but she wasn't in it. On her quilt on the bed was a dark red stain and a few pale streaks. Her bathroom door was shut. He stood in silence before it. I'm okay, dad. She sounded like she was hanging upside down.
- [48:38]
B
You sure?
- [48:39]
C
He couldn't control the wobble in his voice. Kate's gone to get some stuff. He actually already had stuff in his bathroom. He bought it for her years ago. That's good. Kate's choices would be better. He felt pleased that he was not overreacting, that he knew right away where it happened, hadn't called an ambulance. And then he looked down and saw the blood. Up close. He was holding the quilt in his arms. He didn't remember taking it off the bed. It was a quilt his mother had made and he had slept beneath as a child. The stains and streaks seemed like warnings. Soon Paula would begin complaining that he didn't understand her, didn't appreciate her, didn't love her enough, when in fact he loved her so much his heart often felt shredded by it. How do you feel? He ventured. All right. Kind of weird. Your mother used to get terrible cramps, he said into the crack in the door. He waited for the clutch that Came with talking about her like someone had grabbed him by the chest hair. She got headaches sometimes, too. He waited, but the clutching feeling never came. And she had a bullet birth when you were born, you know, 35 minutes, I think. We barely made it to the hospital. Not that you want to be thinking about that right now. Sweat prickled his scalp. Shut up, he told himself. Do you miss her, dad? No. He was astonished by the truth of it. I don't either anymore. I feel like I should miss her. All I really remember is her walking me to school and holding my hand and I. And giving me big hugs at the door. But I always knew the minute she turned her back, I was out of her mind completely. She wasn't like you. I knew you were thinking about me. Always. When Kate came back from the pharmacy, he retreated to the kitchen. He could hear her coaching Paula, first in the bathroom, then through the door. At times her voice was serious and precise. Other times they were both laughing. After a long while she came into the kitchen. She caught him standing there in the middle of the room, doing nothing. She touched the quilt in his arms. If I run cold water on it now, it won't stain. I'll do it. He went down the narrow back hallway to the laundry room with the big basin, and she followed. He never expected her to follow. He turned on the faucet. She held the quilt up and and fed the stained parts to him slowly. They had to wash it bit by bit, wringing out one part before starting on another. He wished, as in a fairy tale, a magic spell had been placed on the cloth so it would never end and they could spend the rest of their lives right here, washing and wringing. You may have to undo some stuff I told her while you were gone. I babbled on about iron supplement, months and pregnancy. Probably scared the lights out of her. You babbled? I thought you were the most reticent man in the world. Every 42 years or so, I babble. She still had her coat on. Must have started snowing again. Melted flakes glinted like stars all over her. He heard the time bar buzz and the oven door squeak open. They hung the quilt on the fishing line he'd strung up across the room years ago. When they were done, he could do nothing but look at her. She looked carefully back. Paula called them to dinner, but they made no move toward the kitchen. Why do you think he asked her. That man said we had the same eyes. Maybe he saw something similar in them. Like what? Fear. She looked away. He'd forgotten how Disappointing. These conversations could be Desire, she added quietly. Love, he thought. It would come out soon enough. Words and feelings were all churned up together inside him, finding each other like lost parts of an atom. He didn't try to push them apart or away. He let them float in the new fullness in his chest. She brought her hand to his face. It wasn't the face other women had touched. The skin wasn't the same. His nerve endings had multiplied. He could feel each one of her fingers, their different sizes and temperatures. His stomach made a long, slow ch twist in anticipation of all that his lips would feel. He pulled her close, but Paula came around the corner then, and they jumped back. His daughter, however, was grinning. She took them each by the arm and led them to dinner. She'd lit a candle and poured apple juice into wine glasses. She'd put the heart of chocolates by his place. Lasagna sizzled in the center of the small table. And Kate was smiling. And Mitchell felt if only for this moment in his kitchen, if only for this one winter evening, he might not need a never ending spell. After.
- [54:10]
A
That was Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lilly King, read by Justin Kirk. I'm Meg Wolitzer. We spoke with King about this charming story.
- [54:19]
D
I've worked in a number of bookstores and I've had a number of crushes on my bosses. Very, very unrequited. And this definitely came out of that and wanting to kind of turn the tables and, you know, write from a male perspective. Yeah, I thought of this guy who has a very, very chatty daughter and was so emotionally kind of blocked because of past experiences. And really it began with a sort of contrast between the two of them. Your love interest, we see her mostly through him, but what were you thinking needed to be revealed about her? Yeah, I liked the idea of seeing her only through his eyes. You know, she was someone who was really trying to hold it all together. And yet the pieces of her young adult life were not working out the way she thought they would. And like a lot of my characters, she's in need of a home. And somehow, you know, she finds these two people who are in need of her. I also love the way you reminded us, primarily through him, that the scale of their lives is quite small. And yet by the end of this, we are so invested in it, working in their having the lives they deserve. Oh, I'm so glad to hear that. I'm really very interested in the small moments and in sort of lives that don't look very romantic from the outside. And people who have some sort of, you know, emotional stumbles and challenges and then manage to break through them. It's really what I'm interested in. I do love reading about bookstores, and I love a love story, so it's not surprising that I wrote this.
- [56:11]
A
That was Lilly King, author of Five Tuesdays in Winter. I wonder, is our desire to see a romance flourish inversely proportional to the amount of time spent carefully tiptoeing toward it? That equation may not make mathematical sense, but there might be some narrative logic to it. Compare Five Tuesdays in Winter to Lars Farf, our first story by George Saunders. Both of the protagonists fears are a reaction to being hurt, to losing something dear to them. Their reactions, though, are quite different. One man goes way overboard to ensure the iron grip he has on his family's safety. The other opens the door to love, slowly but surely. The Saunders is a satire, the King more realistic. But somewhere between the two, I think we might see some value in caution, or at the very least, a good reason not to move fast and break things. I'm Meg Wolitzer. Thanks for joining me. For Selected Shorts. Selected Shorts is produced by Jennifer Brennan and Sarah Montague. Our team includes Matthew Love, Drew Richardson, Mary Shimpkin, Vivienne Woodward, and Magdalene Robleski. The readings are recorded by Miles B. Smith. Our programs, presented at the Getty center in Los Angeles, are recorded by Phil Richards. Our theme music is David Peterson's that's the Deal, performed by Dear. The Selected Shorts is supported by the Dungannon Foundation. This program is also made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Selected Shorts is produced and distributed by Symphony Space.
- [58:08]
C
Sam.