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Breaking Up is Hard to Do
00:59:34
Host Meg Wolitzer presents works that reflect on the loss of love, creatively imagined by a quartet of thoughtful writers. In “The Space,” by Christopher Boucher, a lost love is replaced by—her absence. The reader is Rob Yang. In Wendi Kaufman’s “Helen on Eighty-Sixth Street,” the loss is the backstory, as a lively ‘tween, voiced by Donna Lynne Champlin, finds ways to deflect the emotional fallout from her father’s absence. Sharon Olds’ wrenching poem, “Last Look,” read by Jane Kaczmarek, is our palette clearer before we close with a Raymond Carver classic, “Why Don’t You Dance?” The couple idly roving a lawn sale don’t realize they are walking through the detritus of lost relationship. The reader is Corey Stoll.
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- [01:04]
Meg Wolitzer
Love is a many splendored thing. Until it's not. And on this program we hear stories about what comes after love and marriage. But I promise it's not all downhill. Stay with me, Meg Wolitzer for funny and moving stories about why breakups are hard. But then you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all. You are listening to selected shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time. These violent delights have violent ends. That's sage Friar Lawrence cautioning Romeo and Juliet, a reminder that much as writers are drawn to love, the failure of love is equally compelling. And on this program we offer three stories and a poem about divorce and dissolution. But don't worry, this show is not a downer, because our masterly writers shape such compelling narratives around a central anguish that we come away both contemplative and exhilarated about what life will offer next. In these stories, loss is personified, a child's ambition deflects the absence of a parent, a marriage gets a last look, and a garage sale tells a tale of its own. Our first piece is by Christopher Boucher, whose published works have provocative titles like how to Keep youp Volkswagen Alive and Big Giant Floating Head. This story, the Space, is also provocative in the way it deals with change. It's performed by Rob Yang, known for strong work in shows like Succession and the Residential. Here he is with Christopher Boucher's the Space.
- [03:02]
Rob Yang
The Space I loved you and when you left, you left A space. And I fell in love with that space. Not right away, I mean, but over time. At first, I hated this space. It was just always there. But then somehow I got used to the space. Then I started to appreciate it, and then I missed it when it was gone. Before I knew it, the space and I had become friends. I started really enjoying hanging out with the space. I liked talking to it and listening to it, too. To its opinions, hopes, doubts, and worst fears. This might sound strange, but the space and I even sort of had our own secret language. One night, the space and I ran into some old friends of mine. David and Iris. I don't think you know them, walking out of the movie theater. David, I said, iris. I hugged them both. Want you to meet someone. I gestured to the space. This is the space. David and Iris looked at me, then each other, and then the space. And this, I said to the space, is David and Iris. The space smiled. I'm sorry, said Iris. What, Iris, Said David. This is a space, I said. The space waved. We went our separate ways. But a few hours later, I texted David. So, what do you think? Of the movie? He responded, yeah, it was good. No, of the space, I wrote, and we're just friends now, but I think there might be a real connection here. Now, I was right about that. The following week, the space and I went for a walk behind the college. When it started to downpour, I took the space's hand and we ran for cover under a nearby tree, where I stopped abruptly against the trunk of the tree, and the space sort of stumbled into me. Before I knew it, the space was looking into my eyes, and I was looking into the space's eyes. And then the space put its arms around me and kissed me. And I kissed back. The weeks that followed might have been the best weeks of my life. Some nights, the space and I went on proper dates. Skating hand in hand at the university ice rink, hiking up Mount Garrick. And other nights we just spent hours on my couch talking to each other and kissing. It really didn't matter what we did as long as we were together. One night that summer, I told the space I was falling in love with it. And the space said it loved me, too. That was our first night together. I fell asleep in the space's warm embrace. Soon, the space and I were basically living together. It kept its own place, but it was over at my apartment all the time. We got used to each other's daily rhythms and habits. We ate our meals together, exercised together, watched TV or read together. Every night I grew accustomed to falling asleep next to the space and waking up to find the space still there beside me. Admittedly, sometimes the space would get quiet, distant. At times I felt like the space was right there with me, focused and present. But at other times, it seemed vacant and removed. In those moments, as strange as it sounds, I almost felt lonely, despite the presence of the space. One night that fall, the space and I were watching a science fiction movie when my phone rang. It was you. I was taken aback. I hadn't talked to you in months. Hold on a second, will you? I said to this face, and I took the phone into the other room. You asked if we could meet and talk. Yeah, sure we can, I said, But I should tell you that I'm seeing someone. Oh, you said. You are. Do you remember that space you left when we broke up? The what? There was a space. A really significant one, I said. And while we didn't get along at first, we eventually became friends. And you and who now? But the relationship, you know, evolved, I said. And now things with the space are going really well. Oh, okay, you said. Well, I. Okay. But listen, how are you? I said. Is everything okay? Yeah, you said.
- [08:18]
Jane Kaczmarek
I'm fine.
- [08:19]
Rob Yang
Good. I'm really glad to hear that, I said. It's really nice to talk to you, I added, because it was. I'd missed you. Maybe even more than I'd realized. When I got off the phone, though, the space sat me down and said it needed some time apart. I was flabbergasted. I don't understand. I told it I thought things were going great, but the space said it needed space. I asked the space how long it had felt that way, but the space wouldn't elaborate, just sat there silently, an empty expression on its face. We built a life together, I told this space. The space didn't even reply. How can you not have anything to say to that? I said. The space left my place that very night. I was so bereft I couldn't sleep. I called you the next morning, and you came right over to console me. I just missed the space so much, I sobbed into your shoulder. I know, you said. I honestly don't know how I'm going to live without it. I know it seems impossible, you told me. But tomorrow you're going to realize that you don't need the space as much as you thought. And there'll be less of this space in your mind the day after that and the day after that, until one day you realize you've forgotten the space completely. I nodded as if I understood. But inside I knew I'd never get over the space. I vowed right then and there to keep its memory close and hold a place for the space in my.
- [10:22]
Meg Wolitzer
Bob Yang Read the Space by Christopher Boucher I'm Meg Wolitzer. This is an arresting premise and I can see it as a handy tool in day to day life spaces that represent lost household objects, straying toddlers, pets with wanderlust. Heartbreak is much more fun to write about in fiction than the first flush of love. It is sort of the equivalent of happy families are all alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. There's a sense when you write about heartbreak or unrequited love or matters of the heart that go awry, that anything might happen. Essentially, heartbreak is a jumping off place, and that jump can land you in many new situations. I would say that what makes writing about heartbreak a true evergreen is that it allows the reader to live in the brokenhearted moment, the exact place where a real life heartbroken person does not want to be. But for the reader, sitting in the space of someone else's romantic destruction may be exactly the place to be, following along with rapt absorption, thinking better him or her than me. Our second story in which divorce and separation play a part is Helen on 86th street by Wendy Kaufman. It is the title story in Kaufman's debut and sadly, only collection. She died in 2014. I have only just discovered her through this story and have already been Googling her, and now I plan to read her book. I like the idea that maybe she will find some new readers through the show. The narrator here is a feisty tween, and we thought of Donna Lynn Champlin. Champlin made her mark in Crazy Ex Girlfriend, but she's been notching up Theater Award nominations for years in a portfolio that includes no, no Nanette and the Dark at the Top of the Stairs. Here she is with Wendy Kaufman's Helen on 86th Street.
- [12:24]
Donalyn Champlin
I hate Helen. That's all I can say. I hate her. Helen McGuire is playing Helen. So so Mr. Dodd says, because out of the entire sixth grade, she most embodies Helen of Troy. Great. Helen McGuire had no idea who Helen of Troy even was when she found out. Well, you should have seen her flirting with all the boys, really acting the part. And me. Well, I know who Helen was. I am pissed my mother doesn't understand. Not that I expected she would. When I told her the news, all she said was, ah, the face that launched a thousand ships. She didn't even look up from her book. Later at dinner, she apologized for quoting Marlo. Marlo is our cat. At bedtime, I told my mother, you should have seen the way Helen acted at school. It was disgusting. Flirting with the boys, mom tucked the sheets up close around my chin so that only my head was showing, my body covered mummy style. Vida, she said, it sounds like she's perfect for the part, so I can't play Helen. But to make it worse, Mr. Dodd said I have to be in the horse. I can't believe it. The horse. I wanted to be one of the Trojan women. Andromache, Cassandra, or even Hecuba. I know all their names. I told Mr. Dodd this, and then I showed him I could act. I got really sad and cried out about the thought of the body of my husband Hector, being dragged around the walls of my city. I wailed and beat my fist against my chest. Irregular Sarah Hartburn was all he said. Well, at least you get to be on the winning team, my mother said when I told her about the horse. This did not make me feel any better. It's better than being Helen. It's better than being blamed for the war. She told me. Mom was helping me make a shield for my costume. She said every soldier had a shield that was big enough to carry his body off the field. I told her I wasn't going to be a body on the field, that I was going to survive, return home, bring the shield just in case, she said. It never hurts to have a little help. Mom and I live on West 86th Street. We have lived in the same building, in the same apartment my entire life. My father has been gone for almost three years. The truth is that he got struck with the wanderlust, emphasis on lust, my mother says, and we haven't heard from him since. Your father's on his own odyssey, my mother said. Now it's just me and mom and Marlo and the Keatses. John and John are parakeets, or parakeets, as mom says. When I was younger, when dad first left and I still believed he was coming back, it made me happy that we lived in the same building. I was happy because he would always know where to find us. Well, now that I am older, I know the city is not that big. It is easy to be found and easy to stay lost. I also know not to ask about him. Sometimes mom hears things through old friends that he has traveled across the ocean, that he is living on an island in a commune with some people she called the lotus eaters, that he misses us. Once I heard Mr. Farful, the man who's been hanging around mom, now, ask why she stayed in this apartment. After my father left, the rent stabilized, she told him, even if the relationship wasn't at school, Helen McGuire was acting weird because I'm going to be in the Horse with Tommy Aldrich. She wanted to know what it's like. Is it really cramped in there? Do you have to speak that we're all close together? I told her it's dark and we must hold each other around the waist and walk to make the horse move forward. Her eyes grew wide at this description. Lucky yo, she said. Lucky me. She gets to stand in the center of the stage alone, her white sheet barely reaching the middle of her thighs, and say lines like this destruction is all my fault. And Paris, I do love you. She gets to cry. Why would she think I'm lucky? The other day at rehearsal she was standing on stage waiting for her cue, And I heard Mrs. Reardon, the stage manager, whisper that Ellen is as beautiful as a statue. At home, Old Farful is visiting again. He has a chair in Mom's department. The way she describes it, a chair is a very good thing. Mom translates old books written in Greek and Latin. She is working on the longest graduate degree in the history of Columbia University. I'll be dead before I finish, she always says. Old Farful has been coming around a lot lately, taking mom and me to dinner at Italian places downtown. I don't like to be around when he's over. I'm going to Agamemnon's apartment to rehearse, I told Mom. Old Farfle made a small laugh, one that gets caught in the back of the throat and never really makes it out whole. I want to tell him to relax, to let it out. He smells like those dark cough drops, the kind that make your eyes tear and your head feel like it's expanding. Ugh, I don't know how she can stand him. Well, the play is the thing, old Farful said. We're all just players, strutting and fretting our hour on the stage. Mom smiled at this, and it made me wish Old Farfle would strut his hours at his apartment and not at our place. I hate the way he's beginning to come around all the time. When I get back from rehearsal, mom is spinning. Argus is what she does when she gets into one of her moods. Argus, our dog, died last summer when I was away at camp, and my mother can't stand apart with anything, so she keeps Argus, at least his ashes, in a blue and white vase that sits on our mantel. Once I looked into the vase, I expected to see gray stuff like the ash at the end of a cigarette. Instead, there was black sand and big chunks of pink, like shells, just like at the beach. My mother had the vase down from the mantel and was twirling it in her hands. I watched the white figures on it turn, following each other, running in a race that never ends. Life is a cycle, my mother said. Spinning made me dizzy. I didn't want to talk about life. I wanted to talk about Helen. Helen again with Helen. Always Helen, my mother said. You want to know about Helen? I nod my head. Well, her father was a swan and her mother was too young to have children. You don't want to be Helen? Be lucky. You're a warrior. You're too smart to be ruled by your heart. And what about beauty? Wasn't she the most beautiful woman in the world? I asked. Mom looked at the Greek vase. Beauty is truth, truth, beauty. That is all ye need to know. She is not always helpful. Manhattan is a rocky island, my mother said at dinner. There is no proper beach, no shore. My mother grew up in the south, near the ocean, and there are times when she still misses the beach. Jones, Brighton, or even Coney Island. Beaches don't come close for her. I know when she starts talking about the water that she's getting restless. I hope this means that old Farfel won't be hanging around too long. Every night I write a letter to my father. I don't send them. I don't know where to send them, but still I write them. I keep the letters at the back of my closet in old shoe boxes. I am on my third box. It's getting so full that I have to keep the lid tied down with rubber bands. I want to write. Mom is talking about the water again. I think this means she is thinking of you. We are both thinking of you, though we don't mention your name. Are you thinking of us? Do you ever sit on the shore at night and wonder what we're doing, what we're thinking? Do you miss us as much as we miss you? But instead I write. I am in a play about the Trojan War. I get to wear a short white tunic and I ambush people from inside a big fake horse. Even though we win the war, it will be many, many years before I return home, until I see my family again. In this way we are the same. I will have many adventures. I will meet giants and witches and see strange lands. Is that what you are doing. I wish you could come to the play. Old Farful is going to a convention in Atlanta. He wants mom to go with him. From my bed I can hear them talking about it in the living room. It would be good for her, he says. I know that mom doesn't like to travel. She can't even go to school and back without worrying about the apartment. If she turned the gas off, if she fed the cat, if she left me enough money. She tells him that she'll think about it. You have to move on, Victoria, he tells her. Let yourself go to new places. I'm still exploring the old places, she says. He lets the conversation drop. Mom said once that she traveled inside herself when dad left. I didn't really understand, but it was one of the few times I saw her upset. She was sitting in her chair at her desk, looking tired. Mom, are you in there? I waved my hand by her face. I'm not, she said. I'm on new ground. It's a very different place. Are you thinking about Dad? I was thinking how we all travel differently, Vida. Some of us don't even have to leave the house. Dad left the house. Well, sometimes it's easier to look outside than in, she said. That night I dreamed about a swan. A swan that flies in circles over the ocean. This is not the dark water that snakes along the west side highway and slaps against the banks of New Jersey, but the real ocean. Open water. Water salty like tears. At play practice I watched the other girls dress up as goddesses and Trojan women. They wear gold scarves wound tight around their necks and foreheads. They all wear flowers in their hair and flat pink ballet slippers. I wear a white sheet taken from my bed. It is tied around the middle with plain white rope. I also wear white sneakers. I don't get to wear a gold scarf or flowers. Mr. Dodd wrote this play himself and is very picky about details. Tommy Aldridge, my partner in the Horse, was sent home because his sheet had Ninja Turtles on it. They did not have Ninja Turtles in ancient Greece, Mr. Dodd said. Mr. Dodd helps Helen McGuire with her role. You must understand, he tells her. Helen is the star of the show. Men have traveled great distances just to fight for her. At the end, when you come on stage and look at all the damage you've caused, we must believe you're really upset by the thought that this is all your fault. Helen nods and looks at him blankly. Well, at least try to think of something really sad. Old Farful is taking mom out to dinner again. It's the third time this week. Mom says it is a very important dinner and I am not invited. Not that I would want to go, but I wasn't even asked. Mom brought in takeout, some soup and a cheese sandwich from the coffee shop on the corner. I eat my soup alone in the kitchen from a blue and white paper cup. I remember once at a coffee shop, mom held the same type of cup out in front of me. See this building, Vita? She said. She pointed to some columns that were drawn on the front of her cup. It wasn't really a building, more like a cartoon drawing. It's the Parthenon, she said. It's where the Greeks made sacrifices to Athena. How did they make sacrifices? I asked. They burned offerings on an altar. They believed this would bring them what they wanted. Good things, luck. I finish my soup and look at the tiny building. On the cup. In between the columns are the words Our pleasure to serve you. I run my fingers across the flat lines of the Parthenon and trace the roof. I can almost imagine a tiny altar and the ceremonies that were performed there. It is then that I get an idea. I find a pair of scissors on Mom's desk and cut through the thick white lip of the cup towards the lines of the little temple. I cut around the words Our pleasure to serve you. Then I take the temple and the words and glue them to the back of my notebook. The blue and white lines show clearly against the cardboard backing. I get Argus's big metal water bowl from the kitchen, and then I find some matches from a restaurant Old Farful took us to to for dinner. In my room I put on my white sheet costume and get all my letters to dad out from the back of the closet. I know that I must say something to make this more like a ceremony. I think of any Greek words I know. Spanacopta, musaka, hero. They're only food words, but it doesn't matter, so I decide to say them anyway. I say them over and over, out loud until they blur into a litany. My own incantation Spanaco para moussaka giro spanacopo de moussa can gyro spanacopanamos aga. As I say this, I burn handfuls of letters in the bowl. I think about what I want to be, Helen, to have my father come back, and everything I've ever heard says witches are granted in threes. So I throw in the hope of old Farfles leaving. I watch as the words burn. Three years of letters go up in smoke and flame. I see the blue lined paper turn to black ashes. I see pages and pages, months and years, burn, crumble, and then disappear. The front of my white sheet has turned black from soot, and my eyes water and burn. When I am done, I take the full bowl of ashes and hide it in the vase on the mantel, joining it with Argus. My black hands smudge the white figures on the vase until their tunics become as sooty as my own. I change my clothes and open all the windows, but mom still asks when she comes home about the burning smell. I told her I was cooking. She looks surprised. Neither of us cooks much. No more burnt offerings when I'm not home, she said. She looked upset and distracted, and old Farfle didn't give that stifled laugh of his. It's all my fault. Helen McGuire got chickenpox bad. She has been out of school for almost two weeks. I know my burning ceremony did this. The show must go on, Mr. Dodds said, when Achilles threw up the tater tots, or when Priam's beard got caught in Athena's hair. But this is different. This is Helen, and it's my fault. I know all her lines. I know them backward and forward. I have stood in her living room, towel tied around my body, and acted out the entire play, saving every line for my mother. When Mr. Dodd made the announcement about Helen at dress rehearsal, I stood up, white bedsheets slipping from my shoulders, and said in a lo clear voice, the gods must have envied me, my beauty, for now my name is a curse. I have become hated. Helen, the scourge of Troy. Mr. Dodge shook his head and looked very sad. We'll see, Vida. She might still get better. Helen McGuire recovered, but she didn't want to do the part because of all the pockmarks that were left. Besides, she wanted to be inside the Horse with Tommy Eldridge. Mr. Dodd insisted that she still be Helen until her parents wrote that they didn't want her to be pressured. They didn't want to do any further damage, whatever that means. After that, the part was mine. Tonight is opening and I am so excited mom is coming without old Farfel. He wasn't what I wanted, she said. I don't think she'll be seeing him anymore. What is beautiful? I asked mom before the play begins. Why are you so worried all the time about beauty? Don't you know how beautiful you are to me? Would Daddy think I'm beautiful? Oh, Vida, he always thought you were beautiful. Would he think I was like Helen? She looked me up and down from the gold lanyard snaked through my thick hair to my too tight pink ballet slippers. He would think you're more beautiful than Helen. I'm almost sorry he won't be here to see it. Almost sorry? Almost. At moments like this you look so good. Those ancient gods are gonna come alive again with envy. What do you mean come alive again? What are you saying about the gods, Vida? Greek polytheism is an extinct belief, she said and laughed. And then she stopped and looked at me strangely. When people stopped believing in the gods, they no longer had power. They don't exist anymore. You must have known that. Didn't I get the part of Helen? Didn't Old Farful leave? I made all these things happen with my offering. I know I did. I don't believe these gods disappeared, at least not Athena. I don't believe you. She looked at me, confused. You can't know for sure about the gods. And who knows, maybe Daddy will even be here to see it. Sure, she said. And maybe this time the Trojans will win the war. I stand off stage with Mr. Dodd and wait for my final cue. The dry ice machine has been turned on full blast and an incredible amount of fake smoke is making its way toward the painted backdrop of Troy. Hector's papier mache head has accidentally slipped from Achilles hand and is now making a hollow sound as it rolls across the stage. I peek around the thick red curtain, trying to see into the audience. The auditorium is packed, filled with parents and camcorders. I spot my mom sitting in the front row, alone. I try to scan the back wall, looking for a sign of him, a familiar shadow. Nothing. Soon I will walk out on the ramparts, put my hand on my forehead, and give my last speech. Are you sure you're ready? Mr. Dodd asks. I think he's more nervous than I am. Remember, he tells me, this is Helen's big moment. Think loss. I nod, thinking nothing. Break a leg, he says, giving me a little push towards the stage, and try not to trip over the head. The lights are much brighter than I expected, making me squint. I walk through the smoky fog towards center stage. It is I, the hated Helen, scourge of Troy with the light on me. The audience is in shadow, like a big pit, dark and endless. I bow before the altar, feeling my tunic rise. Hear my supplication, I say, pulling down a bit on the back of my tunic. Do not envy me such beauty. It has wrought only pain and despair. I can hear Mr. Dodd off stage, loudly whispering each line along with me for this destruction I know I will be blamed. I begin to recite Helen's Wrongs, Beauty, Pride, the Abdication of Sparta, careful to enunciate clearly. Troy, I have come to ask you to forgive me. I'm supposed to hit my fist against my chest and draw a hand across my forehead and cry loudly. Mr. Dodd has shown me this gesture, practiced it with me in rehearsal a dozen times, the last line, my big finish. The audience is very quiet, and in the stillness there is a hole, an empty pocket, an absence. Instead of kneeling, I stand up, straighten my tunic, look toward the audience, and speak the line softly, and to say goodbye. There's a prickly feeling up the back of my neck, and then applause. The noise surrounds me, filling me. I look into the darkened house, and for a second I can hear the beating of a swan's wings, and then nothing at all.
- [39:29]
Meg Wolitzer
Donalyn Champlin Performed Helen on 86th street by Wendy Kaufman I'm Meg Wolitzer. This story presents familiar crises. Plainness, unrequited ambition, absent spouses. With humor and panache. This is a fully realized world, and we are rooting for both mother and daughter. Helen also reads like a YA version of All About Eve, the classic movie in which the ambitious ingenue steals the life of an establishment established star. Except this time we are entirely on the heroine's side in her pursuit of a great classic role. I'll bet this story of almost thwarted ambition resonates. Haven't we all had those moments when we just knew we were the better actor, shortstop, inventor, fill in the blank than the one they chose? As someone who was always in the school play, this story spoke to me. But it also spoke to me because Kaufman shines a light on the less flashy person. But by peering into her inner life, the writer gives her a voice and puts a spotlight on her that might otherwise be shined in an entirely different direction. When we return, one last look from a poet and a Raymond Carver lawn sale. I'm Meg Wolitzer. You're listening to selected shorts recorded live in performance at Symphony Space in New York City and at other venues nationwide.
- [40:53]
T-Mobile Representative
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- [41:11]
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- [41:22]
Walmart Representative
It's time to get the world talking about Black LED Brands we all have our favorites, but we can't keep them all to ourselves. So if you're feeling like a black Opal beauty, tell somebody. If the lip bar is giving you a lip for every drip, let them know. And if your hair is doing the do, shout that out too. Join Walmart in shouting out your favorite Black LED products, creating a new world of choices@walmart.com blackandunlimited.
- [42:06]
Meg Wolitzer
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 show is about divorce, changes of heart, Splitsville. Pay no attention. We at Shorts are never leaving you and we hope you aren't leaving us either. To cement our Bond, go to SelectedShorts.org for information about our podcast, earlier shows and our tours. And please subscribe Some grand dinner parties feature a sorbet course to clear the palate before the next rich offering, and Sharon Auld's fiercely brave and beautiful poem might fit that role. It's from her Pulitzer Prize winning collection, Stagg's Leap, which chronicled her own divorce. The reader is no stranger to heartbreak. Jane Kacmaric is best known for a brassy comedy role, the Mother on Malcolm in the Middle, but she's also performed on stage in more serious works such as A Long Day's Journey into Night, and has shared a bit about her own messy divorce. Here's Kaczmarek performing Sharon Olds Last look.
- [43:18]
Corey Stoll
In the last minute of our marriage, I looked into his eyes. All that day. Until then, I had been comforting him for the shock he was in at his pain. The act of leaving me took him back to his own early losses. But now it was time to go beyond comfort, to part. And his eyes seemed to me still like the first ocean wherein the blue green algae came into their early language, his sea wide iris still essential for me, with the depths in which our firstborn and then our second had turned on the sides of their tongues the taste buds for the moonblad nectar of our milk. Our milk in his gaze, rooms of the dead, halls of loss, fog, emerald driven, dirty rice, snow. He was in there somewhere. I looked for him, and he gave me a gift. He let me in, knowing he would never once in this world or in any other, ever have to do it again. And I saw him not as he really was. I was still without the strength of anger, but I saw him see me even now that dropping down into trust's affection in his gaze, and I held it some seconds quiet, and then I said goodbye, and he said goodbye, and I closed my eyes and rose up out of the passenger seat in a spiral, like someone coming up out of a car gone off a bridge into deep water. And two or three Septembers later, and even the September after that, that September in New York, I was glad I had looked at him, and when I told a friend how glad I'd been, she said, maybe it's like with families of the dead, even the families of those who died in the towers that need to see the body no longer inhabited by what made them the one we loved. Somehow it helps to say goodbye to the actual and I saw again how blessed my life has been first to have been able to love, then, to have the parting now behind me, and not to have lost him when the kids were young and the kids now not at all to have lost him and not to have lost him when he loved me and not to have lost someone who could have loved me for life. Sharon Olds.
- [46:53]
Meg Wolitzer
Jane Kacmarik Read Last look by Sharon Olds. I'm Meg Wallitzer. Our final story, reflecting on the emotional costs of abandonment, is by the short fiction master Raymond Carver. Carver's published collections include what We Talk About, When We Talk About Love and Cathedral, and he is widely acknowledged for having influenced a generation of short fiction writers. We have featured him and them on many shorts programs, and here we reprise a favorite from our archives, why don't yout Dance? It's performed by Corey Stoll, whose work in television includes includes House of Cards and the Strain.
- [47:36]
Jane Kaczmarek
Why don't you dance? In the kitchen he poured another drink and looked at the bedroom suite in his front yard. The mattress was stripped and the candy striped sheets lay beside two pillows on the chiffonier. Except for that things looked much the way they had in the bedroom nightstand and reading lamp on his side of the bed, a nightstand and reading lamp on her side, his side, her side. He considered this as he sipped the whiskey. The chiffonier stood a few feet from the foot of the bed. He had emptied the drawers into cartons that morning, and the cartons were in the living room. A portable heater was next to the chiffonier. A rattan chair with a decorator pillow stood at the foot of the bed. The buffed aluminum kitchen set occupied a part of the driveway. A yellow muslin cloth Much too large. A gift covered the table and hung down over the sides. A potted fern was on the table, along with a box of silverware, also a gift. A big console model television set rested on a coffee table. And a few feet away from this, a sofa and chair and floor lamp. He had run an extension cord from the house and everything was connected. Things worked. The desk was pushed against the garage door. A few utensils were on the desk. Along the wall, two framed prints. There was also, in the driveway, a carton with cups, glasses and plates, each object wrapped in newspaper. That morning he had cleared out the closets and except for the three cartons in the living room, everything was out of the house. Now and then a car slowed and people stared, but no one stopped. It occurred to him that he wouldn't either. It must be a yard sale, for God's sake, the girl said to the boy. This girl and boy were furnishing a little apartment. Let's see what they want for the bed, the girl said. I wonder what they want for the tv, the boy said. He pulled into the driveway and stopped in front of the kitchen table. They got out of the car and began to examine things. The girl touched the muslin cloth. The boy plugged in the blender and turned the dial to mince. She picked up a chafing dish. He turned on the television set and made careful adjustments. He sat down on the sofa to watch. He lit a cigarette, looked around, flipped the match into the grass. The girl sat on the bed. She pushed off her shoes and laid back. She could see the evening star. Come here, Jack. Try this bed. Bring one of those pillows, she said. How is it? He said. Try it, she said. He looked around. The house was dark. I feel funny, he said. Better see if anybody's home. She bounced on the bed. Try it first, she said. He lay down on the bed and put the pillow under his head. How does it feel? She said. Feels firm, he said. She turned on her side and put her arm around his neck. Kiss me, she said. Let's get up, he said. Kiss me. Kiss me, honey, she said. She closed her eyes. She held him. He had to prise her fingers loose. He said, I'll see if anybody's home. But he just sat up. The television set was still playing. Lights had gone on in the houses up and down the street. He sat on the edge of the bed. Wouldn't it be funny if. The girl said and grinned but didn't finish? He laughed. He switched on the reading lamp. She brushed away a mosquito he stood up and tucked in his shirt. I'll see if anybody's home, he said. I don't think anybody's home, but if they are, I'll see what things are going for. Whatever they ask, offer them $10 less, she said. They must be desperate or something. She sat on the bed and watched television. You might as well turn that up, the girl said, and giggled. It's a pretty good tv, he said. Ask them how much, she said. Max came down the sidewalk with a sack from the market. He had sandwiches, beer and whiskey. He'd continued to drink through the afternoon and had reached a place where now the drinking seemed to begin to sober him. But there were gaps. He had stopped at the bar next to the market, had listened to a song in the jukebox, and somehow it had gotten dark before he had recalled the things in the yard. He saw the car in the driveway and the girl in the bed. The television set was playing. Then he saw the boy on the porch. He started across the yard. Hello, he said to the girl. You found the bed. That's good. Hello, the girl said and got up. I was just trying it out. And she patted the bed. It's a pretty good bed. It's a good bed, Max said. What do I say next? He knew he should say something next. He put down the sack, took out the beer and the whiskey. We thought nobody was here, the boy said. We're interested in the bed and maybe the tv, maybe the desk. How much do you want for the bed? I was thinking $50 for the bed, Max said. Would you take 40? The girl asked. Okay, I'll take 40, Max said. He took a glass out of the carton, took the newspaper off of it, and broke the seal on the whiskey. How about the TV? The boy said. 25. Would you take 20? The girl said. 20 is okay. I could take 20, Max said. The girl looked at the boy. You kids, you want a drink? Max said. Glasses in that box. I'm going to sit down. I'm going to sit down on the sofa. He sat on the sofa, leaned back, stared at them. The boy found two glasses and poured whiskey. How much of this do you want? He said to the girl. They were only 20 years old, the boy and the girl, a month or so apart. That's enough, she said. I think I want water in mine. She pulled out a chair and sat at the kitchen table. There's water in that faucet over there, Max said. Turn on the faucet. The boy added water to the whiskey, his and hers he cleared his throat before he sat down at the kitchen table, too. Then he grinned. Birds darted overhead for insects. Max gazed at the television. He finished his drink. He reached to turn on the floor lamp and dropped his cigarette between the cushions. The girl got up to help him find it. You want anything else, honey? The boy said. He took out the checkbook. He poured more whiskey for himself and the girl. Oh, I want that desk, the girl said. How much money is the desk? Max waved his hand at this preposterous question. Name a figure, he said. He looked at them as they sat at the table in the lamplight. There was something about the expression in their faces. For a minute this expression seemed conspiratorial, and then it became tender. There was no other word for it. The boy touched her hand. I'm going to turn off this TV and put on a record, max announced. This record player is going too cheap. Name it. Figure. He poured more whiskey and opened a beer. Everything goes. The girl held out her glass and Max poured more whiskey. Thank you, she said. It goes right to your head, the boy said. I'm getting a buzz on. He finished his drink, waited, poured another. He was writing a check when Max found the records. Pick something you like, max said to the girl and held the records before her. The boy went on writing the check. Here, the girl said, pointing. She did not know the names on these records, but that was all right. This was an adventure. She got up from the table and sat down again. She didn't want to sit still. I'm making it out to cash, the boy said. Still writing. Sure, Max said. He drank off the whiskey and followed it with some beer. He sat down again on the sofa and crossed one leg over the other. They drank. They listened until the record ended, and then Max put on another. Why don't you kids dance? Max said. That's a good idea. Why don't you dance? No, I don't think so, the boy said. You want to dance, Carla? Go ahead, Max said. It's my driveway. You can dance. Arms about each other, their bodies pressed together, the boy and girl moved up and down the driveway. They were dancing. When the record ended, the girl asked Max to dance. She was still without her shoes. I'm drunk, he said. You're not drunk, the girl said. Well, I'm drunk, the boy said. Max turned the record over and the girl came up to him. They began to dance. The girl looked at the people gathered at the bay window across the street. Those people over there watching, she said. Is that okay? It's okay, max said. It's my driveway. We can dance. They thought they'd seen everything over here, but they haven't seen this, she said. In a minute. He felt her warm breath on his neck and he said, I hope you liked your bed. I will, the girl said. I hope the both of you do, max said. Jack, the girl said.
- [57:22]
Donalyn Champlin
Wake up.
- [57:23]
Jane Kaczmarek
Jack had his chin propped and was watching them sleekily. Jack, the girl said. She closed and opened her eyes. She pushed her face into Max's shoulder. She pulled him closer. Jack, she murmured. She looked at the bed and could not understand what it was doing in the yard. She looked over Max's shoulder at the sky. She held herself to Max. She was filled with an unbearable happiness. The girl said. Later. The guy was about middle aged. All his belongings right out there in the yard. I'm not kidding. We got drunk and danced in the driveway. Oh my God. Don't laugh. He played records. Look at this phonograph. He gave it to us. These old records too. Jack and I went to sleep in the bed. Jack was hungover and had to rent a trailer in the morning to move all the guys stuff. Once I woke up, he was covering us with a blanket. This guy was this blanket. Feel it. She kept talking. She told everyone there was more. She knew that, but she couldn't get it into words. After a time she quit talking about it.
- [58:51]
Meg Wolitzer
Corey Stoll read why don't yout Dance By Raymond Carver. I'm Meg Wolitzer. I don't know about you, but I'm a sucker for lawn sales. When you see the tempting array of furniture, clothes, and knickknacks on some lawn, you just have to pull over. And of course, as I'm pawing my way through the bins and racks, I'm always wondering if there's a story behind the discarding why is this or that thing out there? Sometimes it's obvious your college freshman doesn't want to be seen with a magic school bus backpack. And no, you're never gonna get into those heels again. But sometimes it's not so clear. And when it's not, it's the territory of Raymond Carver, who comes at big emotions and cataclysmic moments obliquely. Raymond Carver and his so called minimalist writing got a lot of attention in the 1980s. I always loved the way he could wring so much emotional truth from something that was only lightly articulated or even just hinted at. Sometimes a light and concise touch can resonate, and in Carver's indelible short stories he proved that again and again. While we love A Bit of happiness as readers and writers, it can also be interesting and sometimes cathartic to sift through the emotional wreckage when things haven't worked out. Breaking up is hard to do, not only because a character is losing a beloved or leaving an institution that suggests commitment and continuity. They are also losing a bit of themselves, and we follow them off the page to see who or what comes next. 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 Shimkin, Vivienne Woodward, and Magdalene Robleski. The readings are recorded by Myles B. Smith. Our programs, presented at the Getty center in Los Angeles are recorded by Phil Richards. Our mix engineer for this episode was Joe Pleurde. Our theme music is David Peterson's that's the Deal, performed by the Dierdorf Petersen Group. 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.
- [61:26]
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