← Selected Shorts
Selected Shorts
Come Out Swinging
00:59:39
Meg Wolitzer presents three works about squabbles between people who love one another most. Jenny Allen’s “In the Car” chronicles the European road trip of a long married couple—and he won’t ask for directions. The reader is Alysia Reiner. In Jade Jones’ “Your Aunt Thinks She Ramona Africa,” a close family doesn’t know what to do with a nonconformist. Crystal Dickinson reads. And in “CobRa,” by Katherine Heiny, the methods of uncluttering guru Marie Kondo almost tidy away a marriage. Peter Grosz reads.
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- [00:00]
Customer
Morning. One sausage McMuffin with egg, please.
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Cashier
Okay, your total is.
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Customer
Wait. Let's negotiate. How's about you throw in hash browns for a dollar?
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Narrator
Well, yes sir, that price is already a dollar.
- [00:12]
Customer
Take it or leave it.
- [00:14]
Narrator
Take it, I guess.
- [00:17]
Cashier
Buy one, add one for a dollar.
- [00:19]
Narrator
On sausage McMuffin with egg, hash browns.
- [00:21]
Cashier
And more with McValue. Most locations open 5am or earlier.
- [00:24]
Meg Wolitzer
Price and participation may vary.
- [00:26]
Narrator
Limited time only.
- [00:26]
Cashier
Valid for item of equal or lesser value.
- [00:28]
Narrator
Ba da ba ba ba.
- [00:30]
Customer
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- [01:00]
Meg Wolitzer
No one wants to fight, really. But when tension mounts and we can't take it anymore, well, it's time to take the gloves off. I'm Meg Wolitzer, and on this selected shorts fiction about close combat with the ones we love most. Who starts it, who finishes it, and who survives to say they were right? Stay with me for the blow by blow. You're listening to selected shorts where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction. We one short story at a time. We all have our triggers. More than a simple nuisance, some deeply felt emotional provocations just set us off. Who knows, maybe someone pronounces our name wrong or chews with their mouth open or says the word dollop and we just hate the word dollop for some reason. It could be anything. The important thing is these triggers bypass our rational brains and, despite our best intentions, put us in a pugilistic frame of mind. The infuriating stimuli can create a heightened state in us, one that we might find uncomfortable or downright intolerable. But as any writer will tell you, these instances of annoyance are also full of possibilities for drama and comedy. So in the next hour, while you're comfortable and calm and definitely not rehearsing the zingers you might hurl at a loved one the next time they say dollop. Let's hear some fiction about intimate emotional combat. Each of our stories is about a family or partners in a highly combustible situation. In one, a debate over driving directions becomes downright stupido in a second. A girl loves her aunt and her family. Their mudslinging not so much. And In a Third, a wife livens up her marriage by inviting a third party to join the decluttering guru Marie Kondo. We'll begin with a story by Jenny Allen. We've offered her short, pithy, often personal stories on the show before. She's irreverent and wryly funny about everyday matters, and she's got a playful outlook on things, which comes through in her essay collection, Would Everybody Please Stop? Reflections on Life and Other Bad Ideas. Reading this story is Alicia Reiner. She's a busy actor with more than 150 episodes of television and over 50 films in her credits, from series including the Diplomat to films such as Oscar and Now here's in the Car by Jenny Allen, Read by Alicia Reiner.
- [03:36]
Narrator
In.
- [03:37]
Cashier
The Car One summer my husband Steve and I sent our kids to YMCA camp for a week so we could go on a little vacation. We hadn't been on a vacation without the kids since our honeymoon when we'd taken trains all over Europe. We'd been to Tuscany on that trip and I loved it and we always talked about going back there, so we did. Only this time we rented a car so we could really explore and stop at all the villages and wineries, little country churches with their beautiful frescoes. I don't know what we were thinking. We'd taken the kids on road trips back home and we both knew how much Steve hated asking anyone for directions when we got lost. He hated it, but eventually he'd do it in this kind of sneaky way. He wouldn't say we were stopping for directions. He'd ask the kids if they had to go to the bathroom and one of them always did. So we'd stop at a gas station and I would go in and get the directions and off we would go. This was all before gps, which would have helped, but you still need to ask for directions a lot, even with gps, which can be wrong or confusing. When the two of us went back to Italy, oh my God, we were never not lost. We could never find the Centro of any town. We were constantly ending up on one way streets going the wrong way and always away from the Centro. Or if we were trying to get out of town, we were headed right towards the Centro. Like homing pigeons and onostradas were terrifying. We had to go 90 miles an hour to keep up with the traffic, so we didn't get rear ended by crazy Italian drivers honking and tailgating us to switch to the slower lane. So we kept missing our exits and in the countryside there are no signs at all. Sometimes I Did the driving, and that way we could stop for directions. I'd finally prevail over Steve saying we didn't need to, I'd stop anyway and get directions. But I think he thought this was a big vote of no confidence, which it was. And I felt like I was humiliating him when I took over like that. Took over the driving and the directions. So he would drive and he wouldn't stop for directions and would just get more and more lost and more and more cranky and sullen and tired, and it was terrible. One day we decided to drive to this resort town that our friends had told us about. It was right on the Mediterranean, and it had a great beach and good restaurants and a sweet little amusement park. And we were so sick by then of getting lost looking for wineries and churches that we decided to just sit on the beach for two days in real time. The town was only about an hour from Florence, where we were coming from. But naturally, it took us two hours to find our way out of the Florence Centro. And then we got so lost between Florence and the coast, it was dark by the time we arrived. Of course, we couldn't find our bed and breakfast. We kept meandering around these residential streets on the outskirts of town. I kept on saying, steve, let's just stop at a house and ask someone. But he wouldn't. He just gripped the wheel and looked grim. So I finally decided to close my eyes and go on strike. I'm not sure how long we'd been driving around like that. Maybe a half an hour, when I heard these angry screams. Stupido idiota. When I opened my eyes, we were on this skinny little road with a lot of cars speeding by us. And along the side of the road were all these men and women yelling and cursing and waving their arms frantically, shaking their fists. I said to Steve, I think they're yelling at us. And he said, me, too, but I don't know why. What did we do? And I looked at the cars that were whizzing by, and they were all very snappy and shiny sports cars, Porsches and Lamborghinis and Jaguars. Only there was something strange about them. They were slightly smaller than our car, which wasn't a big car. I think it was a Fiat. And inside the cars, the drivers were children. And the children were pointing at us and laughing and tailgating and honking. And I looked around, and there, nearby, was a carousel and a Ferris wheel. And I said to Steve, steve, we're in the amusement park. We were. We were on a big Oval track, like a race track. And this was one of the amusements. The cars were actual cars, jazzy little sports cars, only smaller for children. What a great way for the Italians to teach their children how to drive terrifyingly at an early age. And somehow Steve had driven onto this racetrack through some sort of back entrance. And the grownups were the kids parents yelling at us to get off the track. Steve did get off the track, maneuvering the car onto this patch of grass by the side of the road. And he just sat there clutching the wheel. Color drained from his face. All I could think about was Mr. Magoo, you know, the cartoon guy who's so near sighting he couldn't find his way anywhere. The opening credits always showed him driving on a roller coaster, thinking it was a road.
- [10:47]
Narrator
I couldn't stop laughing.
- [10:49]
Cashier
A little hysterically at first because it had been a little scary driving among all those little children and their little speedy cars. But it was also just so funny. But Steve was not laughing.
- [11:04]
Narrator
I said, oh, Steve, it's funny.
- [11:07]
Cashier
And he said, I don't want to talk about it. I thought I could tease him. Normally he had a great sense of humor. He really did. I said, you mean now or ever? And he said, ever? I don't want to talk about it ever. And we didn't. Whole rest of our marriage, I never brought it up. After the incident, he was better about letting us stop for directions. But neither of us ever referenced the amusement park. And then maybe 10 years later, people started to make jokes about how men never asked for directions. Not everyone always knew that. I wonder who said it out loud first. But whoever it was did women a real service. I think we always thought it was just our own husband being weirdly unreasonable. I did anyway. And one day we were at a dinner party and one of the women guests said, well, you know, men would rather die than ask for directions. And everyone laughed. Well, the women laughed. And I thought it would be OK to finally tell the amusement park story because so many years had gone by, right? Decades. And I said to Steve, the amusement park. And he gave me the dirtiest look he'd ever given me. So I didn't tell it. Of course, he died a few years ago. Much too young. Too young to die. I miss him every day. I can't think of any upside at all, any silver lining about being a widow. Except for one. Now I get to tell the story.
- [13:37]
Narrator
And forgive me, Steve.
- [13:39]
Cashier
I love you, honey. I love you so much. I do. But it cracks me up every time. Thank you.
- [13:55]
Meg Wolitzer
That was in The Car by Jenny Allen Performed by Alicia Reiner. I'm Meg Wolitzer. Ah, long marriages. They invite such different conflicts from the ones we have in our youth. That's right, temporarily. Young people, here's what you can look forward to. Wars of attrition, silent standoffs, conversational taboos, glowering looks across a table in a restaurant, and so much more. But the comforting thing about fighting with someone who knows knows you really well is that the other person is kind of like that chess playing computer program Deep Blue, which tracks its opponent's previous games and can anticipate their strategy. In the middle of a fight with someone who knows you well, you might realize that you've been found out. That can inflame the situation, but it can also take away the sting. Sometimes a fight between two people who've known each other forever just gets so familiar that it becomes boring, and then both people tacitly and mutually decide it's time to talk about something else. Next up, a story by Jade Jones. Her debut novel, Darlene, is forthcoming, and she has been published in outlets including Catapult and Electric Literature. This story about conflict at the cookout is read by Crystal Dickinson. She's a regular on the TV series the Shy and has appeared in films such as I Origins. She's also an East Coaster, which makes us happy because she's close to our home theater at Symphony Space. And now here's Crystal Dickinson performing. You Aunt thinks she Ramona Africa by Jade Jones.
- [15:28]
Narrator
Your aunt thinks she Ramona Africa. She could have been a lawyer. That's what they always say when my Titi comes around. I'm getting real tired of those words, so I can only imagine how worn out she is from hearing them too. They say she could have been if it don't fit, you must acquit famous. Or even if she didn't want to be crooked, she could have been the kind of lawyer to help her Uncle Ray, who didn't mean to stick up that 711 on Federal Street. Even cameras lie sometimes. They say Titi's selfish. They say she's lost her way because her hair is nappy and crests over her head like a rainbow and she thinks she too good for bras now. But to me, whenever I see Titi, she just looks free. Today the whole family's having a cookout that's supposed to be celebrating me, only it's mostly old folks cause my little cousins with C's and D's got shipped down south for this summer. We all squeeze up in Pop's backyard, which is more dirt than grass and surrounded by a crew of other row homes that barely block out any of the sun. Around this time of the year the entire city's like a swamp. Pop's yard is extra tight because his grill takes up a whole third of it, and he hauled out tables from the church basement that we don't have room for. You never know who's hungry and walking by, he said, and I know better than to argue with him when he's acting sanctified. Outside, everybody's fussy and smothered on top of each other like racks of ribs. Pop doesn't care, though. He said if anybody want to eat, he better not hear no complainin talking about it's too hot. There's a small fan on the table struggling to cool us off. The air's heavy with hot dog grease and people are impatient and ready to fight. And all that is even before Titi arrives. Titi swings open the tall wooden gate and stands at the entrance, hesitating. I want to run over to her, but I don't know if she was looking for permission or just reconsidering to be real. I get it. If she just turned around and left, who crazy enough to stay somewhere where they ain't wanted to be hot and cramped, all the while listening to everybody from your father to your cousins you can't remember, talk about you like a dog. But Titi stays. She shuts that gate behind her and takes a deep breath like the big kids do before they jump off the diving board at the pool. It's my graduation day from the eighth grade. High school's next year, but it doesn't feel like anybody else cares much. None of my older cousins say anything to me. Besides, they can tell I've been eating good and I got my mother legs. In the crowd of haters, Titi finds my face and smiles. She's wearing this long flimsy dress like she forgot it was a cookout, not her own wedding. I could see her nipples, small as flower buds, poking through, and her hair's this thick crown of braids. She more dressed up than anybody else, and I know that's for me. She don't care if people look at her like she crazy. I'm her favorite and my TT isn't scared of nobody. She can barely set the potato salad down on Pop's raggedy card table before our family starts clawing at her. They want to know if she's still with that one man. He look average, like a Marcus or a John but didn't he have a name too big for him? Ezekiel? Raphael? Malachi? Well, there are no more nice Baptist men to date. They want to know if she's applying to law school like she says she would, and if not, how's she paying her bills? She isn't selling love potions or whatever the devil worship is the young people are getting into. Is she? Does she still think screaming into a megaphone what she calls protests is a job for a respectable woman? They want to know if her hair has to be that way. It used to look so pretty, straight, even if it was short. And didn't she learn that dressing that way isn't safe? They want to know if she's trying to get bombed too, like those move hooligans. They want to know if she thinks she's some kind of Ramona Africa. They want to know everything. But Titi don't got time for their questions. She ignores them all drinking a glass of lemonade in silence like all those nosy aunties and cousins aren't nothing more than a stiff breeze. I try to go over to her, but Pop catches me. He says I need to let Titi settle, but I wonder why he's not saying that to anybody else. I say I wonder, but I really don't. I know why he doesn't. He thinks he gets to tell me what to do because everybody else is old and wouldn't have it. Titi and I are similar in that way, we both the youngest, even though she's an adult and everybody seems to think we don't got much more than loose rocks between our ears. I watch a fresh swarm of cousins circle Titi. She slides a pair of sunglasses down from her forehead and over her eyes. She reaches for a plastic fork and scoops out her own potato salad onto a paper plate. She's eating when the barrage of questions starts again, just as I'm about to get some courage and slide by Pop, he says, uh. He stares at me like he doesn't trust me. He thinks I'm gonna run right by him, but this yard is too tight with people for that. I run right into an aunt's wide behind or a neighbor's bony elbow. So maybe it's the fact that I'm trapped and the words don't have anywhere to go. Or maybe it's because I've heard the word no one too many times to say stay quiet. But I look at Pop and I say, y' all real mean to TT. He rolls a few hot dogs on the grill, their skin is wrinkled, charred mess. He's left them on too long. We ain't mean, Pop says. We know what's good for her. Don't look like it, I say. Pop cuts me this look like he's thinking about tossing me over the fence. Then he shakes his head in a way that says, what are these kids today coming to? Yo TT is my little girl. First to go to college, first to get out of this place. Everybody here proud of her, Pop says. I'm fighting the feeling that maybe I'm reading this all wrong, that I'm a real fool. Maybe no one hated Titi after all. Pop had never smelled as big as when he said those words. My little girl. But just as fast as he brightened, his face becomes stern again. And that's why she need to stop wasting time with those hippies running around like a bunch of zoo animals yelling about all that tree hugging mess. She too smart for that. That's the problem. Titi's somehow too good and too bad at the same time. She can never win. It's like when Pop once took me to the casino across the bridge. I wasn't supposed to go, but he said it would be quick. He sat down with some pennies, dropped them in the slots. One after the next. He pulled the handle, and when he won he'd jump a little off his stool and do this goofy victory dance. But when he lost, he slammed his head into his palm, call himself names. The problem was how quickly a win could slide into a loss, always on the edge of an upset. I just got sick from watching him. It must be how TT feels, the whiplash of going from the family's hope to the family's disappointment. Only in a couple of months. Jesus and Mary, pop says. One of the hot dogs is so burnt that it looks like a lump of coal. Santa threatens every Christmas but don't do nothing bout. Pop's so busy trying to rescue his food that I sneak by him. Titi must be on a break from her interrogations because she's leaning against the gate she came in through alone and hanging onto an empty paper plate. Hey, Titi, I say, all out of breath. The yard's tiny, but pushing through everybody took more out of me than I thought. Maybe some of the smoke from Pop's grill got into my lungs. There's my favorite, she says. Even though we're both sticky from humidity and nerves, she hugs me. You really graduated, huh? Yeah, I say. It wasn't a real one. Just going to the ninth grade. That's real to Me won't say nothing for a bit. Maybe because I'm next to her. Nobody bothers. TT plus everybody's eating Pop's crispy hot dogs. It's quiet enough that for the first time I can hear the music from the boombox that I forgot was there. The yard's just Marvin Gay and the quiet determination of every auntie and cousin chewing rubbery hot dog skin. Do you like it, Titi? Your new job? What's that? She says, Hugging trees. Titi laughs so hard that old folks who were happily eating their coleslaw frown at her. Y' all is too small for a laugh like that, especially from Titi. What's so funny about not being a lawyer? Pop look like he want to say why they grimaced, she beIN so loud like that and actin crazy. She might have lost her mind a few months ago, but did she lose a home training too? When Titi done laughing and everybody's finished staring, she pats her eyes with this kente cloth napkin she pulls out of her dress. Then we just stand beside each other. I'm thinking about being a lawyer, I say. I don't know where that came from. I thought about it, but not much. No more than I think about being anything else when I grow up. Yeah, titi says. That's nice. But I can feel her warmth leave her, leave me. It's like the difference between standing directly in front of the heater and being away on the other side of the room. So then I try to say whatever I think she'll like. I tell her all I know about trees, seeds, and punnett squares. She tells me she isn't a tree hugger, but she's an activist. I say, oh, wow, Like I know what that is. I tell her I want to be that too. Baby, she said, sounding like the old folks, you don't gotta try that hard with me. You know that, don't you? Okay, I say, even though I don't really get what she means. Maybe she could tell I'm lying cause then she says I ain't like all of them. She gestures with her chin toward the backyard and the family in front of us. But I know Pop loves Titi, and maybe even the cousins love her too. Maybe she doesn't believe it, but they do. Nobody gets that mad or cares that much about folks they don't love. I think what's getting Pop and all the cousins twisted is they don't know what to do with her. She don't make sense to them. They don't get what Titi says, and they don't get that maybe she's happy in this white dress, doing whatever she wants, and I'm not sure they really care to get her. They're just fine rolling their eyes but still letting her come to the cookout. But I care more than any of them know, and if Titi's hugging trees and carrying on, I'm gonna find the nearest maple, the big one in the front yard, and wrap my arms tight around the branches, squeeze with all the life in me, just like my Titi do.
- [28:22]
Meg Wolitzer
That was your aunt thinks you Ramona Africa by Jade Jones Performed by Crystal Dickinson I'm Meg Wolitzer. It's fun to see our narrator wise up in a short span of time. Yes, she realizes the family is picking on her beloved Titi, and yes, their critiques are rooted in love, but most important, she is willing to suffer the same fate if it means she becomes more like her aunt when we return, decluttering your closet, your bookshelf, and your marriage too. 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.
- [28:59]
Narrator
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- [29:17]
Meg Wolitzer
Whether you're prepping for the kids first.
- [29:19]
Narrator
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- [29:49]
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. Today's show is about intimate combat, the kinds of fights had between those who really, really know one another well. And listen, you know us and the show pretty well by now. We trust you to let us know what you think. No fisticuffs required. Message us on social media or leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. We'd love to hear what in the show is working for you and what is not. So please drop us a line. Finally, in this program we have a story by Kathryn Heine. She's the author of novels Early Morning Riser and Standard Deviation and short story collections including Games and Rituals. This piece about a self help fad that might be helping a Little Too Much is read by Peter Gross. He appeared on Fleischman Is in Trouble, won Emmys as part of the team behind the Colbert Report, and has written for Late Night with Seth Meyers and now Kathryn Heine's Cobra, read by Peter Gross.
- [31:00]
Customer
Cobra. William had begun to worry that he no longer sparked joy in his wife and that she would give him to Goodwill. It was alarmingly easy to picture. His wife would thank him for his his service and then drop him off at the donation center, the one behind the store with the blankly sinister roll up doors. Goodwill would take him in and William would live out the rest of his days there among the old bowling trophies, the stained bedsheets, the two shallow cereal bowls, and the stuffed animals with only one eye. This business of sparking joy had started with that Marie Kondo book, the Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. William's wife had read the book in a single weekend and then had begun Marie Kondoing their house. Only his wife had explained that William was wrong to call it Marie Kondoing, that it was actually called the Konmari Method because Japanese people reversed and combined their first and last names to create a nickname. William's wife's name was Rachel Coburn, so her Japanese nickname would be, or could be, sort of Cobra. William told her this, however unwisely. He was trying to make jokes, trying to spark joy. He was in short supply lately. The new name suited his wife. She seemed like a predatory snake these days, cold, mean, ready to strike. She told William that it was because she was in perimenopause. She had given him a printed checklist of 334 symptoms of irritability, lack of libido, hot flashes, mood swings, headaches, constipation, gum problems, tingling extremities, fatigue, dizziness, burning tongue. She had checked every single box except incontinence. Two days later she asked him for the list back and checked the incontinence box too. For years and years they had been happy with their life. Or had it only been William who was happy? It seemed now that Cobra must not have been, because she was bent on change. Big changes like trading in the minivan for a hatchback and deciding they should vacation in Tahoe instead of breckenridge, but smaller ones too. She had gone through an obsession with avocado toast, and she had hired an outrageously expensive landscaper to create a pollinator garden. She had joined Ancestry DNA and found out that she was mostly British, French, and Scandinavian and related to approximately half the Internet. To William, this seemed likely to be the world's least surprising result. What had she been trying to find there? William wondered. She had given up coffee, saying it worsened her insomnia. She had given up red meat, saying it made her sluggish. She had given up social media, saying it made her depressed. She had given up running, saying it hurt her knees. She had given up sex, although she didn't say why. They didn't discuss it at all, Actually. She had given up alcohol, claiming it gave her headaches. Well, not claiming. William was sure it did give her headaches. It's just that it was hard not to take it personally. Some people called cocktail hour the golden hour, referring to the last hour of light before sunset, but for William it had always been golden, in that it was the hour he spent with his wife. William wasn't sure. There were many other things Cobra could give up and still remain the person he'd married already. She seemed like someone else. Anyway, back to Marie Kondo it began the Monday after Cobra finished reading the book. She approached William that evening while he was reading the paper and told him they were going to start the tidying process and they had to begin by greeting the house. Hello, house, william called. He'd have a couple whiskeys. Cobra gave him a stern look. I'm serious, she said. We need to thank the house for sheltering us and tell it we appreciate its protection. The house knows I appreciate it, william said, opening the Wall Street Journal with a rustle and a snap. I pay its mortgage. Tell the house I'd appreciate it not shifting around on the foundations anymore. Cobra gave him a disappointed look and went off to another room, presumably to converse with the house in private. This was not the beginning of Williams realizing he was no longer sparking joy, but a continuation. First, Cobra organized her clothes. She piled every piece of clothing she owned onto their bed and then shook her head. I have way too many clothes. Useless for William, who was standing by the dresser putting in his cufflinks to point out that he'd been saying this for years. Besides, he had a nostalgic fondness for some of these clothes. The coral colored shell blouse she'd worn on their trip to Greece, the pale pink nightgown with the bow in the front that was so much fun to untie. I haven't worn half this stuff in years, cobra said, but William knew she could still fit into all of it, every single item, even her premarital jeans. This seemed terribly unfair to William, whose own metabolism seemed to have turned on him in much the same way the British Tabloids had turned on Meghan Markle. For years his metabolism had been adoring and tolerant and now it was harsh and punishing. A single bite of doughnut would cause his stomach to strain against his belt. The next day. By the time William came home from work, Cobra had filled eight trash bags with clothes for Goodwill, but the bed was still heaped so high with garments that she and William had to stay in the guest room that night. The bed in there was slightly too small and they fought over the covers in their sleep. Next, Cobra tidied William's clothes, dragging him upstairs after breakfast to make decisions. She didn't bother with his suits and ties and dress shirts, only his casual clothes. On the bed were his corduroys with the frayed hems, his sweaters with the perfectly stretched out necks, the flannel shirts worn soft as flower petals. Williams said it pretty much all still sparked joy in him, but Cobra said that it had to spark joy in both of them. You wearing it and me seeing you wear it, she said. In the end, this left him with one pair of pants and four shirts. So Cobra went shopping the next day and bought him some scratchy new polo shirts, stiff chambray oxfords, cotton stretched chinos, a shawl collared cardigan sweater. Wasn't shopping the opposite of Marie condoing? William wondered, but didn't say. She hung the new clothes in his closet, the hangers a precise inch apart on the rod. This made Cobra happy, or at least it should have. But William saw her standing in the closet the very next afternoon, her shoulders slumped like yesterday's stock market index. The children still seemed to spark joy in Cobra, but they were seldom home. Brittany was away at College and 17 year old Nathaniel spent most of his time at his girlfriend's parents house when she lived at home. Brittany's bedroom had been a sloping rubble of makeup and hair bands and earrings and bras and tights and red solo cups. Britney had somehow stuffed almost all of her possessions into four giant suitcases she took with her to Wellesley, although William had worried privately that one of the suitcases was so tightly packed that it might create a black hole in the trunk of the car. Her deserted bedroom presented Cobra with no real challenge, and Britney wasn't there to protest anyway, so Cobra tidied it to condo standards in a mere four hours. Nathaniel's room was already hyper organized in a nascent serial killer type of way. Cobra bullied him into piling all his possessions onto his bed and sorting through them with her, but they wound up putting everything back pretty much where it was before. The only thing Nathaniel said no longer sparked joy, he said it had never sparked joy was an Irish fisherman's sweater Cobra had given him for his birthday last year. This made Cobra get all teary and Nathaniel was so guilt stricken that he actually stayed home for supper that night, eating salmon and new potatoes off blue Wedgwood plates after Cobra had thanked the dishes for their service. William had always liked that Cobra was an ER nurse. He felt that her schedule made them appreciate each other more. Couples needed to be reminded of the contrast between life together and life apart. He felt the days that she worked a 12 hour shift and he came home to an empty house, silent but for the ticking of the furnace made the evenings she was home waiting for him feel like holidays, like celebrations. They had met in the er. She had been the petite blonde with the pixie haircut and eyes the same shade as her baby blue scrubs. Think Sandy Duncan in those Wheat Thin commercials. He had been the conservatively handsome young stockbroker who'd cut his hand with a box cutter while trying to slice bread. Cobra had cleaned his palm with Betadine while they waited for the doctor to come stitch up the wound. The gentle smile, the burning sting, the anticipation of the follow up appointment. Their first meeting was like the very essence of love, a distillation of love. No wonder they'd gotten married. A whirlwind courtship. They were walking down the aisle less than six months after their first date, yet no friend or family member protested or raised a single doubt. It was clear they were meant for each other. William still had that box cutter, old now and rust specked, its red handle fuzzy with grime. Out in the garage somewhere he still had the scar on his hand too, an inch long raised white line that always made the rest of his palm look a little dirty. The scar started below his middle finger and ran parallel to his heart line, sometimes touching it. William sometimes wondered guiltily if this meant that he and Cobra were destined to divorce and that he would remarry. But now he felt as though they already had and that it had happened without his even noticing. They had divorced and now he was married to Marie Kondo. Cobra told William that she'd forgotten to do their dresser drawers and returned to the master bedroom. She folded all William's shirts and pajamas and underpants at a time terribly complicated way that reminded William of swaddling newborns, who then immediately started yelling. Next. Cobra unballed all of William's socks. She said the socks couldn't rest if they were scrunched up like that, and the socks deserved to rest after their hard service all day. I need to rest, too, william said, not stand here talking about socks. Cobra gave him an annoyed look and told him to go up and take a nap on the couch if he was as tired as all that. Well, he was that tired. So he did go take a nap. Or at least he tried to. He lay there, shifting uncomfortably on the narrow gold sofa with a needlepoint pillow under his head. Cobra used to take naps with him there, the two of them twisting and turning to accommodate each other. Just when they were on the point of giving up, they would suddenly find the right position, like fitting the last few blocks back into the toy box and dropping the lid. Sadly, William realized they hadn't napped together for years. He sighed. He supposed his stomach would push Cobra right off the sofa if they tried that. Now he must have dozed off, because he suddenly became aware of a darkness in the living room and a dryness in his mouth. He found a note in the kitchen from Cobra saying that she'd gone to yoga. He went upstairs and opened his sock drawer. He discovered that Cobra had smoothed and folded all his socks and poked them into the holes of a drawer divider. How to describe the joy this new sock arrangement sparked in William from the very first? It's not possible. All descriptions fall short. He closed the drawer gently and then opened it up again. Just for fun. Picking out the day's socks would be a pleasure now, he realized. It would be like opening a brand new box of Crayola crayons every morning for fresh, undulled, full of potential. But when Cobra came back home from yoga, he didn't tell her how much he liked the new sock drawer. He didn't say a word about it because, well, marriage. Then came books. I'm not going to give my books away, william said. They all sparked joy. No way am I going to cut down to 30. Cobra said that they could keep all the books that William liked, but first they had to haul all the books off the shelves and then clap each volume gently to make it conscious. This gentle wake up call would determine whether a specific book was meant to stay in their lives. Wait a minute, william said. I thought you just told me to clap at our books. I did, Cobra said. Had perimenopause caused her to take leave of her senses? William had done many shameful things out of his for Cobra. He had agreed turkey meatballs were as good as regular. He had watched all of scandal. He had briefly grown a mustache which made him look like Dr. Phil, but he refused to do this. He told Cobra she had to keep all the books with his name written on the fly leaf, and then he went downstairs to drink whiskey in front of the fireplace. But even drinking whiskey wasn't as satisfying as it used to be. For one thing, Cobra had donated their coffee table to Goodwill, and he had nowhere to rest his glass. Also, he could hear Cobra clapping upstairs like someone having a very tentative seance. So he bribed Nathaniel into going out for pizza with him by telling him that he'd order beer for both of them. While Nathaniel was in the restroom. They went to the doe father, and either their waiter didn't notice or didn't care. Nathaniel made trip after trip to the restroom, drank beer after beer. After the fourth trip, he gave William a sideways look and said, what's going on with Mom? What do you mean? William asked, stalling. Nathaniel paused. She's different, he said at last. It's like, you know, she. He trailed off, frowning drunkenly at the wall. William was suddenly sure Nathaniel was going to say that it was like Cobra was seeing someone else, or that it was like Cobra had fallen out of love with Will William, or that Cobra no longer saw the two of them growing old together. But how would Nathanael know any of those things? Not even William knew. Not for sure. The silence spread between them, and just when William thought perhaps Nathaniel had powered down for the evening, Nathaniel reanimated himself and said, it's like she used to be the first mom on the block who would let us go barefoot in the spring. And all the other kids thought I was so lucky. Now I don't even want to go barefoot, but I get the feeling she wouldn't let me. William sighed with relief and understanding. I know exactly what you mean, but it'll be okay. Wasn't that what you said to children? Always over and over until the end of time? It'll be okay. Why don't you go to the bathroom and I'll order us another round? The next category of tidying was komono, which William assumed was Japanese for everything you need to lead a happy and comfortable life. But Cobra told him it referred to small items that served no purpose. She didn't come right out and say, like you, William. It was more implied. Get ready, Goodwill, here he comes. Lots of his possessions would be there to keep him company. Already dispatched were his dusty valet catch all tray, his fish shaped ashtray, his wooden bottle opener, his ugly black and white triptych from his bachelor apartment was on the porch waiting to go, its face turned to the wall in shame. Cobra was marching through the house like a clutter obsessed Sherman through Georgia, leaving scorched earth dotted with plump black garbage bags in her wake. She tidied the family room, then the den, then the guest room, the bathroom, the guest bathroom, the downstairs bathroom, the bathroom William sometimes forgot they even had. When she started on the coat closet, Williams stopped in the doorway on his way to the office. What? Cobra asked, her arms full of plastic rain ponchos that had never once felt the rain upon their skins. I want to say hello to my old duffel coat, williams said pointedly. I also want to tell it that I hope it doesn't go anywhere. That applies to my hiking boots, too. Please tell them I hope to see them again this very evening. It did no good. They were gone by the time he came home. The duffle coat was a disgrace, Cobra said, and he hadn't hiked in years. The next day she tidied the kitchen. Aren't you supposed to be going by category instead of by room? William asked. I mean, according to Marie. Fuck Marie Kondo, cobra said, wiping grime from her face with a dish gloved hand. William felt a spark of desire. Finally they agreed on something. Didn't last, though. When William came home that night, the kitchen was a harsh and alien landscape, bereft of the cheese board, seldom used, but so pleasing with its stripes of walnut, cherry, and maple, the vintage Farm Fresh Eggs sign, the plump little coffee canister that was nearly impossible to spoon coffee out of, but which had always fit William's hand as sweetly as a woman's breast. A woman's soft, firm, round, holdable breast. Stop touching me, cobra said, moving away from him on the couch. Brittany called him at his office from Wellesley. Mom's gone crazy. Ah, now, William said. That may be overstating it. I just got off the phone with her, brittany said, and she was talking about something called a click point. What's that? Well, according to mom, it's the point where you give away enough of your shit and there's only, like, essential stuff left. Then you feel a click and you realize you're happy. Is she there yet? William asked. You tell me, dad, brittany says, exasperated. You're the one who lives with her. He sighed. No, I don't believe she's clicked. Has she been in my room? Well, I'm not entirely sure about that, said William, who was of course, entirely sure. She didn't give away my American Girl doll collection, did she? Because that's gonna be worth a lot someday. Normally the thought of Britney's American Girl doll collection filled William with a generalized sort of rage. The cost, the terrible stories, their creepy teeth, the pilgrimage to the Mother store in Chicago. But now he found himself unexpectedly sympathetic because he'd recently come home to find that Cobra had tidied the attic and thrown out their collection of porn videotapes from the 1990s. Didn't she remember watching them together? Or was it only William who remembered those stolen afternoons? The VCR was in the living room. The tapes could only be watched while the children were at school, William on his back on the Persian carpet, Cobra crouched on top of him, both of their heads turned toward the flickering TV screen, their sounds mixing with the sounds of the porn couple. Was William the only one who could recall that he had felt, at those moments, with the sunlight shining through the blinds to paint golden stripes on the floor, that he made love not only to his wife but to the woman in the video, to the neighbors, to.
- [51:55]
Narrator
The whole town, to the whole world.
- [51:58]
Customer
The feeling had subsided instantly afterward, but still. Worst of all, though, was when she did the garage. The garage had always been a sore spot between them. Cobra had always called it a disaster area, but William had preferred to think of it as pleasantly cluttered. You could find what you were looking for if you were really motivated, but more often than not it was easier to just put the lawnmower away. The lawnmower was on the outer edge of the garage and leave the rest for another day. William felt this kept him from doing all but the most necessary chores. It was not precisely a feeling Cobra shared. He returned from an overnight business trip to find her standing in the driveway, wanting to show him the newly tidied garage. He knew instantly she had waited for him to leave, had looked forward to doing it without him there to protest. She showed the garage to him quite proudly. The garage smelled less like a garage now, more like lilacs, which seemed to William a disturbing combination. Cobra had put up hooks and now the rake, shovel, hoe, and broom hung neatly on the wall, along with the wheelbarrow, though that looked a little precarious. The lawnmower and snowblower had been turned around so their handles faced the walls. Inconvenient, William thought. Plastic storage shelves lined one wall, holding bags of birdseed, carefully looped extension cords, plastic bins full of Christmas lights. She'd set up a work table with a pegboard above it, each tool outlined like a dead body and labeled hammer, wrenches, pliers, clamps, even the box cutter. At least she hadn't thrown it out. Cobra's eyes were on his face. Don't you like it? William made a non committal noise. He knew he was being difficult and unappreciative. Just imagine the work to hang that pegboard on the garage's unforgiving concrete walls. But he couldn't seem to help himself. The work table looked like a place where someone would be expected to do a lot of, well, work. They continued the tour. Gone were the sticky paint cans, the cracked garden hose, the half used bottles of motor oil, the empty flower pots, the stacks of old newspapers, the deflated soccer balls, the sprung tennis rackets, the torn window screens, the broken dehumidifier, the dusty stereo speakers, the wait a minute. Ladder. How will we clean the gutters without a ladder? William asked. The ladder was a death trap, cobra said coolly. True enough. Something else occurred to William. Where are the snow tires? Those awful dirty old tires, you mean? No, the new snow tires. They were right over here. Right where? Right here. You can see where this was going, and it indeed went there. William said the snow tires were less than a year old and worth over $1,000. Cobra said how was she supposed to know? William said she was supposed to consult him, that's how. Cobra said she didn't like to consult him when she was tidying things because it always seemed to put him in such a bad mood. Williams said that this was why. He said that he was in a terrible mood now, knowing some lucky person who shopped at Goodwill would be driving around on his almost new snow tires wearing his soft flannel shirts and his duffel coat and drinking beer out of his Garfield beer mug while he, William, was stuck here living with Marie fucking Kondo. Cobra looked so angry that William thought she might actually hood like a real Cobra. Instead, she stalked off to the house without saying anything. William slept in the guest room that night, and the too small bed felt just fine when William got home the next evening. No garbage bags waited in the front hall to be taken to Goodwill, a first in at least two weeks. The wooden floor gleamed for miles. The tabletops were dazzlingly clear. The mantel above the fireplace shone white with blankness. The house was now picked clean as a bone. The very air William moved through was scrubbed of excess. But where was Cobra? He found her in the bedroom, lying on her side on top of the beautifully made bed. She was still wearing her scrubs, and when she glanced over her shoulder at him, William gave a start. It had been so long since he'd seen her wear the blue collar that made her eyes glow. Hi, she said softly, and smiled. Apparently she wasn't angry anymore. Neither decided William was he. He crossed the room and paused by the side of the bed to remove his shoes. Then he, too, climbed on top of the covers to lie next to her. The house looks beautiful, he said softly and even somewhat sincerely. Cobra sighed. I guess, she said. It's just that I thought it would be different. I thought it would be life changing. William waited a moment before he said, and oh, well, you know, cobra said, her profile edged in sapphire by the twilight. Her voice had a slight quaver. Life not changed. William put his arm around her and gathered her close. He was willing in this moment to tell her how much he loved the new sock drawer. But just then Cobra held his hand and traced the old scar on his palm. Suddenly he knew he was wrong about that scar. It wasn't an interruption of his hard line, as he always thought, but a broadening of it, a strengthening of it. Two lines twisting together to form a new, stronger line, a new stage of their marriage. That's all this was. A new stage to be followed by some other stage, and another after that. In all these stages, they would be together, entwined forever. The insight flared in him. He took a deep breath, preparing to hail her from his island of discovery. Rachel, he would say.
- [58:44]
Cashier
Oh, Rachel.
- [58:52]
Meg Wolitzer
That was Peter Gross reading Cobra by Kathryn Heine. I'm Meg Wolitzer. While Marie Kondo might be the silent instigator of that story, hope and fear feel like the real driving forces here. Rachel, the erstwhile Cobra, hopes to see some new life emerge, and William fears he may be left out of that new life. And yeah, this kind of friction creates conditions for a proper fight. The overarching presence of Marie Kondo threatens to shake up this marriage, but the method chosen could have even been much more existential. I mean, have you ever heard of the decluttering phenomenon known as Swedish death cleaning? All of our stories on this show, regardless of their level of pugilism, dramatized intimate battles, ones grounded in love but nevertheless capable of leaving wounds and scars. It's true, every relationship has its moments of conflict, but these representative stories offer some ideas about how to approach them, such as talk it out like fights. No one really relishes compromise, but without it. Well, how many rounds do you want to go? I'm Meg Wolitzer. Thanks for joining me for some 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 Plourd. Our theme music is David Peterson's that's the Deal, performed by the Deardorf 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.
- [61:02]
Narrator
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Meg Wolitzer
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Narrator
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