← Selected Shorts
Selected Shorts
Tangled Lives
00:56:46
Host Meg Wolitzer presents three stories about those moments, those situations, those people that pull you in and won’t let you go. These works focus on unexpected encounters that end up affecting a character's life in some unusual or enduring way. “Missed Connection—M4W” by Raphael Bob-Waksberg takes the idea of “chance encounter” to its limits. It’s performed by Richard Kind. “My Years of Living Dangerously” by Danielle Henderson explores the idea of sin and redemption. It’s performed by Karen Pittman. And in Melissa Banks’ ruefully comic “Run Run Run Run Run Run Run Away,” performed by Julianna Margulies, one sibling makes a bad choice the other has to live with.
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- [00:00]
Meg Wolitzer
Introducing Family freedom from T Mobile.
- [00:02]
Richard Kind
We'll pay off four phones up to.
- [00:04]
Meg Wolitzer
$3200 and give you four free phones.
- [00:06]
Richard Kind
All on America's largest 5G network.
- [00:08]
Meg Wolitzer
Visit t mobile.com familyfreedom.
- [00:13]
Narrator/Reader (various performers including Karen Pittman and Juliana Margulies)
Up to $800.
- [00:14]
Meg Wolitzer
Per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phones via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement.
- [00:19]
Narrator/Reader (various performers including Karen Pittman and Juliana Margulies)
Example Apple iPhone 16128 gigs $829.99 Eligible.
- [00:23]
Meg Wolitzer
Trade in example iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due.
- [00:27]
Narrator/Reader (various performers including Karen Pittman and Juliana Margulies)
If you pay off early or cancel contact us Big game today and no way to watch it. Sling lets you do that with day pass get instant access to live college football starting at just $4.99. One day pass gives you 24 hours of non stop action on ESPN and ESPN too. Want SEC or ACC network too? Just add sports extra for a buck. No contracts, no hassle, just pure unfiltered game day. Sling lets you do that. Visit sling.com to learn.
- [01:09]
Meg Wolitzer
On the next selected shorts A sister meets her brother's new girlfriend.
- [01:14]
Richard Kind
Pleased to meet you. She kisses Jack full on the mouth, and then she says she thinks she's coming down with something.
- [01:23]
Meg Wolitzer
Juliana Margulies reads a rueful and funny story by Melissa Bank. I'm Meg Wolitzer. Stay with us. You're listening to select shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction one short story at a time. Tangle is such a great word. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is both active twist together into a confused mass, or descriptive a confused mass of something twisted together. Either way, the implication is messy but but possibly also alluring and tantalizing. Tangled branches may be something you want to avoid, and it's certainly a nuisance when all the chains on your necklaces or the cords on your headphones get jumbled together, but working your way through a good bowl of sesame noodles might be just the thing. With a definition that broad, we could have featured just about any kind of relationship. But for this show, we're focusing on unexpected encounters that end up affecting a character's life in some unusual or enduring way. So no matter what the outcome, they are forever tangled. One story takes the idea of chance encounter to its limits. A second ponders the relationship between sin and redemption. And in the third, we see what happens when one sibling makes a bad choice the other has to live with. And all of these performances came from a live, selected shorts show that I had the pleasure of hosting. It was a thrilling evening of great actors reading mesmerizing fiction in front of a packed house at Symphony Space. While I always enjoy talking to you from the confines of my cozy recording studio, the adrenaline ran high that night on stage in the theater as the actors interpreted the stories and the audience responded. Maybe fiction writers need a little of that at home when they're working on a story. You could finish a draft and then maybe make crowd sounds in response to what you wrote.
- [03:22]
Narrator/Reader (various performers including Karen Pittman and Juliana Margulies)
Yay.
- [03:24]
Meg Wolitzer
Not a bad idea. Our first work, missed connection M4W, is by the writer Raphael Bob Waksberg. He's primarily known for creating the darkly comic animated series BoJack Horseman, but has also written a collection of short stories titled Someone who Will Love you in all your Damaged Glory. The best way to prepare you for this story is to mention that it was first published anonymously as a post on Craigslist's famed Missed Connections. Also worth mentioning, Raphael Bob Waksberg coyly denied authorship after posting it about a decade ago because he wanted everyone to imagine imagine the story as something anonymous Reading Missed Connection is Richard Kind, well known for his work in movies as disparate as Argo and Inside out, and whose recent series include Big Mouth and East New York and this is great. When you Google him, one of the Internet's most asked questions is Is Richard Kind in every Pixar movie? We don't care. Right now, he's all ours with Raphael Bob Waksberg's missed connection M4W.
- [04:43]
Narrator/Reader (various performers including Karen Pittman and Juliana Margulies)
I saw you on the Manhattan bound Brooklyn Q train. I was wearing a blue striped T shirt and a pair of maroon pants. You were wearing a vintage red skirt and a smart white blouse. We both wore glasses. I guess we still do. You got on at the cab and sat across from me and we made eye contact briefly. I fell in love with you a little bit in that stupid way where you completely make up a fictional version of the person you're looking at and you fall in love with that person. But still, I think there was something there. Several times we looked at each other and then looked away and I tried to think of something to say to you. Maybe pretend I didn't know where you were going and ask you for directions. Or say something nice about your boot shaped earrings. Or just say hot day. It all seems so stupid. At one point I caught you staring at me and you immediately averted your eyes and you pulled a book out of your bag and started reading it. A biography of Lyndon Johnson, but I noticed you never once turned a page. My stop was Union Square, but at Union Square I decided to stay on, rationalizing that I could just as easily transfer to the seven at 42nd Street. But then I didn't get off at 42nd street either. Well, you must have missed your stop as well, because when we got all the way to the end of the line at Ditmars, we both just sat there in the car, waiting. I cocked my head at you inquisitively. You shrugged, held up your book as if that was the reason. Still, I said nothing. And we took the train all the way back down, down through Astoria, across the east river, weaving through midtown, from Times Square to Herald Square to Union Square, under Soho and Chinatown, up across the bridge, back into Brooklyn, past Barclays and Prospect park, past Flatbush and Midwood and Sheepshead Bay, all the way to Coney Island. And when we got to Coney Island, I knew I had to say something. And still I said nothing. And so we went back up, up and down the queue line, over and over. We caught the rush hour crowds and then saw them thin out again. We watched the sun set over Manhattan as we crossed the East River. I gave myself deadlines. I'm going to talk to her before Newkirk. I'll talk to her before Canal. Still, I remained silent. For months we sat on that train, saying nothing, saying nothing to each other. We survived on bags of Skittles sold to us by kids raising money for their basketball teams. We must have heard a million mariachi bands, had our faces nearly kicked in by 100,000 break dancers. I gave money to beggars until I ran out of singles. And when the train went above ground, I get text messages and voicemails. Where are you? What happened? Are you okay? Until my phone ran out of battery. I'll talk to her before daybreak. I'll talk to her before Tuesday. The longer I waited, the harder it got. What could I possibly say to you now? Now that we've passed the same station for the hundredth time? Maybe if I could go back to the first time the queue switched over to the local R line for the weekend, I could have said, well, this is inconvenient. But I couldn't very well say it now, could I? I would kick myself for days. Every time you sneezed. Why hadn't I said bless you? I mean, that tiny gesture would have been good enough to pivot us into a conversation. But here, in stupid silence, still we sat. There were nights when we were the only two souls in the car, perhaps even on the whole trip. And even then I felt self conscious about bothering you. She's reading her book. I thought, she doesn't want to talk to me. And yet still there were moments when I felt the connection, and someone would shout something crazy about Jesus, and we would immediately look at each other to register our reactions. A couple of teenagers would exit, holding hands, and we would both think, young love. And for 60 years we just sat in that car, just barely pretending to notice each other. I got to know you so well, if only peripherally. I memorized the folds of your body and the contours of your face, the patterns of your breath. I saw you cry once after you glanced at a neighbor's newspaper, and I wondered if you were crying about something specific or just the general passage of time, so unnoticeable until suddenly noticeable. I wanted to comfort you, wrap my arms around you, assure you I knew everything would be fine. But it felt too familiar, so I stayed glued to my seat. One day, in the middle of the afternoon, you stood up as the train pulled into Queensborough Plaza. It was difficult for you, this simple task of standing up. I mean, you hadn't done it in 60 years. Holding onto the rails, you managed to get yourself to the door. You hesitated briefly there, perhaps waiting for me to say something, giving me one last chance to stop you. But rather than spit out a lifetime of suppressed, almost conversations, I said nothing. And I watched her slip out between the closing sliding doors. And it took me a few hours and a few more stops before I realized that you were really gone. And I kept waiting for you to re enter the subway car, sit down next to me, rest your head on my shoulder. Nothing would be said. Nothing would need to be said. And when the train returned to Queensborough Plaza, I craned my neck as we entered the station. Perhaps you were there on the platform, still waiting. Perhaps I'd see you smiling and bright, your long gray hair waving in the wind from the oncoming train. No, you were gone. And I realized, most likely, that I would never see you again. And I thought about how amazing it is that you can know somebody for 60 years and yet not really know that person at all. I stayed on the train until it got to Union Square, at which point I got off and transferred to the L.
- [13:43]
Richard Kind
Richard Klein.
- [13:50]
Meg Wolitzer
Richard Kyne Performed missed connection M4W by Raphael Bob Waksberg I'm Meg Wolitzer. That reading was extraordinary. This story is seemingly simple and linear, but it takes you all kinds of places, making you long for the circuit to be closed or continued and for the unnamed characters to take to heart. E.M. forster's famous dictum, only connect Our second work is My Years of Living Dangerously by Danielle Henderson. This idea of embracing a risky lifestyle for good or bad has been credited to the likes of Friedrich Nietzsche and is also an adage in Italian. Heady stuff, but in this case the protagonist is a snarky young girl and the risk's moral this autobiographical piece takes on a lifelong entanglement with both family and religion. Henderson's books include the Ugly Cry and she's written for TV shows including Difficult People and Maniac. Reading My Years of Living Dangerously is Karen Pittman, a powerful performer who has been extremely busy lately, appearing in series including Yellowstone and the Morning show, as well as films including Unthinkably Good Things. Now here she is with My Years of Living Dangerously by Danielle Henderson.
- [15:15]
Narrator/Reader (various performers including Karen Pittman and Juliana Margulies)
My.
- [15:15]
Supporting Reader/Character
Years of Living Dangerously on Late Stage Catholicism, lying and Communion we're not a religious family in the traditional sense. I've only seen my family genuflect when boxes of Intenmann's pastries are on sale two for one at the Grand Union and 60% of us were born so far out of wedlock. Our birth certificates list who cares in the space where you indicate the father's name. Christmas was a time best spent ripping pages out of the 300 pound Sears catalog and begging for thousands of toys that would never make their way under the tree. Easter was the season for eating the tie dyed egg salad for a week straight to help revive you from the self administered handy and boost diabetic shock of your overflowing Easter baskets who rose from the what? Pass the M&MS. I was baptized in the Catholic Church a few months after I was born and didn't step foot in a church again for seven years. They were big on protecting the soul, but there wasn't much God in my life following my baptism aside from the casual way every adult in my family took the Lord's name in vain every $0.10 seconds. Like all black families raised in the jive talking 70s and politically oppressive 80s, God damn was the most widely used descriptor of all things animal, vegetable or mineral. Though sometimes used aggressively, it was primarily a gentle way to indicate the world. Weariness and overall exhaustion cultivated deep in the bones of all middle aged black folks. It filled a space and your job was to figure out how to read between the lines of what each goddamn actually meant. I said pass a goddamn salt meant you were tired after a long day, certainly too tired to repeat yourself. Do you know where my goddamn gloves are? Was code for which one of you moved my stuff after I expressly told you not to move my stuff. The rapid fire multiple wielding of God Damn was a threat level Red situation, a clear sign that you had just pushed someone to the limits of their sanity. It wasn't unusual for my grandma to condemn me straight to hell for not letting her goddamn play the goddamn Nintendo she goddamn bought for these little goddamn motherfuckers. It was her expletive laden form of praying that someone, anyone, would give her the strength to keep from murdering me for trying to level up on the Legend of Zelda when it was clearly her turn. When she dies, I will make sure her tombstone simply reads God damn it. Told you kids to leave me alone. We were a baptized bunch, but regular church attendance was never on the menu. My grandmother spent her Sunday afternoons chain smoking footlong Carlton 120s and yelling at the Jets, Giants, Mets, or Knicks to throw, kick, punt, or pass whichever ball was in play. My grandfather, Open Mouth snored loudly in the armchair next to her, shifting slightly every time she yelled, shut up, Jack, his snoring apparently more irritating than her exasperated wails. He usually went back to sleep quickly, patiently waiting for her to calm down or just give up so he could change the channel to WPIX and watch one of the westerns that streamed all day. If Sunday was the Lord's day, we were only taught to pray to the gods of split finger, fastball, and John Wayne, thinking I'd miraculously skipped out on all manner of religious instruction. You can imagine my surprise when, out of the blue, my mother informed me that I had to attend church school in preparation for my communion. Don't forget to go with Erin and Mrs. Garrett after school on Tuesday, she said nonchalantly one day as she mixed a jug of powdered milk at the kitchen counter. You're going to church school. Holy Rosary was a small stone church on Windermere Avenue. It reminded me of the type of house you would see in a fairy tale an unassuming place where the townspeople lived. The neighborhood was quiet. If you kept walking down the street, you would hit the top of the lake. The schoolroom was just a room in the basement filled with small plastic chairs lined up in rows. The teacher, a dowdy woman who was likely a volunteer, made us all sit down. We instinctively knew to be quiet since school was in the title, but as a kid who never went to church, I had no idea what else was about to happen. After the teacher handed out the pink catechism books, we were invited to go to the wooden booth to confess to the priest. I sat in the dark box and was startled when the small rectangular screen slid open next to my elbow. Hello, my child. The priest asked me to call him Father, a word that sounded unfamiliar in my mouth, and confess my sins As a book obsessed 7 year old. I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. So I did the thing that came naturally. I lied my ass off. I broke my mom's favorite mug. I said confidently. And how did that make you feel? Uh, bad. Say ten Our Fathers and three Hail Marys. Well, that was easy. Like serial killers and three of the worst men I ever dated, I really never had a grasp on what I was supposed to feel sorry about. Week after week I filled the confessional with lies. I yelled at my teacher. I stole my best friend's favorite toy. I kicked a dog. I punched my brother in the nuts. No one ever caught on, verified my story, or gave me more of a punishment than walking to a pew to chant a few quick Our Fathers on a plastic grocery. It slowly dawned on me. If I could lie and be quickly forgiven, there was nothing to stop me from actually doing some of the stuff I was making up. Catholicism flipped a switch and turned me on to a life of crime. First I stole a pack of purple jelly bracelets from Hanley's Lotto, which doubled as a five and dime. Purple was my favorite color and the bracelets were the most prominent status symbol of the first grade set. Instead of buying them one at a time, I took the whole package and stacked them halfway up my arm. Within three weeks, I had a rainbow of stolen goods that I cleverly looped into a jump rope. I said a few Hail Marys and slept soundly. My neighbor Kurt always teased me for being tall. After I learned that I could be forgiven for anything in confession, I started beating him up with gusto. My days of lying and thieving lasted until my first communion. I had a loose grasp on what I needed to do in order to be communed. Aside from an agonizing day spent in Sears buying a miniature wedding dress replete with a tiny child bride veil, but the fact that my whole family was coming seemed like a big deal. My great grandmother Sweetie Pie came from New York City wearing her finest daytime turban, her light skin offset by a pair of giant dark sunglasses. She had a deep croaking voice and spoke in a slow, quiet way that made her seem like the most glamorous woman I'd ever met. It's hard to imagine her sitting on a graffiti filled subway and enduring a nauseating two hour long bus ride to get there when she clearly should have arrived in a crystal carriage powered by unicorns. Sweetie Pie and Grandma talked on the phone almost every day, but she only came to see us a few times a year. She always carried a camera with her, the kind with a long flash cube attached to the top, and would read books with me as long as I wanted. When the rest of the city family visited once a year, she drove up with them but hung out with us while the other adults were in the kitchen cooking, playing cards, and drinking beer. Sweetie Pie was outside listening intently to our instructions about which rock was a base for the game we just made up. She took pictures of us while we ran around without her there to document it. The happier part of my childhood would be an unattainable memory. My mom curled her hair into a Farrah Fawcett bouffant, covered her entire eyelid up to the brow in turquoise eyeshadow, and wore a maroon tapered jumpsuit under a short white blazer. She looked like a rainbow bright doll about to turn tricks. My grandmother was busy being choked by a shirt with so many ruffles I thought her skin would be permanently marked with undulating waves, but her Jheri curl was spritzed to high heaven, shining brighter than the safety reflectors on my bike wheels. My grandfather wore the same thing. He always wore a thin plaid shirt with the top two buttons undone and a pair of jeans, but he deigned to put on a pair of shiny black shoes. My brother was also part of this communion and wore a tiny black suit with a white shirt and tie. There's a picture of all of us standing in front of the church. Without context, it looks like a hooker. Her parents and their madam are happier than ever to marry their youngest children to each other before they hand them over to the Pope. The ceremony was long and forgettable. Legions of children marched up to the podium one by one and listened to the priest mumble something in Latin before he shoved a dry Styrofoam disc in their mouths and made the sign of the cross over his elaborate robe. The body of Christ tasted like construction paper and felt like a giant doughy penny as it dissolved on your tongue. When it was over, I asked my grandmother excitedly what was next. I was already planning my next attack on Kurt and wanted to know when I could come back to church to be forgiven for it. What do you mean, what's next? Grandmother said. When do I come back to confession? My grandmother looked down at me, her mouth terse and one eyebrow raised. Child, we are not coming back here. We don't have time to drive your ass to church every week. She walked away briskly, barking at everyone to pile into the car so we could go home in time for her to catch the next game. My communion marked the beginning of my soul's salvation and the end of stealing. It was a relief. I had a hard time believing in God and I was running out of stuff to make up. In confession.
- [28:21]
Meg Wolitzer
Karen Pittman performed my Years of Living Dangerously By Danielle Henderson. I'm Meg Wolitzer. Any of us can connect to this story's comic disconnect between the messy business of family life and coming of age and the mystifying and often tedious rituals of religious institutions. When we return, a toxic relationship once removed. 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.
- [28:52]
Richard Kind
I don't mean to interrupt your meal, but I saw you from across a cafe and you're the Geico Gecko, right? In the flesh. Oh, my goodness, this is huge. To finally meet you. I love Geico's fast and friendly claim service.
- [29:03]
Narrator/Reader (various performers including Karen Pittman and Juliana Margulies)
Well, that's how Geico gets 97% customer satisfaction.
- [29:06]
Richard Kind
Anyway, that's all. Enjoy the rest of your food.
- [29:09]
Meg Wolitzer
No worries.
- [29:11]
Narrator/Reader (various performers including Karen Pittman and Juliana Margulies)
So are you just gonna watch me eat?
- [29:13]
Richard Kind
Oh, sorry.
- [29:14]
Narrator/Reader (various performers including Karen Pittman and Juliana Margulies)
Just a little star struck. I'll be on my way. If you're gonna stick around, just pull up a chair.
- [29:19]
Richard Kind
You're the best.
- [29:20]
Narrator/Reader (various performers including Karen Pittman and Juliana Margulies)
Get more than just savings. Get more with Geico.
- [29:41]
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 focuses on entanglements on the way lives get braided together with other lives, for good or bad. On the good side, we'd love to have you tangled up with us, so please stop by our website selectedshorts.org or for links to other programs, our podcast and our anthology, Small Odysseys. Our final work is by the late Melissa Bank, a friend both of mine and of selected shorts. You'll know her for her bestsellers, the Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing and the Wonder Spot. I knew her from our time together teaching writing workshops in Southampton. Her wit, her playfulness, her excavation of character and her distinctive vision and voice are all on display in this piece titled Run Run Run, Run, Run, Run, Run Away. And if you don't get the reference, you soon will. Performing the story is an actor who is synonymous with series, including the Good Wife and er and who continues to make waves alongside Karen Pittman in the Morning Show. Here's Juliana Margulies with Melissa Banks. Run.
- [31:05]
Richard Kind
When my brother tells me he's been seeing a psychiatrist, I say, that's great, Jack. He says, why, you think I'm fucked up? I say, how'd you find him? He says, what makes you think my psychiatrist is a man? Her name is Mary Pat Delmar, and Jack tells me she's brilliant. He says she blows me away and I think they must be talking a lot about junior high. Wow. He smiles. I told her you'd say that. When he tells me how beautiful she is, I say, but not so beautiful that you have a hard time concentrating. She's pretty beautiful, he says, plus impressive. She got a scholarship to college, for example, and she put herself through medical school. She grew up in rural Tennessee where her parents still run a luncheonette. I say, she told you that? Yeah, he says, why? I don't think of psychiatrists talking about themselves too much. It's not until he tells me they're not in Freudian analysis and breaks out laughing that I realize he's not in analysis at all. Mary Pat is his new girlfriend. He laughs like a madman and I say, very funny, though it is in fact very funny just to hear Jack laugh as well as a huge relief. Our father died not even two months ago. My eggs and Jack's pancakes are set before us and we stop talking to eat. We're at Homer's, the diner around the corner from his apartment in the Village. I ask how he met Mary Pat. He tells me Pete referred her for a moment. He gets waylaid talking about the fishing shack he helped Pete restore this summer. Pete lives year round on Martha's Vineyard with his Newfoundland, Lila, who expresses her heartache by howling to Billie Holiday records. Dog, you don't know the trouble I've seen. Jack says Pete called when MP Moved to town. I think he's always been a little in love with her. I say nothing. I have always been a little in love with Pete, though Jack didn't say he'd bring Mary Pat. I'm a little disappointed when he arrives at Homer's without her. Just coffee, he says to the waiter. He tells me that MP Was mugged on her way home from work and he was up half the night trying to calm her down. Jesus, I say, and ask where and when and was there a weapon? A ninth, 10pm A block from her apartment on Avenue D. I say, she lives on Avenue D. D is for drugs. D is for danger. D is for don't live on Avenue D unless you have to. Jack says it's all she can afford. I say, well, I thought psychiatrists cleaned up, maybe in private practice as Dr. Delmar, Mary Pat treats survivors of torture in a program at NYU Hospital. From spending weeks at my father's bedside, I have become alive to a level of pain I've never known. Now I feel it on every street of Manhattan, in every column in the newspaper, and just the idea of someone who works to ease suffering eases mine. I say, when can I meet her? Soon. Sounding like a worried mother, I say she should take a cab when she works late, I know, but she says walking is her only exercise. Jack is standing outside the White Horse Tavern when I arrive. He says, want to sit outside? It's November. Why would I want to sit outside? He tells me that MP Will. After spending all day in the hospital, she craves fresh air. He takes off his leather jacket and hands it to me. An act of chivalry. In the name of Mary Pat, I give in. You love this girl. He howls, a mock forlorn, I do. Imitating a country singer or Newfoundland. We maneuver our legs under the picnic table. We are the sole outsiders, and Jack has to go inside to get the waitress. We both order scotch for warmth. Jack yawns and tells me that he and Mary Pat were up most of the night discussing his new screenplay. He tells me her notes were unbelievably smart, incredibly smart. Smarter than his actual screenplay. It occurs to me that I have never heard him more sure of any woman and less sure of himself. He catches sight of his dramaturg across the street and I turn to look. She is tall and skinny, in high heels. Her cheeks are flushed, and when she sees Jack smile, she activates her dimples. Her hand is limp in mine, her voice shivery, pleased to meet you. She kisses Jack full on the mouth and then she says she thinks she's coming down with something. Do we mind sitting inside? Once we're seated, I pretend, as I always do with Jack's girlfriends, that I already like her. I tell her that I can hardly sit in high heels, let alone walk in them. How does she do it? She says, I don't know. Jack puts his hand across her forehead and his eyebrows slant up in worry. You have a fever. If you're sick, I say, we can have dinner another night. No, no, she says, I like a fever. Her smile is waned, her skin shiny. You know, through the glass darkly. I do not know. I'm not even sure I've heard her correctly. Her voice is so quiet I strain. Just for fragments. We pick up our menus. I'm going to have a cheeseburger and fries, I say. Jack says, same here. Mary Pat says, I don't think I can eat a whole one by myself. You can share mine, he says. You don't mind? My brother, who usually slaps my hand if I take one of his fries, does not mind. When our cheeseburgers arrive, Mary Pat ignores the extra plate brought for sharing and eats right off Jack's. Instead of cutting the burger in half, she takes a bite and then he does. She even uses his napkin to wipe her mouth. I am reminded of the aid organization Doctors Without Borders. Jack told me that you met through Pete, I say. Oh yes, she says. He warned your brother about me, and the two of them seem to think it's funny. I play along. What did he say? Jack asks Mary Pat. What did he say? She says, I'm trouble. Her voice is so lush with sex, I think, hey, M.P. i'm right here. Jack's little sister across the table. Her body reacts to the smallest shift in his they are in constant bodily contact. She doesn't touch Jack directly, but rubs herself against him almost incidentally, like a cat. The one time he reaches for her hand she lets him hold it for less than a minute and then she takes it back and hides it in the dark under the table. Maybe because of her whispery voice or her ethereal skinniness or her glass darkly fever, Mary Pat gives the impression of not quite being here at the table, here at White Horse Tavern, here on earth. As though to assure myself of my own existence, I counter her quiet voice by raising mine, counter her little bites by taking big ones. I try to talk to her, but it's just me asking questions and her answering them. My questions get get longer, her answers shorter still. I don't quit. I'm like a gambler who keeps thinking maybe the next hand the name of her parents Luncheonette del Mars, the division of labor. Her father cooks, her mother serves. If I were at Del Mar's now, we'd order meet and two meat and.
- [39:53]
Supporting Reader/Character
Two.
- [39:55]
Richard Kind
One meat and two sides. Oh, I love sides. I ask which are the best? Butter beans, she says, Grits, if you like grits. I smile the smile of a grits liker, though not a single grit has ever passed my lips. I say, did you hang out at the Luncheonette a lot growing up? She nods. I say, was it fun? No, she says, making clear that she doesn't want to talk about this or talk to me or talk. She says, excuse me, and she goes to the ladies room.
- [40:41]
Supporting Reader/Character
What?
- [40:42]
Richard Kind
I say to Jack. He says she can't talk about her father. Were we talking about her father? When she returns, Jack puts his arm around her. I say, I didn't mean to pry. Mary Pat says, a wounded don't worry about it. Jack does not call to ask what I think of Mary Pat, as he has with every other girlfriend he's ever introduced me to. He doesn't call at all. When I call him, he's in bed with a fever of 103. I offer to bring him soup and he says that he has soup and juice and everything he needs left over from when he took care of Mary Pat. A week later, when I called to ask if we're meeting at Homer's, he's still in bed. He says that his fever is down. He just doesn't feel good. I say, what's the matter, buddy? Our father's nickname for Jack. She hated my revision. What I told you. She gave me notes on my script, he says. She said I didn't understand anything. I say, you want me to come over? Yeah, he says, and I do. His night table's a mess of drugs. Nyquil, Dayquil, Sudafed, Theraflu, a sticky dose cup, a mug, and a tea bag that looks like a mouse in rigor mortis. His bed is covered with screenplay pages and used Kleenexes, which he says are of equal value to Mary Patches. Does she know that your father died nine weeks ago? He says. I asked her to be honest. It takes me a minute to understand that he's defending her against me. I clean up. I take his temperature. I make tea. I'm stirring soup when Mary Pat calls, apparently contrite. She's coming over, Jack says, which means I'm supposed to go. Jack arrives at Homer's, blurry with exhaustion and hobbling. He tells me that he's been working out. I just overdid it, he says something indecipherable through a yawn and up really late last night. I ask if he was working on his screenplay. No, he yawns. We stayed up late talking. Don't you babies sleep through the night? He says. She's upset. I think of the work that Mary Pat does and the stories she must hear every day. I woke up, jack says, and she was crying. I nod in sympathy. His voice is cloudy with sleep. She kept telling me how sorry she was. I say, why was she sorry? He seems suddenly to focus and to realize that he might not want to tell me this story. He hesitates before going on, but he does go on, too tired to obey his instincts. She's still in love with her old boyfriend. The words seem to spell out the end, and yet I don't hear the end in his voice or see the end in his face. I say, if she loves him so much, how come she broke up with him? I watched Jack try to remember she didn't feel she deserved to be happy back then. What comes to mind is Jack's rendition of Talking Head Song, which he changed from psycho killer to psychobabble. I think of the refrain run, run, run, run, run, run, run away. I say, when didn't she deserve to be happy? Her freshman year, he says he was a senior physics major. He played squash. I'm confused. So she's been seeing him since her freshman year? No. She ran into him. No, I say, but she wants to get back together with him. No, he says. He's married with two kids. She doesn't even know where he lives. It occurs to me that I might understand this story better if I were really, really tired. My brother's eyes are shiny and tiny and his skin clam colored. His hand trembles as he returns his coffee cup to the puddle in his saucer. He says, the good thing is, and drifts off. I say, the good thing is she finally feels like she deserves to be happy. Jack calls and says that he wishes he hadn't told me about MP's old boyfriend. I say I understand and I do. There are things two people say in the middle of the night that don't make sense to a third. At breakfast the next few times I ask, Jack tells me that Mary Pat is great and then she is good and then she is fine and then she is okay. Saturday night at 4am he calls me from her apartment. I know without asking that he is sitting in the dark. I can hear it in his voice. I blew it, he says. I say, I'm sure you didn't. I did. He says, I blew it. How? I just blew it. He says, I blew it. Just trying to remember that we're having a conversation. I say, and your goal is to impart information. He says I should have proposed to her at the boathouse. When I don't answer, he says, in Central park, as though to clarify that was the perfect moment. I force myself to say the consoling words. I'm sure you'll have another perfect moment. No, he says, she said that was the perfect moment. And now we can never get it back. Hold on there, I say. You've known each other for like 20 minutes. He doesn't answer, and I hear how irrelevant these words are to him. Just bear with me, I say. Forget about perfect moments for a minute. Do you really want Mary Pat to be your wife? You want Mary Pat to be the mother of your children? Yes, he says. I do not ask him if he thinks he would be happy with Mary Pat. Happiness, I realize, is beside the point. I realize, too, that he doesn't want me to help him figure anything out or to help him feel better. He wants me to help him win Mary Pat. Okay, I say. Here's what I think you should do. Don't ask her to marry you. Give her room, I say. Try not to need anything from her, just for a little while. How can I tell that I have said something he wants to hear? The silence is just the same, but I know I imitate our father's calm authority, will figure the rest out in the morning. I've only called Pete a few times in my life, and as soon as I hear his hello, I remember why. He settled in for the night, his feet by the fire, Dostoevsky in hand, Lila's head on his lap. A phone call is breaking and entering. We talk, but only 1% of Pete comes to the phone. You get close to Pete by swimming or clamming or fishing, by weeding his garden, by singing while he plays guitar. Every exchange is more strained than the last until I get to the emergency of my brother's love. When I finish, he says, I don't think there's anything you can do, Soph. He is sympathetic but resolute, as though describing a house beyond restoration. You don't understand, I say. I think he's going to propose to her, he says. They all propose for myself, I say. Did you propose? He laughs.
- [48:53]
Narrator/Reader (various performers including Karen Pittman and Juliana Margulies)
No.
- [48:54]
Richard Kind
It occurs to me that I have never known Pete to have a girlfriend. How are you? You know, he says. Okay. How's Lila? He says. How are you, Lila? What I hear in the moment of quiet that follows is Martha's Vineyard in winter, the clouds in the sky, the wind on the beach, and the cold that stays on your clothes even when you're inside. Jack does not return my calls. I ask my mother if she's heard from him. She says she has. I can't wait to meet Mary Pat. I know how hard my little brother Robert is working, and I'm reluctant to worry him. But when he asks me what I think of Mary Pat. I tell him everything. Jack's losing weight. He doesn't sleep anymore. It occurs to me this is how cults weaken the will of initiates. Robert says it sounds like he's in love, and adds that the world's most coveted state is characterized by unrelieved insecurity and nearly constant pain. The effect of his words is to remind me that it has been a long time since I've been in love. What about you? Robert says. Have you met anyone? He always asks, and I always have to say no, and I say no. Now for the first time. He says he wants to introduce me to someone he knows. A pediatric heart surgeon. That's good, I say. I have a pediatric heart, he says. Don't talk that way about my little sister. Before we hang up, I say, are you in love? No, he says. I ask if his wife knows. Of course, he says. Naomi's the one who told me. When Jack finally calls me at work, he says, can you meet me instead of hello? When? He says now, before I can ask where, he hangs up. Even though it's 6pm on a weekday, I assume Homer is in. I'm right. Jack's at the counter, his head bowed. His face looks haggard but his body surprisingly buff. He says that he can't sleep or eat or think or write. Apparently it can work out, though. She won't call me back, he says. I say I know how that feels. He misses the jibe. We had a fight. About what? It wasn't really a fight, he tells the waiter. Just coffee. Oh, he'll have pancakes and bacon with that. To Jack, I say, or do you want eggs? I don't want anything, I tell the waiter. He'll have pancakes. Jack doesn't even seem to hear. You seem like you're in a coma, I say, and as soon as I say it, I feel sick. Our father was in a coma for days, and I have said coma the way people who don't know anything about it do, which is like calling out, can we get another coma over here? I say. I meant stupor, but Jack is in such a stupor he didn't even notice my coma. When his pancakes come, he pushes the plate aside. He sighs and sighs again. His voice is so quiet it's as though he's talking to himself. When he says, I can't hit her. Sorry? I can't hit her, he says, and I realized how tired and desperate he must be to say these words to me. And you want to hit her? He shrugs. She wants me to in bed? I say. Of course in bed, he says. Where else? Oh, I'm sorry, I say. Of course she wants you to hit her in bed and you can't but go on. She thinks it means I don't love her. I say, can I hit her, Sophie? His voice is a reprimand. Her father used to beat her. I think she probably deserved it. But then I turn into a human being. My brother's face is so tired and so sad, it makes my face. Sad and tired, buddy. But even as I say it, if I were you, I'd try to get out of this thing. I know that nothing I can say, no matter how wise or how well put, will separate him from his woman. He says, it's not like I have a choice. I say, of course you do. She's been seeing someone else, he says. Some guy she works with. I am about to say a victim, but I correct myself in time. A survivor. He defends Mary Pat even now. She would never go out with a patient. There are so many things I could say about Mary Patience. I could call her the one word you say for occasions such as this, the only sacred profanity. But my brother loves this woman, whoever she is, and deriding her would only deride him for loving her. What else is there to say? So I tell him that I've been editing a celebrity diet book at work. I say, newsflash. Eat less, exercise more. When I slide the plate of pancakes in front of him, he says, I'm not hungry. Do you think I care if you're hungry? I say, this has nothing to do with hunger. Hunger is beside the point. Hunger is a luxury you can't afford. I pour syrup over the pancakes. When I cut into the stack, he says dryly, leggo my Eggo, repeating a commercial circa our childhood. You need a nap, I say. He eats one bite and then another. While he finishes his pancakes, I plan the future. I will walk him home and up the stairs to his apartment. He'll lie down. I'll shop for groceries. I'll take him to a movie and out for dinner in case my father is listening. I think we will look after each other.
- [55:25]
Meg Wolitzer
Juliana Margulies performed Melissa Banks Run, run, run run run run run away. I'm Meg Wolitzer. When we spoke to Marguliese backstage at Symphony Space, she talked about feeling at home with the text.
- [55:38]
Richard Kind
I feel very responsible reading this story because Melissa bank was a dear friend of Meg's and she passed away and it reads like a play. So I'm thrilled to do it. It's a complicated family. And can I talk about what happens? Because the father has just died, you feel this incredible responsibility of the narrator to keep the family together and to care for each other. And it comes at sort of this great, I guess, this moment in time when you. When you're in love with someone, her brother falls in love with someone and she's just not the right person for him. And the narrator knows that. But if you say that, it's going to cause a bigger divide. So what do you do? You care for them as best you can and watch them spiral down and then hopefully pick them up off the.
- [56:27]
Meg Wolitzer
Floor when they're done. That was Juliana Margulies backstage at Symphony Space. I think we all know that kind of entanglement, the kind that doesn't really entangle us directly, but the kind we wish our loved one would just entangle from. Already. This show has been our own tangled web. Hoping to snare you with stories about intertwined lives, chance encounters, rites of passage, and family bonds strained to their limits. 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 Miles B. Smith. Our mix engineer for this episode was Mi? A White. Our remix engineer is Nancy Hirsch. 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 State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Selected Shorts is produced and distributed by Symphony Space.
- [58:17]
Supporting Reader/Character
Oh, Gecko. I just love being able to file a claim in under two minutes with the Geico app. Could you sign it?
- [58:23]
Narrator/Reader (various performers including Karen Pittman and Juliana Margulies)
Sign what?
- [58:23]
Richard Kind
The app.
- [58:24]
Supporting Reader/Character
Yeah, sure.
- [58:25]
Richard Kind
Oh, it rubbed off the screen when I touched it.
- [58:27]
Meg Wolitzer
Could you sign it again?
- [58:28]
Richard Kind
Anything to help, I suppose. Get more than just savings.
- [58:31]
Narrator/Reader (various performers including Karen Pittman and Juliana Margulies)
Get more with Geico.