WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.800 align:middle line:90% 00:00:03.800 --> 00:00:08.090 align:middle line:84% You know, I forgot to do the Wonder Woman pose. 00:00:08.090 --> 00:00:09.770 align:middle line:84% That's, you know, you're supposed 00:00:09.770 --> 00:00:12.560 align:middle line:84% to do this for two minutes and that 00:00:12.560 --> 00:00:14.450 align:middle line:84% will make you feel better when you 00:00:14.450 --> 00:00:18.410 align:middle line:84% go in front of a group of people, and I forgot. 00:00:18.410 --> 00:00:20.990 align:middle line:90% I forgot. 00:00:20.990 --> 00:00:24.170 align:middle line:84% And I have been told that I'm supposed to talk right 00:00:24.170 --> 00:00:27.840 align:middle line:90% into the microphone. 00:00:27.840 --> 00:00:33.110 align:middle line:84% So if I stop doing that, yeah, OK. 00:00:33.110 --> 00:00:36.050 align:middle line:90% 00:00:36.050 --> 00:00:38.930 align:middle line:84% Thank you so much for coming out tonight. 00:00:38.930 --> 00:00:42.930 align:middle line:90% 00:00:42.930 --> 00:00:45.730 align:middle line:84% I heard from a number of people who couldn't make it 00:00:45.730 --> 00:00:47.980 align:middle line:90% because of the game. 00:00:47.980 --> 00:00:51.700 align:middle line:84% So everybody who's here, you're dear to my heart. 00:00:51.700 --> 00:00:52.570 align:middle line:90% You're in my heart. 00:00:52.570 --> 00:00:55.450 align:middle line:90% 00:00:55.450 --> 00:01:01.360 align:middle line:84% So I thought, oh, should I take a bit from here, 00:01:01.360 --> 00:01:02.350 align:middle line:90% or a bit from there? 00:01:02.350 --> 00:01:04.330 align:middle line:84% And I just decided, no, I'm going 00:01:04.330 --> 00:01:07.150 align:middle line:90% to start at the beginning. 00:01:07.150 --> 00:01:10.340 align:middle line:90% 00:01:10.340 --> 00:01:11.930 align:middle line:84% I'd figured out a couple of places 00:01:11.930 --> 00:01:15.830 align:middle line:84% I can stop depending on how awake people look. 00:01:15.830 --> 00:01:18.810 align:middle line:90% 00:01:18.810 --> 00:01:22.430 align:middle line:84% So from the beginning of "As Good as Dead." 00:01:22.430 --> 00:01:25.070 align:middle line:90% Chapter one. 00:01:25.070 --> 00:01:28.760 align:middle line:84% The fateful morning-- no exaggeration, fateful-- 00:01:28.760 --> 00:01:32.000 align:middle line:84% that my long-lost friend, Esme Cole, 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:34.430 align:middle line:84% showed up on our front steps, I was 00:01:34.430 --> 00:01:38.970 align:middle line:84% sitting at the desk in the room that I used for a home office. 00:01:38.970 --> 00:01:43.310 align:middle line:84% My chair, I remember, made an uneasy perch, all slippery 00:01:43.310 --> 00:01:46.070 align:middle line:84% and lopsided because I hadn't bothered 00:01:46.070 --> 00:01:48.800 align:middle line:84% to remove the items that I dumped on the seat 00:01:48.800 --> 00:01:50.450 align:middle line:90% the night before: 00:01:50.450 --> 00:01:53.330 align:middle line:84% a manila folder crammed with information 00:01:53.330 --> 00:01:55.760 align:middle line:84% about a job applicant being considered 00:01:55.760 --> 00:01:59.750 align:middle line:84% by the English department, a puke-green envelope holding 00:01:59.750 --> 00:02:04.280 align:middle line:84% an entry for a book prize I'd reluctantly agreed to judge, 00:02:04.280 --> 00:02:07.370 align:middle line:84% and then a three-ring binder of my own writing 00:02:07.370 --> 00:02:11.000 align:middle line:84% that creaked whenever I shifted in the chair. 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:13.520 align:middle line:84% The sky in the window over my desk 00:02:13.520 --> 00:02:16.070 align:middle line:90% was a clear blue that morning. 00:02:16.070 --> 00:02:19.280 align:middle line:84% The temperature outside would climb into the high 80s 00:02:19.280 --> 00:02:20.900 align:middle line:90% as the day progressed. 00:02:20.900 --> 00:02:24.770 align:middle line:84% But the room faced north, and its exterior wall still 00:02:24.770 --> 00:02:28.910 align:middle line:84% held the cold that settled in on desert nights. 00:02:28.910 --> 00:02:32.390 align:middle line:84% This was October in Tucson, Arizona, which 00:02:32.390 --> 00:02:36.680 align:middle line:84% meant that the ancient space heater at the level of my feet 00:02:36.680 --> 00:02:40.760 align:middle line:84% pinged away, giving off a metallic odor that 00:02:40.760 --> 00:02:44.030 align:middle line:84% might have been unpleasant to somebody else. 00:02:44.030 --> 00:02:49.430 align:middle line:84% I connected it with writing and comfort, and so I liked it. 00:02:49.430 --> 00:02:54.470 align:middle line:84% Esme Cole Fletcher, I should call my long-lost friend. 00:02:54.470 --> 00:02:58.670 align:middle line:84% Esme Cole-- betrayed by me 20 years before-- 00:02:58.670 --> 00:03:02.000 align:middle line:84% did take the name of the man she married. 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:05.000 align:middle line:84% Once upon a time, she and I had vowed 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:07.200 align:middle line:90% to keep our own names forever. 00:03:07.200 --> 00:03:13.310 align:middle line:84% But this is a tale about nothing if not about changes of heart. 00:03:13.310 --> 00:03:16.100 align:middle line:84% At the moment that Esme rang the doorbell, 00:03:16.100 --> 00:03:19.640 align:middle line:84% I was not at work on either my own writing or that 00:03:19.640 --> 00:03:21.140 align:middle line:90% of my students. 00:03:21.140 --> 00:03:24.590 align:middle line:84% I was looking out that window over my desk. 00:03:24.590 --> 00:03:28.730 align:middle line:84% From there, I had a view of our backyard Sonoran desert 00:03:28.730 --> 00:03:30.320 align:middle line:90% natives. 00:03:30.320 --> 00:03:34.550 align:middle line:84% Creosote bush, barrel cactus, cholla. 00:03:34.550 --> 00:03:38.150 align:middle line:84% The very tips of the highest of the Tucson mountains. 00:03:38.150 --> 00:03:41.210 align:middle line:84% And along the western edge of the yard, 00:03:41.210 --> 00:03:44.120 align:middle line:84% the 15-foot-high hedge of red-flowered 00:03:44.120 --> 00:03:48.470 align:middle line:84% oleanders that I had planted from one-gallon pots 11 00:03:48.470 --> 00:03:52.850 align:middle line:84% years before to give our then-new yard some color 00:03:52.850 --> 00:03:54.860 align:middle line:90% and shade. 00:03:54.860 --> 00:03:58.520 align:middle line:84% Earlier in the morning, I'd set a plate of canned tuna 00:03:58.520 --> 00:04:03.170 align:middle line:84% beneath the oleanders in hope of feeding a cat, a definite hitch 00:04:03.170 --> 00:04:06.890 align:middle line:84% in its step, that had skulked past the sliding glass 00:04:06.890 --> 00:04:10.370 align:middle line:84% doors of the dining room where my husband and I sat 00:04:10.370 --> 00:04:12.440 align:middle line:90% eating breakfast. 00:04:12.440 --> 00:04:14.390 align:middle line:90% "Could that be Bad Cat?" 00:04:14.390 --> 00:04:19.310 align:middle line:84% I had asked, speaking almost to myself, I suppose. 00:04:19.310 --> 00:04:22.340 align:middle line:84% At any rate, Will had not looked up from the Times 00:04:22.340 --> 00:04:24.200 align:middle line:90% to offer an opinion. 00:04:24.200 --> 00:04:28.970 align:middle line:84% The cat-- whether it was the cat we called Bad Cat or not-- 00:04:28.970 --> 00:04:31.610 align:middle line:90% looked pitiful, skin and bones. 00:04:31.610 --> 00:04:34.970 align:middle line:84% Its black fur matted and also covered 00:04:34.970 --> 00:04:38.390 align:middle line:84% with odd patches of pale fluff, as 00:04:38.390 --> 00:04:41.180 align:middle line:84% if somebody had poked it around under a bed 00:04:41.180 --> 00:04:43.940 align:middle line:90% to sweep up dust bunnies. 00:04:43.940 --> 00:04:46.940 align:middle line:84% When I got up from the table and walked toward the door 00:04:46.940 --> 00:04:51.080 align:middle line:84% to peek out, Will had set down his paper. 00:04:51.080 --> 00:04:54.710 align:middle line:84% In the deep and resonant voice that had mesmerized me 00:04:54.710 --> 00:04:57.380 align:middle line:84% from the start, he said, "Don't you 00:04:57.380 --> 00:05:00.920 align:middle line:84% start feeding that cat, Charlotte." 00:05:00.920 --> 00:05:05.270 align:middle line:84% As if the thought hadn't entered my mind, I'd rolled my eyes. 00:05:05.270 --> 00:05:09.260 align:middle line:84% Nevertheless, after he'd headed off to the university-- 00:05:09.260 --> 00:05:13.250 align:middle line:84% a brilliant art historian, Will, really, so good, 00:05:13.250 --> 00:05:16.740 align:middle line:84% his lectures could bring tears to my eyes-- 00:05:16.740 --> 00:05:20.780 align:middle line:84% I had trotted out back in my bathrobe with a can opener 00:05:20.780 --> 00:05:24.590 align:middle line:84% and a can of tuna and a plate just in case 00:05:24.590 --> 00:05:28.700 align:middle line:84% that scrawny cat came around again. 00:05:28.700 --> 00:05:31.070 align:middle line:84% I remember this day and the days that 00:05:31.070 --> 00:05:34.250 align:middle line:84% followed in the precise manner that we remember 00:05:34.250 --> 00:05:36.950 align:middle line:84% those bold, bright days after we've 00:05:36.950 --> 00:05:39.920 align:middle line:84% learned that someone we love has died, 00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:42.860 align:middle line:84% or a national tragedy has occurred. 00:05:42.860 --> 00:05:47.210 align:middle line:84% Where were you when the Twin Towers fell? 00:05:47.210 --> 00:05:50.690 align:middle line:84% When Esme rang our front doorbell that morning-- 00:05:50.690 --> 00:05:54.470 align:middle line:84% an obnoxious thing, door drill was more like it-- 00:05:54.470 --> 00:05:58.160 align:middle line:84% I jumped in my desk chair, swore. 00:05:58.160 --> 00:06:01.310 align:middle line:84% Telephones ringing, doorbells drilling. 00:06:01.310 --> 00:06:04.670 align:middle line:84% I always preferred to let Will answer. 00:06:04.670 --> 00:06:07.370 align:middle line:84% He was better at handling that sort of thing. 00:06:07.370 --> 00:06:10.930 align:middle line:84% And who could be at our door at 11-something in the morning, 00:06:10.930 --> 00:06:12.280 align:middle line:90% anyway? 00:06:12.280 --> 00:06:15.130 align:middle line:84% Our house sat in an older part of Tucson 00:06:15.130 --> 00:06:17.740 align:middle line:84% that, although encircled by neighborhoods 00:06:17.740 --> 00:06:22.180 align:middle line:84% with conventional sidewalks and lawns and paved streets, 00:06:22.180 --> 00:06:25.570 align:middle line:84% remained staunchly gravel roads, home 00:06:25.570 --> 00:06:28.180 align:middle line:84% to coyotes, Gambel's quail, and even 00:06:28.180 --> 00:06:32.500 align:middle line:84% the occasional long-tusked javelina. 00:06:32.500 --> 00:06:35.080 align:middle line:84% Apart from friends in a formal mood on nights 00:06:35.080 --> 00:06:38.230 align:middle line:84% when they brought flowers or wine for a dinner party, 00:06:38.230 --> 00:06:40.660 align:middle line:84% the only people who used our front door were 00:06:40.660 --> 00:06:46.420 align:middle line:84% UPS drivers, evangelists, and those poor teenage boys lugging 00:06:46.420 --> 00:06:50.560 align:middle line:84% around Styrofoam coolers of candy whose profits 00:06:50.560 --> 00:06:55.930 align:middle line:84% each sweating kid swore by rote would keep him off the streets 00:06:55.930 --> 00:06:59.680 align:middle line:84% and away from a life of drugs and crime. 00:06:59.680 --> 00:07:02.320 align:middle line:90% Still, I got up from my desk. 00:07:02.320 --> 00:07:05.050 align:middle line:84% Will liked the living room drapes closed. 00:07:05.050 --> 00:07:08.890 align:middle line:84% I preferred them open, but was less consistent about carrying 00:07:08.890 --> 00:07:10.180 align:middle line:90% out my wishes. 00:07:10.180 --> 00:07:12.550 align:middle line:84% Which was a boon that morning since it 00:07:12.550 --> 00:07:14.530 align:middle line:84% allowed me to peek out at the caller 00:07:14.530 --> 00:07:17.770 align:middle line:90% from a slit between the panels. 00:07:17.770 --> 00:07:21.850 align:middle line:84% A stout, red-faced woman stood on our front steps. 00:07:21.850 --> 00:07:24.190 align:middle line:90% Boxy, olive pantsuits. 00:07:24.190 --> 00:07:27.790 align:middle line:84% Cropped hair the color of Vaseline. 00:07:27.790 --> 00:07:31.510 align:middle line:84% Partly turned away, she was just a profile with a single eye 00:07:31.510 --> 00:07:34.930 align:middle line:84% squinting against the Arizona sunshine. 00:07:34.930 --> 00:07:37.840 align:middle line:84% Impossible for me to have guessed 00:07:37.840 --> 00:07:42.220 align:middle line:84% that this was the Esme Cole who had been a student with me 00:07:42.220 --> 00:07:46.690 align:middle line:84% back at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1988, 00:07:46.690 --> 00:07:51.640 align:middle line:84% my roommate in a brick apartment house on Burlington Street. 00:07:51.640 --> 00:07:56.470 align:middle line:84% That Esme Cole had been stylish and slim in retro capris, 00:07:56.470 --> 00:07:59.110 align:middle line:90% vintage cashmere cardigans. 00:07:59.110 --> 00:08:04.060 align:middle line:84% A lovely 25-year-old with a bushel basket of red hair 00:08:04.060 --> 00:08:06.370 align:middle line:90% pinned up in a-- 00:08:06.370 --> 00:08:07.780 align:middle line:90% excuse me. 00:08:07.780 --> 00:08:11.470 align:middle line:84% Pinned up in a cloud of glorious dishevelment. 00:08:11.470 --> 00:08:14.950 align:middle line:84% Brave, I'd thought, wearing your hair that way, 00:08:14.950 --> 00:08:18.640 align:middle line:84% like keeping a swan for a pet and walking 00:08:18.640 --> 00:08:20.440 align:middle line:90% the thing around town. 00:08:20.440 --> 00:08:25.330 align:middle line:84% An announcement that you knew you were fabulous. 00:08:25.330 --> 00:08:27.220 align:middle line:84% Could the woman on the front steps 00:08:27.220 --> 00:08:30.040 align:middle line:84% be a Jehovah's Witness panting to hand over 00:08:30.040 --> 00:08:32.710 align:middle line:90% a copy of the Watchtower? 00:08:32.710 --> 00:08:34.720 align:middle line:84% But didn't Witnesses travel in pairs? 00:08:34.720 --> 00:08:37.960 align:middle line:84% And didn't the women wear dresses? 00:08:37.960 --> 00:08:41.200 align:middle line:84% I definitely did not want to open the door. 00:08:41.200 --> 00:08:44.920 align:middle line:84% But I worried over that Pepto-Bismol pink face. 00:08:44.920 --> 00:08:49.720 align:middle line:84% And those blocky hands hanging so inert and glossy and red, 00:08:49.720 --> 00:08:51.820 align:middle line:84% they could have been shrink-wrapped packs 00:08:51.820 --> 00:08:53.800 align:middle line:90% of hamburger. 00:08:53.800 --> 00:08:57.940 align:middle line:84% Suppose the woman was one of the poor souls discombobulated 00:08:57.940 --> 00:09:01.030 align:middle line:84% by our quiet neighborhood's gravel roads that 00:09:01.030 --> 00:09:03.460 align:middle line:84% looked like driveways, and driveways 00:09:03.460 --> 00:09:05.260 align:middle line:90% that looked like roads. 00:09:05.260 --> 00:09:07.390 align:middle line:84% She'd hoped to get a walk in this morning, 00:09:07.390 --> 00:09:09.700 align:middle line:84% but now on the point of heat stroke 00:09:09.700 --> 00:09:12.940 align:middle line:84% had resigned herself to asking for directions 00:09:12.940 --> 00:09:14.680 align:middle line:90% and a glass of water. 00:09:14.680 --> 00:09:17.410 align:middle line:84% Suppose she was looking for a lost pet 00:09:17.410 --> 00:09:20.800 align:middle line:84% or, worse, a lost child who'd wandered off 00:09:20.800 --> 00:09:24.700 align:middle line:84% into this semi-wilderness of cacti, rattlesnakes, 00:09:24.700 --> 00:09:27.910 align:middle line:84% the occasional grandfathered-in swimming pool 00:09:27.910 --> 00:09:32.230 align:middle line:84% with no proper safety fence around it. 00:09:32.230 --> 00:09:35.800 align:middle line:84% Two years before, I'd been irked when a Poets and Writers 00:09:35.800 --> 00:09:41.350 align:middle line:84% profile described me as looking like a Sunday school teacher. 00:09:41.350 --> 00:09:44.350 align:middle line:90% A Sunday school teacher. 00:09:44.350 --> 00:09:48.490 align:middle line:84% Since adolescence, I'd done war with the same 15 pounds, 00:09:48.490 --> 00:09:52.240 align:middle line:84% but I'd been on the winning side at the time of that profile 00:09:52.240 --> 00:09:55.420 align:middle line:84% and aimed for an edgy rock-and-roll aura. 00:09:55.420 --> 00:09:58.480 align:middle line:90% Hair very blonde and shaggy. 00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:02.740 align:middle line:84% Eyes rimmed with black kohl, a la Kim Gordon. 00:10:02.740 --> 00:10:06.160 align:middle line:84% When Will tried to cheer me by noting that the profile said 00:10:06.160 --> 00:10:10.690 align:middle line:84% I looked young for 39, I'd responded, "Whatever," 00:10:10.690 --> 00:10:13.420 align:middle line:90% decidedly sour. 00:10:13.420 --> 00:10:18.070 align:middle line:84% For what it's worth, shortly after the P&W profile appeared, 00:10:18.070 --> 00:10:21.400 align:middle line:84% I rode several stories in a Manhattan elevator 00:10:21.400 --> 00:10:23.440 align:middle line:84% with Kim Gordon and wouldn't have 00:10:23.440 --> 00:10:26.320 align:middle line:84% known it was she had my agent not told me 00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:30.520 align:middle line:84% so after we stepped out of the car. 00:10:30.520 --> 00:10:32.740 align:middle line:84% The bulky Esme Cole Fletcher who stood 00:10:32.740 --> 00:10:34.510 align:middle line:90% on Will's and my front steps-- 00:10:34.510 --> 00:10:36.940 align:middle line:84% she looked so different from the Esme 00:10:36.940 --> 00:10:40.030 align:middle line:84% whom I remembered that even after I had opened 00:10:40.030 --> 00:10:43.360 align:middle line:84% the inner door and she said her name through the screen, 00:10:43.360 --> 00:10:48.400 align:middle line:84% I needed her teasing reprimand, "Charlotte, c'est moi," 00:10:48.400 --> 00:10:52.000 align:middle line:84% before a current began to flow between us. 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:53.680 align:middle line:90% Weak at first. 00:10:53.680 --> 00:10:58.360 align:middle line:84% Then that dull, chunky lady began to acquire a soft glow, 00:10:58.360 --> 00:11:00.220 align:middle line:90% and it was Esme. 00:11:00.220 --> 00:11:04.330 align:middle line:84% And joy is what I felt, alongside a dread that must 00:11:04.330 --> 00:11:07.000 align:middle line:90% have made my face go white. 00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:10.380 align:middle line:84% Yes, in the fall of 1988, there had 00:11:10.380 --> 00:11:13.890 align:middle line:84% been lovely times between my workshop friend and myself, 00:11:13.890 --> 00:11:17.100 align:middle line:84% such as a fall morning when side by side 00:11:17.100 --> 00:11:20.970 align:middle line:84% we knelt on the linoleum of our Burlington Street kitchen 00:11:20.970 --> 00:11:25.410 align:middle line:84% and, dent by dent, using the nails of our little fingers, 00:11:25.410 --> 00:11:26.820 align:middle line:90% pressed our names-- 00:11:26.820 --> 00:11:30.030 align:middle line:84% Charlotte, Esme-- into the many coats 00:11:30.030 --> 00:11:34.380 align:middle line:84% of built-up yellowed enamel on the kitchen cupboards. 00:11:34.380 --> 00:11:37.590 align:middle line:84% Even better, once we finished, Esme 00:11:37.590 --> 00:11:42.300 align:middle line:84% added a plus sign between our names, Esme plus Charlotte, 00:11:42.300 --> 00:11:45.290 align:middle line:90% as if we were sweethearts. 00:11:45.290 --> 00:11:46.000 align:middle line:90%