WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.660 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.660 --> 00:00:06.060 align:middle line:84% Also true, at the end of that year's Thanksgiving vacation, 00:00:06.060 --> 00:00:10.470 align:middle line:84% I had spent an idiotic blotto evening sloshing around 00:00:10.470 --> 00:00:14.820 align:middle line:84% on the chilly water bed of Esmé's workshop boyfriend, 00:00:14.820 --> 00:00:17.910 align:middle line:84% an Alabamian named Jeremy Fletcher, 00:00:17.910 --> 00:00:21.990 align:middle line:84% whom I generally regarded as a blowhard. 00:00:21.990 --> 00:00:25.020 align:middle line:84% The worst thing I ever did in my entire life, 00:00:25.020 --> 00:00:27.600 align:middle line:84% betraying not only my friend, but also 00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:30.810 align:middle line:90% Will off in Italy at the time. 00:00:30.810 --> 00:00:36.300 align:middle line:84% A thoroughly ridiculous person, that was what I'd been. 00:00:36.300 --> 00:00:39.630 align:middle line:84% Amazingly enough, neither Will nor Esmé learned of that 00:00:39.630 --> 00:00:42.600 align:middle line:84% drunken mess, and shortly afterward, 00:00:42.600 --> 00:00:46.470 align:middle line:84% Esmé became pregnant and Jeremy Fletcher declared he could not 00:00:46.470 --> 00:00:51.360 align:middle line:84% write "up North" and the two married and left for Mobile. 00:00:51.360 --> 00:00:56.460 align:middle line:84% How lucky I felt in that period of reprieve, maybe 18 months, 00:00:56.460 --> 00:01:00.780 align:middle line:84% in which Esmé wrote me long letters bewailing her inability 00:01:00.780 --> 00:01:04.290 align:middle line:84% to find a friendship even close to ours, 00:01:04.290 --> 00:01:08.280 align:middle line:84% but also reported pleasure in her new life as a southern wife 00:01:08.280 --> 00:01:10.440 align:middle line:90% and then a mother. 00:01:10.440 --> 00:01:13.980 align:middle line:84% On behalf of her baby, I learned to knit 00:01:13.980 --> 00:01:17.100 align:middle line:84% and-- a Madam Defarge of repentance-- 00:01:17.100 --> 00:01:20.880 align:middle line:84% created an afghan of a turquoise so remarkably 00:01:20.880 --> 00:01:23.100 align:middle line:84% pale that it looked like something you 00:01:23.100 --> 00:01:26.220 align:middle line:90% could blow away with a sigh. 00:01:26.220 --> 00:01:29.490 align:middle line:84% "Hated tearing open your brown paper package tied up with 00:01:29.490 --> 00:01:33.840 align:middle line:84% string," Esmé wrote to me in her charming letter of thanks. 00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:37.650 align:middle line:84% "It looked like the greatest hot cross bun of all time, 00:01:37.650 --> 00:01:42.090 align:middle line:84% but the contents were even finer, you dear girl." 00:01:42.090 --> 00:01:46.260 align:middle line:84% Then, her letters stopped, no explanation. 00:01:46.260 --> 00:01:48.240 align:middle line:84% I assumed that Jeremy Fletcher had 00:01:48.240 --> 00:01:51.870 align:middle line:84% confessed to his and my evening on his waterbed. 00:01:51.870 --> 00:01:53.155 align:middle line:90% My guilt festered. 00:01:53.155 --> 00:01:57.450 align:middle line:84% I excoriated myself for not confessing. 00:01:57.450 --> 00:02:00.000 align:middle line:84% If you had been brave, you rat, she 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:03.690 align:middle line:84% would not have married that man, who, by now, she probably 00:02:03.690 --> 00:02:07.230 align:middle line:90% realizes is a rat too. 00:02:07.230 --> 00:02:09.520 align:middle line:84% I grieve, but after a year or two, 00:02:09.520 --> 00:02:13.950 align:middle line:84% finally gave up writing letters that never received a response. 00:02:13.950 --> 00:02:16.980 align:middle line:84% They had started to feel bizarre. 00:02:16.980 --> 00:02:19.830 align:middle line:84% I never could include an apology, after all, 00:02:19.830 --> 00:02:22.620 align:middle line:84% since I didn't know what Esmé knew, 00:02:22.620 --> 00:02:25.740 align:middle line:84% and I did not want to cause a marital disaster where one did 00:02:25.740 --> 00:02:28.020 align:middle line:90% not exist. 00:02:28.020 --> 00:02:31.980 align:middle line:84% Yet, now, here stood my old friend on my front steps, 00:02:31.980 --> 00:02:36.420 align:middle line:84% smiling what remained the most glorious of smiles. 00:02:36.420 --> 00:02:41.100 align:middle line:84% The big, white-toothed Esmé Cole smile that had told me, 00:02:41.100 --> 00:02:46.410 align:middle line:84% to my confusion, more than any other smile I'd ever known, 00:02:46.410 --> 00:02:51.390 align:middle line:84% that I was better than OK, I was somebody special. 00:02:51.390 --> 00:02:53.280 align:middle line:90% That smile. 00:02:53.280 --> 00:02:57.510 align:middle line:84% Her familiar scent of cigarette smoke and L'Air du Temps-- 00:02:57.510 --> 00:03:00.570 align:middle line:84% my throat constricted with emotion, 00:03:00.570 --> 00:03:05.490 align:middle line:84% inconceivable that I had betrayed my friend. 00:03:05.490 --> 00:03:08.490 align:middle line:84% Though I sensed that grabbing her in a remorseful hug 00:03:08.490 --> 00:03:10.890 align:middle line:90% might be too much. 00:03:10.890 --> 00:03:15.450 align:middle line:84% A husky "Esmé" did escape me while I threw open the screen 00:03:15.450 --> 00:03:17.250 align:middle line:90% door. 00:03:17.250 --> 00:03:20.460 align:middle line:84% Esmé herself, stepping over the threshold 00:03:20.460 --> 00:03:23.010 align:middle line:84% and into Will's and my front hall, 00:03:23.010 --> 00:03:27.780 align:middle line:84% appeared to be in a mood more jolly than nostalgic, 00:03:27.780 --> 00:03:32.160 align:middle line:84% imitating Billy Crystal's fulsome '80s parodies 00:03:32.160 --> 00:03:36.960 align:middle line:84% of Fernando Lamas, she said, "Charlotte, dah-ling, 00:03:36.960 --> 00:03:38.520 align:middle line:90% you look mah-velous! 00:03:38.520 --> 00:03:41.790 align:middle line:90% Absolutely mah-velous!" 00:03:41.790 --> 00:03:45.150 align:middle line:84% Actually, I'd carried out only basic hygiene, 00:03:45.150 --> 00:03:48.180 align:middle line:84% wore a pair of sprung yoga pants and one 00:03:48.180 --> 00:03:50.850 align:middle line:90% of Will's flannel shirts. 00:03:50.850 --> 00:03:55.380 align:middle line:84% "While I," Esmé continued, "I, it must be said immediately, 00:03:55.380 --> 00:03:57.210 align:middle line:90% am a whale." 00:03:57.210 --> 00:04:01.530 align:middle line:84% She raised an index finger to stop me from contradicting her. 00:04:01.530 --> 00:04:03.690 align:middle line:90% "But let us not tarry, Eliza. 00:04:03.690 --> 00:04:07.860 align:middle line:84% Repeat after me: in Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire, 00:04:07.860 --> 00:04:11.250 align:middle line:90% hurricanes hardly happen." 00:04:11.250 --> 00:04:14.640 align:middle line:84% The perfect handling of that awkward moment. 00:04:14.640 --> 00:04:19.350 align:middle line:84% It was Esmé who had introduced me to the old Broadway musicals 00:04:19.350 --> 00:04:24.720 align:middle line:84% adored by her favorite aunt, one of them being My Fair Lady. 00:04:24.720 --> 00:04:28.770 align:middle line:84% And I was more than glad to take up the role of the H dropping 00:04:28.770 --> 00:04:30.540 align:middle line:90% Eliza Doolittle. 00:04:30.540 --> 00:04:33.930 align:middle line:84% "In 'artford, 'ereford, and 'ampshire, 00:04:33.930 --> 00:04:35.730 align:middle line:90% 'urricanes 'ardly 'appen." 00:04:35.730 --> 00:04:38.250 align:middle line:90% 00:04:38.250 --> 00:04:43.320 align:middle line:84% Some history, 11 years before Esmé's arrival at our front 00:04:43.320 --> 00:04:46.770 align:middle line:84% door, the same semester that Will had finished a postdoc 00:04:46.770 --> 00:04:50.670 align:middle line:84% at the University of Minnesota, the two of us had the good 00:04:50.670 --> 00:04:54.870 align:middle line:84% fortune to win tenure-track jobs at the University of Arizona, 00:04:54.870 --> 00:04:59.130 align:middle line:84% Will in art history, myself in creative writing. 00:04:59.130 --> 00:05:01.320 align:middle line:84% The week we packed for our move to Tucson, 00:05:01.320 --> 00:05:04.440 align:middle line:84% we took a break one night to attend a fundraiser 00:05:04.440 --> 00:05:08.220 align:middle line:84% at Minneapolis's Walker Art Center. 00:05:08.220 --> 00:05:10.860 align:middle line:84% Will stepped off to get a glass of wine 00:05:10.860 --> 00:05:15.000 align:middle line:84% at the bar set up for the event, and I, wisely, 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:19.170 align:middle line:84% if gloomily abstaining, went to say my goodbyes 00:05:19.170 --> 00:05:23.700 align:middle line:84% to Chuck Close's giant Big Self-Portrait. 00:05:23.700 --> 00:05:30.840 align:middle line:84% Goodbye, bespectacled drooping eyes, each as large as a head, 00:05:30.840 --> 00:05:34.320 align:middle line:84% shockingly gorgeous black and white bits 00:05:34.320 --> 00:05:39.510 align:middle line:84% of ash on a colossal cigarette, hanging so tipsily from pillow 00:05:39.510 --> 00:05:42.780 align:middle line:90% sized lips, goodbye. 00:05:42.780 --> 00:05:47.340 align:middle line:84% While I stood there so full of admiration for Chuck Close 00:05:47.340 --> 00:05:51.360 align:middle line:84% and rubbing my arms to stay warm in the museum's air conditioned 00:05:51.360 --> 00:05:55.440 align:middle line:84% tower of brick and glass, I sensed a body 00:05:55.440 --> 00:05:58.380 align:middle line:84% detaching itself from the cluster of attendees 00:05:58.380 --> 00:06:02.640 align:middle line:90% near the bar and sidling my way. 00:06:02.640 --> 00:06:06.780 align:middle line:84% A moment later, from behind me, abrupt and loud as a honk, 00:06:06.780 --> 00:06:11.070 align:middle line:90% a voice said, "Charlotte Price!" 00:06:11.070 --> 00:06:15.180 align:middle line:84% It was a poet I'd known slightly during my Iowa Writers' 00:06:15.180 --> 00:06:17.190 align:middle line:90% Workshop days. 00:06:17.190 --> 00:06:21.600 align:middle line:84% Her height threw me initially-- she had on 6 inch heels-- 00:06:21.600 --> 00:06:23.880 align:middle line:84% and I couldn't think of her real name, 00:06:23.880 --> 00:06:28.680 align:middle line:84% only the one that Esmé had given her, Queen Turd, 00:06:28.680 --> 00:06:33.360 align:middle line:84% in honor of her supercilious airs and the slippery looking 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:38.130 align:middle line:84% tawny braid that, back then, she'd worn coiled on top of her 00:06:38.130 --> 00:06:39.930 align:middle line:90% head. 00:06:39.930 --> 00:06:46.380 align:middle line:84% "I'm a reformed poet now," she declared with a great ha-ha. 00:06:46.380 --> 00:06:48.450 align:middle line:84% The woman always had impressed me 00:06:48.450 --> 00:06:51.750 align:middle line:84% as someone who viewed herself as a kind of celebrity, 00:06:51.750 --> 00:06:54.240 align:middle line:84% and I sensed that, like an interviewer, 00:06:54.240 --> 00:06:58.050 align:middle line:84% I was supposed to ask her to explain the "reformed poet" 00:06:58.050 --> 00:06:59.610 align:middle line:90% business. 00:06:59.610 --> 00:07:02.970 align:middle line:84% Of necessity, had she given up poetry the way 00:07:02.970 --> 00:07:04.830 align:middle line:90% I'd given up alcohol? 00:07:04.830 --> 00:07:09.960 align:middle line:84% Or was reform poetry perhaps a movement? 00:07:09.960 --> 00:07:14.310 align:middle line:84% From the retro hippie look that she'd favored in the '80s-- 00:07:14.310 --> 00:07:17.640 align:middle line:84% Birkenstocks and Third World cottons-- 00:07:17.640 --> 00:07:21.450 align:middle line:84% the poet had moved along to those towering high heels, 00:07:21.450 --> 00:07:24.960 align:middle line:84% sleek charcoal knits, tony earrings 00:07:24.960 --> 00:07:31.920 align:middle line:84% made up of alternating strips of gold and anchovy cans. 00:07:31.920 --> 00:07:36.390 align:middle line:84% Gone the turdish coil, replaced by a jet-black bowl 00:07:36.390 --> 00:07:41.160 align:middle line:84% cut above a swath of skull shaved to a high maintenance 00:07:41.160 --> 00:07:43.020 align:middle line:90% smoke. 00:07:43.020 --> 00:07:46.440 align:middle line:84% She swigged the amber drink in her plastic cup, 00:07:46.440 --> 00:07:50.400 align:middle line:84% then squeezed my forearm and said, "I hear 00:07:50.400 --> 00:07:53.100 align:middle line:90% you've published, Charlotte." 00:07:53.100 --> 00:07:56.790 align:middle line:84% Her squeeze, I admit, it stirred me. 00:07:56.790 --> 00:07:59.820 align:middle line:84% I was a sucker for a warm gesture, 00:07:59.820 --> 00:08:02.700 align:middle line:84% but before I could reply, up went her eyebrows 00:08:02.700 --> 00:08:04.860 align:middle line:84% like window shades sent flying and she 00:08:04.860 --> 00:08:10.980 align:middle line:84% added with another ha-ha, "anything I should read?" 00:08:10.980 --> 00:08:13.500 align:middle line:84% I was almost 30 years old by then, 00:08:13.500 --> 00:08:16.950 align:middle line:84% but my party skills remained on par 00:08:16.950 --> 00:08:19.590 align:middle line:90% with those of a cuckoo clock. 00:08:19.590 --> 00:08:23.130 align:middle line:84% I could count on coming up with a little something only once 00:08:23.130 --> 00:08:26.490 align:middle line:90% an hour or so. 00:08:26.490 --> 00:08:30.930 align:middle line:84% Defending another person, I'd lost a triangle of my two 00:08:30.930 --> 00:08:35.190 align:middle line:84% front teeth after jumping between two unmatched boys 00:08:35.190 --> 00:08:38.220 align:middle line:90% in my high school cafeteria. 00:08:38.220 --> 00:08:42.840 align:middle line:84% I was good at that, but could be rendered perfectly dumb 00:08:42.840 --> 00:08:45.630 align:middle line:90% by a personal remark. 00:08:45.630 --> 00:08:48.990 align:middle line:84% With an arch smile, the poet swiftly shifted 00:08:48.990 --> 00:08:52.420 align:middle line:84% the conversation to gossip about Workshop people, 00:08:52.420 --> 00:08:56.220 align:middle line:84% some of whom I remembered, some of whom I didn't, who'd won 00:08:56.220 --> 00:08:58.290 align:middle line:90% prizes, who hadn't. 00:08:58.290 --> 00:08:59.850 align:middle line:90% I am half deaf-- 00:08:59.850 --> 00:09:04.260 align:middle line:84% 19 riding a bike with my blood alcohol at three times 00:09:04.260 --> 00:09:07.170 align:middle line:84% the legal limit, I went flying over 00:09:07.170 --> 00:09:11.010 align:middle line:84% the pickup truck of an unfortunate hog farmer 00:09:11.010 --> 00:09:15.390 align:middle line:84% and did serious damage to several parts of my body-- 00:09:15.390 --> 00:09:18.630 align:middle line:84% and in the hubbub raised by the art patrons, 00:09:18.630 --> 00:09:22.740 align:middle line:84% I missed a lot of what the reformed poet said, 00:09:22.740 --> 00:09:26.730 align:middle line:84% but after I mentioned that I was about to start a job in Tucson, 00:09:26.730 --> 00:09:31.440 align:middle line:84% I did hear her exclaim "but that's where my Workshop friend 00:09:31.440 --> 00:09:34.200 align:middle line:90% Esmé Fletcher lives!" 00:09:34.200 --> 00:09:37.350 align:middle line:90% Esmé lived in Tucson? 00:09:37.350 --> 00:09:40.830 align:middle line:84% Old guilt, grief, and fear had swamped me. 00:09:40.830 --> 00:09:43.650 align:middle line:84% What would happen if we ran into each other? 00:09:43.650 --> 00:09:46.560 align:middle line:84% And then a bit of jealousy showed up too. 00:09:46.560 --> 00:09:50.880 align:middle line:84% When and how had Esmé and this woman been friends? 00:09:50.880 --> 00:09:56.310 align:middle line:84% It was Esmé and I who had sat up until all hours singing songs 00:09:56.310 --> 00:10:00.850 align:middle line:84% from A Little Night Music and creating Cindy Sherman-esque 00:10:00.850 --> 00:10:06.040 align:middle line:84% tableaus and discussing whether or not we had the right to call 00:10:06.040 --> 00:10:10.630 align:middle line:84% ourselves writers before we published our first books. 00:10:10.630 --> 00:10:13.330 align:middle line:90% Esmé declared a vehement no. 00:10:13.330 --> 00:10:16.720 align:middle line:90% I, an equally vehement, yes. 00:10:16.720 --> 00:10:20.740 align:middle line:84% It was Esmé and I who could recite poems to each other, 00:10:20.740 --> 00:10:24.130 align:middle line:84% or even in tandem, because before we met, 00:10:24.130 --> 00:10:29.140 align:middle line:84% both of us had memorized some of the very same work. 00:10:29.140 --> 00:10:31.960 align:middle line:90% "To be born woman is to know-- 00:10:31.960 --> 00:10:35.170 align:middle line:84% although they do not speak of it at school-- 00:10:35.170 --> 00:10:38.680 align:middle line:84% that we must labor to be beautiful." 00:10:38.680 --> 00:10:43.360 align:middle line:84% And so I elbowed in, "sad that Esmé and I lost touch given 00:10:43.360 --> 00:10:46.240 align:middle line:90% that we were roommates and all." 00:10:46.240 --> 00:10:50.230 align:middle line:84% A sharp look-- the poet set her index fingers 00:10:50.230 --> 00:10:52.660 align:middle line:84% on the stark beginnings of the black wings 00:10:52.660 --> 00:10:57.010 align:middle line:84% of her dramatic eyebrows, traced the fingers along the eyebrows 00:10:57.010 --> 00:10:59.710 align:middle line:84% to their ends stopping at her temples. 00:10:59.710 --> 00:11:03.160 align:middle line:84% I had the queer sensation that she was preening, 00:11:03.160 --> 00:11:06.250 align:middle line:90% using me for her mirror. 00:11:06.250 --> 00:11:10.120 align:middle line:84% I should have excused myself, walked off, 00:11:10.120 --> 00:11:13.030 align:middle line:84% but I was flummoxed in the way that I-- 00:11:13.030 --> 00:11:17.140 align:middle line:84% a hick, the only student actually from the state of Iowa 00:11:17.140 --> 00:11:19.660 align:middle line:84% during our years at the Workshop-- 00:11:19.660 --> 00:11:24.610 align:middle line:84% regularly had been flummoxed by people there. 00:11:24.610 --> 00:11:29.470 align:middle line:84% "Roommates?" the poet murmured, then demonstrated that she knew 00:11:29.470 --> 00:11:33.940 align:middle line:84% all kinds of up-to-date things about Esmé that I did not. 00:11:33.940 --> 00:11:36.650 align:middle line:84% I knew that Esmé had the one child, of course, 00:11:36.650 --> 00:11:39.430 align:middle line:84% and that he'd been given a southern sounding name, 00:11:39.430 --> 00:11:44.590 align:middle line:84% Rob Roy, which I'd supposed was Jeremy Fletcher's choice. 00:11:44.590 --> 00:11:48.490 align:middle line:84% The poet knew not only that there was a second boy, Daniel, 00:11:48.490 --> 00:11:51.580 align:middle line:90% but what sports the boys played. 00:11:51.580 --> 00:11:55.150 align:middle line:84% Esmé, the poet said, had become a real estate broker after 00:11:55.150 --> 00:11:57.850 align:middle line:90% the boys started grade school. 00:11:57.850 --> 00:12:01.570 align:middle line:84% My surprise at the idea of Esmé as a business woman must have 00:12:01.570 --> 00:12:05.650 align:middle line:84% shown, because the poet laughed, "oh, yes, unlike some of you, 00:12:05.650 --> 00:12:08.410 align:middle line:84% Esmé and I have to work in the real world. 00:12:08.410 --> 00:12:09.820 align:middle line:90% She's doing well, though. 00:12:09.820 --> 00:12:13.780 align:middle line:84% Jeremy sells advertising I think and maybe he 00:12:13.780 --> 00:12:15.670 align:middle line:90% does some journalism? 00:12:15.670 --> 00:12:19.190 align:middle line:84% But Esmé brings home the real money." 00:12:19.190 --> 00:12:21.520 align:middle line:90% So Esmé's life was good. 00:12:21.520 --> 00:12:23.530 align:middle line:90% The news gratified me. 00:12:23.530 --> 00:12:27.640 align:middle line:84% For a moment I even thought, suppose that in Tucson, she 00:12:27.640 --> 00:12:30.190 align:middle line:90% and I wind up friends again. 00:12:30.190 --> 00:12:34.450 align:middle line:84% A notion quickly followed by a firm mental correction-- 00:12:34.450 --> 00:12:36.010 align:middle line:90% no. 00:12:36.010 --> 00:12:40.180 align:middle line:84% While the reformed poet talked about the resort, La Paloma, 00:12:40.180 --> 00:12:43.270 align:middle line:84% at which she'd stayed on a visit to Tucson, 00:12:43.270 --> 00:12:48.190 align:middle line:84% I scoured the Walker's crowded lobby for a sign of Will. 00:12:48.190 --> 00:12:51.970 align:middle line:84% There, the back of his dear, shaggy head. 00:12:51.970 --> 00:12:56.020 align:middle line:84% The band of skin exposed between the collar of his blue work 00:12:56.020 --> 00:12:59.230 align:middle line:84% shirt and fair hair suggested that he 00:12:59.230 --> 00:13:02.680 align:middle line:84% was talking to someone of a more average height. 00:13:02.680 --> 00:13:08.860 align:middle line:84% At 6 foot 5, Will regularly had a sore neck after such events. 00:13:08.860 --> 00:13:12.940 align:middle line:90% Oh, he was patient, Will was. 00:13:12.940 --> 00:13:17.650 align:middle line:84% Even if a person happened to wax on about Will's specialty, 00:13:17.650 --> 00:13:22.000 align:middle line:84% Italian futurism, Will listened, made a correction 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:25.570 align:middle line:84% only if an error were truly egregious. 00:13:25.570 --> 00:13:29.050 align:middle line:84% I hope the person he spoke to was a male. 00:13:29.050 --> 00:13:32.470 align:middle line:84% Often, Will did end up talking to the best looking woman 00:13:32.470 --> 00:13:34.120 align:middle line:90% at a party. 00:13:34.120 --> 00:13:37.660 align:middle line:84% "She came up to me," he would say in his own defense, 00:13:37.660 --> 00:13:40.390 align:middle line:84% and, true, he was not flirtatious. 00:13:40.390 --> 00:13:43.480 align:middle line:84% In fact, I'd assumed he thoroughly disliked me 00:13:43.480 --> 00:13:46.390 align:middle line:84% the night we met, which had not prevented my 00:13:46.390 --> 00:13:51.520 align:middle line:84% being flattened by his loping, lanky Abe Lincoln good looks. 00:13:51.520 --> 00:13:54.190 align:middle line:84% Blond, but his dreamy blue eyes had looked out 00:13:54.190 --> 00:13:56.830 align:middle line:84% from under a ledge of caveman's brow. 00:13:56.830 --> 00:13:59.830 align:middle line:84% His big and knobby wrist poked boyishly 00:13:59.830 --> 00:14:04.030 align:middle line:84% from the too-short sleeves of his flannel shirt. 00:14:04.030 --> 00:14:05.590 align:middle line:90% Both from pride-- 00:14:05.590 --> 00:14:08.410 align:middle line:84% I remained astonished that he'd chosen me-- 00:14:08.410 --> 00:14:11.530 align:middle line:84% and to change the subject, I said to the poet, 00:14:11.530 --> 00:14:13.930 align:middle line:90% "you remember Will Ludlow?" 00:14:13.930 --> 00:14:16.840 align:middle line:84% "The art historian," she said, "of course! 00:14:16.840 --> 00:14:19.390 align:middle line:90% Mystery Man." 00:14:19.390 --> 00:14:21.760 align:middle line:84% I had not heard the nickname in years. 00:14:21.760 --> 00:14:24.880 align:middle line:84% It was something dreamed up by certain female graduate 00:14:24.880 --> 00:14:29.230 align:middle line:84% students at Iowa who had found Will's desire for privacy 00:14:29.230 --> 00:14:32.230 align:middle line:90% both annoying and tantalizing. 00:14:32.230 --> 00:14:35.200 align:middle line:84% I pointed across the crowded lobby, "over there. 00:14:35.200 --> 00:14:37.540 align:middle line:90% He and I are married now." 00:14:37.540 --> 00:14:38.200 align:middle line:90% "Charlotte! 00:14:38.200 --> 00:14:40.000 align:middle line:90% Congratulations!" 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:43.540 align:middle line:84% The poet held up her free hand for a high five. 00:14:43.540 --> 00:14:47.200 align:middle line:84% Easier to go along than leave my hand hanging 00:14:47.200 --> 00:14:50.020 align:middle line:90% looking like a party pooper. 00:14:50.020 --> 00:14:52.480 align:middle line:84% She rattled her plastic cup of ice cubes at me, 00:14:52.480 --> 00:14:53.530 align:middle line:90% "trip to the bar? 00:14:53.530 --> 00:14:55.360 align:middle line:90% A toast?" 00:14:55.360 --> 00:15:00.060 align:middle line:84% A familiar voice told me that running a fire-hose blast 00:15:00.060 --> 00:15:04.200 align:middle line:84% of vodka around inside my brain would scour away 00:15:04.200 --> 00:15:08.940 align:middle line:84% the edgy crap filling my head, but then the voices 00:15:08.940 --> 00:15:11.640 align:middle line:84% of people from the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings 00:15:11.640 --> 00:15:14.460 align:middle line:84% to which I too infrequently dragged 00:15:14.460 --> 00:15:18.930 align:middle line:84% myself reminded me, girl, you and alcohol never 00:15:18.930 --> 00:15:22.530 align:middle line:84% ever are going to get to hang out together again, 00:15:22.530 --> 00:15:25.380 align:middle line:90% be any sort of pals. 00:15:25.380 --> 00:15:29.280 align:middle line:84% "I think I'll just wander around a bit," I told the poet. 00:15:29.280 --> 00:15:32.040 align:middle line:84% We started to move off in different directions, 00:15:32.040 --> 00:15:35.760 align:middle line:84% then I steeled myself and turned back and called, "hey, 00:15:35.760 --> 00:15:38.400 align:middle line:84% you wouldn't happen to have Esmé's address with you, 00:15:38.400 --> 00:15:40.170 align:middle line:90% would you?" 00:15:40.170 --> 00:15:43.890 align:middle line:84% Later, I would flush when I noticed that the address that 00:15:43.890 --> 00:15:47.610 align:middle line:84% the poet had copied onto her cocktail napkin was not 00:15:47.610 --> 00:15:51.450 align:middle line:84% for Esmé's home, but for the brokerage firm where she 00:15:51.450 --> 00:15:52.950 align:middle line:90% worked. 00:15:52.950 --> 00:15:57.120 align:middle line:84% Did the poet know about Jeremy Fletcher and me? 00:15:57.120 --> 00:15:58.920 align:middle line:90% No matter. 00:15:58.920 --> 00:16:02.010 align:middle line:84% I felt certain of my next step, and the very next day, 00:16:02.010 --> 00:16:05.130 align:middle line:84% dropping by the English department at the University 00:16:05.130 --> 00:16:08.640 align:middle line:84% of Minnesota to deliver grades for a workshop I'd 00:16:08.640 --> 00:16:12.030 align:middle line:84% taught there, I nabbed a sheet of letterhead 00:16:12.030 --> 00:16:14.460 align:middle line:84% from the front desk and carried it with me 00:16:14.460 --> 00:16:17.220 align:middle line:84% to the lunch table in the break room. 00:16:17.220 --> 00:16:19.920 align:middle line:90% There, with a fountain pen-- 00:16:19.920 --> 00:16:24.450 align:middle line:84% a fountain pen with blue-black ink can sometimes fortify me-- 00:16:24.450 --> 00:16:28.080 align:middle line:90% I wrote, "Dear Esmé." 00:16:28.080 --> 00:16:31.170 align:middle line:90% That was as far as I got. 00:16:31.170 --> 00:16:34.650 align:middle line:84% The expanse of good ivory bond beneath "Dear Esmé" 00:16:34.650 --> 00:16:38.310 align:middle line:84% and the handsome university insignia had opened before me 00:16:38.310 --> 00:16:41.340 align:middle line:84% as vast and daunting as Death Valley. 00:16:41.340 --> 00:16:43.320 align:middle line:84% I did not see how I could survive 00:16:43.320 --> 00:16:45.960 align:middle line:90% crossing all that space. 00:16:45.960 --> 00:16:50.070 align:middle line:84% And suppose that Esmé took the stationery as showing off. 00:16:50.070 --> 00:16:51.840 align:middle line:90% Was it showing off? 00:16:51.840 --> 00:16:54.690 align:middle line:84% Or paradoxically trying from insecurity 00:16:54.690 --> 00:16:57.300 align:middle line:84% to let her know that I had value? 00:16:57.300 --> 00:16:59.010 align:middle line:90% Both? 00:16:59.010 --> 00:17:02.010 align:middle line:84% "Curiouser and curiouser," as Alice 00:17:02.010 --> 00:17:06.960 align:middle line:84% said when she found herself telescoping taller and taller 00:17:06.960 --> 00:17:10.560 align:middle line:84% and worried that her feet, now far out of sight, 00:17:10.560 --> 00:17:13.170 align:middle line:84% might no longer be willing to carry her 00:17:13.170 --> 00:17:16.020 align:middle line:90% where she wanted to go. 00:17:16.020 --> 00:17:19.680 align:middle line:84% I tore the sheet of letterhead in half, threw it in the office 00:17:19.680 --> 00:17:23.440 align:middle line:84% recycle bin, and headed back to Will's and my duplex, 00:17:23.440 --> 00:17:25.980 align:middle line:84% which was stuffed with the cardboard boxes 00:17:25.980 --> 00:17:28.920 align:middle line:84% we'd scavenged from behind liquor and grocery 00:17:28.920 --> 00:17:31.920 align:middle line:90% stores for our move to Tucson. 00:17:31.920 --> 00:17:35.730 align:middle line:84% I located and slid open an already taped shut box 00:17:35.730 --> 00:17:38.280 align:middle line:90% labeled Charlotte's desk. 00:17:38.280 --> 00:17:42.330 align:middle line:84% It had held bananas and released a sharp stink, 00:17:42.330 --> 00:17:46.320 align:middle line:84% while from its strata of smaller boxes and bins, 00:17:46.320 --> 00:17:49.830 align:middle line:84% I removed a pretty postcard of the Ponte Vecchio 00:17:49.830 --> 00:17:54.240 align:middle line:84% at sunset that I'd rejected repeatedly over the years 00:17:54.240 --> 00:17:57.060 align:middle line:84% as its message area was so crowded 00:17:57.060 --> 00:17:59.880 align:middle line:90% with historical information. 00:17:59.880 --> 00:18:04.980 align:middle line:84% In what now appeared a blessedly tiny space, I wrote, 00:18:04.980 --> 00:18:10.650 align:middle line:84% "Dear Esmé, Will and I are moving to Tucson teaching at U 00:18:10.650 --> 00:18:12.810 align:middle line:90% of A." 00:18:12.810 --> 00:18:17.040 align:middle line:84% Will and I had purchased a house on a chockablock three-day trip 00:18:17.040 --> 00:18:21.000 align:middle line:84% to Tucson in early June, and I included its address 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:24.030 align:middle line:84% before I closed, "it would be great to see you 00:18:24.030 --> 00:18:27.000 align:middle line:90% after all these years! 00:18:27.000 --> 00:18:31.110 align:middle line:90% XO, Charlotte." 00:18:31.110 --> 00:18:33.840 align:middle line:84% My exclamation point, "it would be 00:18:33.840 --> 00:18:36.870 align:middle line:84% great to see you after all these years!" 00:18:36.870 --> 00:18:38.730 align:middle line:84% Maybe it was simply the writer in me, 00:18:38.730 --> 00:18:41.140 align:middle line:84% but I worried about the exclamation point 00:18:41.140 --> 00:18:44.010 align:middle line:90% that time and later. 00:18:44.010 --> 00:18:46.860 align:middle line:90% Suppose she found it fulsome? 00:18:46.860 --> 00:18:49.590 align:middle line:90% It made her want to vomit? 00:18:49.590 --> 00:18:52.140 align:middle line:84% Suppose I'd left it off, and she'd written back 00:18:52.140 --> 00:18:56.430 align:middle line:84% and everything had turned out differently? 00:18:56.430 --> 00:18:59.670 align:middle line:84% After Will and I had been settled in Tucson for a month 00:18:59.670 --> 00:19:02.610 align:middle line:84% or so and Esmé hadn't contacted me, 00:19:02.610 --> 00:19:06.360 align:middle line:84% I'd driven my car north into the foothills of the Catalina 00:19:06.360 --> 00:19:07.740 align:middle line:90% Mountains. 00:19:07.740 --> 00:19:09.750 align:middle line:84% I had enough sense of the town by then 00:19:09.750 --> 00:19:12.120 align:middle line:84% to know that the brokerage firm she worked for 00:19:12.120 --> 00:19:16.470 align:middle line:84% must be upscale as it sat in Casas Adobes Plaza. 00:19:16.470 --> 00:19:19.200 align:middle line:84% In suave black script, the firm's name 00:19:19.200 --> 00:19:21.630 align:middle line:84% scrolled across the creamy canvas 00:19:21.630 --> 00:19:25.530 align:middle line:84% awning that wasn't doing much for the scorched tropicals 00:19:25.530 --> 00:19:28.470 align:middle line:84% out front, but still conveyed a sense 00:19:28.470 --> 00:19:31.780 align:middle line:84% that the people within had class. 00:19:31.780 --> 00:19:34.260 align:middle line:84% I drove by the office twice, but I could not 00:19:34.260 --> 00:19:37.650 align:middle line:90% make myself stop to say hello. 00:19:37.650 --> 00:19:41.940 align:middle line:84% Not too long after that, however, I did telephone, 00:19:41.940 --> 00:19:45.780 align:middle line:84% albeit very late on a Sunday, when I felt certain 00:19:45.780 --> 00:19:49.260 align:middle line:84% that no one would be in, and I'd be able simply 00:19:49.260 --> 00:19:51.600 align:middle line:90% to leave a voicemail. 00:19:51.600 --> 00:19:55.540 align:middle line:84% Even so, I was incredibly nervous. 00:19:55.540 --> 00:19:58.473 align:middle line:84% Please, please, I found myself praying as soon 00:19:58.473 --> 00:20:00.140 align:middle line:84% as the telephone phones started to ring. 00:20:00.140 --> 00:20:04.710 align:middle line:84% Please, shoulders tight up around my ears. 00:20:04.710 --> 00:20:09.020 align:middle line:84% Let the next voice I hear be a recorded one. 00:20:09.020 --> 00:20:10.700 align:middle line:90% It was. 00:20:10.700 --> 00:20:14.120 align:middle line:84% The reprieve allowed me to sound genuinely cheerful 00:20:14.120 --> 00:20:18.650 align:middle line:84% and enthusiastic when I left my name and new telephone number 00:20:18.650 --> 00:20:24.110 align:middle line:84% and a closing, "it would be wonderful to see you, Esmé." 00:20:24.110 --> 00:20:28.220 align:middle line:84% I must clarify, I did believe that it would have been 00:20:28.220 --> 00:20:31.520 align:middle line:84% wonderful, in the best of all possible worlds 00:20:31.520 --> 00:20:37.370 align:middle line:84% as the optimists had sung on Esmé's CD of Candide. 00:20:37.370 --> 00:20:40.280 align:middle line:84% I would have stayed on the line if Esmé had picked up 00:20:40.280 --> 00:20:41.030 align:middle line:90% the telephone. 00:20:41.030 --> 00:20:45.110 align:middle line:84% I would have been happy as a clam if she wanted to see me, 00:20:45.110 --> 00:20:47.240 align:middle line:84% but those waiting prayers of mine 00:20:47.240 --> 00:20:51.380 align:middle line:84% made it painfully clear to me that my call and earlier 00:20:51.380 --> 00:20:56.720 align:middle line:84% postcard had been above all preemptive strikes. 00:20:56.720 --> 00:20:59.960 align:middle line:84% By putting myself out there, pretending that never 00:20:59.960 --> 00:21:03.560 align:middle line:84% in a million years would it occur to me that Esmé Cole 00:21:03.560 --> 00:21:07.040 align:middle line:84% Fletcher would be less than pleased to see her old pal, 00:21:07.040 --> 00:21:12.650 align:middle line:84% Charlotte Price, I meant to lay a path for civility. 00:21:12.650 --> 00:21:16.130 align:middle line:84% I aim to create a world in which I would not feel obliged 00:21:16.130 --> 00:21:21.080 align:middle line:84% to jump, heart thumping, behind a telephone pole if I saw Esmé 00:21:21.080 --> 00:21:25.520 align:middle line:84% coming down a Tucson street, to duck into a restroom 00:21:25.520 --> 00:21:29.420 align:middle line:84% or an alcove at a literary event, bookstore, 00:21:29.420 --> 00:21:31.760 align:middle line:90% gallery opening. 00:21:31.760 --> 00:21:36.800 align:middle line:84% Above all, I wanted to make it possible to act surprised 00:21:36.800 --> 00:21:41.120 align:middle line:84% if Esmé gave me the cold shoulder in front of Will. 00:21:41.120 --> 00:21:43.760 align:middle line:84% If she gave me the cold shoulder, 00:21:43.760 --> 00:21:49.700 align:middle line:84% Will would want to know why, and he never could know why. 00:21:49.700 --> 00:21:51.980 align:middle line:90% I think I'll stop there. 00:21:51.980 --> 00:21:53.830 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE]