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By Root 101 0

had been at that wedding. She’d probably thrown rice at her best friend. And then what did she do? How did she spend the rest of her life? I’d could call her right now and ask. It almost hurt, remembering that Joe and Carolyn were a part of the world, surrounded by an infinite number of simultaneous stories. I supposed this was one reason why people got married, to make a fiction that was tellable. It wasn’t just movies that couldn’t contain the full cast of characters – it was us. We had to winnow life down so we knew where to put our tenderness and attention; and that was a good, sweet thing. But together or alone, we were still embedded in a kaleidoscope, ruthlessly varied and continuous, until the end of the end. I knew I would forget this within the hour, and then remember, and forget, and remember. Each time I remembered it would be a tiny miracle, and forgetting was just as important – I had to believe in my own story. Perhaps I wouldn’t live out my last days alone in my office, drinking soup and wearing black. Maybe I would live without him among the things we had made together. Not without sadness, but not only tragically.

Carolyn was putting away the photo albums and I knew it was time to go. I just had to clarify one last thing.

“I probably misheard this, but when we first talked, when you told me he had passed away, you said you kissed him and then what did you do? You did something and then you went to the other room. You diddled…?”

Carolyn squinted into the air, remembering. “I dithered around, putting him to bed. I told him that his nose was cold and that he was a puppy dog. The rest of him was cozy because we put blankets on, you know, warm blankets. But his nose was cold, and I told him, ‘Jeez, your nose is cold. You’re a puppy dog.’ And then I left the room.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to Jesse Pearson for encouraging this idea at the very start, my literary agent Sarah Chalfant for really listening, Eli Horowitz for a seventeen-step to-do list, and Starlee Kine for emboldening me to the finish. Additional thanks to Aaron Beckum for being so kind to Joe and Carolyn, going far above and beyond his duties as my assistant.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Miranda July is a filmmaker, artist, and writer. Her videos, performances, and web-based projects have been presented at sites such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and in two Whitney Biennials. July wrote, directed, and starred in the film Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005), which won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Her fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, Harper’s, and The New Yorker; her collection of stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You (Scribner, 2007), won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. July created the participatory website learningtoloveyoumore with artist Harrell Fletcher, and a companion book was published in 2007 (Prestel). Raised in Berkeley, California, she currently lives in Los Angeles. Her second feature film, The Future, was released in the summer of 2011.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication page

Contents

MICHAEL

PRIMILA

PAULINE & RAYMOND

ANDREW

BEVERLY

PAM

RON

MATILDA & DOMINGO

DINA

JOE

SHOOTING

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR