‘So we’re rolling,’ he said, smiling bashfully. He seemed apologetic for the presence of the microphone in some way, as if it were intruding on a conversation between friends. He wasn’t wearing the suit I’d associated him with—from Showtime’s short-lived television version of This American Life—but was still dressed professionally, in a white button-down and charcoal slacks; and he leaned forward in a relaxed posture, elbows on knees, training a frank gaze on me through his trademark blackframe glasses. His salt-and-pepper hair belied his boyishness. He encouraged me to speak freely: any infelicities or flubs would be edited out in post. The green light blinked.

‘Carleen told me about the bookcase,’ he said. ‘It sounds like a wild story.’

Behind him the bookcase stood empty. I’d removed all its contents earlier that morning, so that he could get a sense of its dimensions. But now he sat with his back to it, the desolate white shelves framing his shoulders.

‘You have to hear him tell it,’ Michelle said, nodding to me. ‘I’ve heard it so often I could almost tell it myself. But his is the definitive version.’ Ira smiled at her with a slightly quizzical expression. She continued: ‘I’m just here as the prompter. In case he forgets anything. Under the floorboards, murmuring his lines.’

That seemed to be my cue. ‘It was for my first apartment,’ I began.

Ira relied initially on light questioning to guide me: how old was I, where was I working at the time. Soon, though, he lapsed into silence, simply letting me recite my story. I told him about the flat, and about my first chilly interview with Fredricka. I told him about finding the bookcase, and about her passive-aggressive Post-its. For the most part Michelle sat quietly by and nodded. But when I got to the note about the ‘undies,’ she interrupted suddenly, patting my thigh.

‘Tell him about the cats!’ she said.

Ira turned to her and made a piratical, throat-slicing gesture with his index finger, indicating the microphone below. She was impenitent; he’d already explained that interruptions could be deleted. ‘Do the cats,’ she whispered.

Ira pivoted back to me and said, in his soft voice, ‘So what’s this about the cats?’

In truth, I’d forgotten about the cats. Over the years I had gradually edited this incident out of the story’s rising action, and it must have been edited out of my memory as well. It was just another tiff with Fredricka, superfluous, because it never seemed as funny or absurd to a listener as it did to me. Not long after I’d scandalized Fredricka with my undies, I found a typed message on the bathroom door: a notice that the shower would be mostly ‘out of service’ for the week. It seems Fredricka had volunteered to look after some kittens from a neighbor’s litter, a half-dozen or so sick ones that needed to be quarantined from the rest. Until they perished from their rare and contagious feline blood disease, Fredricka would be housing them in the shower. From eight to nine, the note promised, both morning and night, Fredricka would remove the kittens, giving us all an hour to bathe.