Carrie Fisher - Postcards from the Edge

Twenty minutes later, on the way to the hospital, Jesse said, “But why waffles? I don’t even really like waffles.”

“Look,” said Suzanne stoically. “It’s already starting to blister.” She held up her left hand, with its domestic scar across the knuckles where the waffle iron had landed.

He shook his head in bewilderment and patted Suzanne’s head. “Isn’t this the emergency room where… they know you?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling slightly. “I should open a house account there.”

“They should at least give you a quantity discount,” he said, heading south onto La Cienega. “What was the last thing? The dog bite?”

“The dog bite,” she said cheerfully. “Unless you count the time I had to take Lucy to have her IUD removed.” She held out her hand to him. “It hurts,” she said, with some surprise.

“You’re a brave girl.”

“Soul,” she corrected him. “I’m a brave soul.” She sighed. “This is what I get for trying to be the cooking half of a couple.”

“Gail, don’t be dramatic,” Jesse said. “You’ve made meat loaf and spaghetti several times without incident.”

She was quiet for a few moments, then asked meekly, “Don’t you have your dudefest tonight?”

“You mean am I leaving you alone with your hand tonight?” he said. “No, Gail, I’m staying with you.”

“Oh, goody,” said Suzanne maturely.

DEAR DR. BLAU,

Of course I remember you. Who else would have sent me a stuffed animal exactly like the one he gave me after he pumped my stomach, only twenty times the size? When you gave me the little one three years ago in the hospital, I thought it was a thumb of some kind. Now, though, in its enormous form, I see that, of course, it’s a dolphin. How great. No one’s ever given me a giant pink dolphin before. How did you know I’ve always wanted one? You must think I’m very inconsiderate for not acknowledging your first letter sooner, but I’ve just moved to a new house, I’m rehearsing a play, my grandfather died, and I’m inconsiderate.

I hardly know where to begin in response to your question about “what I’ve been up to for the past two and a half years.” Suffice to say that the last time I did dope was the last time I saw you—and nothing personal, but I don’t want to see you or anyone else standing next to me with a hose ever again (unless we’re standing over flowers in a backyard).

Sometimes I feel like my life ended and I’m still here. Other times I feel so calm, I swear I can hear air moving slowly over the earth. I still eat junk, I don’t exercise enough, and last week I had a cigarette. But I figure if I had to give up everything I put between me and my feelings, I’d stand at the center of my being and howl like a lonely old dog.

Unfortunately, I am not “available for dating,” as you so quaintly inquired. I am presently living with someone, and have been for over a year. I guess I like it. One of the hardest habits for me to break is taking the right things the wrong way. If I was available, though, I would definitely consider you as an escort, since even after I’d thrown up on you, you said you found me “interesting.” For that I am truly grateful.

I had what I call my triumphant return to the Cedars Sinai emergency room a while back for a burn, but I didn’t see you there.

Your psychodrama group sounds intriguing, but I think I’ll stick to conventional therapy for now. I still don’t think I feel the way I perceive other people to feel. I don’t know if the problem lies in my perception or my comfort. Either way I come out fighting, wrestling with my nature, as it were. And golly, what a mother of a nature it is. Sometimes, though, I’ll be driving, listening to loud music with the day spreading out all over, and I’ll feel something so big and great—a feeling as loud as the music. It’s as though my skin is the only thing that keeps me from going everywhere all at once. If all of this doesn’t tell you exactly what I’m doing, it should tell you how I’m feeling when I’m doing whatever it is.

Thanks again for the dolphin and your letter. I hope this finds you well and still on the right side of that hose. I have to sign off or I’ll be late for my shrink. I’m expecting a breakthrough any decade now.

P.S. That night in the emergency room, do you recall if I threw up something I needed? Some small but trivial thing that belonged inside? I distinctly feel as though I’m missing something.

But then, I always have.

There are no words to express adequately my gratitude to my friend and editor Paul Slansky, but if there were words, they’d have to be multisyllabic and shrieked from high atop a roller coaster in appreciation and glee.

I would like to thank the following for their support and inspiration:

Gloria Crayton, Mary Douglas French, Ilene (she knows why) Waterstone, Buck Henry, Melissa Mathison, Mike Nichols, Maxene and Ray Reynolds, Constance Freiberg, May Quigley, Richard Dreyfuss, Beverly D’Angelo, Bill Reynolds, Beatriz Foster, Amy Edmondson, Charles Wessler, Blair Sabol, Chana Ben-Dov, Arnold Klein, Cindy Lee Zucker, Al Lowman, Patricia Soliman, Richard Hamlett, Brian Frielino, John Burnham, Jim Wade, Edwin Jack, Donald Roller Wilson, Bill Wilson, and Harper, Sean, Linda, J.D., Simpson, Albert, Roger, Begley, Grip, Lennie, Arlo, Harrison, Henry, Lester, Mo, Evelyn, Maggie, Penny, Ted, Moses, Carolyn, Evi, Thom, Nikki, Shimkus, M.G., Reigo, Bleeaz, Mira, LaVallee, Henley, Erika, Renee, Hyjean, David, Howard, Tom, Lynne, Drew, Toni, Carol, Leon, Kipper, Philip, the alumni of the Century City New Beginnings Rehabilitation Program, and Joan Hackett.

CARRIE FISHER, the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, became an icon when she starred as Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy. The author of five bestselling novels, including the sequel to Postcards from the Edge, The Best Awful, Fisher’s star-studded career includes roles in numerous films such as The Blues Brothers and When Harry Met Sally . In 2009, she was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Spoken Word Album for the audio edition of Wishful Drinking, which was a New York Times bestseller as well as a hit Broadway production. Carrie Fisher’s first novel is set within the world she knows better than anyone else: Hollywood, the all-too-real fantasy land of drug users and deal makers. This stunning literary debut chronicles Suzanne Vale’s vivid, excruciatingly funny experiences—from the rehab clinic to life in the outside world. Sparked by Suzanne’s—and Carrie’s—deliciously wry sense of the absurd, Postcards from the Edge is a revealing look at the dangers and delights of all our addictions, from success and money to sex and insecurity.

“At once harrowing and hilarious.”

“A sharply irreverent, deliciously witty trip through Hollywood-land.”

“The sort of novel that makes you want to call your friends to read passages out loud.”

“Searingly funny.”

“An accurately sardonic, wonderfully detailed novel.”