Something is going on with Maya. She assured me—three times, maybe four—that she’s perfectly fine and that there’s nothing at all to worry about. Maya has the kind of high-octane energy people often refer to as Energizer Bunny energy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so much as yawn, so naturally I’m concerned about her. She’s not the type to doze off on another person’s couch at 3:00 in the afternoon.
When Sammy Ronstein’s number came up on my phone, Maya was updating me about Stu’s surprise party. She’s invited 150 people and we’re all supposed to arrive at T.T.’s before 7:30. She was telling me about Stu’s bandmates. The lead singer lives in New York and is still in the music business. The bass player is a Silicon Valley dot-com millionaire and is flying in on his private jet from San Francisco, and the guitarist has a maple and Christmas tree farm in Vermont, and will what? Be driving to Boston in a beat-up pickup truck? Could this be right? It sounds a little too picture perfect. Or maybe that’s our generation. We’ve set-designed our lives.
I popped into the kitchen to talk to Sammy Ronstein. Yes, part of me wanted Maya to overhear my call with him, to be looking at my face trying to read my expression, to watch me as I scribble down a few notes and stick my index finger in the air and circle it around to indicate that I’m listening to him ramble on. But I also wanted to be the type of person who leaves the room to take an important call. If I could have figured out a way to do both, I would have.
Sammy was calling to tell me that he had gotten Nancilla Aronie to direct the first reading of Deja New, which he’s scheduled for December 12th, and he assured me that if the reading goes well, Nancilla will direct the play. Nancilla Aronie—as he told me and as I already knew—has won six Obies and four Drama Desk awards and been nominated for three Tonys. She has been lauded as a sensitive, intuitive, and brilliant director and is sometimes referred to as the Mike Nichols of her generation and other times as the Julie Taymor of her generation. She is one of the most sought-after directors working today and there’s a chance she will be directing my play. A play I wrote. A play I am writing. A play I am trying to write. A play I need to finish. Today.
“Nancilla Aronie, are you kidding me?” I said to Sammy.
“Elise, you deserve this,” he replied.
“Sammy, you’re amazing. You’re beyond amazing! I can’t believe it!”
“Start believing it. Nancilla and I have been discussing working together for a while. We were just waiting for the right project for her, and I think Deja New might be it. She saw Stealing Obituaries at Williamstown and loved it. She’s a fan of yours.”
“I can’t believe Nancilla Aronie knows my work. This is so exciting, Sammy. Thank you!”
And then, before we hung up, he said, “Elise, if we get Nancilla attached, Deja New is going to have the eyes of the world on it.”
I happy-danced into the living room singing, “I’ve got Nancilla on my mind,” only to find Maya on the couch with her eyes closed and mouth open.
Confusion.
Panic.
I walked over to her and put my hand in front of her face, like I used to do to Marsden when he was a baby, and the warmth of her breath filled the palm of my hand.
Relief.
“Did I fall asleep?” She seemed as surprised by the possibility of this happening as I was.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She assured me and reassured me that she was fine. “Just having a bit of insomnia these days.”
“Join the club,” I said. But I don’t believe her. Sure, she might be having insomnia. No one I know sleeps anymore. But Maya wouldn’t let a bit of pedestrian-grade insomnia get to her. When I told her the news about Nancilla Aronie, she jumped up from the couch and wrapped her arms around me. “This is it, Elise! This is going to be it! I’m on it.”
Within minutes she came up with about ten ideas for how to generate early buzz for the play.
A play I haven’t yet finished writing.
I hardly need to write that I barely slept last night. Lesser days have kept me awake. The Ambien I took made me restless. One of my pillows was stuffed with thoughts of Nancilla and the other one was stuffed with thoughts of Maya. At 2:00 in the morning, I got up and googled Nancilla Aronie. Her Wikipedia page is filled with the acclaim that comes with being young and extraordinary. The youngest female director to direct a play on Broadway. The youngest to get nominated for a Tony Award. She’s been profiled in The New York Times and interviewed in O Magazine. She said she came from a large working-class family and that she and her sisters and brothers would pretend they were princesses and princes, kings and queens, court jesters and confessors, and that she spent much of her childhood in character as Mary Queen of Scots. After googling Mary Queen of Scots, I now know that Mary became Queen of Scotland when she was just six days old and that her husband died a violent death in a suspicious house explosion. I was not a bit sleepy so I googled Maya. Like a good publicist, Maya gets publicity for others, but keeps a low profile for herself. So I googled Stu, who had an even slimmer online presence. Practically nothing at all. I kept trying different iterations of his name, but he barely existed. I thought about starting a Wikipedia page for him, Stuart Davis, born on the day JFK was assassinated, but I didn’t. Instead I YouTubed the biggest hits from 1963—“Puff the Magic Dragon,” “Be My Baby,” and “It’s My Party.”