Wendy and the Lost Boys by Julie Salamon

Author:Julie Salamon
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-06-30T07:00:00+00:00

WENDY AND HER PRODUCERS ACCEPTING THE TONY FOR THE HEIDI

CHRONICLES, WHICH ANDRÉ [SECOND FROM RIGHT] KNEW, THE MOMENT

HE READ IT, WOULD BE AN “AMERICAN IMPORTANT PLAY.”

Fourteen

ROOMS OF HER OWN

1986-87

On June 2, 1986, Newsweek magazine terrified the women of Wendy’s generation. The cover story—headline, “The Marriage Crunch”—informed readers that for female college graduates still unmarried at thirty, the chances of finding a husband were one in five. At age thirty-five their chances were almost nil, 5 percent.12

By then Lola Wasserstein had nine grandchildren, each offering a fresh opportunity to remind her youngest (still-unmarried) daughter, “Your sister-in-law is pregnant, and that means more to me than a million dollars or any play.”

The pressure came from every quarter. While the Wassersteins proliferated, Wendy’s friends and acquaintances had also begun coupling and were beginning to have children. That summer Chris Durang had a small part in a movie (The Secret of My Success), where he met a young actor named John Augustine; they became lifelong partners. Sigourney Weaver was married. James Lapine had married and in 1985 had a daughter with Sarah Kernochan, a versatile woman who wrote, produced, and directed films and was an accomplished musician as well. Meryl Streep gave birth to her third child that year (there would be a fourth).

Wendy took steps toward acknowledging her independence, or spinsterhood, depending which generation was talking. In 1985, at age thirty-five, she finally got her driver’s license and bought a car. After years of rentals and sublets, she moved into a home she owned, an airy sixth-floor apartment at One Fifth Avenue, an Art Deco tower just north of Washington Square, an enviable address for anyone and perfect for her: Greenwich Village, to satisfy her bohemian urges, but definitely not a walk-up. One Fifth bespoke elegance and accomplishment. It was a doorman building equipped with uptown perquisites, including a grand, wood-paneled lobby and the bragging rights that came with neighbors like Brian De Palma and Paul Mazursky, celebrated filmmakers, and Michiko Kakutani, book critic for the New York Times.

Perhaps the most attractive feature was proximity to André Bishop, who lived on Waverly Place, a short walk away.

During Miami the producer and the playwright had begun spending even more time together. André appeared frequently in Wasserstein family photos. He and Wendy had traveled to Oxford, England, to meet his half brother, who was studying to be an Anglican theologian. There Wendy experienced her first traditional Christmas celebration—nothing like previous Christmases spent at Miami Beach nightclubs, or watching the Radio City Rockettes, or her Orphans’ Christmas in New York. Before she left for England, she consulted friends about what gifts to bring and what to wear. During Yuletide at Oxford, Wendy ate lobster Newburg and drank champagne, according to André’s family custom, listened to medieval carols, and then everyone gathered to trim the tree with tinsel and lights.

Wendy was both moved and terrified, not quite knowing what to do when Fay, André’s mother, handed her an ornament and encouraged her to hang it.

“I was seized with panic,” Wendy wrote.

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