The Year of Yes

by Maria Dahvana Headley

  Some fumbling pair of lovers were making their drunken way not to their own room, but to someone else’s. A whoop of surprise, a slamming door, hysterical laughter. Running footsteps. Water coursing through pipes. Heating vents. The Playwright’s heart beating directly under my cheek.

  How do you describe what happens when you fall in love with someone? It’s much easier to tell tales of brokenhearted nights, falling up the subway stairs into some sort of light. Easy to make lists of your loathing. Easy to itemize and appreciate your disenchantments.

  Love is hard to pin down. There is no language for it. A glorious sparking inside you, an alchemy. All your hurt suddenly turned into joy. Love is inexplicable. Of Dante’s Divine Comedy, the Inferno is the half that gets read. The Paradiso is ignored, because it repeats those same, trite descriptions of bliss. Love is too enormous to diagram, too complex to re-create on the page. Even if, as Dante did, you glimpse your beloved only a couple of times. Historically, he met Beatrice once, when he was about eight, and again, when he was a teenager, and she, married to someone else, smiled at him. That was it for Dante. He was blown away. They never even touched. She died young, and Dante ended up married to someone else. And still, his love for her was so large that, in the Paradiso, Beatrice leads him out through the solar system. The Earth isn’t enough to contain them. It’s like that with love. Nothing could have prepared me for it. All I could do was open my heart. I didn’t understand everything that I was holding. I only knew that it was right.

  It was 3:00 a.m. in New York City, and I was lying wide awake in a midtown hotel in the arms of the man I was going to marry. I didn’t know that then. I didn’t know it for a while. That wasn’t the point. This night was the beginning of something I could never have imagined, even though all my time was spent imagining and you would have thought I would have been able to write my own happy ending. I couldn’t have written this. It was, as love always is, a miracle.

  I looked over at the Playwright. His eyes were closed and he was smiling. The noise of New York City was all around us.

  I shut my eyes and let it sing me to sleep.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  THIS IS A TRUE STORY. That means that within these pages are plenty of people who actually exist. Some of these people are completely out of my life, and have been for years. Others, I still know and adore. In neither case do I want to break up any marriages, pry open any barricaded closet doors, or otherwise ruin any lives. Therefore, names have been changed to protect the indignant, the infantile, and, of course, the innocent (all three of you). Pretty much the only names I didn’t change are my own (because I have no problem with muddying my own character), and Big White Cat’s, because he is housebound and doesn’t care if I tell the world his secrets.

  One more thing. This book has been reconstructed from memory. My memory. Subject to vagaries, hangovers, emotional meltdowns, and the occasional unrequited vendetta. Some of the people in this book are gonna be happy about this, and some of you aren’t. I’ve tried to be kind where I could be, and if I couldn’t be entirely kind while still telling the truth, at least I’ve edited out some of your bad dialogue and made you wittier than you were.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  MASSIVE, EARTHSHAKING THANKS TO…my brilliant and hilarious editor at Hyperion, Kelly Notaras, for understanding just what it’s like to come from nowhere to the great somewhere, and to everyone else at Hyperion (Beth Dickey!) for being behind me all the way. My brainy, ballsy agents at William Morris, Suzanne Gluck and Andy McNicol, for helping me give a relatively scream-free birth to this baby. David Lubliner at William Morris, for believing that I was more than just his writer’s wife. Shana Kelly at WMA UK for a great London day. Carole Tonkinson and company at ThorsonsElement, for exuberance. Michael Rudell, Jason Baruch, John Power, and Steve Twersky for forcing me to wheel and deal in my high heels.

  THE BREADLOAF WRITERS’ CONFERENCE, which all writers should attend, if not for the career advancement, for the opportunity to see a bunch of literary luminaries dancing to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Trust me on this. The fabulous girls who roomed with me in Breadloaf’s oh-so-inappropriately named Cherry Residence Hall: Erin Brown for ongoing screaming laughter from a fellow Ida-Ho, Julie Farkas, Emily Choate, and Bonnie Nadzam for too much gin and tonic in the afternoon. The wildly talented Michael Fairbanks, for marking up the very first pages of this book. Meredith Broussard, for telling me how to write a proposal. Murad Kalam, for giving an evening over to a massive conversation about the heart, the soul, and human nature. Matthew Dickman, for reading a heart-stoppingly gorgeous love poem involving a lizard, which climbed into the between-the-lines of this book. Douglas Kearney, for being the best dancer on the floor, and a hell of a poet, too. Matthew Power, for inspiring the fuck out of me with a motorcycle and a brain full of fascinating things I’d never seen before. Jessamyn Smith, for conversations about big bad love, Suzanne Rivecca, for glorious causticity, Daniel Wallace, Jamil Zaki, Carrie Amestoy, Aimee Pokwatka, Amy Holman, Andrew Hallman, Hannah Tinti, Pete Duval, Esmond Harmsworth, Andrew Miller, Antonya Nelson, Lewis Robinson, and Margaret Ellen Zamos. You all rock, and I owe you all a drink or three.

  MY BELOVED NYU PROFESSOR, Martin Epstein, not only for making me write prose, but for a certain story about a walk-up apartment, a bohemian bitch, and a bite at the top of the stairs. Zay Amsbury, for years of communion, feet in the mouth, and bullshit detecting. Mark Bemesderfer, for stories about the secret parts of small dogs. Sam Brietz, for reading each chapter hot off the printer and for being my adored scissor twin. Hallie Deaktor, for countless shared kvetches and for introducing me to both T. C. Boyle and G-strings. Greg Kalleres, for much all-night laughing, major heart sharing, and an abortive viewing of Repulsion. Vivian Liu, for the red paint and the staples and years of tears and crack-ups. Ruth McKee, for being my first Gemini friend and sharing one of those notorious bad boys. Ben McKenzie, for a deep conversation on a shallow L.A. day when I needed a comrade. Dana Nelson, for always believing, even when the chupas ground us down. John Olive, for saying “obviously” when I sold this book and for being a brilliant writer in his own right. Alex Steffen, for being my new Seattle soul twin. Kimberly Scott, for noticing the toeprints on the ceiling and for about fifty million other things. Ira Amyx, for your Belligerent Man self. You know I love you. Sullivan Walsh, for obscene generosity. Heather Moon, for fifteen years of reading the pages. Michelle Shaw, for always calling me back to tell me that my neurosis was just neurosis. Jenny Mercein, for big, fat, coffee-fueled conversations about sex and longing. Trevor Williams—huge thanks here—for inadvertently commissioning much of the very first incarnation of this thing. I owe you all more than a drink. Probably a hefty slice of my heart. But you already have that.

  ADRIANE HEADLEY, for loving me no matter what kind of story I’m telling, and for letting me write my name backward on all the walls. Molly Headley, for her notorious Shelfie story and for her raucous cackle on a trans-Atlantic flight. Mark Headley, for that same raucous family cackle, and for a woeful comment about Judas as linked to the male sex drive. The three above for being my long-suffering familial audience, and the most unique and talented bunch of fabulousity I could ever hope to encounter. My dad, for dogsledding in the desert, may you find the calm you never found in life. I owe you. My grandma, Marguerite Moulton, for always laughing, even if the stories are obscene. My grandpa, Dwayne Moulton, for telling me tales of which I was the star…look what happened. The rest of my family, dead and alive, for all the good and bad and glorious that goes into a writer’s brain and comes out as inky pages. Without you, I’d be normal, and normal was never the goal. Thank you to the entire spectacular Schenkkan clan for being the best group a girl could marry into. Sarah Schenkkan, for giggle fits over brunch. Joshua Schenkkan, for bonding over piles of books. You two are a couple of the greatest surprises I’ve ever had, and as soon as you’re old enough, I’ll owe you some drinks, too.

  ROBERT SCHENKKAN, for being m
y man, the only one on this green earth who could take me, the whole thing, and never run screaming into the night. For sleeping beside me, and waking beside me, and letting me love you like crazy. For endlessly encouraging me to write this book, despite it being all about sex, lugs, and lost control. You’re the most generous, tender, brilliant man I’ve ever met. And…well, I’ve met a few men. You fucking blow my mind, baby, and you blow my skirt up, too.

  And last, but absolutely not least (with apologies to Willie Nelson):

  To all the guys I’ve loved before,

  who’ve traveled in and out my door…

  I trust you know the rest. Thanks, boys. And girls.

  Copyright

  HarperElement

  An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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  Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

  The website address is: www.thorsonselement.com

  and HarperElement are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  First published in the US by Hyperion 2005

  This edition published by HarperElement 2006

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  © Maria Headley 2005

  Maria Headley asserts the moral right to be

  identified as the author of this work

  A catalogue record of this book is

  available from the British Library

  EPub Edition © AUGUST 2009 ISBN: 978-0-007-34612-7

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