Their apartment, on Mulberry Street in Little Italy, underlines the fullness of their lives. The living room is huge, especially for Manhattan. Floorboards run on the diagonal. The furniture is an amalgam of styles and periods (probably not by intention) adrift in a pleasant way on account of all the space around it. A lot of good art. What is probably their best painting, an Alice Neel portrait of Molly, gets its due high above the mantel. Beneath, a fire is lathering up, sparking red, orange, blue. Here and there are props from their iconic plays—the hull of a longboat hangs from the high ceiling, the anvil from Smithy has been repurposed as an end table.

“Something to drink?”

“If you have coffee.”

Lauren heads back to, presumably, the kitchen. Then reappears too quickly to have done anything. “Marta will bring the coffee.” They have help. Of course they would.

“Make yourself comfortable.” Molly points with a flat, ushering hand toward an overstuffed chair upholstered in fabric that appears to have once been a carpet. As Cate sinks into it, she takes in a panoramic sweep of the living room walls. Propped on a primitive carved mantelpiece are framed photos of Lauren and Molly with other occupants of their stratosphere. Molly and Julie Taymor in conversation, small microphones clipped to their collars, sitting in front of the giant gold disk center stage at The Lion King. Lauren and Molly at a banquet table next to Caryl Churchill, all three laughing with heads tilted toward each other, like conspirators. Lauren playing checkers with Mike Nichols against a background of wood and leather, maybe a private club of some sort? Molly on a stage with Andrew Keates, regarding the London set of Bent, a set nearly as famous as its play. On another wall, shelves are layered with scripts. Those on the bottom have been there so long they look like brittle, flattened papyrus scrolls. There’s a lot more to look at, but she doesn’t have time to take more in, interrupted as she is by the here and now.

Her chair faces a huge, low wood table. On its other side, Lauren and Molly settle into a deep red sofa. Lauren sits with her feet tucked under her. Molly rests a hand on Lauren’s thigh. Cate skips telling them how big a fan she’s been. In her experience, although the celebrated love their fans, it’s only in aggregate, fans as a single entity. As individuals, they are devalued. She’s not sure why, but she has seen enough of this mechanism to never approach in awe.