Romantic Comedy(19)
“Have you ever dated someone that much older than you?” Henrietta asked.
“Like five years ago, this Italian guy hit on me when I was flying back from Paris, and we went on a few dates.” She grinned. “You think Dr. Theo had one of those starter marriages like you, Sally?”
I said, “If he did, his would have been back in the early nineties. When you were, what, in kindergarten? But I actually like the sound of him. Professionally successful but not in the entertainment industry, so he won’t be threatened by your career. Most doctors—” And then all three of our phones exploded with texts from other cast members and writers telling us the sketches had been picked.
It also would have been easy, of course, for someone to send around a photo of the picks, but no one ever did. We stood and hurried to the conference room, and, as we rounded the corner, a cast member named Duncan said to me, “Not bad, Milz.” Danny was standing in front of the posted list, and he raised his eyebrows and said, “You got a hat trick, Chuckles.” He held up a hand for a high five, and I slapped it.
Included on the list, in addition to The Danny Horst Rule, the Cheesemonger, and Blabbermouth, were Noah’s Choreography sketch; a digital short written by Tony and Lianna that juxtaposed shots of a dismayed Black grandpa who’d be played by Jay watching social media videos of white women showing the ways they “improved” various recipes, like by adding raisins to mac and cheese or marshmallows to fried okra; the James Comey sketch; Sister & Father, a recurring sketch where Henrietta played a nun in love with a priest played by Hakeem, which this week featured Noah as the Pope; a sketch by a writer named Tess about talking medications in a bathroom cabinet; a Three Tenors sketch by Joseph; and Catchphrase’s terrible Ridin’ Toward Ya sketch. Neither the dogs’ Google searches sketch I’d co-written with Viv and Henrietta nor my favorite sketch from the table read, the one by Tony about the white politician at the Black church, had made the cut. And the likelihood was that two or three more would be eliminated. There were no guarantees at TNO, but still: I’d never in nine years had three sketches in the same episode.
One of the writers, Patrick, said warmly, “Is it sexual harassment to say that I hate you right now?”
I and the other writers whose sketches had been picked wandered into a room next to Nigel’s office to speak to the heads of all the departments who would make our words three-dimensional: wardrobe and hair and makeup and production design and special effects. The sets would be built at a warehouse in Brooklyn then transported back to 66, ideally on Friday, to be painted. While talking to a set designer named Buddy, I said, “Yeah, a mix of triangular hunks of cheese and wheels but both are way bigger than life-sized,” and then I said to a woman in wardrobe named Christa, “For Blabbermouth, I’m picturing Noah in something like animal print leggings and a jean jacket so I guess a hair metal vibe?”
The rest of the week would be challenging and exhausting and consuming and magnificent, and I thought, as I met with Bob O’Leary to confirm which cast members were in each of my sketches so he could coordinate the whole crazy chessboard of TNO, that what I’d told Noah the night before, what I’d thought a thousand times, was true: Without question, I had the best job in the world.
THURSDAY, 1:08 A.M.
I was walking toward the elevators to leave when I heard someone say, “Hey, Sally.” When I turned, Elliot—the head writer, who was married to the multi-platinum-album-selling singer named Nicola—was leaning out of his office.
I paused.
He said, “Nice lineup on the corkboard.”
Because he’d been part of the meeting where the first round of sketches had been selected, I said, “If you’re offering me the opportunity to thank you, I’ll hold off ’til the live show.” I didn’t point out that I’d never know if he’d argued for or against any of mine.
“I’ll be shocked if at least one doesn’t make it to air,” Elliot said, which didn’t seem particularly encouraging. He added, “I just wanted to say—not to touch the third rail—I hope—” He paused, and I was reminded that, although he had over time remade himself into a well-groomed, successful cultural arbiter married to a pop star, he was still, fundamentally, an awkward writer.
And though I myself was no stranger to awkwardness, I wasn’t going to help him out. “You hope—？” I repeated.
“That someday you’ll be able to let bygones be bygones.”
If I’d had any acting skills, I’d have said, “Meaning what?” But of course I knew what he was alluding to; even though he was wrong, I knew. Elliot had started at TNO the year before I had and was legendary for landing what became a wildly popular sketch on his first episode ever. By the time I joined, he seemed like a beloved veteran. In contrast, my first year had been bumpy and confusing, I’d often been too intimidated to even speak, only two of my sketches had made it on air in the whole season, and I hadn’t known if I would be invited back. The week in August after my contract had been renewed, a few months before the next season started in October, I’d run into Elliot at the Strand, next to a table of novels in translation, and we’d ended up getting coffee and having a surprisingly frank conversation. I had confided all the insecurities I’d been wracked with—my total lack of experience in stand-up or improv, the fact that I hadn’t attended Harvard—and he’d matter-of-factly said that was all normal, almost everyone felt insecure, even people who had lots of experience with stand-up or improv and people who had gone to Harvard, and his trajectory was more anomalous than mine. TNO liked raw talent, he said. Nigel preferred hiring people for their first TV job because then the show could mold them. Elliot pointed out that I didn’t always submit a sketch for the table read and asked if I was writing them and not submitting or not even writing them. The former, I said. He said that I should never be the one to preemptively reject my ideas; I should force other people to. In fact, I should submit a minimum of two sketches each week, even if I didn’t think they were in perfect shape. There were so many variables affecting a sketch’s outcome—the host, the national moment, Nigel’s mood—plus an idea could always be drastically improved in rewrites. Also, Elliot said, I should seek out cast members who’d started around my year, who were as green and hungry as I was, and we should pool our talents and climb the ranks together. Our time might not be now, but if we persisted, it would come. The only way to learn, he said, was by doing it. He didn’t put it in these terms, and I’m not even sure if he knew this was what he was saying, but his message was: Act like a guy. It was a message that turned out to be invaluable.