Romantic Comedy(27)
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“That an aging white boy heartthrob walks among us? Sally, there are certain insights a woman has to have on her own.”
“Do you think he’s a cocky jerk?”
“Probably.”
“But based on working with him so far?”
“At the dinner on Monday, he was pretty down-to-earth. He told a story about spraining his ankle while doing parkour with his agent.”
I wanted to convey that it seemed as if there was some sort of attraction between Noah and me, but it felt embarrassing because Viv occupied a different plane than I did and there were options available to her that were unavailable to me. And didn’t this discrepancy mean that if I described what it had been like when Noah was in my office, or when I’d watched him sing, or just now after the rehearsal where Viv had been present, that I’d need to make a joke of it? And was I really ready to make a joke of it, if only to purge myself of my agitation, or would some small part of me be hoping that Viv would confirm that an attraction between Noah and me was possible? Not that we were about to violate the Danny Horst Rule and start dating but that there could be a moment of fleeting flirtation. Except that if there could, wouldn’t Viv have picked up on it at the rehearsal?
Aloud, I said, “Did you respond to Dr. Theo?”
Viv wrinkled her nose. “The whole thing with how I need to see a different doctor—now it’s just another thing on my to-do list.”
“Didn’t Dr. Theo say your eye will probably heal on its own?”
She nodded.
“And you’re already the patient of a different doctor there, right?”
She nodded again.
“Then you don’t have to make another appointment now. You don’t have to do anything. All you do is email Dr. Theo and say great, in the future you’ll go back to the other doctor, and you look forward to seeing him here on Saturday.”
There were three hundred seats in the studio, and for each show, writers got two tickets to give away, cast members got six, and the host and musical guest got a few dozen. The remaining tickets not claimed by Nigel’s famous friends were distributed to the public through either a lottery or a standby system of avid fans, mostly college students or tourists, willing to wait on the sidewalk for more than twenty-four hours.
“You’d invite him to the after-party, right?” I said.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“By the way,” I said, “I’m trying to get Annabel to be in my Danny Horst Rule sketch. They didn’t break up.”
Viv made a face—she was one of the people who considered celebrity cameos to be pandering. “Yeah, Henrietta told me Annabel posted something on Insta saying people need to chill.”
“I didn’t see that, but Danny was talking to her in our office. Do you think Annabel intentionally fans the flames, or she’s just sort of experiencing her emotions and they get overinterpreted?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s hired a reality TV writer to script her life.”
“Are you serious? That makes me terrified for Danny.”
“Maybe he’s the writer.”
“I’m pretty sure their relationship is real to him.”
“Oh come on—as if there’s a clear distinction between real and fake for any of us. Aren’t we all performing the role of ourselves?” I was standing a couple feet from her armchair, and she extended her right foot and lightly tapped the tip of her athletic slide against my sneaker. She said, “Even you, you behind-the-scenes pseudopurist.”
FRIDAY, 2:28 P.M.
And then, because TNO was like a summer camp where you ran into everyone all the time, over and over, I saw Noah again at the rehearsal for Blabbermouth, which was on Stage 2; less than three hours had passed since I’d seen him at the Cheesemonger rehearsal. Again, a dozen crew members had gathered around the stage, plus Autumn and a different assistant （I thought this one’s name was not Madison but Addison, and then I thought that surely I had to be making that up）。 Blabbermouth had a bigger cast than the Cheesemonger: Noah playing himself as a guest judge; Henrietta, who played the supposedly talkative female judge; cast members named Jay and Dillon, who played the male judges; and four other cast members playing auditioning contestants, most of whom sang only a line or two before the judges began dissecting their performances.
The metallic silver judges’ table was in place, though many other props were missing. A recurring joke of the sketch was mock versions of the show’s sponsored beverages—oversized wax cups with logos that last time had been for “PepsiCo Ostrich Ovaries Hibiscus Iced Tea,” and this time were going to be “Manic Armageddon Masculine Caffeine with Extra Caffeine.”
Sometimes my relief and excitement at a sketch making it past the table read was followed at rehearsal by overwhelming doubt about its quality—this was what I was hoping to send out into the world?—that then was followed, as the days passed and the script, set, and costumes came together, by renewed confidence. But as Blabbermouth got under way, there was a lot of promising intrasketch giggling, and at one point, I noticed even Bob O’Leary laughing.
Then Elliot arrived, and the giggling stopped. He often attended rehearsals, and his presence often decreased the amount people laughed. Whether you thought this was because everyone wanted to play it cool to impress him or because he was a buzzkill probably depended on your view of Elliot.