“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.
As we wrapped up, after the director, whose name was Abraham, and I had both given our notes, Elliot said, “It’s ending with a whimper instead of a bang. Either we need to punch up Jay and Dillon’s lines or make Noah and Henrietta do something more dramatic.”
“Well—” I said. The sketch ended with Noah and Henrietta doing yoga, and the idea that immediately occurred to me was simultaneously obvious, reliable, and, because of Noah’s presence, slightly embarrassing to articulate. But because approximately 30 percent of me had developed a crush on Noah while 120 percent of me was a comedy writer, I said it anyway. “Why don’t we have one of them fart? Or both of them, and that’s the one time Jay and Dillon actually listen?”
Dillon said, “Or I turn to Jay and am like, ‘Wait, did you hear something?’ And he’s like, ‘Nope, I don’t think so.’？”
“Alternatively,” Elliot said, “while, Sally, I hate to deny you that old chestnut, you know when kids play the game Airplane? What if that’s what they’re doing, with Noah on the ground holding Henrietta up on his legs. Is that doable, Noah and Henri?”
One of the ways it was obvious that Noah was a good sport was that he didn’t hesitate before lying flat on his back on the not especially clean stage floor, his golden hair draped over TNO dust and debris. He lifted his legs and arms, and Henrietta leaned over him so his heels lined up with her hipbones, their hands clasped. As he bent his knees, he said to her, “Want me to take off my shoes?”
“Nah,” she replied—Henrietta was also a very good sport—and then she leaned in even farther and suddenly was aloft on his feet. Watching them, I felt a strange and not immediately identifiable feeling, though I knew it wasn’t good.
“Can we get some airplane sound effects?” Abraham said. “Or they just make them with their mouths?”
“Vroom, vroom,” Henrietta said. “Or no, that’s cars.”
“Let’s try it both ways,” I said to Abraham.
We went through the sketch again, start to finish, and when we got to the airplane part a second time, I understood. I was jealous. Not because Henrietta was famous and I wasn’t, or because she was objectively prettier than I was. I was jealous because she got to tussle in this silly way with Noah, to hold hands with him. I was jealous of the physical contact and the proximity. I thought then of Gene and his dick pic. Apparently, I was due for a session with him after all, to stave off exactly this type of inconvenient yearning.
After Bob, the camera guys, and the control room had decided which camera would cut to Noah and Henrietta on the floor, rehearsal was finished, and I thanked everyone. “Hey, Sally,” Noah called and waved me over from the stage, where Elliot had joined him. “Breaking news on the wildlife front. Turns out Nigel suggested a snake instead of a panther.”
I glanced at Elliot. “Like Britney Spears at the VMAs way back when?”
“I know she’s not the Indigo Girls or Diana Ross,” Noah said, “but don’t you think a Britney homage would be pretty cool?”
I blinked, trying to determine how much he was joking. Could it be that Noah was one of those rare guys who didn’t essentially dislike or mock women, and who also didn’t ignore our existence, and who also didn’t see us primarily as objects of lust? That he was weirdly, disarmingly fine with us?