8. Aarti
AARTI
The drive home from the studio is a blur of red lights and self-loathing.
I keep replaying the moment that nitrogen-wielding psycho crash-landed on my seven-hundred-thousand-dollar set piece, but what really stings is how I handled it.
The great Aarti Nair, comedy genius, interviewer extraordinaire, reduced to shrieking like a marmot over a chemical spill.
My condo greets me with its usual bachelorette-pad charm, which is to say, yesterday’s takeout containers from dinner with Brigitte are still on the coffee table and my laundry has achieved sentience on the bedroom floor. But right now, I need only one thing: my emergency stash.
I dig through the kitchen cabinet behind the protein powder I’ve never used and extract the family-sized bag of chakli and a jar of mango pickle my mom smuggled to me during her last visit.
“For emergencies only, beta,” she’d said, knowing there would be nothing family-sized about the single person consuming that entire bag.
If her very presence–and her very annoying, probing questions–hadn’t immediately set me off, I probably would have told Noa earlier that this was my comfort food for every situation.
Bombed the Improv 101 show? Mango pickle and chakli.
Period came a day early? Mango pickle and chakli.
Crawled out of a dumpster at a lesbian bar in front of a maddeningly gorgeous woman?
Make haste to take your trashy self home and dig into mango pickle and chakli.
I settle onto my couch, spreading my feast before me like a sadness buffet.
The first bite of pickle-loaded chakli hits different when you’re questioning your entire career trajectory.
The tangy, spicy crunch is basically a time machine to my childhood kitchen, where failure meant getting a B+ in chemistry, not potentially tanking my own talk show before it airs.
Am I even meant to do this?
The thought arrives uninvited as I crunch through another handful.
The people in my corner keep telling me I’m breaking barriers–first woman, first Indian, youngest host in Up Late history.
But what if I’m just the first to fail this spectacularly?
What if I’m simply not capable of molding myself into everything the network needs me to be?
What if I’m just becoming totally flavorless in my attempt to be palatable to everyone? Even Noa was scornful of vanilla.
I dip another piece of chakli directly into the pickle jar, no longer bothering with a spoon. The crispy spiral breaks apart in the oil, and I fish out the pieces with my fingers. Rock bottom tastes like fermented mango and gram flour on a Saturday afternoon.
Maybe Mom was right. Maybe I should have taken supplemental math more seriously, pursued a stable career, married a nice Indian podiatrist from Santa Barbara.
But even as I think it, I know it’s not true. I was born to perform, to make people laugh, to turn my body into a vehicle for joy, to disarm my guests for seven short minutes, long enough to demonstrate how beautiful human connection can be if you just listen.
The afternoon sun slants through my windows as I work my way through the bag, each bite a small act of defiance against the glossy image I’m supposed to maintain.
By the time I reach the bottom, my fingers are stained yellow from turmeric and my stomach is protesting the sheer volume of fried dough I’ve consumed.
I should probably eat something real. Maybe order a salad. Do some yoga. Process my emotions in a healthy way like Madge keeps suggesting.
Instead, I grab a throw pillow, curl up on my side, and let the food coma take over.
BANG BANG BANG.
I jolt awake, disoriented and dry-mouthed. The room is dark– how long was I out?
BANG BANG BANG.
“AARTI! I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE!”
Magenta. Of course. I stumble to the door, still half-asleep and fully annoyed.
“Do you know what time it is?” I ask as I yank open the door.
“Ten forty-seven,” she says, pushing past me.
Her usually perfect green hair is frizzed, her production binder clutched to her chest like armor.
“And before you say anything in response to what I’m about to tell you, remember I’m the one who pulled you out of that bathroom stall in your darkest hour at Midnight Live. ”
“What did you do?” The food coma fog clears instantly. I know that look on her face–it’s the same one she had when she accidentally switched my lines with our celebrity host on a Midnight Live ‘Now News!’ segment.
“I think I solved our problems,” she says, but her voice wavers. “Like… all of them.”
“Did you wave a magic wand and reassemble the most expensive diorama in a century of late-night?”
She takes a deep breath. “No, but… think about how great I must be at my job if Gretchen doesn’t want to can our entire show after today’s disaster.”
“Madge. What. Did. You. Do?”
She takes a deep breath. “I may have told her we found your sidekick.”
“What do you mean? Who?”
Madge looks at me with guilty eyes.
“Madge. Who ?”
She still doesn’t say anything. And yet, her lack of response speaks volumes to my rapidly increasing heart rate.
“Madge. Please tell me you did not pitch the ice cream demon as my sidekick .”
She tilts her head to the side. “Would that I could.”
I pinch my forearm. Dammit , I’m not dreaming–or nightmaring, rather.
“The ice cream demon who destroyed our set? Who attacked me on my own stage? Whose emotional attachment to her Moleskine is pathological?”
Madge sighs. “I pitched the ice cream demon whose very presence goaded you into a full-scale vaudevillian two-hander and with whom you have undeniable, electrifying banter. And may I emphasize to you, while you’ve been sleeping off said altercation, I’ve been in Gretchen’s terrifying corner office, explaining the security footage from today and doing my own song-and-dance routine to keep Up Late from being purged from TV Guide for having one of the most expensive insurance claims in the history of shows that haven’t aired yet. ”
I sink onto my couch, head in my hands. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“She loved the tape. She said, and I quote, ‘Aarti finally looks alive.’”
“That girl didn’t even know who I was!”
“Exactly!” Magenta sits beside me, her energy desperate. “That’s why it works. You’ve already got a built-in segment together figuring out your ice cream flavor, and it’s not a gimmick like ‘Bus Boys’. She treats you like a real person. She brings out a different side of you.”
“The only side she brought out was my litigious one.”
“It also doesn’t hurt that, according to Gretch’s interns, she’s seemingly never heard of Twitter, much less X.”
“Shocker.”
Madge folds her arms. “Aarti, please. I cracked a door open with Gretchen, but you’ll still hafta do the legwork to make it come together. You and…” She pauses. “I called Jen & Mary’s.”
I stare at her. “Without asking me?”
She grabs my shoulders. “Gretchen opened our meeting with proposed severance packages. This isn’t just a chance to save ourselves from some shitty one a.m. slot after that sportsball man reads bedtime stories. This is our chance to have a show. Period.”
I stare into her hopeful gaze, reality sinking in.
“Gretchen wants you and Noa at the studio Monday morning,” Madge continues. “She liked my pitch, but she said she needed to see the chemistry firsthand before the advertiser quarterly.”
“Together.”
Magenta studies my face. “Think about it, Aart. A series about creating your signature ice cream with someone who, for whatever reason, gets your guard down–it can show audiences the real you, in a cute, harmless context that’s as uncontroversial as can be.”
Uncontroversial. Ha. I think about how Noa’s hazel eyes widened when her hand brushed my boob.
“The real me,” I mutter.
I look around my place–the empty chakli bag, the pickle jar leaving a ring on my coffee table, the general disaster of my real life. The real me? Madge has no idea. The mess she can see is nothing compared to the parts I keep hidden.
“Yes. Because that’s what I saw today.” Her voice drops, losing its producer polish. "You forgot to perform. You were just… reacting. Unscripted. Alive. That’s the Aarti they need to see."
I want to stay angry, but the fight drains out of me. I’m too full of chakli and self-pity, too aware that Madge–who’s never steered me wrong before–might be the only person willing to tell me the truth I don’t want to hear.