11. Noa
NOA
Aarti takes a seat across from me in the reception area, swinging one lanky leg over the other. “You look ill.”
“I feel ill! I just found out what’s happening here about… seven minutes ago?” My voice ratchets higher than my blood pressure.
Aarti’s eyes widen. “Seven–what do you mean seven minutes ago? You didn’t know about this meeting?”
I shake my head. Seven minutes ago, I was standing in a janitor’s closet with a hyperactive PA named Claire, learning that the woman I was about to meet could destroy careers with a single raised eyebrow.
“Gretchen Gordon is late-night television,” Claire told me emphatically. “She took Up Late from nothing to everything. She eats executives for breakfast. She once made a showrunner cry just by sighing.”
Claire deposited me in this waiting area with a peppy “godspeed!” which felt about as reassuring as being pushed out of a plane without a parachute.
“Okay,” Aarti says, recalculating. “Okay. We have maybe three minutes. Just breathe. Follow my lead in there. You know the cardinal rule of improv? ‘Yes and’?”
“No, but–”
“Right. So do the opposite of that.” She’s talking faster now. “Go with whatever I say, but don’t expand too much. Actually, don’t expand at all. But also don’t just sit there. Support but don’t embellish. Actually, maybe embellish a little if–”
“Ladies.”
We both jump. Gretchen’s receptionist materializes in front of us.
“Ms. Gordon is ready for you.”
She marches us to Gretchen’s office. The door opens to reveal a space so aggressively minimalist it makes me nostalgic for the janitor’s closet.
Gretchen Gordon stands behind her desk, pouring amber liquid into a crystal glass. She’s smaller than I expected, but her sharp gaze makes me feel two inches tall.
“Sit,” she commands.
We sit.
“Relax.”
We become even more rigid. Gretchen’s Southern drawl sounds like she’s about to offer us mint juleps before burying our bodies in her garden.
“When Morrison imploded, your name ticked every box,” Gretchen tells Aarti.
“Headline gold: ‘Late-night finally hands the desk to a woman of color.’ The board loved the optics, advertisers loved the novelty, and I assumed you’d keep things breezy enough for the heartland.
Instead, we polished the you-turd so smooth there’s nothin’ left to hold on to. That’s not gonna cut it.”
Gretchen circles us like a shark as she continues.
“ Up Late viewers need more from you than the impressions that rocketed you to stardom on Midnight Live. Even behind their ‘Now News!’ desk, you played a facsimile of a talk show host. This new audience needs to know who the real Aarti Nair is. Without alienatin’ anyone, of course. ”
Gretchen returns to stand behind the desk. “I said as much to your green-haired lackey last week, and she was… less than receptive to my solution. Said you were gonna need convincin’ to accept a sidekick to draw out your authenticity.”
Her gray eyes needle in on Aarti. “But that was before Saturday.”
I feel sweat pooling in places I didn’t know could sweat.
“You see, ladies, when a show hemorrhages money before it even airs, when the insurance claims start pilin’ up, when the board asks pointed questions about cuttin’ our losses…” She trails off. “Producers get a lot more receptive to the laughable notions of a network president.”
Gretchen swirls her drink and the clinking sounds like a jail cell door. “Suddenly, I’m hearin’ that you two have unprecedented chemistry. I’m hearin’ that your rapport with this ice cream scientist–” Oh god, she’s shifted her penetrating gaze in my direction . “–is gonna save our show.”
If it were possible to shrink smaller in my seat, I would. I feel Aarti’s eyes pinging to me in my periphery, but I’m not prepared to glance back, lest I call even an ounce more attention to myself.
“So.” Gretchen finally takes a sip of her drink and grimaces. “I’m not convinced this isn’t just a desperate act to distract me from cancelin’ the show after your soundstage antics this weekend.”
She sticks a finger in her glass and stirs the steel whiskey cube. “Convince me.”
I swear our hearts collectively stop beating.
“Well,” Aarti starts, and I can hear the scramble in her voice, “our thing is–”
“We met in a bathroom,” I blurt.
“Not like that,” Aarti says quickly.
“She was climbing out a window–”
“Escaping. Through. Strategically exiting–”
“And she was stuck–”
“Temporarily delayed–”
“So I pushed her–”
“Assisted me–”
“Into a dumpster.”
We both stop. Gretchen hasn’t blinked.
“And then,” Aarti rallies, “the next day–”
“I brought nitrogen–”
“ Nitrogen –”
“To a meeting–”
“That I didn’t know was happening–”
“And there was that incident with the backdrop–”
“Which I was so grateful the network approved–”
“And which I’m totally gonna repair–”
Aarti cuts me off with a glare. “She crushed it–”
“Then I passed out–”
“–because she realized there was bl–”
“–maraschino cherries–”
“That was blood–”
I shudder. “Right, but I was pretending it was–”
“...cherries,” we finish in unison.
Gretchen’s expression hasn’t changed. We’re breathing like we just ran a marathon, but her silence stretches. And stretches. And stretches.
I can hear the thrum of my heartbeat in my skull.
“You’re tellin’ me that your revolutionary chemistry is based on…” She savors her pause like it’s a Michelin starred meal. “…mutual incompetence?”
“Yes,” we say. Then, horrified: “No!”
“I mean–” Aarti says.
“We’re very competent–” I try.
“It’s more like–”
“Controlled chaos?”
“Nothing about it is controlled.”
The silence this time is infinite. Geological. Pangea rearranges itself in the time it takes Gretchen to respond.
Finally, she shakes her head.
“There is somethin’…” She searches for the words. “A frenetic energy between you two that I don’t entirely know what to do with.”
My stomach is attempting to exit through my throat.
“This has been one of the worst pitches I’ve ever witnessed.” She continues like she’s not delivering scathing professional insults. “I’ve never seen Aarti more off-balance. I’ve never met you before, Noa, but your performance has been equally underwhelmin’.”
Even Jerky McGee is rendered speechless in the presence of Gretchen.
“And yet.” She sets down her whiskey. “There is something here. Buried under all that…” she waves a red manicured hand, “…whatever that was.”
I realize I’m holding my breath.
“Field segments are crucial for any late-night host. Audiences want to watch you out in the world, interacting with the same reality they navigate every day. When a host comes across too polished…” She shakes her head.
“Our reality is, we can’t afford to be edgy.
Can’t ruffle feathers, can’t alienate advertisers, can’t give the board a reason to pull the plug. ”
She turns her gaze on me again. “A sidekick is someone who can draw out those genuine moments, the unguarded reactions that make a host feel real without needin’ to court controversy.”
Her eyes bounce between us. “I’m not convinced you two even know what you have. But perhaps that’s the point. Your chemistry isn’t manufactured. It’s chaotic but it’s authentic.”
She shrugs, a movement that probably costs more than my car. “Stranger things have saved shows.”
“So we’re…” Aarti ventures.
“Not dead yet,” Gretchen finishes. She turns to her window, dismissing us.
Aarti and I scramble toward the door like freed prisoners.
In the elevator back down, Aarti turns to me, a look of amazement softening her sharp features. “Holy shit. We did it. I still have a show. You–” She points at me. “You are going to be on national fucking television with me.”
It hits me like a nitrogen canister to the face. Me. Noa. On TV. Actual millions-of-eyeballs, every-bad-hair-day-immortalized-forever TV. My mouth opens. Closes. My brain short-circuits.
“I’m gonna–” I whisper.
“Be on TV! With me,” she gleefully repeats.
I slap a hand over my mouth. “–throw up,” I manage to croak, then bolt as soon as the elevator doors ding open, sprinting for the exit with Olympian speed.