28. Noa
NOA
“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Aarti hedges on speakerphone.
I'm already setting out ice cream samples for Aiden, inspired by the herb bouquet her mom gave me earlier–I couldn't resist experimenting with them right away. “It’s only two days. But I totally get it if that’s not how you want to spend your weekend.”
“Um.” I hesitate. A whirlwind trip with Aarti to New York City, a place I’ve never been but always dreamt of visiting.
All expenses paid by CBT… emphasis on expense .
The studio would be covering our first class tickets, rooms at the swankiest NYC hotel, meals wherever we want.
Sounds like a fantasy, except being chauffeured everywhere and wined and dined comes with a catch: Aarti and I have to go on live national television .
Pre-taping our segment has already required immense compromise of my natural instinct to live out my career in a basement lab, but a morning show broadcast in real-time is a whole ‘nother echelon.
Aiden prods at my side and waves the belt of his rainbow marijuana kimono like a lasso.
“You HAVE to go!” he stage-whispers.
“ You’re not the one who has to go on live TV ,” I snip, covering the phone mic with my hand.
“Noa, don’t be a pussy! This is your Pretty Woman mome!”
“Pussies are strong! And do you even remember what that classically LA movie was about?!” I shoot back under my breath.
“What was that?” Aarti asks.
“Nothing, I, um–”
“Look, I know the whole ‘live’ thing can be intimidating, but… I’ve got you,” she says. Aiden coos, making the little Gen Z heart with his fingers. I flip him off. “I did it for years on Midnight Live . And the hosts are there to guide things along if we get stuck.”
I appreciate her use of ‘we’ as if we’re equally likely to make fools of ourselves.
I chew on my nail, weighing the pros and cons.
Everything with Aarti: major, major pro.
Making ice cream on TV for the world to see: a Neapolitan swirl of pro, con, and neutral, depending on whether I can remember how to do my job under hot stage lights with a live audience. And speaking of the live audience…
They’ll have to wheel you off stage and cut to commercial! It’ll be soooo embarrassing!
“Ugh.” I collapse into a dining room chair.
“Is… Jerky McGee in the room with us right now?” Aarti asks.
Aiden scoffs. “Aarti knows about Jerky McGee?!”
“Yes and I’d like you to tell him to fuck off, please, because this conversation is between me and Noa,” she says.
“Me and you,” I repeat back, glaring at Aiden. He raises his hands in defeat.
“I don’t want to force you into this. I can do the morning show on my own, even if Gretchen is putting the pressure on both of us. But…” Aarti sighs. “Save for the times we have to be on camera… New York is pretty special. It’s easier to be anonymous there, too.”
I hear the parts she’s not saying: New York is special to me . We can be anonymous there .
I look at Aiden for help, but I don’t know why I’d expect anything resembling neutrality from my overzealous twin.
“Jesus fuck, she’ll go!” he shouts at the phone.
“Aiden!”
“Will you? I promise I’ll be with you every step of the way,” Aarti can’t mask the excitement in her voice. For all her probable annoyance at Aiden being our peanut gallery on this call, she’s quickly come on board now that they’ve formed an alliance. Sigh.
“Fine,” I say. They both cheer. “But if I have an aneurysm on live television, I blame both of you.”
The next morning, a sleek black SUV pulls up outside my apartment. Travel pillow wrapped around my neck like a boa constrictor, I stumble down the stairs with my carry-on. The driver, dressed in a full three-piece suit despite the LA heat, sprints to assist me.
“Thank you,” I pant, regaining my balance.
“My pleasure,” he says in a delectable French accent. “My name is Henri.”
“Noa.” I reach for Henri’s hand and he tries to mask his confused expression. I realize mid-handshake that greeting a chauffeur this way is probably not typical of his clientele. Off to a great start, bumpkin!
Aiden, who insisted on seeing me off, waves from the apartment door. “Go spend that CBT money, henny!”
I heave one last exasperated wave and climb into the backseat.
The interior temperature is a perfect seventy-two degrees with individually adjustable AC, and I’m surrounded by snacks of both the sweet and savory persuasion.
My stomach growls. Aarti told me to eat light this morning, so Aiden insisted we have what he calls ‘LA girl breakfast’–a spirulina Moon Juice concoction that’s completely unfilling and even harder to stuff down than his unsolicited advice.
“Is this extra?” I ask, holding up a bag of Gardetto’s.
“For you, Noa, everything is free,” Henri smiles in the rearview.
I can get used to this.
After the most luxurious drive to LAX ever, I brush the pretzel dust off of me and head through security, already feeling 2% less dread than when I woke up this morning. There’s a lot to be said for a doting Parisian chauffeur and free snacks.
I meet Aarti at our gate. She’s in baggy sweats, a Dodgers cap, and sunglasses even though she’s inside.
“Too bright in here for you?” I tease.
“Hate getting photographed at the airport. LAX is prime hunting grounds for tourists trying to snag a spotted-in-the-wild Gramsta shot before they leave. Paps, too.”
Duh, Hart .
Aarti must see my face fall because she quickly follows up with, “Don’t be freaked out. It’s not that bad… yet.”
Her final caveat does nothing to make me feel better, but I brighten my face with a smile anyway and push down that familiar dread about what Aarti's public life means for whatever this is between us.
I glance around. “Where’s Madge?”
“It’s just us,” she smiles.
“Just us,” I grin back.
We grab a bite in the lounge, which turns out to be the reason Aarti told me to eat a light breakfast. I don’t mention my car snacks, deciding that foods consumed in a vehicle simply don’t count.
I load up my plate with caviar and wagyu beef sliders that would be impossible to regret even if I’d eaten a turducken this morning.
We sit down beside each other in big massage chairs.
“Maybe we don’t even have to get on the plane?” I ask her as I wiggle about in my chair, mother of pearl spoon in hand.
Aarti snorts. “I’ll bring you back to this lounge anytime, princess.”
I buzz with warmth, due to more than the vibrations of the massage chair.
On the plane, our cushy first class seats are in the front row. When the stewardess takes my drink order, I ask for champagne. I’m a princess today, after all.
Aarti and I cheers and the effervescent bubbles immediately tickle my nose as I take a sip.
“This is incredible,” I sigh into my seat.
“I’m glad you’re having a good time,” she smiles at me. “I’ve got some work to do but–”
“Don’t worry, I can keep myself entertained.” I flash her the Solitaire app on my phone.
Over the course of the flight, I spy on what she’s up to.
Before her is a run-of-show document for Season One, Episode One of Up Late!
with Aarti Nair . She’s got a segment called One Star Reviews where celebrities read their terrible movie reviews to camera.
Another where she challenges her first interview guest to a rap battle.
And of course, her opening monologue. She chews her cheek as she writes and rewrites.
“What?” She catches me staring.
“Oh, just wondering how someone can be so cool and smart and talented, is all.”
She rolls her eyes, but grabs my pinky with her free hand as I drift off to sleep.
The drive to our hotel is even better than my drive to the airport.
Aarti narrates landmarks to me as I take it all in.
When we cross the Queensboro bridge and Manhattan appears before us in all her skyscraping glory, excitement bubbles up in my throat.
I’m struck by the fact that while I’ve never been here, New York is already familiar, etched into my mind’s eye by its depictions in the romcoms Aiden and I binge, in the novels I devoured as a kid.
I imagine twenty-three-year-old Aarti stepping off the plane from LA, arriving in this city already knowing she was destined to be a star. I peek at her beside me. She has a wistful look on her face and I wonder if she’s reminiscing about the same thing.
It’s hard to picture Aarti ever being young or na?ve.
She’s got this ease and confidence about her that make it seem like she was always fully fledged, arriving in the delivery room as an infant with a pen tucked behind her ear and a list of demands.
I laugh at the thought and she smiles back at me without questioning what’s so funny.
I like that. She lets me exist in my Noa-world sometimes, and doesn’t make me feel weird for my inner life, the scramble of my thoughts that are often hard to broadcast outwardly.
We pull up to the St. Augustine, a towering hotel with an elaborate limestone facade.
The driver unloads our luggage in the lobby and we head to check-in, where the woman behind the desk bestows us with steamy towels for our hands.
“Thank you, Ms. Nair,” she says. “We’ll bring your bags to your rooms if you’d like to go explore the city?”
We take our key cards and step into the crisp fall air.
“What are you feeling for dinner?” Aarti asks.
“I’ll go wherever you take me.” I can tell she likes that.
“I’m gonna need a suggestion from the audience here,” she laughs. “Give me something to work with.”
I ponder. “Hmm. Something… classically New York.”
“I’ve got just the place.”
After a few blocks, we come to a deli that looks straight out of 1950, the line of patrons snaking down the sidewalk.
“Don’t worry, it moves fast,” she assures me.
“Fine with me, I’ve got nowhere to be.”
“Actually…” she tries to contain her smile. “I’ve got a surprise for us later.”