34. Aarti
AARTI
The elevator climbs to Gretchen's floor in oppressive silence, punctuated only by electronic chimes and Madge tapping her foot on the floor until I catch her eye.
“Sorry.” She stops and attempts a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry.”
Don’t worry. I want to laugh at the absurdity of her suggestion, but I can’t even muster that degree of levity right now.
I sweated out every last ounce of reassurance Madge soothed me with yesterday on the car ride over.
I feel like I’m being led to my execution.
At least the iced matcha she brought me will make a decent last meal.
When the doors finally open, Diane is waiting like my very own Crypt-Keeper.
“Ms. Gordon is ready for you,” she says, pointing me down that endless hallway. I give Madge one last nod and head to the gallows.
Gretchen stands behind her desk, tablet in hand, tapping her blood-red nails on the tempered glass.
“Aarti.” As usual, she doesn’t look up, making her expression impossible to read.
“Gretchen.” My voice is hoarse. I take a sip of matcha and choke it down, which yields a glance from her. Nope, still unreadable.
“Sit,” she commands.
I sit.
“I assume you’ve seen the online response to your Variety cover,” she begins, and my stomach plummets. Here it comes.
“Brilliant work.”
Gretchen actually smiles. It’s unsettling, to say the least. “The engagement numbers are through the roof. Do you know how hard it is to trend organically these days? At least that’s what the social kids tell me.
” She taps around on her tablet and it’s hard to believe she’s actually accomplishing anything with the erratic patter.
“So you’re not… upset about the speculation?” I venture.
“About the Variety cover? No, course not,” she says.
Relief floods through me so fast I feel dizzy. We’re not getting fired. We’re not–
“But this?”
Gretchen opens a manila envelope and pushes a glossy 8x10 print toward me like she’s straight out of CSI . The photo is dark and pixelated, but unmistakable: me kissing Noa on the moonlit streets of New York City.
My jaw drops.
“Two beautiful women who aren’t afraid to ham it up for the male gaze in an entertainment rag?
We can milk that. Happens every day. But this?
” She glares at the print. “This is a story that divides our audience. A story that already cost me a pretty penny to stifle. This is ‘CBT doubles down on bein’ divisive.’ This is ‘ Up Late chooses to trade one political controversy for another.’”
The nerves electrifying my pulse have rapidly transmuted into something I never expected to harness in the presence of Gretchen Gordon: rage .
Of course I’ve known this entire time what the stakes of coming out are.
But hearing her spout bigoted potential headlines comfortably to my face ignites a fury that has been bottled up and suppressed within me for far too long.
“Political? Please, Gretchen, explain to me how who I kiss in my private life is political.” My voice is still shaky, but the steady anger underpinning it gets her to fully meet my gaze for once.
For better or worse, she doesn’t seem all that fazed by my outrage. But she stares back as she replies, “Oh, darlin’, you know the answer to that already. It’s not a question of if it should be a political statement. It is a political statement because the bigots that hate us have made it so.”
I’m gearing up to tear into her, when her words catch up to my brain. “You–what do you mean us ?”
Gretchen slides open her desk drawer and takes out a small picture frame.
She pulls the little stand out and faces it toward me.
It’s a photo of a younger Gretchen, her eyes as soft as I’ve ever seen them, smiling on the steps of the LA County Courthouse with her arms around a dark-haired woman I don’t recognize.
“That was twelve years ago when it became legal here in California. We had a commitment ceremony in the mid-90s,” she turns the photo around and studies it fondly. “This is Laura.”
My head is spinning. “I–I had no idea.”
“Precisely.” Gretchen places the picture back inside her desk and leans forward in her leather chair.
“Aarti, I have gotten to where I am because I have not dragged my personal life into my job. Sure, things have gotten better since I started in this industry. But we have not reached a place in society where coming out of the closet yields a neutral response. And I’m just an executive.
As long as I don’t wave it in anyone’s face, I can go home every night to my wife and be as lesbian as Emily Dickinson. ”
I feel ill. I have the urge to sprint for the hills like Noa, but my legs are too shaky to even stand.
“But you,” she continues, “you are the face of a talk show. People recognize you from their TV screens, lobbin’ softball questions to their favorite Marvel Chrises every night.
For as long as you host Up Late , and I do hope it’s a long time, there are very few boundaries you can maintain between your personal life and your job. ”
“What am I supposed to do?” I ask, hating how quickly my righteous anger dissipated into full-body dread.
“You cover your damn tracks. I don’t care if it’s three a.m. on the side of Route 66 with not a soul for miles, you do not so much as hold hands with a woman outside the safety of your own home with the blinds drawn.
” She squints at me. “Or you walk away right now. You disappoint your fans. You get a black mark next to your name in Hollywood for tankin’ a massive show that employs hundreds of hardworkin’ people with mouths to feed one week before it goes to air.
You figure out how to live with yourself with all that on your conscience. ”
“It’s not fair,” I say feebly, pointlessly.
Gretchen nods. “No it ain’t. But that’s showbiz, baby. I’ll see you and Noa at the premiere on Monday.”
The descent is even worse than the climb. This elevator has become my express route to hell. I stumble out, shell-shocked, and find Madge waiting for me.
"Well?" she asks.
All I can manage is a shake of my head.
“Are you okay? We’re not fired, right?”
I look at her, only one thought swirling in my mind.
“I need to talk to Noa.”