Chapter 7 New York, New York #3
During her first season, AJ worked mostly on digital shorts—that was why she and Dave had been hired, to help SNL bridge the gap to a younger demographic with original online content.
Using their signing bonuses and savings from Into the Blue, the two of them bought neighboring units in the same Midtown building, at which point work truly became the center of AJ’s life.
She didn’t think about Into the Blue or Noah simply because there wasn’t time. Okay, she thought of Noah, but mostly when she wrote—wondering if he would like what she was doing, whether it would make his eyes crinkle or tear with laughter.
Slowly, as AJ adjusted to the chaotic weeks and massive output required, she began to pitch more of her own sketches.
She got shot down a lot, which she did not enjoy, but she kept honing her pitches, and little by little she improved.
Then midway through her second season, she wrote a sketch about a psychic hotline for world leaders, “1-800-Amethyst,” that blew up.
That was when she broke. She was happy and a little drunk, and something about having a viral sketch made it somehow acceptable to reach out to Noah.
The email started innocuously enough. Hey, can you believe this? along with a link to a BuzzFeed listicle ranking NOW 4 fifth of all NOWs. Then she added If you’re ever in the city let me know. I still think about that night. She sent it so fast, it almost felt like she hadn’t.
A day went by. Then two. Even after a week, it felt impossible that he wouldn’t respond.
Then Us Weekly published a photo of Noah walking Bud in Central Park…with Lucy Parker, his fellow HBO starlet and PETA ambassador. They looked so cute together it lit AJ’s body on fire.
And that’s when she realized: Noah had been letting her down gently. He wasn’t even to blame. He’d confided in her as a friend, then turned her down multiple times. She was the one who had forced them to go further. Just look at his hand in Lucy Parker’s.
It wasn’t a relationship Noah didn’t want; it was AJ.
You deserve a normal life, that’s what he’d told her. Well, it was time she fucking got one.
Brian McKenzie was twenty-eight, a fellow middle child, and a sports reporter for ESPN who traveled regularly for work. He was an exemplary physical specimen, a former minor league baseball player who still had the body, tall and built, with kind blue eyes.
Apart from a small romantic streak about the Brooklyn Dodgers, he harbored no poetic tendencies. He was smart, and dear, and laughed easily, and AJ just knew he was the one—or, he would have been in a world where Noah didn’t exist.
They had met at the Stag’s Head on the Fourth of July. Brian approached AJ at the bar. He didn’t recognize her, which for AJ was a plus, though he would later shyly admit to seeing “No.”
He quickly identified her as a former athlete, and AJ identified him as what her brother Patrick would call “a good guy.” After talking about the Brooklyn Dodgers in earnest for twenty minutes, he invited her back to his apartment to watch the fireworks from his roof.
AJ was the one to initiate and found Brian to be a willing and enthusiastic sexual partner who did not make repulsive noises, sweat too much, or stare needlessly into her eyes.
“That was…wow,” he said after. AJ let him hold her until their hearts slowed.
Then she got up, slipped into the bathroom, and cried. Her body had done everything it was supposed to, but it was all wrong. Noah knew her by heart. He felt what she felt. Anybody else was just a…surface. Fuck. AJ had to get out of here. She couldn’t do that again. Ever.
But when she returned, Brian looked up from the bed, and he seemed so…
light. Hopeful. He was made of possibility, and it showed in every toned plane of his body.
There were no ticking time bombs here. There were no clocks at all.
And as their eyes met, AJ saw how easy it would be with someone like Brian.
So easy to hit every normal benchmark of a good and happy life.
Maybe she was being too hasty, she told herself. Maybe she should stay the night. Maybe she could get used to Brian McKenzie.
Maybe she just needed a drink.
In comedy, it was common knowledge that two beers was the ideal level for a set; you were still sharp enough to make connections while reaping the benefits of lower inhibitions and higher confidence. AJ had always participated out of a sense of camaraderie, not necessity.
That was different now. The pressures of her job were so high, she did need a drink or two at the end of the day in a way that sometimes left her wondering if she had misjudged her father.
Alcohol dulled out inconvenient feelings. Her nerves about her sketches, for one. The regretful twinge she felt whenever someone else got a big laugh from a line she’d written, for another. Then there was trying to forget Noah—alcohol really helped with that.
And AJ did like Brian. There was something about him that felt like home.
Perhaps it was that he drank while watching sports, which was most nights.
When he was in town, the two of them often drank companionably at his apartment or hers.
Unlike most, AJ actually lost weight when drinking, which only reinforced that she wasn’t doing anything all that unhealthy.
If AJ ever scared herself, say, by racing home to crack a beer or occasionally browning out, she was able to stand on the knowledge that she never drank during the day.
Did she sometimes get the urge to shotgun a Bud in the toilet stall during dress rehearsals?
You betcha. But that expressed itself through obsessive counting down, i.e. , One more hour, then I can have one.
For example, in AJ’s third season at SNL, when she saw that Noah Drew was slated to be their next celebrity host, she comforted herself with the thought of her next drink.
Monday pitch meetings were a crowded affair, anointed by body odor and competitive spirit. There were no assigned seats. Everyone crammed into Lorne Michaels’s office and found a perch.
When AJ slid in a little after nine a.m., Noah was already in the room; her body flushed instantly, recognizing his presence before her eyes confirmed it. AJ hid behind her large iced coffee as she sidled up to Dave, who had saved her a spot leaning against the window.
“All right, everyone, good to see you,” said Dani. “Noah, great to have you.”
“Great to be here,” said Noah. AJ squirmed. That voice should come with a warning label.
They hadn’t interacted in three years. Not counting AJ’s unanswered email, which…ugh. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from scanning him for signs of change.
He was seated beside Lorne’s currently vacant desk in a black sweater, jeans, and tennis shoes, seemingly healthy as ever.
He’d regained most of the weight he’d dropped to play the gaunt hit man, Nathan Mercer, in The Contract; his biceps looked amazing.
AJ lowered her gaze before it reached his face, suddenly aware of how many people were watching her watch him.
Dave noticed it, too. “Just to acknowledge the elephant in the room,” he said, “Noah and I were once in a cult show together and things were a bit steamy.”
Everyone cracked up including AJ, who flashed Dave a grateful smile, then glanced at Noah. God fucking damn it, no one should be that handsome. He was looking at her already, eyes glinting, and AJ felt a faint energetic hum, like an old favorite song playing in another room.
Shyly, she smiled at him, and he grinned. Her cheeks warmed, both because she’d always loved that dimple and because she knew she was visibly hungover. Not that she cared what he thought.
“Right,” said Dani. “Let’s get the ball rolling. Who wants to jump in? Noah, you’re welcome to share any thoughts.”
Then they were off. Pitch meetings were a lot like dodgeball; the writers unleashed a torrent of sketch ideas, and sooner or later every pitch either got shot down or pinned to the wall.
Each writer was allowed to bring two pitches, maximum. AJ usually brought two, but today she only had one—enough to show her colleagues she was making an effort while significantly lowering her chances of having to work closely with Noah all week.
“I mean, I’m just going to say it,” said Grady, one of the most senior writers. He had been on the show longer than Dani and thought he should be in charge. “We’ve got three cast members from Into the Blue in this room. I feel like we should do something with that. Maybe ‘No’?”
Dani shook her head. “It’s played out.”
She didn’t look at AJ as she said it, but AJ knew she was protecting her. Dani wasn’t warm and fuzzy; she didn’t use terms like “work wife” or celebrate Galentine’s Day. But AJ had never seen her pass up an opportunity, large or small, to help another woman in comedy.
“Something else, then,” Grady pushed. “Something with the horses. You could do the horses, but with sheep.”
Dani frowned. “That’s pretty undercooked.”
One of the reasons Grady wasn’t in charge was that he liked to leave a lot of room in his sketches, which the cast loved but the producers hated. Every second of SNL was scripted and the script was law. Hosts and actors had been banned from the show for so much as ad-libbing.
Grady didn’t like being told no. “These things always work themselves out.”
Dani looked at him over her glasses. “Right. Because we stay here until three a.m. all week…working them out.” She pivoted to AJ. “Age, what’ve you got?”
“Now I kind of wish we’d done sheep in the original,” AJ muttered. She got a few laughs and noted the usual bristle among her mostly male senior colleagues. She was also aware of Noah sitting up when she spoke, and of feeling that, with him present, she had another ally in the room.
“I did have one idea: ‘The Club.’ You know how in The Contract, Nathan is always reading in his room…what if we did a book club with a bunch of other hit men?”
This got a few twitters and a bunch of nods. Noah chuckled.