Chapter 7 New York, New York #5
Noah shrugged. “Can’t complain,” he said. “Right now the big drama is figuring out my next project. I’m reading a really strange script about General Custer.”
AJ shook her head. “Nope, no thank you.”
Noah laughed. “Not even if he had secret homosexual yearnings?”
“That’s not a get out of jail free card,” said AJ.
Noah snorted. “What do you think I should do?”
AJ considered. “Something that shows how bright you are. Oscar Wilde or Lord Byron.”
Noah looked intensely amused by this suggestion.
“What?” said AJ.
Noah shrugged. “Byron was only five-nine.”
AJ burst out laughing. “Noah, do you have the heights of the romantic poets memorized?”
“And the more atrocious Civil War generals,” said Noah. “An actor’s work is never done.”
The way he said it reminded AJ of Eudora. AJ’s feelings on her former mentor had undergone a transformation since their last conversation. She wanted to ask after her. There was so much she wanted to ask, to say—none of it appropriate. So instead she went with “How’s your health?”
He gave her a sad smile. “Everything is stable for the moment, thanks for asking.”
“Well, you look…good,” she said and immediately regretted it.
Noah’s expression was unreadable. “So do you,” he said finally.
AJ was shivering; she crossed her arms. Noah raised his hand, and for an instant, AJ thought he might touch her. Then he seemed to think better of it and closed his food container instead.
“We better get back,” said AJ, disappointed. “Dave will think I kidnapped you.”
“Dave wouldn’t think that,” said Noah, taking her trash and stacking it on top of his. “He knows I’d follow you anywhere.”
He said it easily, and AJ pretended that it hadn’t stopped her heart, and they turned away, leaving Atlas to contend with heavier things.
It wasn’t until Noah strode onto home base to deliver his opening monologue on Saturday night that the tension began to lift.
AJ had made it. Barely. The effort it took to be around Noah and not stare or cry or reveal that her mind had become a never-ending sizzle reel of everything he’d ever done to her was beyond the scope of her paid time off.
This was how women wound up sequestered in the Swiss Alps in the care of Freud’s lesser-known relatives.
But it was done. The table reads and fittings and rehearsals were behind them, and as AJ watched Noah launch into his cold open, she initiated her own final countdown. Just ninety more minutes, a quick after-party, and the agonizing Band-Aid rip of his departure, and then AJ could exhale.
With one possible cashmere-clad caveat: Noah had invited Eudora as his guest. She was seated primly in the second row. She looked smaller than AJ remembered her, cheeks sunken, but she still knew how to dress. Tonight’s caramel-colored turtleneck-and-slacks combo was a classic.
As AJ stood off camera near Stage 5 with the rest of the writers, she couldn’t help feeling that old thrill at Glimmette’s presence. She doubted Eudora was aware of her, which was fine. AJ had no idea what she’d even say if given the chance.
She watched Eudora smirk as Noah got his first laugh on a line about how seriously he took his roles.
AJ smiled too. Noah was such a natural. A lot of screen actors didn’t know the first thing about performing in front of a live audience, more intimidated by the three hundred people in this theater than the millions watching from home.
AJ could relate. But Noah came from a long line of stage actors, and he spoke seamlessly into the camera while engaging the room.
And he looked incredible doing it. As he gestured, AJ could see the sculpting of his muscles beneath his black long-sleeved shirt. Heat flashed through her as she remembered collapsing onto his shoulder, the way his arms had wrapped around her after they’d both—
Just then, Noah glanced at her. AJ hadn’t been prepared, and he caught her staring at him in unselfconscious adoration.
Shit.
He did a double take, his eyes locking onto hers, and now time was slowing down. The studio lights had begun to dim, the ambient noise lowering half a decibel.
SHIT.
Quickly, decisively, Noah turned away from the cue cards.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Ana?” said Noah.
AJ felt the eyes of her colleagues like searchlights. Her heartbeat was on blast in her own ears.
Improvisation was forbidden on SNL—Noah was going to get himself banned.
AJ looked around for Dani—she must still be backstage. What was AJ supposed to do? She would stay put. Noah would see she wasn’t coming and fold this back into the monologue, and—
“Ana Tar?”
God, their training was something else. His voice was like a hypnotic trigger; every muscle in AJ’s body clenched, willing her to join him onstage.
More than that, she could feel him urging her—for the first time in years, he’d initiated a scene and the channel between them was opening.
AJ should fight this. She needed to fight this.
Think. The producers would be furious. But this could be ratings gold. They were the duo from “No,” which pretty much guaranteed this would go viral. Plus, Arho was a monster ship and Ana and Rho hadn’t been together publicly since Into the Blue.
Wait. Dani would be incensed—but Noah was the one going rogue. AJ was just responding.
Shit. The last thing AJ needed was more online attention. Or any attention. Especially when she was wearing a green T-shirt and glasses, with her hair in a messy bun.
“Ana, is that you?”
Your scene partner is your life, Ezell had written in Laughter & Death. If this is to work, you must follow them wherever they go. You must follow them to the end, into death if necessary.
AJ couldn’t leave her scene partner hanging.
As she made her way to the platform, Noah’s eyes never left her face. She stepped into the light, distantly aware of sporadic applause. Warily, she surveyed him.
“Rho, you made it through the wormhole,” she said.
But Rho was barely there, a passing shade, a suggestion. It was Noah who stepped toward AJ now, grasping her shoulders, all traces of politeness gone. AJ swayed under his touch, but he held her firm, eyes burning as he said, more quietly than he should have, “I was so scared I lost you.”
The words wrecked AJ. For a split second, she thought she heard a howl pierce that vast darkness inside him. Noah’s gaze was blackening with need. AJ felt the last of her resistance give way.
“You didn’t,” she said. “I’m here.”
Noah inhaled sharply. “You have no idea how much I missed you,” he said, his voice breaking.
And then he kissed her. AJ’s eyes slammed shut as she felt their tongues collide.
She wrapped her arms around his neck as his hands engulfed her back.
Yes. The audience’s ruckus shook the lighting rig, but AJ didn’t care.
She was kissing Noah, and he was kissing her, nothing else in her life was real compared to this, and fuck, it felt so good, they had to stop, they really had to stop—
He pulled back at the last possible second. “I almost didn’t recognize you,” he said, catching his breath as he gestured to her hair and her glasses.
“I know,” said AJ, peeling them off. “I’ve had to adapt.” This got a laugh. “Life in the year 3500 is a little different.”
Noah offered her his hand. “Yeah, now that you mention it, this crale seems…off.”
As the flight path glimmered to life before them, AJ placed her hand in his.
“Oh, this isn’t a space whale,” she said. “It’s a radioactive Super Rat. Welcome to New York!”
There was nothing in existence like playing with Noah. He seemed incapable of dropping her hand, so they walked together around the set, building out a world in which humans were forced to live inside giant rats after the Fire Siege at Ikea, Red Hook, rendered the city uninhabitable.
“It’s not so bad,” AJ said, gesturing to the iconic SNL clock. “She swallowed that last year, so now we know what time it is.”
They were not standing amid the best comedians in the business for nothing. Within a minute, Dave was walking on. “Guys, you made it!” he said, giving them both massive kisses on the lips and joining hands with AJ.
Now, like an amoeba, the three of them walked across the set until they were joined by Katie Jaffe, one of their star cast members, who had somehow gotten her hands on a Star Trek costume in the last ninety seconds. “Captain’s log,” she said, joining the amoeba. “I’m no longer alone.”
As they made their way back center stage, the crane camera operator motioned to wrap it up. Noah looked at AJ. “Ana, are you getting a telepathic message—”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s the Super Rat. She says we’ve got a great show for you this evening, with musical guest Léa de Lonval and—”
“Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”
“What the fuck was that?” said Dani the second AJ stepped off camera. Noah was already changing for his next sketch.
AJ bowed her head, ashen. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I had no idea that was coming.”
Dani shook her head. “That nepotistic chode,” she said. “He’s lucky you went up there. And you’re lucky he didn’t do anything super problematic.”
The rest of the show passed in a blur. Noah was in the zone. After the cold open, he stayed strictly on book and delivered a bravura performance in every sketch. “The Club” was third in the lineup and got a decent response from the crowd, but “Scrooge McDrew” stole the show.
As the audience roared at joke after joke about the Drew legacy, AJ watched Dani’s expression darken.
Nepotistic chode. That was how Noah’s behavior appeared: Noah, the dauphin of America’s greatest acting dynasty, had gone on SNL and, in the height of privileged arrogance, decided the rules didn’t apply to him.
But what if he hadn’t done it out of arrogance? What if he hadn’t done it on purpose?
Some nights when AJ missed Noah, like really missed him, she would go online and surf the forums for Huntington’s patients and their caregivers. Which is how she knew that impulsivity was one of the most prevalent early changes in HD patients.