Noah was literally being led away by the hand by a member of the wardrobe department named Peggy who always escorted the host during performances. He wordlessly held out his free right hand for a fist bump, and I brought mine up to his. Given how overwrought I was about him, I might have expected sparks to fly at the point of contact; they did not, and then he was gone, off to wherever Peggy was taking him next.
As Bob and I walked toward Stage 3, I could tell when he got a response on his headset, though I couldn’t hear it. He turned to me and said, “Annabel’s not here. How about if Lynette or Bianca stands in for her?”
What a flake, I thought, and said, “Bianca.” Bianca was a first-year cast member in her early twenties, meaning Annabel’s age or even younger.
Bob said into his headset, “Sally says Bianca. You know where she is?” After a pause, he said, “Great, send her out.”
And then The Danny Horst Rule started: Gregor and Viv on their date at the restaurant, smiling and laughing, Josh in his cop uniform appearing to arrest them. My preoccupation with Annabel’s absence made it hard to evaluate how it was going, especially when Danny entered. About thirty seconds later, Bianca walked on wearing Crocs, jeans, and a black crop top and announced that she was Susan B. Anthony, reading the cue cards so smoothly that I doubted an outsider would know she’d been informed of her participation in this role in the last five minutes. When the sketch ended, I said, “Thanks so much for pinch-hitting, Bianca.” I made quick eye contact with Danny. “That was solid overall,” I continued, “although, Josh, you came in a little late. Don’t wait for Viv and Gregor to get through their lines. Just charge in and interrupt them.”
“Got it,” Josh said.
“You want to see it again?” Bob asked me.
Was it my imagination or was a weird energy coming off Danny? “I think we’re good,” I said.
As everyone dispersed, Bianca approached me. “I just want to tell you,” she said, “this sketch is a really important statement. It’s funny, but it’s also, like, what the fuck? Because the rule is a real thing here. I’m glad you’re calling it out, and I’m glad that now I get to be part of it.”
“Oh—” I paused. “Thank you. But I’m sorry, the plan is still for Annabel to be in the sketch for dress and air. I think she’s just running late.”
Almost as quickly as Bianca’s face fell, she composed it again. “Yeah, of course,” she said. “No, that makes sense.”
“I really appreciate you filling in, and I’d love to work with you on something else soon—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Bianca said quickly. “Yeah, same.” She darted away.
As the next sketch started—it was on Home Base and was the one where Viv was a nun and Hakeem was a priest—I checked my email again and saw that Autumn had replied. Her email read: Annabel is not here.
You don’t say, I thought. I walked to the bathroom—my next sketch, Blabbermouth, wasn’t until the eleven slot—and I felt the awkwardness of the misunderstanding with Bianca clinging to me as I peed and washed my hands. I’d never been a cast member, but it had once been my first year at TNO, and I remembered how it had seemed as if whether or not I got a break was determined not by anything I did but by what other, more senior people allowed.
When I reentered the studio, Noah was performing his first song, which was the one that he either had or hadn’t been serenading me with. Because of the lighting, I knew he couldn’t see beyond the first couple rows of chairs, now arranged into orderly lines. I stood behind the floor seats with my arms folded, and as I Iistened to him sing and watched him play guitar, I felt the respect I often felt at TNO for people who not only knew how to do things I couldn’t but who were so good at those things that they made them look easy.
After Noah’s first song, I stayed where I was standing for News Desk, with Danny deadpan in his coat and tie. As he walked onto the set to take his seat behind the desk, the pale pink joggers he wore on the bottom half of his body instead of suit pants were visible. I wondered what Annabel’s excuse was—perhaps her aromatherapy massage had run over, or maybe she was having a plasma facial. Not unusually, Danny barely cracked a smile as he delivered his lines.
Then came Noah’s Choreography sketch, which was fun and silly, and which concluded with Noah tearing away his shirt and pants to reveal the black leather shorts and midriff-exposing leather vest, meaning that what was really being revealed were his six-pack abs and toned arms and legs; his forearm tattoo was barely noticeable. As if the sight of his golden body wasn’t sufficiently stimulating, during what would be a camera cutaway, a prop guy placed a long green snake around Noah’s neck and shoulders. It took me a few seconds to realize the snake was rubber. Noah gripped both ends of it and wiggled his hips in a faux sensual way that I didn’t find as ridiculous as I knew I was supposed to, or maybe it was because he wasn’t afraid of being ridiculous that he was so attractive.
Then it was time for Blabbermouth, and though Noah and Henrietta were high-spirited as their silliness culminated in the airplane bit, I felt a deep, uneasy knowledge that the sketch wasn’t quite good enough; it wasn’t making a point that earlier iterations of Blabbermouth hadn’t made better. I also knew that I wasn’t going to start wildly revising this close to dress and air. Some writers kept making changes for as long as they could, but I believed a point arrived when potential gains in quality came at the expense of the cast’s familiarity and comfort with the script.
After Blabbermouth was Catchphrase’s horrible sketch, during which I had the unpleasant experience of realizing Catchphrase could simultaneously unicycle and juggle, which impressed me in spite of myself; then Noah’s second musical act, the song called “Inbox Zero”; then the Bathroom Cabinet sketch, which seemed to me to be about 75 percent of where it needed to be writing-wise; then the Three Tenors. Then Noah reappeared on Home Base and said, “Thank you for coming to this rehearsal that was perfectly smooth in all ways.” Over the speakers, I heard the assistant director Penelope say, “And that’s a wrap on the run-through, folks.”
Bob, Nigel, Autumn, Penelope, and Elliot converged on the floor in front of Home Base, and Noah hopped offstage and began speaking with them. I tried to discreetly approach Autumn from the back, touching her elbow. When she turned, I murmured, “Annabel is still coming for dress and air, right?”
Autumn frowned and shook her head. The other people in the conversation all had gone quiet and were looking at me.
I said, “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on with Annabel Lily.”
“Annabel’s not coming today,” Autumn said. “Period.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because something came up for her.”
“I can reach out to her,” Noah said.
“Or Danny can,” I said, just as Bob said, “Noah, you’ll have your hands quite full between now and air.”
“It’s no big deal,” Noah said. “I kind of know her.”