That week’s official after-party, before the after-after party or any parties after that, was at a huge fancy old-school French restaurant. It featured a slightly trendy bar on the lower level—not a bar that a twenty-three-year-old who lived in Bushwick would consider trendy, but one that, say, a thirty-six-year-old who lived on the Upper West Side might. Every official after-party was a weird blend of quasi-mandatory work event, necessary emotional release, celebrity scene, and 1:30 A.M. dinner.
Almost immediately after arriving, Henrietta, Lisa, and I went through the buffet—Henrietta had once told me this was the one meal of the week when she ate in a completely unrestrained way—then we sat in a big round booth already occupied by Viv; Dr. Theo; Bailey; Bailey’s partner, Sterling; Oliver; Oliver’s manager, whose name I didn’t know; Oliver’s ex-girlfriend Bettina; and Oliver’s cousin, whose name I also didn’t know. Even as the cast members and I debriefed about the show—who’d messed up their lines, who’d broken character, which sketches had been received more or less enthusiastically than we’d expected—I wondered what Dr. Theo made of being at this place, at this hour, surrounded by people a minimum of a decade and a half younger than he was. In person, he was as handsome as the online photo I’d seen or maybe more so: medium height, slim, with closely cut salt-and-pepper hair and warm brown eyes. He seemed simultaneously calm and hard to read. Viv was on his left, and I was on his right, and as the debriefing continued, I said, “I hope the inside baseball isn’t boring you to death.”
“Not at all,” he said. “It’s fun to see behind the curtain.”
“You’re an ophthalmologist, right?” I said.
“I am.”
“What’s that like?”
He laughed. “It’s good.”
I laughed, too. “I guess you already know this, but people’s eyes are important to them.”
“I do know that,” he said. “And it’s true.”
“Although I always forget to do that thing where you’re supposed to look twenty feet away from your computer screen for twenty seconds every twenty minutes. Are you from New York?”
He shook his head. “I’ve lived here since right after med school, but I grew up in St. Louis.”
“Wait, really? I’m from Kansas City.”
We turned to look at each other—we both were holding forks over our plates—and he said, “Well, hey.”
“Do you get back home much? I just go a couple times a year.”
“I go for the holidays. My parents and sisters are still there, and my nieces and nephews. As a matter of fact, my oldest niece is now at NYU, but the rest of my family is there.”
“Viv went to NYU,” I said. “As you probably know.”
From Dr. Theo’s other side, Viv said, “Viv went where?”
“Viv went to NYU,” I said. “Where, if I’m not mistaken, she was an econ major and the star of the student improv group.”
To Dr. Theo, Viv said, “Sally moonlights as my publicist. I don’t know if she mentioned that.”
“It’s not a job,” I said. “It’s a calling.” But even as we joked around, my gaze was drawn across the expanse of the restaurant’s dining room to where Noah sat in a booth exactly like ours with Nigel, Elliot, Autumn, Noah’s sister, one of the guitarists who’d performed with him, and both of the goateed guys I’d seen in his dressing room. They all were speaking animatedly, and I thought how relieved Noah must feel that the show had gone well. I wondered if I’d end up saying goodbye to him. I could approach him, of course, but did I really have anything to say?
For the next hour, I continuously monitored Noah’s location and activity, neither of which changed much, except for when he rose from the booth as Franklin Freeman, who was the house band’s director, was passing by. Noah heartily clapped Franklin on the back, then they embraced and talked for a few minutes. Would I ever see Noah again? The most plausible time would be if he returned to host in two or three or seven years, if I still was working at TNO, which I didn’t think I would be.
“Sally,” Viv was saying, then, “Sally?” I turned. “Want a ride to Blosca?” This was the dive bar on the Lower East Side where the night’s first after-after party was being held. The bar was down a narrow staircase to a basement level, and the party would be much smaller, more like forty people instead of the hundred milling around this one, and the main attractions were a pool table and cheap drinks (somewhat astonishingly, we all, even the cast members who’d been driven there in Escalades, had to pay for our own drinks at the first after-party). My first year at TNO, I’d been too intimidated to attend the after-after-party, then from my second to my sixth or seventh years, I’d attended all of them, though I ended the night there instead of going on to strip clubs rumored to be the sites of after-after-after parties. A few times, I’d found myself at a diner around 7 or 8 A.M., but that was the extent of my adventurousness. And in the past couple years, I often skipped the after-after-party altogether because I was more enticed by my own bed.
But Viv was already wearing her jacket, looking at me expectantly, still waiting to hear if I wanted a ride.
“Sure,” I said.
SUNDAY, 3:09 A.M.
At Blosca, I went straight to the bar for a drink, turned around, and almost collided with Noah Brewster.
“Hey!” He smiled broadly.
“Hey!” I said back. “Congratulations! You were great.” Though I wasn’t drunk, I’d just taken a large, reassuring sip of vodka tonic, following two drinks at the earlier party.
Noah leaned over the bar and asked for a club soda—presumably, he was completely sober—and I heard the bartender say, “Love your music, man,” and Noah said, “Thanks, man,” and then he turned back to me and said, “I wasn’t sure if you’d be here.” Even in the dim lighting, his eyes were bright blue, and his blond surfer hair was, well, convincingly hairlike. Sometimes at after-parties, the hosts would still be wearing their TV makeup, but it looked like he’d wiped his off.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d be here,” I said and held out my arms. “But here we both are.” Not that he’d know it, but this was as theatrical, and as tipsy, as I got. “Are you exhausted or still running on adrenaline?”
“I don’t know how you guys do it week in and week out.”
“But being the host and the musical guest is the craziest of all possible worlds. I could never do either, let alone both. And you really were awesome. Choreographer was fantastic.”
“Well, you were right about the Cheesemonger.”
“No, you get credit,” I said. “It’s all in the delivery.” Tipsiness notwithstanding, I already was aware of monopolizing a celebrity’s time when I was no longer professionally useful.
This was when Noah said, “Now will you admit you’ve never really listened to my music?”
I genuinely laughed. “If I hadn’t, how would I have written the sketch? Also, I’m a human being in the world. Do you think there’s any man, woman, or child who hasn’t heard ‘Making Love in July’ while lying in the chair at the dentist’s office?”
“Yeah, exactly. I mean that you haven’t listened beyond the bare minimum. You haven’t listened on purpose.” He still seemed to be good-naturedly teasing as opposed to needily grasping for a compliment.
“Also not true,” I said. “I love ‘The Bishop’s Garden’ and ‘All Regrets.’?”