They shot the video in two hours and edited it in another two.
Then AJ called up her little brother, Mike, who was always awake, live gaming on his YouTube channel. When AJ asked him to share the video with his three hundred thousand followers, he agreed.
It worked because it was up first thing on Black Friday, and because it was them, Ana and Pete from the original show, and because it was incredibly dumb, but also incredibly funny.
By the end of Black Friday, “Snow” had a million views.
By Saturday morning, it had three.
By Monday, AJ and Dave had been called in to meet Dani Chan, one of the head writers atSNL.
“You scooped us,” said Dani, pulling her straight black hair into abutterfly clip. “I like ‘Snow.’ It’s wholesome, family friendly.”
“What were you going to do?” asked AJ.
Dani smirked. “ ‘Flow,’ ” she said. “They’d be in the pose, and then she’d look down and see she’d gotten her period. I can see why you chose ‘Snow’ though, considering it’s you.”
AJ had been pulling together an application packet forSNLfor three years; she was speechless to now find herself summoned here for something she’d done on a whim.
Dani crossed her arms. “You made up all that shit inInto the Blue,right? Like with the horses?”
AJ nodded.
Dani gave her a long look. “Damn,” she said. She walked behind her desk and began to rummage in one of the drawers. “Damn. Are you an idiot?”
“What?” said AJ.
“You just let them have that?”
AJ stared at her, agape.
Dani rolled her eyes. “Get an agent,” she said, pulling out a business card and handing it to AJ. “Like now. And then have them call me and tell them I want to hire you as a mid-season replacement.”
She handed the card to AJ and opened the door for her to leave. AJ didn’t know whether to be elated or terrified, a feeling that she would soon learn went hand in hand with this job.
AJ knew she shouldbe upset by the things her new agent, Molly Magnusson of WMA, was telling her aboutInto the Blue. Like how she should have gotten a higher episodic fee and the producer thing in writing. But it was hard to be bitter when she was about to start her dream job.
Ian was so unsurprised when AJ gave notice, it almost took the fun out of it. Almost.
During her first season, AJ worked mostly on digital shorts—that was why she and Dave had been hired, to helpSNLbridge the gap to a younger demographic with original online content. Using their signingbonuses and savings fromInto 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 aboutInto the Blueor 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 rankingNOW 4fifth of allNOWs. Then she addedIf 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.
ThenUs Weeklypublished 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.Shewas the one who had forced them to go further.Just lookat 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.
