Television Romance

Costumes

"I can't believe my sketch bombed," Bill muttered as soon as he crossed the threshold out of Table. The decidedly-not-Star-Wars-gang made its weekly pilgrimage from Table to Four in typical exhausted fashion.

"Next week," Vian consoled. There was always another week at LTV. Both a blessing and a curse.

"Easy for you to say," Bill replied, "You and Jerry's sketch is definitely in."

"What if we do the Scooby gang? We could make Sam dress up as someone, then we'd be five," Juliet said, switching contexts entirely.

"Sam's already got a costume," Vian replied.

"Really? He said that?"

"Yup. He also said you should watch what you eat. 'Cause of all the cavities or whatever."

"I don't have cavities!"

"That's what they all say," Jerry intoned. He was the last to step into Four but the first to be seated.

"Oh, really, now you believe that I was at the dentist? Ooh!"—Juliet was suddenly distracted from her indignation by a good idea—"What if we do Greek?"

"You can if you want but I want Thai. I have a gift card," Bill said. On the couch next to her, twisted behind him to peer down at New York City's pedestrians and taxi drivers.

"Not Greek food, idiot. For the costume. We could all dress up as Greek gods."

"I call Hades," Jerry said.

"I wanna be Poseidon," Bill said without particular excitement.

"Whatever floats your boat, Chewbacca," Juliet said.

"I do. I'm Poseidon."

"Good, so it's settled."

"Wait, who am I supposed to be?" Vian asked. She was feeling rather left behind, having forgotten all the Greek mythology she learned in middle school. She vaguely recalled Apollo as having something to do with the sun, which she supposed made sense. Wait, is he the guy with the chariot? Or is that the one with wings on his shoes?

"Be whoever you want. Be Aphrodite." There was nothing more Juliet then insisting something was someone else's choice and then offering specific advice. She was a little bit of a control freak, as it were. Well, a lot of a control freak, actually, and good at it too, which was why she controlled the costumes and why her sketches always got into the show.

"Isn't she the goddess of sex appeal? I can't do that. I don't think that's even allowed in a workspace."

"Sure you can," Juliet encouraged, "She's also the goddess of love. And procreation, which you've apparently been practicing here at our sacred workspace."

"Burn!" Bill interjected loudly. He looked down at his phone.

"Michael just texted, 'Did Jay call the move for Halloween yet?'"

"Tell him that the group chat can figure it out for themselves since it's so fancy."

"You realize that the group only has three people in it right? And two of them are standing in this room."

"I told you not to tell her," Jerry told Bill.

"Is Sadie coming to the afterparty?" Vian asked. Jerry nodded.

"Good, I was going to invite Richard."

"How does the lawyer feel about Halloween?"

"He hates it. But he'll dress up for me." Vian smiled sweetly.

The intern with the orange hair, who had, over the summer, become the intern with the bubblegum pink hair, pressed the door to Four open.

"That's 'em," she said, turned around, and left. In her place was the host, a gorgeous 5'8'' with tanned brown skin and thick black hair.

"Hey," she said.

"Hi," Juliet said, "Hi. I- Uh, nice to meet you."

"Hi, Juliet. We actually just met at the table read." Juliet nodded, a little frantically.

"Anyways," the host continued, "I just wanted to see if you guys had time to talk about the lamp sketch. I had a couple of questions." Vian looked at Jerry and Jerry looked at Vian. That was their sketch.

"Sure," Vian said.

"Do you mind if we do it on the fourteenth floor? I have a costume fitting in like ten minutes."

"No problem. After you," Jerry said. He grabbed a copy of the sketch off his desk and followed her and Vian out of the room.

"Nice you to, um, meet at me," Bill said in an impressive impression of Juliet's voice.

"Shut up! It wasn't that bad!"

"Jules, the temperature in this room dropped five degrees."

"It couldn't have been worse than that one time when the singer hosted. What was her name? Angela? Ariana?"

"We don't need to talk about that."

"And you miraculously fell out of your chair during Table."

"Okay, okay, point taken." They were both silent. There was nothing to do now until the set list came out, except maybe eat dinner.

"I have an idea."

"Thai food?"

"What? No. Are you ever not thinking of food?"

"The amount of negatives makes me hesitant to answer."

"Whatever. I have an idea that will cheer us both up."

"Why do I need cheering up?"

"'Cause your sketch bombed."

"Wow, great, thanks for reminding me."

"Sorry. Anyways, will you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Prank Sam."

"Oh. Duh. You should have led with that."

"We're going to need an intern."

"All the interns are busy doing actual work."

"Why?"

"Who knows? It's their job?"

"Ugh. Fine. We'll just have to be stealthy. You still have that extreme hot sauce in your dressing room?"

"The one that's supposed to induce labor?"

"Great, go grab it, will you?"