Chapter Text
Deborah is floating on a high.
She can still barely believe that this is finally happening. Everything is coming together, her life’s work, her biggest dream and most important goal is not just within reach but actually coming true, she will host Late Night and it is going to be marvelous.
Everyone will see her now. No-one will be able to deny that she has made it, that she is more than just an old stand-up insult comic hack, more than a failed marriage and a terrible mother.
She is Deborah fucking Vance.
More than just the show, everything in her life is going her way now. DJ and her are good, great even, no longer barely on speaking terms. She is going to be a grandmother and while the reminder of her age still makes her shudder, she can’t wait to be a part of the little one’s life.
And Kathy... For decades, Deborah had thought that she didn’t have it in her to forgive her or welcome her back into her life even the tiniest bit, but Ava was right when she made her invite her for Christmas, it wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as she would have expected, either. Not that she is ever going to tell Ava that; she’d get a big head, and she’s insufferable enough already.
Smiling to herself, Deborah thinks about the young writer and the fact that Ava is going to keep working for her, with her, as her head writer. It makes her almost giddy with happiness, though Deborah tries not to linger on that and what it might mean. She and Ava just fit, and they work together perfectly, it only makes sense to keep her on staff and to be relieved that Ava wants that, too.
Her good mood lasts until she is on her way to the meeting with Winnie Landell and the network staff, all the way until she is in the room and sees the number of people that will be working on Late Night with .
Deborah tries to be stoic, but her heart is beating faster and she hopes no-one can see that she is sweating, if anyone makes a menopause joke about her right now, she might snap.
There are so many people in the room.
Deborah isn’t usually prone to any kind of social anxiety, and that isn’t really the case now, either. It’s not the number of people she is facing that are the problem, it’s what they represent:
So much responsibility.
Before, Deborah had only ever been directly responsible for her own staff, a handful of people at most, and if she failed, bombed, her material didn’t work, she could start over the next day, nothing ever felt like it could entirely ruin her.
The time she had prepared to be a guest at Late Night had come close, if she hadn’t even been a good guest in the show she had wanted to host for so long, it definitely would have felt ruinous... but even that didn’t match up to what she feels now.
If her show isn’t at least as good as her predecessors, the whole world will know that she is a failure.
Barely listening to Winnie Landell introducing the different departments, Deborah awkwardly smiles at them all, only raising an eyebrow when she hears that there is a whole team dedicated to ‘queer social’. She wants to ask whether that is a normal taskforce for the network, or whether it has something to do with her, she knows she has a lot of gay fans, that has to be the reason... after all, it can’t have anything to do with her directly, now can it? Even in her on-stage jokes about having sex with men so bad she’d prefer Melissa Etheridge, she had always made sure to keep it just that, a joke, funny precisely because she isn’t attracted to women.
Winnie goes on about sales and whatnot and Deborah tries to focus on her words, on planning her show – her show, what had seemed so much like a dream come true seems more and more like a nightmare.
Maybe it would have been better not to ever get it. To keep the anticipation, the working towards it, keeping that goal open and almost-achievable...
But she has achieved it, and now she has to deal with the consequences.
She will have to be good. Better than good, she will have to be perfect. She can’t ruin this a second time, if they fire her again she might not survive it. And after what happened to her the first time she was meant to host Late Night, she knows that no matter how many contracts have been signed and how many assurances have been made, it can all be over before you can protest or blink if a single thing goes wrong.
Had it just been the bad publicity, Frank’s lies about the house burning down, that had cost her the job the first time around? If she had been just a bit better, a bit funnier... would the network have kept her, if she had been worth it?
She had been young, pretty, funny, popular. Now she is old, barely well liked enough to survive some bad press about some of her older and more insensitive material, barely funny enough to scratch up enough material for a special without a writer helping her along every step of the way.
What if she isn’t good enough? What if she isn’t funny enough?
At the very least, Late Night has enough of an established routine and long-time staff that Deborah isn’t thrown into cold water on her own. She can follow the routines, listen to the staff that has been there before her, watch old shows to see what worked and what didn’t. She’ll give it her own personal note, of course she will, but it will still be Late Night. A recognizable brand. Safe, steady, secure and reliable – without quite so much risk attached.
All of this and more is going through Deborah’s head as she is leaning her hands against the kitchen counter, trying to remind herself that it is going to be fine. She can get this under control.
She has been trying to sort through her things, but she keeps getting sidetracked by her thoughts, her worries.
Deborah knows that she has a decision to make, and no matter what she chooses, she thinks it might break her.
“Hey, D.V.! Doing some reno?” Ava walks in with a bounce to her step, and Deborah immediately busies herself with something on the counter, trying to look fine and act inconspicuous.
“Yeah, I think I – I have to.” She just barely manages to stop herself from flinching away when Ava is right there on the other side of the kitchen isle.
“So, how’d it go today?” Ava asks, still so happy and unsuspecting. Oh, how Deborah hopes that she will keep that optimism and happiness despite what Deborah now has to do to her.
At least she doesn’t have to tell her that it’s her own decision, can keep the network as a convenient scapegoat for needing to demote her. Hopefully, it will hurt Ava less when the decision is less personal.
“Good, um… but something did come up.” Deborah can’t look Ava in the eyes, her gaze flickering away from her whenever she tries, down to her hands or just past Ava’s hair. “They want me to keep Steve on as head writer.”
Dumstruck, Ava freezes in her tracks. “The hockey jersey guy?”
Deborah isn’t sure whether Ava’s focusing on the man’s style or lack thereof is a good sign or not. “Yeah.” She sighs, one hand going to her hips, her other hand on the table, trying to look normal, in control.
“Are you serious?” Now, it seems to really sink in for Ava, anger and sadness starting to color her voice. Deborah just nods, not knowing what to say, not wanting to lie even more.
“Why- why would they want some crusty, old white dude who’s been there for like 20 years??” Ava looks and sounds like she’s about to cry in disappointment.
“Cause he’s been there, like, 20 years.” Deborah replies, and that is the whole truth, isn’t it? It’s her reason for keeping the man after all. “They feel he can help transition the show, and they trust him.” She tries not to think about how much of that ‘they’ is Deborah herself, and what it means for her trust in Ava. She does trust her, after all… she just doesn’t think the network would, not if the issue is forced in any way, and she would rather prevent that from happening in the first place.
“Fuck!”
“I know, I know, I’m sorry.” Ava looks so devastated, Deborah just has to placate her somehow, has to try and make her feel better, despite how much she hates herself for the lies. She hates herself for being the reason for Ava’s sadness even more. “I tried to push back, I really did, but it was a mandate.”
She reaches out, to comfort Ava or herself she couldn’t say. “But – you’ll still be on the staff, and I need you there!” Her voice has turned pleading and Deborah isn’t even trying to hide it.
Ava still looks terribly downtrodden, and Deborah desperately tries to cheer her up. “Aww, I’ll take you shopping! Or better yet, you take me shopping! We can go to that size inclusive thrift store that’s on the school bus you were telling me about.” She watches her expectantly with big, pleading eyes, but Ava isn’t looking cheered at all.
“Thanks, but um, I’m not, I’m not really in the mood.” She turns around before wiping at her eyes as if that hides the fact that she is crying from Deborah. Then, Ava walks out and Deborah is left alone, feeling bereft.