Rough Sketch

Everything was on the line.

It was 11:29 pm, and the executives at ABS were profoundly nervous. The debut edition of their live comedy program, "Rough Sketch," would hit the airwaves in just one minute, and the suits feared a disaster.

"Rough Sketch" was ABS's effort to go head-to-head against "Saturday Night Live," and the trade magazines thought the idea of competing with NBC's iconic show was doomed. Martin Gallagher, the super-producer largely credited for making ABS the US network-television leader, insisted that the concept would work, and that "Rough Sketch" would soon be the show that would soon dominate the public's imagination. The suits were skeptical, but they decided to give Gallagher a shot. Now, with seconds to go before airtime, they weren't sure.

The first episode of "Rough Sketch" had to beat "Saturday Night Live" in the ratings, or the entire entertainment industry would brand the experiment a failure. Gallagher knew how important a ratings win was, and to that end, he signed the two biggest names he could get his hands on to serve as, respectively, the host and musical guest: Reggie Pierce, a 28-year-old comedian from Brooklyn whose latest film, an all-black "Ocean's Eleven"-style caper entitled "Thieves Among Honor," was the #1 film in the country for two weeks straight, and Lucy Mitchell, a tall, thin dream-pop singer from Wollongong whose album, "Pieces of Time," had just topped the Billboard 200 charts.

Gallagher bit his fingernails as the on-air light came on in the ABS Studios in midtown Manhattan. This had better be good, he thought.

"And now, your host, Reggie Pierce!" announcer Timothy Williams declared as the box-office star came out, clad in a sharp black tuxedo and white shirt, and greeted the studio audience.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the premiere episode of 'The Shameless Ripoff'-oops, I mean 'Rough Sketch,'" Reggie proclaimed in his deep voice as the audience laughed. "Remember, there are no other channels worth watching. I repeat-no other channels!"

After a few jokes about the success of "Thieves Among Honor" and his hopes for a sequel-"I told the studio that in the second one, the brothers should use all the money they stole to run for Congress"-Reggie declared:

"Lucy Mitchell is our musical guest tonight. Now, I have to admit, I've never listened to any of her music...it's just too white for me, you know what I'm sayin'? I mean, even she's too white for me-she's pale as hell! I mean, they're freakin' vampires who aren't as pale. She must be the only person from Australia who never went to the beach."

The studio audience roared. "But seriously, we've got a great show in store for you, so don't touch that dial...because there's no reason to."

Reggie appeared in three sketches prior to the musical break, playing the host of a call-in relationship show known as "Sex Factor," a blind Uber driver, and a senator willing to make any promise to the voters, no matter how outlandish, to become the second black US President. At 12:05am, following a commercial break, Reggie returned to the stage to announce the musical guest.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the palest girl in the world, Lucy Mitchell."

Lucy was unfazed by Reggie's remark, and delivered a powerful ten-minute medley of three of her songs from "Pieces of Time": the ethereal "Broken Heart Blues," the intense "Fading Pain," and the melodic title track. Lucy wore her apple-red hair loose and long, with gold hoop earrings and an almost translucent white dress; watching on a monitor in his dressing room, Reggie realized that Lucy had no bra or panties on. He texted his "Thieves Among Honor" co-star Jonathan Scaggs:

"OMG, you can see her nipples and shit right through her dress. Damn. Martin didn't see that before she went onstage?"

Toward the end of "Pieces of Time," Lucy began dancing with her back to the camera.

Jonathan texted back:

"She got a big ass for a white girl."

Reggie didn't respond. He had barely said five words to Lucy during rehearsals, so focused was he on his own skits and opening monologue. He immediately regretted mocking her pale complexion; as he gazed as her ass on the monitor, he found himself wishing he could get with her.

"Yeah, man," he texted back.

Just then, a knock came on the door.

"Who is it?"

Martin opened the door with a panicked look on his face. "We can't find Mary Burke. We don't know where she is. Fuck! They told me not to hire her."

"What do you think happened?"

Martin made an injection gesture with his left hand and right arm. "You know what the fuck happened. Shit, who's gonna do 'Flanagan' with you?"

"How about Lucy? She's a redhead. It'll work."

"But she can't act!"

"How do you know?"

"Damn it. Damn it!"

"She can read cue cards. She'll be fine."

"OK. I'll ask her once she gets back to her dressing room."

"Hey, by the way..."

"What?"

"Can you tell her I said sorry? For all the jokes?"

"I will."

--

Lucy had returned to her dressing room and had just closed the door when Martin knocked.

"Hey, great performance, I loved it."

"Thank you."

"Look, we've had a bit of an emergency..."

"What happened?"

"Well, for one of the sketches we have coming up, one of our performers took ill and can't perform. Reggie asked if you would like to fill in for her."

"Really? I thought he didn't like me. He keeps joking about how pale I am!"

"Yeah, well, he says he's sorry, he didn't mean it. He thinks you'll be fine. You just have to read the cue cards. We'll pay you extra."

"OK. What will I be doing?"

-

"Flanagan's Shenanigans" was the last sketch of the evening. Reggie played Leon Lawrence, the first black owner of an bar in Dublin, and Lucy played Fiona O'Connor, a bar patron attracted to Leon. Lucy chose not to attempt an Irish accent, instead playing the character as an Australian tourist of Irish descent.

Lucy was still wearing the same translucent white dress she had on during her musical performance, and Reggie tried his best to stay in character while glancing at Lucy's lovely, barely-sheathed pink nipples. The script called for Fiona to pull down the right strap of her dress while standing in front of Leon in an attempt to seduce him, and as Lucy did so the left strap suddenly snapped, causing the dress to fall to the floor. Lucy now stood completely nude in front of Reggie, with her large, gorgeous, pale derriere shown on live television for a few seconds before Reggie instinctively covered it, or at least tried to, with his left hand. "I guess you'll have some fresh cream for coffee soon!" Lucy ad-libbed in character, causing the shocked audience to laugh as the director cut to commercial.

When "Rough Sketch" returned from the commercial break, Lucy was nowhere to be seen, and Reggie closed the show by declaring: "Well, we hope you had a good time, and that's the naked truth. Goodnight!"

After quickly speaking to a red-faced Martin-who feared that the wardrobe malfunction would lead to his firing by ABS-Reggie ran to Lucy's dressing room. The Aussie singer had found a silk robe to put on, and was on the phone with her manager discussing the incident.

After hanging up, Lucy turned to Reggie.

"That was a great line you came up with about the coffee," Reggie said.

"Thanks," Lucy replied. "I don't know how the fuck that happened. One of the stagehands is trying to find me some spare jeans and a shirt that can fit!"

"Wow. Hey, look...I wanted to say I'm sorry for all those jokes about how you look..."

"You know, you should be sorry, mate," Lucy winked.

"I know, look..."

Reggie took a chair and sat down in front of Lucy.

"I also wanted to say that you're a really good singer. Like I said, I never heard your music before, but you're really great."

"Thank you."

"And again, I'm sorry."

"Well, here's a deal, mate: I promise I won't hold a grudge, if you promise not to do it again."

"That's a big-ass promise."

"Reggie! Stop!" Lucy smiled, leaning over to playfully slap Reggie's arm. "You know, if you had bothered to speak to me the last couple of days, I would have told you how much I liked your movie."

"Thanks."

"Is there gonna be a sequel?"

"I don't know yet. Do you want to be in it? You can be the token white girl..."

Lucy and Reggie shared a laugh, and continued to talk until the stagehand returned with a shirt and jeans for the singer.

Before leaving the ABS Studios, Lucy and Reggie found Martin and reassured him that things would be all right-and indeed they were: the premiere episode of "Rough Sketch" beat "Saturday Night Live" in the ratings head-to-head.