"That's well put, Rudolph," Dick said, looking me up and down. His head was large and round, his knee up, elbow on his knee, his foot on the arm of another thin steel chair, his cat swirling a lazy figure eight around the foot on the floor "That's the cardinal sin on Late Night. That's the Adidas heel of every guest he mangles. Just be aware of it."

I smoothed my blue dress. "What I want to know is, is he going to make fun of me over the Oreo spots?" I told Dick. I was truly worried about at least this. The Nabisco people had been a class act throughout the whole negotiations and campaign, and I thought we had made some good, honest, attractive commercials for a product that didn't claim to be anything more than occasional and fun. I didn't want Oreos to be made to look ridiculous because of me; I didn't want to be made to look as though I'd prostituted my name and face and talents to Nabisco. "I mean, will he go beyond making fun? Will he get savage about it?"

"Not if you do it first!" Rudy and Dick said together, looking at each other. They laughed. Dick turned and made himself another small drink. I sipped my own. My cola's ice kept hitting my teeth.

"In other words, appear the way Letterman appears on Letterman," Dick gestured, as if to sum up, sitting back down. "Laugh in a way that's somehow deadpan. Act as if you knew from birth that everything is clichéed and hyped and empty and absurd, and that's just where the fun is."

"But that's not the way I am at all." Dick's cat sneezed in the sunlight.

"That's not even the way I act when I'm acting," I said, looking from one man to the other.

"At least she's looking terrific," Dick said, smiling. He felt at his sharp little mouth, his expression betraying what looked to me like tenderness. Toward me? We weren't particularly close.

When tense, my husband always rubs at the red dents his frames impose on his nose. I looked at the watch I'd received on my birthday.

I am a woman who lets her feelings show rather than hide them; it's just healthier that way. I told Dick that when Charmian had called, she'd said that David Letterman was a little shy but basically a nice man. I reminded them that I was a professional, had done three Carsons, a Cavett, a Donahue, and felt that I knew how to handle an appearance. I said that if I was tense, it was really my husband's fault, and now Dick's; and that I'd appreciate either silence or a Xanax or some constructive, supportive advice that wouldn't demand that I be artificial or empty or on my guard to such an extent that I vacuumed the fun out of what was, when you came right down to it, supposed to be nothing more than a fun interview.

Dick smiled very patiently as he listened. Rudy was dialing a talent coordinator. I looked at both of them. Dick instructed Rudy to say that I wasn't really needed downstairs for make-up until after 5:30: Tonight's monolog was long and involved, and a skit on the pastime of another NBC executive would precede me.

Dick said to me, "You could say it's like what happened over at Saturday Night Live. It's the same phenomenon. The cheap sets that are supposed to look even cheaper than they are. The home-movie mugging for the cameras, the back-yard props like Monkey-Cam or Thrill-Cam or coneheads of low-grade mâché. Late Night, S.N.L. -- they're antishows."

"You'll just have to act, is all," my husband said, brushing the hair back from my ear. He touched my cheek. "You're a talented and multifaceted actress."

"So I'm to be a sort of antiguest?" I said.

It turned out that an area of one wall of Dick's office could be made to slide back automatically, opening to view several rows of monitors, all of which received NBC feeds. Beneath a local weatherman's setup and the March 22nd broadcast of Live at Five, the taping of Late Night's opening sequence had begun. The announcer, who wore a crew-neck sweater, read into an old-fashioned microphone that looked like an electric razor with a halo.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" he said. "A man who is, even as we speak, checking his fly: DAVID LETTERMAN!" There was wild applause; the camera zoomed in on a tight shot of the studio's APPLAUSE sign. On all the monitors appeared the words LATE NIGHT APPLAUSE-SIGN-CAM. The words flashed on and off as the audience cheered. David Letterman appeared out of nowhere in a hideous yachting jacket and wrestling sneakers.

"What a fine crowd," he said.

I kept stabbing at the fur of Pepsi and fine rum on my ice. My finger left a clear stripe in the dark fuzz. "I really don't think this is necessary, Rudy."

"Trust us."

"Dick," I turned, "talk to him."

"Testing," said Dick.