Chapter 39

SAYING HI-HI TO HA-HA

This is amazing,” says Uncle Frankie as the limo drops us off outside 30 Rockefeller Center, the home of Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

Not too long ago, Uncle Frankie treated us all to Saturday Night Live tickets and a gourmet hot-dog dinner on the street. I can’t believe we’re back in Manhattan because I’m going to be a special guest star. On SNL, not at the wiener cart.

It’s about four in the afternoon. Jacky Hart wants to go over the script with me a few times before the eight PM dress rehearsal (in front of a live studio audience) and then the eleven thirty PM live broadcast (in front of bajillions of people). We’re going to meet her up on the seventeenth floor, where SNL has its offices.

We roll into the lobby.

“Hey, Jamie!”

OMG. It’s Jimmy Fallon. I was a guest on his Tonight Show before the finals of the Planet’s Funniest Kid Comic Contest. I can’t believe he actually recognizes me.

“Heard you were doing SNL tonight,” he says to me. “Have fun!”

He says good-bye, and some security guards show us which elevator to take up to the seventeenth floor.

The place is humming like a beehive. About fifty people are bustling around. Some trying on costumes. Some nibbling sandwiches. Others waving script pages and toting props.

“Jamie?”

It’s Jacky Hart. She has two girls with her, both about my age.

“These are my daughters, Tina and Grace. They’re huge fans.”

“So am I,” I say, trying not to stammer.

“No,” says Jacky, “they’re your fans, Jamie. Not mine. I’m their mother. Moms don’t have many fans in their own family.”

The two girls roll their eyes. The way daughters everywhere do when their moms embarrass them in public.

“You know,” Jacky says to me, “when I was your age, I was climbing Ferris wheels down on the Jersey shore.”

I do a comic arch of an eyebrow. “Hmmm,” I say nonchalantly. “Don’t think I’ll be doing that anytime soon.”

And instead of getting all gushy and apologizing for being politically incorrect, Jacky Hart just laughs. “Good one!”

I like this lady. I like her a lot.