Keely really wanted – needed – this job. But she should not be this jittery. She was an accomplished young woman, a fast-rising creative at a major Manhattan ad agency, that is, until a few weeks ago. Not my fault, she kept telling herself. It was certainly not her fault that the agency had won an account with Crimson Combustion, a caffeinated beverage featuring 180-proof grain alcohol. Legal should have alerted her to conflicts with the FDA. Was she so wrong to think that the U.S. government would condone mixing energy with alcohol? Wasn’t Congress subsidizing ethanol? Despite the client’s griping, that ATF raid had not been her fault.

Nor had it been her fault that an OTC allergy med didn’t relieve hay fever, but did voluminously increase earwax. She did what she could with that sow’s ear, re-labeling it “Waxy Drum” and filming a 30 second spot that turned excessive aural goo into a virtue, while causing a national health scare over “dry ear complex.” 60 Minutes called DEC the “restless leg syndrome of 2014.” They meant it ironically, but it still shut down air traffic to 26 cities. Thousands were stranded at airports, but even that was sort of a plus, since the client could only afford TV spots on CNN.

And that Australian fiasco was certainly not her fault! That was entirely legal’s fault. Donal had let her down. Betrayed her. After months of obsessing over her —disguising himself ridiculously as he stalked her — he’d abandoned her in her moment of need! Not that she’d expect the firm’s lead counsel to fall on his sword for the woman he loved — who had systematically ignored him — but he could have said something!

*                                  *                                  *

Emmett found his mother putting a golf ball down a runner of indoor-outdoor carpeting from the living room to the kitchen. For some reason, over the last three months, this had become her obsession. She picked her head up to answer, “We’re moving to Florida.”

Emmett was beside himself. “What? How bout some notice?”

Emmett moved the deep-sea fishing rod off a cushion and slumped onto the sofa. As usual, his father was plopped in the recliner watching some blond on that Bill O’Reilly channel. Emmett wanted to mute the set, so they could talk. He scanned the coffee table for the remote, but the surface was covered with junk mail: condo brochures and…Oh!

“We’ve been telling you for six months,” his father barked. “You don’t listen.”

This was unbelievable. Like selling the farm. Old people don’t sell the farm; they buy the farm. “But, we’ve had this house for three generations.”

“Two,” his father corrected. “It’s not going to the third.”

Mrs. Dorsey sheathed her putter in the golf bag she kept in the hall closet and came over to sit on the arm of the sofa. “Emmett, you’re just worried because you’ve hit a rough patch.”

“Yeah, adulthood,” the old man groused.

His mother stroked Emmett’s hair, like she had when he was a little boy. “Lots of people are unemployed, there’s nothing to be ashamed of.” She tugged the zipper of his sweat jacket up to the collar. “Zip up your shirt and you’re executive material.”

Emmett waved her off. Did she want to mother him or abandon him? Mixed signals stressed him out. “I know, Ma,” he groaned. “But I want to be my own exec. And an entrepreneur needs a stake, a nest egg.”

Mr. Dorsey hiked a thumb over his shoulder toward the kitchen. “Have all the eggs you want. But no steak. And no nest.”

Emmett slapped the pile of condo brochures. “Florida? You think you’d fit in there?”

Mr. Dorsey clicked off the TV and straightened the recliner. He placed his feet firmly on the ground, declaring, “Florida’s not just for Jews and Cubans anymore!” He jabbed the air with the remote. “It’s for anyone who wants to escape New Jersey’s oppressive tax burden.”

Exasperated, Emmett blurted, “I thought the fat guy was handling that.”

Mr. Dorsey heaved himself out of his recliner. “First of all, the governor’s problem is glandular. And second, fat chance we get tax relief.” He waddled toward the dining room. “We’ll be in our graves before we see relief.”

“That’s when I’ll see relief.”

Mr. Dorsey spun back toward Emmett. “Don’t get smart with me, Mister Reginald Van Gleason III. I’m sick to death of your slacking!”

“And I’m sick of your outdated cultural references!” Now Emmett was up, pacing in front of the TV, gesticulating like a crazed mime. “You think when I lie on the couch, I’m not working? That’s when I work hardest. When the body is quiet, the mind roars! Roars! And that’s what you can’t stand.”

“Your roaring mind? How ‘bout the rumbling from the other end?”

“You know I’m onto something,” Emmett fired back. “That it’s bigger and bolder than anything you ever imagined.” He stomped to the back of the house, and the stairway to the basement. Opening the basement door, he pivoted back, holding up his thumb and forefinger a half inch apart. “I’m this close to my destiny and it’s killing you!”

Emmett slammed the door behind him and almost instantly it burst open again. His father’s voice boomed: “You can’t park your destiny in our basement!”

*                                  *                                  *

“I think for this to be talk radio at least one of us has to be talking.”

Emmett waved Rauf off. The shock of this morning hadn’t worn off, and the semi-converted basement studio seemed oddly sad. “Turn it off,” he muttered.

“And let our fan base defect?”

“Then play a best of.”

Rauf raised an accusatory eyebrow. “We’ve been on line a week. So, best of is either, The Case of the Missing Chalupa or Over-Eager Meter Maid.”

“Chalupa.”

Emmett slouched into the battered, overstuffed sofa. He squinted from the harsh glare of the bare bulb that dangled above the washer-dryer. Rauf hunched over the laptop computer on the coffee table and queued the podcast. Emmett stared at the twin microphones emblazoned with their call sign, W.E.R.D., in red marker on white index cards. He stifled the impulse to kick the table over. It wouldn’t do any good to destroy what they’d tried so hard to build. It might look like two man-children playing at radio, but how many great American business had started in a garage? And what was a garage except a basement for cars? The tools didn’t matter; what mattered was the product. And they were producing good work, programming that could get them noticed.

The Case of the Missing Chalupa was a story that had just come to them. Emmett knew that nothing good happens by accident, so he insisted they get out and do the type of legwork investigative reporters need to break a story. As a result, they’d spent a lot of time walking around, observing. That led them to discover a darker side of gentrified Hoboken life.

They were walking on Park Avenue when they overheard an argument between a White resident and an Hispanic deliveryman sitting in an idling car. They cut across the street with Rauf deftly removing the laptop from his backpack and booting it up. Emmett unwound the microphone cord and sidled up to the resident.

“Look, I paid for four chalupas.”

The deliveryman fanned his hands, suggesting, “Maybe you ate one.”

“You just handed me the bag!”

“You could be fast like Kobayashi.”

Emmett didn’t want to interrupt the unfolding story, but felt compelled to add his observations. He whispered into the mic, “One doesn’t always see anti-immigrant sentiment in Hoboken; to be sure, one rarely sees an immigrant.”

But the resident turned on him, “What are you an idiot?”

Emmett kept his cool, simply asking, “Am I?” and indicating the obvious ethnic disparity.

“They can’t hear you pointing,” Rauf barked.

“Oh, right.” So, for the benefit of his radio audience, Emmett painted the word picture — or as he liked to call it, the W.E.R.D. picture — “We have a White man, very angry, badgering a Mexican.”

“I am Honduran.”

“And he has no right to make you feel that way,” Emmett affirmed. Then he turned to the angry resident, “Sir, I think it’s fair to ask, the role of race in this confrontation.”

Now an African-American woman entered the scene. Reacting to the media presence, she walked briskly and waved to get their attention. This marginalized voice, long silenced, would finally have an airing. Emmett held the microphone out to record her testimony.

“Honey, the kids are hungry.”

Emmett looked up at the first floor window and painted the word picture, “Two interracial children, their faces pressed against the glass…”

“You really are an idiot.”

That’s when the deliveryman held up a foil-wrapped chalupa. “I found it. It fell out on the seat.”

Emmett stepped back from the car and whispered solemnly, “And so, conflict averted. Peace restored. Because W.E.R.D. did not shrink from asking the difficult questions.”

Now, back in the basement, Emmett was livid. “We could rake in Pulitzers, man. Except we’re getting evicted.”

“We need to start monetizing our program,” Rauf said. “What about the marketing director you were going to hire?”

“That, uh, that didn’t work out.” Emmett had been hemming and hawing for weeks on this issue. He might as well come clean. “I think I might have let my feelings interfere.”

“Feelings? You mean like intuition?”

“Dude, they were just…babes.”

“You mean, they lacked the requisite experience?”

“No, I mean, I put on the suit, and go to the Copy Cup for the interview…and they were total babes. And so, I told them, I’d bring their name up with the Board.”

“What board? Dude, we have a chess board.”

“So I’d meet them again, and tell them how I fought for them, but the Board had their own candidate, and even though I fought hard, I was overruled. But, the good news is that, since you’re not going to be working under me, now we’re free to explore that personal connection we felt.”

Rauf’s mouth dropped open. “You mean, while our business was floundering, you used the interviews as a cynical ploy to meet hot chicks?”

Emmett nodded sheepishly.

Rauf shook his head. “I feel totally betrayed, and yet I’m in awe. But as much as I admire your resourcefulness, we need a professional to get us ad revenue.”

“I know, I know.”

“And…wait, did it ever work?”

Emmett groaned. “No. I just got a lot of coffee spilled on me.” Now Emmett wondered if he had any more resumes. Where had he put them? He found some papers stuffed down the side of the sofa. There was one resume left. He’d put it aside because she had an odd name. “Here we go. Ms. Keely Twain. And you know what? This one might actually be qualified.”

Rauf scanned the basement. “Not too qualified, I hope. And not to babe-a-licious.”

“Time will tell my friend. But first, let’s get this Twain into the station.”

*                                  *                                  *