Page 63 of Bless This Hot Mess

“WWJD,” Carrington chirped, snapping upright, already smoothing their sequinned blouse as if the caller might somehow be watching. “What would Jesus do? And what can I do foryoutoday?”

The voice on the other end was deep, velvety, absurdly confident - the kind of voice that belonged to someone whoposed shirtless on yachts or on the cover of a catalogue selling rustic log cabin furniture.

“Carrington,” the voice said with familiarity, “This is Micah Ware. From Weinus, Weinus, and Ware.”

Carrington blinked hard, “Our lawyers?”

“Yes,” Micah replied smoothly, “but today, I’m calling not as a legal eagle, but as a designer. I’m launching a new clothing and housewares line, Ware Wear & Wares, and I want to buy ad time duringTrinity Radio Hour.”

Carrington’s pen slipped from their hand, clattering dramatically against the desk, still unaccustomed to brands buying airtime on WWJD. “You… you want toadvertisewith us?”

“More than that,” Micah continued, his vowels so perfectly sculpted they might have been buffed with expensive cologne, “I want Trinity themselves to voice it. Live. Today.”

Carrington’s jaw dropped, “Today?”

“Yes. I’ve written the ad. I’m also a copywriter. It will be a… long spot. I’m unfortunately not also an editor.” He paused, “Think… sermon length.”

Carrington could feel their heart thudding, “That’s not normally how we do things, Mr. Ware. We’d need rehearsal, prep, perhaps a focus group…”

“I’ll pay double the rate.”

There was silence as Carrington considered. Double the rate. Which meant, if they math’d it right, an extra three hundred and fifty-seven dollars and change after Emma-Lou laundered it through their Manna Money Market account.

Carrington snapped open a fresh legal pad, scribbling Micah’s words furiously. He rattled off sentence fragments about curling rinks, ski lodges, sailboats, and grocery store aisles. About glassware, hardware, tableware, and birthdays.About fashion saving lives. Carrington nodded dutifully, underlining random words for the emphasis they heard Micah punctuating through the phone. When it was finished, Carrington looked down at the lined yellow paper and their scrawled handwriting carrying over multiple pages. How in the heck were they going to make this into a commercial?

“Yes, yes, we can definitely… make this work,” Carrington said brightly, though their wrist ached from the note-taking and a headache was birthing from the whole exercise.

When Micah finally hung up, Carrington fanned themselves with the notepad. They popped an Aspirin, cracked their knuckles and started typing up the scripts. Then, with an intoxicating mix of fear and delight brewing in their belly, they leapt from behind their desk and clomped down the hall in their chunky magenta heels toward the recording booth of theTrinity Radio Hour.

Inside, Rebekkah was fussing with her French braid in the reflection of a microphone stand which offered a fun-house elongated view, Japheth was chewing on a pencil and checking the indentures for proof his grin really did have a goof in its upper line, Ronald dribbled an imaginary basketball against the soundproofing foam, and the engineer sat stone-faced, cycling through all the coulda-been career choices he’d had for the choosing out of high school.

Carrington burst in, waving the typed-up scripts like winning lottery tickets. “Trinity!” they announced. “We’ve got ourselves an eager new advertiser. He wants this on the air ASAP. During today’s show. And he politely demanded that you three record it personally.”

Rebekkah recoiled as though Carrington had just suggested she eat a hotdog bun without condiments, or a dog. “We couldn’t possibly! As exciting as that is, we haven’t evenreadit. Or rehearsed it. Or mapped out our motivations!”

“And normally Jim does the commercial spots,” Japheth pointed at their engineer.

Carrington flapped a hand, subconsciously attempting to wave away the excuses that could quickly snowball into a digression of unknowable destination with the new stars of WWJD. “I know! I told Micah that’s not how we do things here, even if he was willing to pay double the normal rate.”

Japheth’s pencil snapped between his teeth, “Wait, Micah? As inMicah Ware? He’s heard our show? He wants to advertise and he wants me, I mean, us, to be his muse?” His cheeks flushed like someone had just mentioned John Stamos had entered the building.

At that moment, the door creaked open and Suwarna stuck her head in, clipboard resting on her outstretched palm like a waiter holding a tray of invisible confidence. “I’ve printed and read the script, it’s excellent. A revelation. Very fresh. Before you ask, Carrington, it’s a simple and straightforward safety precaution that I have passwords to all computers in the building, yours is not an exception,” she explained coolly, taking a seat and crossing her boots on the tabletop. “So, this Micah, he’s willing to pay double the rate?”

“Yes,” Carrington said, finding themselves still whirling from the revelation that Suwarna calmly shared. Was there anything on their computer that well, shouldn’t be? Despite securing some much-needed revenue for WWJD with this double-rate radio spot, they suddenly felt the win was about to be swooped in and stolen, which was often the case when dealing with Suwarna.

“Then let’s do this,” Suwarna said briskly. “Cue it up. You’re professionals, aren’t you? You can just cold read it. During the next commercial break.”

Rebekkah’s jaw dropped, “Acoldread?”

Suwarna adjusted her glasses, “Just smile, think of the sunhitting your face, think of all the money, and that’ll warm you up.”

“I really don’t see why we wouldn’t do it,” Japheth murmured dreamily. “For Micah.”

Ronald dribbled his invisible ball twice, caught it, and glanced at Carrington, “What’s he even selling?”

Carrington slapped the scripts down on their three music stands, “Ware Wear & Wares. Here are the scripts.”

Jim, the engineer, finally came alive, swivelling toward them with the weariness of a man who had seen his musical dreams die in the polyester swirl and smoke haze of the seventies. He raised his hand and began counting down the seconds until they were back live, “Five, four…”