Maybe Mitch should've known better. Maybe somewhere, when it came to his career, he'd crossed the line from confident to cocky, but hell, this wasn't his first rodeo. Networks got swapped and swallowed by telecom giants all the time, and he'd been expecting the customary getting-to-know-the-new-honchos meet and greet. The this is our brand, this is how we're going to ruin everything that's worked so far, scheduled ass-kissing that always followed a takeover. Only, as 'the talent', he was generally used to being the kissee.

He had, after all, been calling the Jays games for the Sports Network for seventeen years. Well, he and Rod Baker and five analysts, including his current buddy Kirk Derry. And not that he felt he had to bring it up all the time, but Maclean's magazine had recently declared his voice more recognizable than the Prime Minister's. He took pride in his work and felt a connection to the fans who lived and breathed MLB as he did. With his contract up for renewal, was it arrogance that kept him from doubting it would be, or just a great record and a lack of foresight? All he knew was that when he entered the new vice president's top floor office, and was not only introduced to the new director of programming but a house lawyer and Calvin something-or-other from HR, he felt like he'd walked into an old episode of Columbo where the murderer thinks he's going to get away with it until the pirate-eyed detective says, "Just one more thing."

Just one more thing, Mitch Garner. You're screwed.

Son of a bitch.

"You're firing me?" he asked, glaring up at Mark Henson who'd assumed the power position of leaning back on his desk after asking Mitch to take a seat.

Mitch was dumfounded. He couldn't believe the words that had just come out of this V-Suite suit's mouth.

"Mitch, you're not listening to me. We're just shuffling the deck. You're still one of our aces," Henson said, doing his best impression, Mitch had to assume, of someone who gave a shit.

"Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in the country," the director insisted.

"Ah, so you only told me to go fuck myself. That's different. My mistake."

The company men both sighed and shook their heads, but with Henson it seemed less about frustration than impatience. The shamelessly patronizing way he'd told Mitch he was being replaced in the first place made it obvious that even as he moved on to apologies and promises, he was just ready to move on, period.

"Why?" Mitch demanded. "Because one day some focus group decided that all the weather girls should be men and all the sports reporters should be women? Who is she? Is her voice more recognizable than the Prime Minister's because according to Maclean's mine is?"

Okay, so he brought it up when it was appropriate.

"That doesn't mean squat to Americans," Henson said, lifting his hip to perch.

"Bullshit."

"We're the only Canadian team in the Majors."

"You can't do this to me."

"Actually," HR Calvin chimed in, "you're being offered the same salary plus a renewal bonus for performing the same duties, albeit with another sport, so if you're trying to build a case for constructive dismissal think again."

"I'm going to dismiss you through one of these windows if you talk to me like that again," Mitch warned matter-of-factly.

Henson held up a hand and then a finger, effectively silencing the Little Pencil-Neck Who Could.

"Tamara has over a million followers on TikTok alone."

"You're booting me from the press box after nearly twenty years for TikTok followers? Are you shitting me?"

"Her draft coverage this year went viral. Her regular season videos are pulling huge numbers and now we just made the playoffs. She's funny, she's smart, and she knows her stuff. My God, Mitch, she's already got her homerun catchphrase on merch."

"What is it?"

Henson's eyes pretended to follow flying ball while he cupped his mouth and yelled in his indoor voice, "'Hope that don't kill nobody!'" He gave a short chuckle. "It's an instant classic."

"Why don't you put mine on shit and sell that?"

"What's your again?"

"Well, there's lots." But he had to think. Stuff he said was just stuff he said; baseball language everybody spoke. "Everybody loves when I do 'The sacks are drunk and so's that guy'."

Henson shook his head. "I don't get it."

"The sacks are drunk means the bases are loaded. The camera guys find me folks in the stands, drinking beer and having a good time, and when the bases are loaded I say, 'The sacks are drunk and so's that guy in the 200s', or wherever. Then the crew in the truck puts 'em on screen."

"If you have to explain it, it won't fit on a tee shirt."

"Do you even know how to play baseball?"

"She goes by one name, and if she wanted to go by two, her last name is Field. It's a marketing dream come true." 

"So that's a no."

"We need to make the game more appealing, more accessible to wider audiences."

"Baseball doesn't need your help. It's the national summer past time. It's practically a religion."

"Isn't the pope always whining about dwindling numbers?"

"Maybe if churches traded heavy hitters instead of molesters they wouldn't have their little PR nightmare. And you want me to cover Pickleball?"

"Look, Mitch, it was a suggestion. If you've got other ideas let me hear them."

"What about the minors? The team in Buffalo?"

"Owen and Dean?" Henson asked, snapping his fingers at Calvin.

"Three and two years each on their contracts," he answered. Quickly.

"What about Tennis? I played in college. I still have cred."

"Jerome's been calling Tennis for twenty years. He's an institution."

"Right. So I was three years short of being an institution."

"He's also got that accent. Chase, what was that other idea?" This time he snapped at the programming director.

"We were thinking you could do the sports desk for Chalk Talk."

"In the studio?" Mitch had never been comfortable on camera.

"Sure!" Henson said. "You're a handsome guy for...how old are ya?"

"Fifty-two."

"And you're in great shape! Got all your own hair. Nice to see a set of veneers that don't look like they should retract."

"I don't have veneers."

"I don't care," Henson said, shrugging because he didn't.

"To be clear," Chase said, "the opening is for Chalk Talk Rewind."

"Reviewing old games?" Mitch deadpanned.

"It really should be an old guy," Henson said. Mitch stretched his jaw and exhaled. "You wanna go back on the sidelines?"

"I did that in my twenties. I belong in the booth."

"Which is where I guess you'll be calling Pickleball from if you want to be a team player. Why don't you go home, take the whole weekend to think about it and let us know what you want to do?"

What he wanted to do was run his desk into the wall with him sitting behind it.

"What about Sunday's game?"

"We want Tamara on it."

"It's the first of the Wild Cards."

"If you want to show her the ropes, we'd be pumped. I didn't want to insult you by asking."

"And if we make it all the way to the World Series?"

Henson shrugged again. "We want her to bring in the ratings."

"I can't believe you think the World Series needs ratings help."

"Let me know what you want to by the end of the week. Thanks for understanding."

*****

It took a lot to make Mitch lose his cool. It didn't take a lot to anger him, but it had to pass a certain threshold of idiocy to make him want to throttle someone. Henson was lucky all he did was swear to himself the whole way down and out of the building.

He replayed the meeting in his head over and over, line by line, so that by the time he ran into a senior scoreboard operator named Burt Summers heading into the parking lot, he greeted him by saying "That guy wouldn't know a goddamned fastball if was flying at his face and he sure as hell wouldn't be finished pissing himself before it knocked him out!"

"The parking lot guy?" Burt asked, one point of his moustache disappearing into his crinkled nostril. Mitch filled him in.

"Well, shit," Burt said. "It's getting so we're all hanging on for dear life. A lot of guys missing out making it to retirement because of these freakin' diversity hires."

"Name one," Mitch scoffed.

"There's you anyway."

"I don't care who does a job if they're qualified. But not my job! Not some TikTok twit-nobody named Tamara."

Burt's eyes lit up. "Ooh, Tamara? They signed her? She's pretty hot stuff. She knew Houston was gonna choke. 'Hope that don't kill nobody!'" he yelled. It echoed underground.

Mitch clicked his tongue against his gums and reminded himself that Burt had always been a moron.

"Sorry man," Burt said. "Guess you're too old to be new and too new to be a legend. Where you headed?"

"I'm going to buy a fifth of Ardbeg Uigadal and then I'm going home to drink myself into a stupor."

"Want hop down to the pub first?"

"Sure, why not?"

*****

Emma's meeting with her boss went better and finished earlier than expected. She managed to get into a cab just before the evening rain started, eager to get home for the weekend. When she walked through the door, Jackie gave her a big smile. Emma registered uneasiness in it, and a sort of any last words? ring to her question, "How was your day?" Thankfully, she didn't look like she was about to die of more shame, so Emma figured whatever it was she could handle.

"There's good news and good news that might be bad news," Emma said. "The bigwigs are willing to hold my national accounts position open for me a little while longer, and they're letting me keep my prime midtown route in the meantime because I don't have a car."

"What's the good bad news?"

"They're going to try to get me a company car, but that's because they want me to cover Little Persia instead. My hair extensions sales will cease to be, and woman cannot live on keratin systems alone. Where's Gabe?"

"In his room."

"What's he doing?"

"Thinking about what he's done."

There it was. Her aura turned plaid. "God help me," she said, yanking off her boots and doing a lifeless walk to the fridge to grab a Dr. Pepper. "What'd he do?"

"I have good news that's bad news too."

"Spill it."

"Your landlord brought two fellas up from the cable company today to fool around with the wiring and they had to widen the outlets in all the rooms and drilled a couple of holes in the walls which they said they 'insta-filled'.

"About time," Emma said.

"There's plaster dust all in the floorboard cracks."

"That's not so bad."

"The bad news is one of the guys forgot his drill here."

"Oh, well."

"And Gabe found it."

"Yeeeah."

"While I was on the phone with Frank's physiotherapist."

"Annnd?"

"Come with me."

Emma's gut lurched. For a second she thought she might lay an egg. She followed the back of Jackie's dry, apricot-coloured hair, realizing she was leading her to the bathroom, and prayed she wasn't going to have to call a plumber. It was better. When Jackie stepped out of the way and next to the tub, Emma had an unobstructed view of her medicine cabinet's mirrored door hanging open from a bent hinge, and the cabinet itself, free of all its contents, with a bunch of half-inch sized holes drilled into the wall through the back of it. What's more, she noticed a breeze.

"Are you kidding me?" she said, fanning her hands beside her head as she shook it.

She tried to close the cabinet door, which, of course, she couldn't, and she poked at the holes with her fingers. Drywall crumbled somewhere behind its thin metal back.

"Jackie, how did you not hear this happening??"

"They drilled on and off for forty minutes this afternoon. I think my brain stopped picking up on it."

Emma hopped up on the sink's counter and leaned in for a closer inspection. The strange breeze brushed the tops of her cheeks. She peered into the holes and was surprised to find she could see dim light and a few dull yellow spots.

"What am I looking at here?" she wondered. "Did you see this?"

"Let me get my glasses," Jackie said and squeezed out past Emma to get them.

"Bring me your phone too!" Emma called.

Jackie returned and handed Emma the phone. She turned on its flashlight and shined it into one hole while pressing her eye up to another.

"Sweet Jeezuz!" she shrieked.

"What is it?" asked Jackie alarmed.

"How big was that drill?"

"I'll go get it."

Emma knew a lot about enough, but she knew absolutely nothing about building construction. For example, she assumed all walls were giant slabs of concrete or other solid materials covered in just gypsum board for a nail to go through so you could hang stuff up. She was never into home reno shows and never wondered where wires and pipes went because it wasn't her job. The wall Gabe had drilled into was hollow inside a frame of wooden two-by-fours, and when Jackie returned with the drill and its dusty, seven inch long bit, it fit perfectly through Emma's cabinet straight across to a matching hole in what she had to assume was her neighbour's wall.

"I'm going to die," she whispered, shutting her eyes. The light she saw was coming from that man's apartment, and it dawned on her as she forced her eyes open again that the dull yellow she made out was that distinct yellow-brown of plastic prescription bottles. Gabe had drilled into that jerk's cabinet too! Their bathrooms were only separated by one flimsy wall, which Jackie felt compelled to point out, should've been insulated.

"That's where the whistling was coming from," she said.

Emma erupted. "Gabriel Elias Dotrice! Get in here!"

"My last name is Jones!" Gabe called from his bedroom. And it was, though her sister hadn't taken it.

"Your last name's going to be your inmate number if you don't get your butt in here now!"

He didn't rush, but soon he rounded the corner looking guilty, and also a little defiant.

"Why did you do this?" Emma asked, exasperated.

"It was a mistake," Gabe mumbled.

"No, no, no. Forgetting to return your library book is a mistake. Peeing in the garbage can when you're sleepwalking is a mistake. Getting a frozen pea stuck up your nose is a mistake."

"Is it really?" Jackie asked, unhelpfully.

"That far up, you bet!" Emma snapped. "But drilling, one, two, three...seven holes in the back of the bathroom cabinet is definitely on purpose!"

"I wanted to see how the drill worked," he confessed. "I wanted to see if there was wind back there."

"Why is the door bent like this?"

"I almost fell, so I grabbed it."

Emma took a deep breath. It was hard to be mad at that face, especially when she didn't want it to be mad at her. Especially when she was so thankful he hadn't hurt himself. He was a curious kid, and he had reasons to act out, and if the day was ending with a little distruction of property and not a trip to the ER, maybe she was getting off easy. "Honey, she sighed, "if it was just us it wouldn't be as big a deal, but it went through the neighbour's wall. He doesn't like me and he's going tell Glen, and if Glen finds out, we're doomed."

"I'm sorry," he said, rubbing the door frame. His wide, steely-blue eyes looked up at hers, then fixed on the floor. He was worried now, and the last thing she wanted to do was give him anxiety over complications that were her fault. She changed tack.

"Well, I'm sorry too. I'm sorry I can't be a better role model for you, but we're going to have to lie. Lie though our teeth. Which is why you're going to have to find us a new place to keep our toothpaste and floss and stuff."

"What are you gonna do?" he asked.

"Today, young man, you're going to learn about duct tape and its many uses." She ran to the kitchen and pulled a roll out of the drawer. Fortunately, the sticky side was white and would match the drywall when seen from the neighbour's peepholes.

She had Gabe hold it while she ripped off small pieces to make a patchwork of silver squares at the back of her cabinet. "There, now. If they look from next door, the light will be blocked and the holes will be camouflaged." She tried to close the mirrored door. Hanging as it was, there was no way to align the magnets. "And if we can't keep this shut, we can never have guests again," she said.

"But won't they still see the actual circles carved out of the drywall if they use a flashlight from over there?" Jackie asked. "Won't he want to come inspect from this angle?"

"No," Emma said, even as she thought about it, "because it's white on white, and when Glen investigates from over there he might see the, uh, matching holes, and all that cracked plaster down there, but, uh, I think, we will, uh, I think we will...still be doomed."

"Emma, couldn't you just explain to this person next door what happened. Tell him you'll get it fixed and ask him to keep it a secret until you do. He might understand."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Emma laughed dryly. "He's got no interest in being neighbourly. It looks like it might actually kill him to smile. He looks like he could crack a walnut between his brows."

"What a disappointing ending to that sentence."

It was. When Emma first moved in, she'd found him kind of handsome in an old school way. Like some square-jawed Joe in the Pleasure to Burn ads for Camels. Too bad he was a dick.

"What if Gabe explains it?" Jackie suggested.

"You mean send him over there all cute and remorseful? Gabe, give me your best, 'Gee, I'm sorry, mister'."

Gabe gave it a hilarious try. It wasn't convincing.

"Why do you look like that blonde kid in the side-eye meme?"

"Maybe if you tried looking cute and remorseful," Jackie tried.

"Ugh!" Emma threw her head back. "Why is this my life? What time is it?" She made tiny fists for a mini air tantrum.

"Half past six, and he's obviously not home yet," said Jackie

"Fine! But this will never work." She rushed out to her bedroom.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm changing into my new good-bum jeans, just in case," she called out.