“The world still ain’t safe with you on the loose!” Liza pressed the button and said good night to Keisha. “You heard it right here, fellas. Come check Ms. Keisha out! She’ll be dressed to kill at the Netherfield Gala. Remember to drink up their champagne, not their Kool-Aid. We’re not selling this city to the highest bidder! Liza B. is out of here, folks! If I’m not in the studio, hit me up on the ’Gram. I’m giving out prizes to my thirty thousandth follower, and it could be you!”

Liza swiped the overhead mic away and twirled in her spinning chair. No matter what the future held for the radio station, if they let her go, she could take pride in what she’d done. Liza never meant to be a local personality. She’d taken this job three years ago out of sheer desperation and worked her way up to airtime. Slowly, listeners tripled under her voice. Booth G was cramped, overflowing with leftover radio station swag and advertising scripts for Busboys and Poets. The pay was on the low side of moderate, and not even an entire can of Febreze could get the sweaty smell of the sports jockey out of the seat. But it was home to Liza. People listened to her here. In Booth G, she was never a disappointment.

“Deya is the only child of mine who still bothers to come to church with me.” Liza’s mother, Beverly Bennett, slapped her heavy purse down on the rickety table. Liza raised her eyebrow but otherwise didn’t stir. A saltshaker rolled off the table, and her older sister, Janae, absently caught it before it hit the peeling linoleum floor. Their apartment in Longbourne Gardens had had the same decorations, furniture, and even saltshaker placement for twenty-seven years. Granny, Bev, and now Liza, sometimes her brother Maurice, Janae, and her baby sister, LeDeya, all called the sprawling three-bedroom apartment home. Bev kicked at the boxes in the hallway, a reminder of Liza’s recent eviction from her own apartment.

“When you say ‘church,’ you still mean Operation Snatch-a-Pastor right?” Liza shifted her laptop and checked her email for the third time. She was supposed to be hearing from USAID about an international project manager position at a bank for women in Malawi. It had several things going for it: she could use her international studies degree and women’s studies master’s, she would have someplace to stay without fear of her rent rising above her ability to pay, and she would be thousands of miles away from her mother.

“Yes, Mother, what was the sermon about?” Janae chimed in, in a rare moment of fun at her mother’s expense. Bev ignored Janae’s tone and zeroed in on Liza.