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people.
    Carson Liam was a middle-aged man who ran his family’s business. He could pass for much older with his potbelly and receding hairline that looked more like a greasy mop of salt-and-pepper strands. The blemishes and age spots that marked his face did very little for his appearance. With the dark, drab colors he always wore, he looked just as miserable as he probably was.
    â€œYou see here, Ivee, these figures are for the three-week period following the media campaign you designed specifically for us,” Carson said.
    My eyes followed his raggedy finger, with dirt-encrusted nail beds that had probably never seen a manicure, and took in the numbers he pointed out in an effort to make me seem incompetent. I forced myself to focus on his fingers. His teeth, covered in what looked like a yellow blanket, made my skin crawl.
    â€œYes, Mr. Liam. I see,” I responded dryly.
    â€œWell, what’s concerning to us is that there was virtually no increase whatsoever. None! Now, we’ve done newspaper before, and that worked out pretty good for us.”
    What savvy businessperson relies only on newspaper for advertising? An old man with old ways equals failure.
    â€œMr. Liam, it’s like I told you before. We don’t guarantee any kind of immediate increase in sales, and honestly, a few weeks into a campaign isn’t really a true representation of the impact of your reach.”
    He chuckled.
    â€œThese things take time.”
    â€œNow, see, all that fancy talk right there—that’s what got us into this situation in the first place. I guess I’m not as sophisticated as all the other slick Wall Street types you’re probably used to, but my Main Street mentality tells me that what we were doing before probably worked better for us anyway.”
    His bushy, black and gray eyebrows jumped.
    â€œBack when my grandpop started this business…,” he continued.
    I listened as the miser tried to blame his mom and pop shop’s declining sales on the multimedia package I had convinced him to invest in. The real problem was that Mr. Liam was accustomed to doing business a certain way, and was reluctant to change. Whenhe did finally agree to give change a chance, it hadn’t worked fast enough for him, so he wanted someone to blame.
    What he didn’t understand was, that as close as we were to the end of my workday, I was not in the mood to listen to how ineffective I was at my job.
    â€œWhat exactly are you trying to say?” I asked.
    â€œStraight shooter,” he quipped. He cupped his hands and rubbed them together. “You say we need to hang in there for what, a good six months?”
    â€œYes, that’s the length of the contract you signed,” I reminded him.
    â€œYeah, yeah, about that.” He broke out into a round of hacking coughs that sounded as if he might pull up a lung. He began waving his hand toward me as if to say he’d be fine.
    I hadn’t moved a muscle. I needed him to spit it out, and get back to the business at hand. He doubled over, cleared his throat loudly, and composed himself. His eyes were filled with water when he finally whipped his head upward.
    â€œWhoa!” he exclaimed. Now he spoke as if bile was still caught in his throat. An offer of a glass of water would’ve been the polite thing to do, but he had pushed me to the brink already. The niceties were a thing of the past.
    Once he fully caught his breath, his dark, beady eyes focused in on me. “Ah, what I’m trying to say is, we think a few weeks is good enough. And we wanted to know who we need to talk to about maybe prorating the remaining months in this here contract.”
    His straight face left me at a loss for words.
    All I could do was exhale a hot and exhausted breath.
    His cell phone rang, and I was relieved when he raised that rusty index finger to silence me before I could speak again.
    â€œHold on a sec,” he said and rose from