The smart people at the dinner table murmured, “Hmm. Mmm? Hmm.”

While the middling people added, “Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah.”

The people not in the know asked questions.

Plates and glasses and napkins on laps. Noises like drops of falling rain made an undercurrent. Tink-tink. Tap.

After dessert and coats and goodbyes at the door, they all walked to cars that beeped as they opened, drove home on the glistening summer roads, told themselves the static on the radio would soon subside.