This was how I feltabout Ezra, how I imagined him. He was everything I didn’t understand aboutmen. He was the unattainable, the too successful, the tempting mystery that Iwould never get to explore. Except he wasn’t any of those things now that Iknew him better.
“Son of a bitch,” Iwhispered.
I reached for aclean brush and jabbed at the white, quickly mixing it with yellow, and then orange,and a tiny bit of blue. At the top of the canvas, above the black, thunderousclouds, I added light—bright, pure and striking.
The sun stretchedover the dark clouds, mostly hidden from those who would stand beneath thestorm. But those with hope would believe the light existed behind the rainycurtain. Those that dared to believe that the clouds were only one small partof the vast sky would know how bright the sun shined.
I set my brush downwith shaking fingers, finally coming to terms with the fact that maybe,possibly, I didn’t quite hate Ezra as much as I wanted to believe.
Not even a littlebit.
When I checked myphone before bed, Ezra had sent one final, simple email that said:
Come see me tomorrow night. At Bianca. I’ll show you thewall.
Chapter Sixteen
I tried really hardto be on time to the meeting. Really hard. But being punctual just wasn’t inthe cards Monday morning. The past two hours had been a comedy of errors. I’dhad one problem after another. Starting with stupid spin class. My foot hadslipped off the pedal at an ungodly, inhuman pace and I’d managed to kneemyself in the chin.Which took a bit of talent and unexpectedflexibility.But it had resulted in an instant headache.
To cure saidheadache, I’d stopped for coffee. Except they’d given me the wrong order. I’d askedfor the flavor of the day with cream and sugar. They’d given me the flavor ofthe day without cream and sugar making it completely undrinkable becauseeverybody knew that coffee without creamer wasjust the worst. Basically, I’d declared war with their Twitteraccount.Hasta la vista, Daily Grind, @mollythemavis coming for you!
To rectify the caffeinesituation, I’d been forced to stop at a gas station to pick up a new to-gocoffee. In step with the rest of the morning, they had only had one workingcash register and a new girl behind the counter.I’d stood in line for fifteen minutes sipping cheap, sickly sweetsludge that barely took the edge off.
Now I was exactlyseventeen minutes late to the Black Soul strategy meeting and I was onlyseventy-five percent prepared.
Holy bad Mondays,Batman.
“You better have adamn good excuse for making us wait,” Henry growled when I attempted to slipquietly into his office.
“The printerjammed,” I mumbled lamely, quickly passing out the hard copies of my graphics.I avoided his glare and plopped down next to Ethan. “Sorry, I didn’t realizehow late it had gotten.”
Ethan handed me astapled packet of papers. His logo was front and center, revealing an entirelynew brand identity. He’d done an excellent job. Together with my graphicspackage, Black Soul was getting the hottest makeover ever. I also had an ideafor a social media push that I hoped Henry would listen to.
The missing piece.I’d thought of it late last night while I was trying to fall asleep withoutsuccess.
Henry glided intohis chair, rolling it forward so he could rest his elbows on his mammoth deskand steeple his fingers in front of him. “Now that we can finally get started,let’s begin with you, Ethan.”
Ethan dove into hispresentation, giving the specs of the logo and how it would appeal to thewidest audience. He then talked about the brand, how we could help Black Soulexpand with the right social media package.
When it was myturn, I walked them through the graphics and how I wanted them to be used oneach platform. Henry had a lot of questions about the different sizes ofbanners and pictures and why they had to be altered according to the differentsites. I patiently explained the clarity and resolution of each platform andthe ability of that site to display high res graphics on all devices.
Henry had no ideawhat I was talking about. But his cluelessness didn’t stop him from askinginane questions. About halfway through my presentation, his eyes started toglaze over. I got it. The specifics of my work weren’t interesting to anybody,not even me. But they were important.
Unfortunately,Henry didn’t get it even a little bit. By the time I suggested my majorgiveaway idea using hashtags and the current signed bands from Black Soul, hewas totally lost.
“It’s simple,” Iexplained. “We’ll blast Black Soul and their current talent by having theirfollowers post hashtags of the shows they can’t wait to go to. The grand prizewill be a season pass to Black Soul’s summer concert series. Second place canpick three concerts of their choice or something and third place can pick one.Their followers will post about the bands they love and use hashtags thatpromote Black Soul so it’s a win-win for everybody. We can also require that toenter they must follow Black Soul and the bands they want to see on all oftheir socials on top of using the hashtag we pick.”
“Who would host thegiveaway?” Henry asked.
“Nobody is hostingit,” I explained. “We’ll use hashtags as a search tool. As long as they use thehashtag-black-soul-summer-fun or whatever we pick, we’ll be able to add them tothe pool of contestants.”
I could tell hestill didn’t understand, but I’d been over it enough times that I had lostpatience with him.
“It’s aninteresting idea, Molly, but I don’t think we want to bring up a giveawayduring our first meeting. I can’t ask them to give away a season pass at thesame time I hand them the bill for our services.”
“No, I get that itwill cost them money to do this giveaway, but it will also bring them money inthe end when their listenership is expanded.”
He nodded along asif he understood, even though I knew he didn’t. And maybe it was the hashtagsthat were tripping him up. Or maybe he just didn’t want to understand, maybe hedidn’t see the value in a strong social media game. Either way, the end resultwas the same—disappointing.
