I reached for a clean 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, thunderous clouds, I added light—bright, pure and striking.
The sun stretched over the dark clouds, mostly hidden from those who would stand beneath the storm. But those with hope would believe the light existed behind the rainy curtain. Those that dared to believe that the clouds were only one small part of the vast sky would know how bright the sun shined.
I set my brush down with 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 little bit.
When I checked my phone before bed, Ezra had sent one final, simple email that said:
Come see me tomorrow night. At Bianca. I’ll show you the wall.
Chapter Sixteen
I tried really hard to be on time to the meeting. Really hard. But being punctual just wasn’t in the cards Monday morning. The past two hours had been a comedy of errors. I’d had one problem after another. Starting with stupid spin class. My foot had slipped off the pedal at an ungodly, inhuman pace and I’d managed to knee myself in the chin. Which took a bit of talent and unexpected flexibility. But it had resulted in an instant headache.
To cure said headache, I’d stopped for coffee. Except they’d given me the wrong order. I’d asked for the flavor of the day with cream and sugar. They’d given me the flavor of the day without cream and sugar making it completely undrinkable because everybody knew that coffee without creamer was just the worst. Basically, I’d declared war with their Twitter account. Hasta la vista, Daily Grind, @mollythemav is coming for you!
To rectify the caffeine situation, I’d been forced to stop at a gas station to pick up a new to-go coffee. In step with the rest of the morning, they had only had one working cash register and a new girl behind the counter. I’d stood in line for fifteen minutes sipping cheap, sickly sweet sludge that barely took the edge off.
Now I was exactly seventeen minutes late to the Black Soul strategy meeting and I was only seventy-five percent prepared.
Holy bad Mondays, Batman.
“You better have a damn good excuse for making us wait,” Henry growled when I attempted to slip quietly into his office.
“The printer jammed,” 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 realize how late it had gotten.”
Ethan handed me a stapled packet of papers. His logo was front and center, revealing an entirely new brand identity. He’d done an excellent job. Together with my graphics package, Black Soul was getting the hottest makeover ever. I also had an idea for 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 without success.
Henry glided into his chair, rolling it forward so he could rest his elbows on his mammoth desk and steeple his fingers in front of him. “Now that we can finally get started, let’s begin with you, Ethan.”
Ethan dove into his presentation, giving the specs of the logo and how it would appeal to the widest audience. He then talked about the brand, how we could help Black Soul expand with the right social media package.
When it was my turn, I walked them through the graphics and how I wanted them to be used on each platform. Henry had a lot of questions about the different sizes of banners and pictures and why they had to be altered according to the different sites. I patiently explained the clarity and resolution of each platform and the ability of that site to display high res graphics on all devices.
Henry had no idea what I was talking about. But his cluelessness didn’t stop him from asking inane questions. About halfway through my presentation, his eyes started to glaze 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 major giveaway idea using hashtags and the current signed bands from Black Soul, he was totally lost.
“It’s simple,” I explained. “We’ll blast Black Soul and their current talent by having their followers post hashtags of the shows they can’t wait to go to. The grand prize will be a season pass to Black Soul’s summer concert series. Second place can pick 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 that promote Black Soul so it’s a win-win for everybody. We can also require that to enter they must follow Black Soul and the bands they want to see on all of their socials on top of using the hashtag we pick.”
“Who would host the giveaway?” Henry asked.
“Nobody is hosting it,” I explained. “We’ll use hashtags as a search tool. As long as they use the hashtag-black-soul-summer-fun or whatever we pick, we’ll be able to add them to the pool of contestants.”
I could tell he still didn’t understand, but I’d been over it enough times that I had lost patience with him.
“It’s an interesting idea, Molly, but I don’t think we want to bring up a giveaway during our first meeting. I can’t ask them to give away a season pass at the same time I hand them the bill for our services.”
“No, I get that it will cost them money to do this giveaway, but it will also bring them money in the end when their listenership is expanded.”
He nodded along as if he understood, even though I knew he didn’t. And maybe it was the hashtags that were tripping him up. Or maybe he just didn’t want to understand, maybe he didn’t see the value in a strong social media game. Either way, the end result was the same—disappointing.
“I’m not sure you’re considering the best interest of the client, sweetheart. We’ll table this for now and see how our initial meeting goes before we discuss it further.”
I bit my tongue, swallowing bitterness at being scolded for having a brilliant idea. The meeting went on. We—and by we, I mean the Little Tucker—decided that Ethan and I could be present for the meeting, but as creative director, he would take lead. Which was fine, except he hadn’t actually done any work. He was going to pitch our ideas and take all the glory while Ethan and I cheered him on from the invisible background.
By the time we wrapped up, I was stewing with silent fury. I gathered my things with the poise of an angry bull while Ethan hurried out of the office like his desk was on fire.
“Molly, can I talk to you for a minute?” Henry asked in a much gentler voice than he’d used during the meeting.