Page 22 of My Favorite Mistake

He jogged until Elysian Fields hit North Peters, and then broke into a run when he intercepted Decatur. The Quarter was a blur of color and light and music, and the air was like hot swamp water, and he ran harder. Beyond the point of his searing heart slamming against his sternum and his lungs nearly bursting, and he didn’t stop until he took a flying leap onto the ferry and found a dark corner at the back of the deck.

He slumped to sitting and dropped his head between his knees, and his respiratory system couldn’t catch up fast enough, and the cold waves of dizziness crashed over him. The inky black night went even darker as he drifted out of his conscious state and into the unconsciousness replete with every mistake and failure for which he’d never be able to make amends.

7

Frenchmen Street, New Orleans

Staff meetings at Frenchmen Street Records took place in a well-worn, yet elegant living room at the back of Jimmy’s ancient family home. Rather than bottles of water or mugs of coffee, the employees typically helped themselves to bottles of Abita beer and Zapp’s Voodoo chips. Instead of the whir of copy machines or the ringing of dozens of desk phones typical of a large office space, the atmosphere was tinted with the warbling trill of Louis Armstrong’s horn over speakers in the front room. All of it was atypical, but it was all part of the Big Easy culture, and Liza found it charming.

Liza stood tall at the front of the room, hands clasped at her waist, chin lifted, and made a conscious effort to hold her facial features in a pleasantly neutral expression as she eyed Brennan, Jimmy, and Frankie, the twenty-something woman with long, black braids, who made up the whole of the label’s art department. The three of them studied new, fully branded album cover mock-ups on the coffee table in front of them. Connor sat on an overstuffed chair adjacent to them, but she didn’t look at him.

She had successfully managed to avoid eye contact with him for the most part for the three days since he’d snapped at her at the Uptown Kitty show. She was determined to avoid looking at him for rest of her time here,andthe rest of her life for that matter.

Connor was looking at her though. And he could go ahead and look. He could hate her and resent her for absolutely no reason, and it was no skin off her back, so long as he kept his mouth shut and didn’t interfere with her work.

“Man,” Frankie gushed as she picked up one of the cardstock squares. “This is some badass design.” She tilted it toward Jimmy and pointed at one section. “It looks really simple, but that’s actually pretty advanced.” She looked back up at Liza. “I don’t know if I have the skills to do this, Liza.”

“Of course you do, Frankie,” Liza said. “And this concept is for a standard layout that’ll be used for all the albums, so you wouldn’t have to design a new one like that every time.” She reached down to pick up one of the squares and drew her finger around the perimeter before stopping at one corner. “We’ll work together to come up with a new logo that’ll be consistently featured here. There will be standard graphic layout for every album, such as an artist portrait, a thematic element, artist name, and album title. Once you set it up, it’ll be mostly drag and drop. And we’ll have a predefined set of complementary typefaces and color palettes that you’ll choose from for each artist. All of that will tie together to maintain branding continuity, but each will have a unique look and feel.”

“Huh.” Frankie tugged at one of her braids and then chewed on it. “All right. Yeah. Yeah you right, I can do that.”

Liza smiled. “Of course you can.”

Brennan held two of the squares in front of him and then waved them at her. “These are fantastic, L. This is the kinda thing I’d have matted and framed for my living room.” He nodded at Jimmy. “That would boost vinyl sales.”

Jimmy snorted. “What would, you framing these for your house?”

Brennan pursed his lips and tossed one square at Jimmy, frisbee style. “You know what I mean. Vinyl collectors.”

“I know…I know…I’m just messing with you.” Jimmy chuckled. “Ireallylike this one.” He held up the square Brennan had thrown at him. “You said we’re gonna change the logo?”

“Yes,” Liza said carefully to be gentle with what she knew was Jimmy’s baby. “And you’ll have full creative control of what that looks like, but I do think it needs to be revamped a bit and—”

“Oh, I agree. And I want something like this.” Jimmy tilted the square toward Frankie and drew his finger over one corner of it. “But I want a street sign.”

Frankie raised one eyebrow. “A street sign?”

“Yeah!” He pointed toward the front door. “The street signs they got all over the damn Quarter. The black and white signs with the French on top.”

Frankie’s scrunched-up face relaxed as recognition draped her features. “Oooohhh…Yeah, the street signs.”

“And a lamp post.” Jimmy tapped the card with his fingertip. “Like the lamp part of the lamp post. All in black and white.” He dropped the card, leaped from the couch, and clapped his hands together. “Yeah you right! It’s gonna be beautiful!”

Liza couldn’t restrain the grin that tugged her cheeks, but then Connor snatched up the card, and her smile faded.

“Seriously, Jimmy?” Connor shook the card at him. “You really want to turn our album covers into mass-produced, cookie cutter collages?” He scoffed and tossed the card onto the coffee table then picked up his beer. “I don’t like it. This is selling our souls to the mainstream music market, and it’s going to cost us the essence of who we are. Good luck getting any more local musicians to sign on tothat. We might even lose the ones we’ve already got.”

Liza bit her bottom lip and dragged her gaze to an opposite corner of the room.

Brennan groaned and slumped on the sofa, tilting his head back as he rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. “Come on now, Sarge.”

“They won’t be mass-produced just because they have a similar look and feel,” Jimmy countered. “It’s called beingcohesive.And it’ll look professional and legit. It’ll look like we’re running a real label and not just operating out of someone’s garage.”

Frankie snorted. “‘cept we operate out of someone’s house.”

Jimmy stood up, placing his hands on his hips andtsk-ed. “Man, you and him are really chappin’ my ass today.”

Frankie dropped backward against the couch cushions and sipped her beer. “I’m just giving you shit, pappy.”

---