Page 16 of So Not My Thing
“So you don’t mind having Miles Crowe now?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” He hadn’t recognized me. He hadn’t been the diva I’d expected him to be. And getting him into a French Quarter property would make Brenda happy and make me look good. And of course, the math said it would be worthwhile.
And did I really want to give Crescent City Properties a black eye by forcing him to drop me?
“I need to head out and do some research.” I gathered up my bag and waved to Brenda on the way out. One of the things I liked best about my job was that because I was a commission-only independent agent, I didn’t have to report to anyone about how I spent my time. We often had to head out for client meetings and property checks. If I wanted to waste my time by not being productive, I was only hurting me. But I wasn’t a time-waster. I protected my Sundays fiercely, but the other six days of the week, I was hustling. Why let Miles stop me now?
I parked on Chartres and walked to the Quarter, sitting on a bench in Jackson Square to listen to the young men busking for money while I considered possible sites for Miles’s club. It was late spring, the perfect time for tourists to come to New Orleans, and plenty of them milled around the square or stopped to listen.
I was sure a lot of the tourists wondered if they might be seeing the next Trombone Shorty or Kermit Ruffins, but most of them didn’t have an ear to discern the good stuff from the great.
These kids were good, though. Most of the ones who played down here were. They had to be to hustle for money in a city full of so much talent. One drummed on an upturned plastic five-gallon bucket, the percussion of choice for street musicians. Another one was on trumpet, and the third played melodica, a quirky combination of harmonica and keyboard. They were doing a cut from the soundtrack of a Pixar film that had been scored by Jon Batiste himself, a native son who had done the city proud.
Eventually, I turned my attention to the streets leading from the square into other parts of the Quarter, mentally running down each one and considering the vibe. I got what Miles had meant by that. You could get a vibe from a building or a block or a whole city. The Quarter had a personality distinctly different from the Bywater, but even the Quarter’s individual streets had a different feel from each other.
Bourbon Street was out of the question. It was as commercial in its own way as the actual business district was, but with a grittier coating and a pervasive cigar-and-spilled-beer smell. It was always the most packed once tourist season started hopping during Mardi Gras, and locals stayed away. I might not respect Miles’s pop career much, but he wasn’t opening a pop club, whichwouldwork perfectly on Bourbon.
A jazz club...Royal Street was okay. Mostly antique stores, and Chartres was mainly historic townhomes with wrought iron balconies and plantation shutters. But St. Philips was a possibility. Or even Governor Nicholls.
Then again, Miles had come up throughStarstruck, so he might like how commercial Bourbon was. It definitely had name recognition going for it, and it might appeal to him.
I rose and walked to the different properties I was considering. You could drive in the Quarter, but it was hardly worth it between the potholes and the drunk tourists always staggering into the street. I wasn’t sure which was more annoying. I took pictures and made notes at each vacant site before calling it a day.
I swung by BB King’s Blues Club on the way back to my car and stopped to consider it. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d gone out and heard live music, which was stupid considering I was surrounded by it most evenings.
I hurried to my car and drove home, smiling when I spotted Chloe’s red sedan in its parking spot behind our building.
“Yo!” I called as I stepped into our place.
“Yo,” she called faintly from her bedroom.
I knocked on the door, then leaned against the doorframe. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed. “We’re going out tonight,” I informed her.
She blinked and propped herself up on her elbows. “I thought you said we’re going out tonight.”
I grinned at her. “I did.”
She sat all the way up. “So you’re going to put Workaholic Elle to bed at nine and let Fun Ellie come out to play?”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
She whooped. “No way! This is going to be awesome. What are we doing?”
“I realized it’s been forever since I’ve heard live music. If I want to find the right property for Miles, I have to get a sense of the different possible layouts he could work with. I want to see how other clubs use their spaces.”
Her shoulders slumped slightly. “So it’s still work.”
“Only kind of. I could have looked this all up online. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to do the research with a whiskey in one hand and a live band doing the background music.”
“Yes! Correct! Let’s do this! When and where?”
I shrugged. “How about dinner and music at Snug Harbor, then see what we’re in the mood for?”
“Ooh, I haven’t been there in a while. I heard they added a blackened drum fish to the menu. I’ve been wanting to try it.”
I gave her a wry smile. “So you’re saying it’s kind of a work night for you too?”
Chloe moonlighted as a food critic on a blog she called The Kitchen Saint. No one knew who she was—even the editor—because she insisted that keeping her identity secret was essential to writing honest reviews. I was literally the only person who knew it was Chloe, and that’s only because I’d walked past her open laptop once when she was composing a blog post.
