The Ordinary Haunting II

2. The Blues Concert - Part 1

It wasn't how my Thursdays usually went at ten in the morning.

I had no objections, but a bit more of a warm-up probably would have helped.

New's knees were swinging open and closed as he frowned at the cover option I held before him, and the front feet of his chair were bouncing slightly off the floor. I shifted closer from my place on top of the table -- an old habit from my youth that I'd apparently exacerbated after too many nights observing New's complete inability to see me on his coffee table while he watched TV with Luna -- and poked a finger into the title font.

"Trust me, Mild loves bold fonts. The louder her covers, the better."

New sucked at his cheek for a second, a wordless argument going on behind his eyes between what I guessed was his professional consideration of my opinion versus his own stubborn evaluation of the cover. People walked past the frosted windows behind us, their voices muffled by the lightly soundproofed meeting room. There were identical folders prepared at a few other seats, but no-one was due to arrive for another ten minutes or so. We'd both turned up early and decided to sneak a peek. Probably a bad idea, considering where we'd got ourselves now. Eventually New raised a second cover print and pressed it against my face.

"This isn't a loud book. She's toned down her writing for this one, so she should tone down her cover."

I huffed into the paper without bothering to move it. "Her readers have an expectation for what her books look like. They're always commenting how easy it is to spot them in book stores because of how distinctive they are. A pared-back cover like this--" I waved my hands over the paper he was holding, "--will get completely lost."

"So it could be tweaked a little to make it more unique," New acquiesced, his voice gently resisting falling into annoyance, "but it'll only harm the reception to her book if readers go in expecting something fast-paced and exciting, which this is not."

"Well then if tweaking is the solution, we should tweak the loud cover. So that we're still starting from a point that is much more 'Mild'."

"I'd think it'd be easier to put more 'Mild' into a cover rather than try to take some of her out."

"Are you underestimating her, or overestimating her?"

"What's got you so much on the defensive?"

There.

That was all it took.

10am on a Thursday.

I paused in my reply, taken off-foot by his question. I hadn't been ready for him to suddenly turn the conversation onto me. Nor for how much I liked the grouchiness in his tone. I found myself wrapping my fingers around New's wrist over his shirt sleeve and pulling his hand aside. The paper was removed from obstructing my view and I was free to raise an eyebrow at him. He gave me a fairly blank look back.

"Why do you ask?" I said as I swallowed a smile.

Tay Tawan, it was Thursday, 10am.

I saw his eyes track the movement of my throat and I was suddenly very aware of my position above him. There could have been hydrangeas at my shoulder and the smell of the beach on the air. I hoped I looked kind of cool. After I'd moved into my own apartment I'd found a black shirt I used to love in the boxes of things my mum had been storing for me since I'd died, one with a Mandarin collar like New liked. I'd rolled the sleeves to my elbows and tucked it into some skinny black suit slacks that day, and had already received a few compliments. None from the hin in front of me, of course.