ephemeral // matty healy

boardroom

The meeting with Blair's very first client was fast approaching and she had done everything to prepare the upstairs boardroom. Everything from filling the glass pitcher with ice water to charging her laptop. It was starting to feel warm in her blazer, but she knew that it was just the nerves getting the better of her.

Blair sat back and admired her handiwork for a moment, then took the phone on the wall and called down the desk.

"Hi, Ruth! Would you let my ten o'clock know that the third-floor board room is ready for us?" she asked politely.

"I'm sorry, dear, but nobody is here for you yet." Blair grew uneasy for a moment, curling the telephone cord on her finger, then composed herself.

"No worries, I'm a bit early anyway. Would you message me when they arrive?" 

"Sure thing," she said sweetly, then hung up.

Blair pressed her lips together and paced back and forth before walking up to the window. She glanced down at the people on the street and then decided it would be best to sit down. While doing the deep breaths, she opened her laptop and decided to check some emails and get a head start on other projects. People sometimes emailed her about her opinions on font and colour schemes, it was often minor questions but she knew that she was helping.

It was almost noon and she surrendered herself to the fact that her big star of a client wasn't going to show up.

Blair stood up and started to leave, but then the board room phone ran again.

"Hello?" she asked. Ruth's kind voice on the other end of the line made her breathe deeply again.

"Hi, you have some people waiting for you. Shall I send them up to the boardroom?"

"Yes, please. Thank you, Ruth." It was showtime. She nervously pressed the lapels of her blazer down flat. She almost didn't care that she had been waiting for two hours.

Breathing deeply again, she waited until she heard a new pair of deep voices jogging up to the third floor. Two men came through the door in casual dress, one with short brown hair and the other with thick dark curly hair. She immediately recognized the latter to be an old friend, but she still couldn't believe her eyes.

She was sure if she wasn't breathing now, but she had to keep things professional.

"Matty?" she asked. His shoulders were still slumped and he still had a tired expression on his face, like the last time she remembered him. Blair straightened her back in an attempt to look bigger than she felt. 

"Blair?" he responded. The two furrowed their brows, both feeling a little blindsided. Matty tugged at his shirt, never once taking his eyes off of Blair. It had been so long since he saw her last, but she still had a bright smile, even if it was forced to keep things civil. "Sorry, we're, uh, a bit late."

"It's no problem at all," she lied and swallowed uneasily. The man behind Matty stepped toward Blair and extended a friendly hand.

"Hello, I'm Jamie." Blair politely shook his hand and waved to the table behind her. He has kind eyes, she thought to herself.

"Please have a seat." She walked around the table and took the seat opposite them. "So, my boss gave me some information about what you're looking to have designed, but I'd prefer to have it in your words. Would you like to give me some details like, what you'd like designed, what you would like it to look like and when you would like the project completed?"

Jamie took over the chat for a while, talking about how they were looking for a fresh look for a new music video and they wanted it to be completed by early next year.

"Approximately four or five months to work on this? That seems pretty reasonable, but what do you want the video to look like? Or feel like, if that's easier." Blair continued to take notes on her laptop, letting her keyboard click and clack. Jamie nudged Matty to continue from there.

"Matty is the idea man for this one. Go ahead, man." Matty sat up straighter in the chair, even though he wanted to disappear under the table instead.

"Well, I want it to be a reference to a bunch of subcultures on the Internet, but also really timeless. Modern and ancient and futuristic at the same time, like the people watching can't figure out what's going on." Matty droned on about irony and memes while Blair typed "vague" into her notes.

She smiled at him, eager to hear what other buzzwords he could drop into this meeting. She did her best to seem interested as she spoke. "Sort of like a video that transcends all genres of the Internet?"

"Yeah, you get it. I want it to have a lot of nods to, like, old, 'cringe-worthy' stuff, as the kids say."

"Okay, cool," said Blair, continuing to write "memes maybe?" in her notes. "Can I hear the track?"

"That's the thing... it's still sort of in the works," interjected Jamie. "We have a demo here with us today."

"Oh, um, alright." Blair was surprised that the track hadn't even been completed and they were already looking to put it to video. Seemed fitting, for Matty. "Can I hear what you have?"

Matty pulled out his phone and started to play a sort of twinkly-sounding introduction. After a few bars of ambience, soft guitar started to hum along with some percussion. It sounded very gentle until Blair listened to what Matty was singing. It seemed slightly too dark for the music. Talking about drugs, obviously. Perhaps some infidelity, as well.

"Sounds good," she said, even though she didn't think it sounded very good. "Do you have any inspiration pieces that you might like to draw from for the video? That might help narrow down a focus a bit." Jamie sat back and let Matty take the lead again, but it was hard to tell how many were things he thought about beforehand and how much was brought up on the fly.

Blair hated his idea at first, but as he mentioned he wanted it to be a bit like a sci-fi movie, where you can't quite tell if the setting is holistic or about to turn on you, she didn't mind it as much. She actually found it quite compelling, which made her take a lot more notes than she had anticipated.

Eventually, the meeting was cut short when a group of people knocked on the door at 2 o'clock.

"Sorry, I've got this space booked for an hour," the group leader said.

"It's no problem at all," said Blair. "Please, gentlemen, let's conclude outside." They moseyed to the large table outside the other occupied meeting rooms and let Blair have some final remarks.

"So, I think you have quite a lot of great ideas, and I'd love to work on this video. I have some good ideas, and I'll be sure to send you a request to get together later this week. Here is my business card if you have any other questions for me. If you could send me the demo, and later, the completed track, to the email here, that would be great." She handed her small white and blue card to them.

Matty examined the card's subtle silver accents and placed the card in his pocket. He smiled at her.

"Thank you very much, Blair," Jamie shook her hand again. "We look forward to talking again."

"Yes, we do," interjected Matty.