Page 19 of Not My Fault

I go by Lu or LULY to everyone who doesn’t know my real name. It isn’t like it’s a huge secret, but I like going by a stage name. It keeps the illusion that I can leave things on the stage. Like, there isn’t an immense amount of pressure to beEmily. She’s anormalperson; she didn’t have to worry about the kinds of things LULY does. I finally understand how Hannah Montana felt.

TEN

Gus

“So are you going to give us the tea about your new girlfriend? Or do we have to read about it on Page Six?” Isla teases as we gather around for the monthly team meeting.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie.

“Are you kidding?! You are so secretive! You don’t mention that you’re dating an iconic lesbian pop star?” Isla exclaims.

I laugh. “I mean, you know that part.”

“I think Isla is talking about the fact that you got caught hugging her and now you’re all official?” Rae adds. I wish River were here, she’d get us off this topic.

“Sorry I’m late, Aspen brought us lunch since it’s Thursday, but I forgot to tell her it’s the monthly meeting. She forgot to read the calendar again.” River shakes her head as she plops a bag of fast food on the meeting room table. “Oh, and she brought your protein shake.” River hands me the peanut butter banana protein shake she brings me every Thursday. The place right by their apartment has the best protein shakes. It tastes more like a milkshake.

“Good, you’re just in time. We’re talking about Gus’s girlfriend,” Isla says.

“No, we aren’t.” I shake my head.

“I’m curious about that myself, but I’m not going to pry,” River admits.

“There’s nothing to tell. We hit it off and we kept things quiet until we were sure it would work out.” I shrug.

“Makes sense,” Rae says. Isla goes to open her mouth, but Rae stops her.

“Anyway, as usual, I’ll go over the sales for the month, chat about any pending issues or growth, and then we can discuss individually if there’s anything you need. Feel free to eat but silence all phones,” River says, turning into corporate mode.

River goes into specifics about the number of clients we had, the number of sales we had, and how we did better this month than last month. We’ve been on a steady uphill climb as we grow the business. We’re coming up on the three-year anniversary of the shop opening and have discussed throwing some kind of event, but everything is still a work in progress. There are no unpaid bills this month, and we had a larger profit than normal. We’re close to paying the mortgage off on this space, and River proposes the idea of hiring more staff.

“So, with the influx of clientele from all of us, but especially Gus’s new girlfriend, it might be time to hire a front desk assistant and another artist or two. Thoughts?” River says.

“I don’t want to post publicly about the openings; I’m afraid we’ll just get fans trying to get a peek of LULY and not anyone actually interested in the job,” I say.

“I agree, which is why I’d like to reach out to several companies who do the vetting for us. They post the openings, reach out to their clients, and then let us know whose interested and qualified,” River explains.

“That sounds good,” Rae says, and we all nod.

“We have the budget to hire two new tattoo artists and one receptionist at the present time. I would like them all to be full time, and they’d have their own office and the chance to build their own client list, just like we did,” River explains. “Now that’s about it for me, does anyone have more to add?”

“Yes, I was thinking about the anniversary event. What if we throw a party? We could do flash tattoos and invite apprentices and other artists to do tattoos. Maybe like a gala sort of event where buying a tattoo is a donation to the studio?” Isla offers.

“I really like that idea,” I admit.

“So many other studios do small things, but what if we went big? The bigger tattoo lovers would love the chance to get an exclusive tattoo. Maybe only one of each design? To make it exclusive,” Isla goes on.

“Wow, it seems like you’ve given this a lot of thought,” River says.

“I have; it’s something I’d love to run point on, if that’s okay with you.” Isla smiles.

“All in favor?” River asks. She runs the meetings and takes care of a lot of the paperwork, but everything around here is discussed and voted on. No one of us has more power than the other. We all put the same amount into this business, and we run it as such.

We all vote in favor of Isla running the event. It seems well thought out, and I know she’s not going to run off with our money or spend it on anything that won’t be beneficial to us.

“Thanks guys, I won’t let you down.” She smiles.

“Gus, due to your influx in media popularity, this decision will be completely up to you. But I was thinking, maybe for the time being, you’ll only be taking on appointments. For the most part, the bookings have subsided back to normal. But there’s still an influx of requests for you, and rather than disappoint everyone, I was thinking you could check the request forms andchoose the ones you want to do, then let the rest know another artist is available if you can’t. Would that work for you?” River asks.

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