Page 93 of Never Your Valentine

I nod eagerly. “I’ve followed Western Greetings for years. Your Mother’s Day line last year? The restrained color palette? Gorgeous.”

Candace’s eyebrows lift. “Someone’s done her homework.”

Gavin steeples his fingers. “I just want to say, and I think I speak for all of us, that we like what you’ve been doing.”

I wait. I nod. This is the part where he tells me what, specifically, he loves.

There’s a long pause while they all look at each other. A soft clearing of the throat from Gavin. I jump in to fill the silence. “I want my cards to delight people,” I say. “They’re the kind of cards you put on your fireplace mantel for a week after your birthday, or you snap a picture to put on social media. Or you show your mom.”

“Sure, we could position you like that,” Gavin says. “You have high visibility right now. At least, your name does.”

“But in terms of the cards themselves?” I prompt. More silence. “I hope they speak to people?” I don’t want it to come out as a question, but it does.

“I like your look,” Elise says, pointing to my face and clothing. “We could do some branding, get you in front of the camera. You look very middle America. There’s something appealing about that.”

“I’m from middle America.”

“Exactly,” Gavin says. “Authenticity is big right now.”

“Can we talk about my cards?” I ask gently, because I want this to work. We have a bit of a disconnect that I’m sure we can get over if we can focus on the cards themselves. “Perhaps we could pick one or two of my designs, and discuss those? Tell me what direction you see me going in for my new line?”

“We’ve seen her cards, haven’t we?” Elise asks the others.

“I think so,” Gavin says. “Online.”

“Yes,” Candace brightens, her white smile taking over her face. “Her online footprint is a decent size.”

Gavin’s fiddling with his phone. Is he just now looking up my website? “Your cards aren’t too complex,” he says, as if offering a compliment. “Which our customers really respond to. They don’t want to think too hard. They’re buying a card at the grocery store between rotisserie chicken and toilet cleaner.”

My smile feels tight on my face. “I try to make them relatable.”

Gavin chuckles, still in his phone. “You’ve tapped into the Minneapolis crowd.”

“Michigan,” I say, more softly this time.

“And of course there was the Truly Penrose moment.” He lifts his head. “That was gold.”

Don’t say it, I tell myself. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

I say it. “Do you remember what the card looked like?”

The three of them exchange another glance. I’m starting to recognize the choreography of it. Elise laughs lightly. “Well, it’s more about the moment, isn’t it? Truly Penrose holding it up. The exposure.”

“Yes, yes,” Candace says. “We’ll call you ‘Hollywood’s most sought-after card designer.’ If we put enough PR behind that, it will be true soon enough.”

“But did you like the joke?” I should let it go, but I can’t. “About the cargo pants?”

Silence. Candace shrugs. Elise says, “It was cute.”

Cute. The word lands like a hand patting my head. I think about how long it took me to design my website. I think about standing at craft shows until my feet ached, and the Instagram captions I rewrote ten times to sound effortless. I think of mornings at my kitchen table, hands wrapped around a coffee cup, trying to find the best way to say I see you in twenty words or less.

“About your new line of cards,” Elise says.

“Oh, can I tell her?” Candace asks. “We’re going to call it ‘Greetings with Kerr.’ Get it? Because your last name is Kerr and it rhymes with C-A-R-E?”

“That’s the hook,” Gavin adds. “The name is the brand.”

I take a sip of designer water. The bottle’s pretty. The water’s just water.