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( ― dera ):

Summers were unstructured for Dera, but this would be the summer that she finally set up a real shop instead of just a room in her already small apartment. At least she hoped it would be. The question was, as always, how though? Her mother was an artist and her father a teacher so business wasn’t really something that ran in the family. An aptitude for getting distracted was though, thus it felt like every time she sat down to start making a game plan she would inevitably become distracted by a spider on the wall or staring at a dust speck. Today was not the day that she was going to make anything happen though; rather, she was on the floor listening to music and painting in the ‘living room’ of the apartment.

The window hung open as she tried to air the smell of paints out, and light filtered into the room illuminating the dust that floated into the beam of sunlight. She almost missed the knock at the door as she threw down a glob of yellow ochre–thanks Bob Ross–onto the canvas. Normally she didn’t get visitors and Amanda wasn’t home. Wiping the excess paint onto her overalls, she swung open her apartment door to find a gorgeous man at her door. She smiled widely and quickly answered, “Hmmmm, well technically no, but you’re here and I’m here so come on in!” Without waiting for a response she looped her arm in his and dragged him into her little sitting room.

“What are you looking for today? Tarot, palm, a medium, or something else?” There was a variety of different things that those who had opened their inner eye could do, and while she had some skills she practiced and were better at, she had her fingers in a lot of supernatural pies. “Also I do charge! Some people don’t know that which seems silly to me.” After a moment of slight silence, she offered, “Would you like something to drink or to eat?”

        Even as he enters through the door, he hears its croak - nothing a bit of grease won't fix, something minor that can be remedied in five minutes. He wishes that he could turn this part of his mind off, to merely exist in the moment. Immediately the scent of paint fills his nostrils - not unpleasant, just surprising. It feels like he's stepped back into the artists' studio back at the university when they asked him to help repair something or other that was broken inside. Brenton looks around, curiosity rising in him every passing moment as his eyes absorb each and every detail.

        The radiant grin that greets him catches him off guard for a moment. Perhaps it was merely his own exhausted mood that he projected onto others, but the expression on Dera's face suddenly alleviates a small fraction of the tension lining his shoulders. Maybe it's the atmosphere of something new, the anticipation of the unknown. All he knows is that he trusts her smile, and so he returns it with one of his own - although he knows that his considerably lacks the same enthusiasm, because really it's more a tired approximation of what a grin should look like as opposed to an actual one. He listens to the options that she lists off and then he shakes his head, abashed. "Is there a starter package?" he laughs nervously. "Beginner's sampler?" He had never been particularly good at making up his mind, deciding what he wants - he's trying to get better at it, but the childhood character flaw reveals itself once more in the indecision on his face.

        The first option sounds the most familiar to him, because he's seen booths for it at festivals here and there. "How about a - uh - tarot? Tarot thing?" A tarot thing? One tarot? A tarot package? he scolds himself. What's the right term for it anyway? At her comment, he pats his wallet in the back pocket of his pants, ensuring that it's still there. "Some people are really that dumb huh?" he says, shaking his head. At Dera's offer, he shakes his head more vigorously, holding up a hand. He's about to kindly turn down her offer when the growling of his stomach speaks for him. "I would say that I'm not hungry, but then I don't think you need to even use your talents to find out that I would be lying."

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location: elena and brenton’s home date: june 13, 2018; 9:53pm availability: closed for @limaelena

    He tries to remember the last time he’s seen the kitchen in daylight. He’s grown accustomed to leaving the house before the sun rises over the Eastern shoreline, returning late into the night with weary muscles and a back that aches far more than is considered normal for someone his age. He moves quietly, having removed his shoes at the doorstep. The last thing he wants to do is disturb Elena in case she had already fallen asleep.

    He swallows the lump in his throat, eyes shamefully falling to the hardwood panels beneath his feet. Brenton moves with silent footsteps to the kitchen, compelled forward by the growling of his stomach. He hadn’t eaten since the morning, and even then it was just a stale old granola bar he had found in the glove compartment of his car. He hears a voice inside of his head chastise him, but he can’t place whose voice it is.

    It sounds like the disappointed chorus of everyone in his life who cares about him.

    The silence that permeates the air is thick like the fog of an October morning. It feels out of place on a beautiful New England summer night like tonight. Times like this should be spent out on the town, with friends and enemies alike, drinking worries and sorrows away under the starry sky. Instead he slinks like a goddamn criminal in his own house, pulling out a carton of half-eaten rocky road ice cream from the freezer. Oh the luxuries of adulthood, he thinks, where no one can tell you what you can and cannot eat for dinner.

    He’s about to shovel a spoonful into his mouth when he hears the floorboards creak behind him.

[brentonlefevre-blog]

location: dera’s apartment time: june 12, 2018; 3:12pm availability: closed for @dera-mcclery

    He’s taken a late lunch - again. That much is obvious in how the streets, typically bustling with people scrambling to grab something to eat, are now all but deserted. He doesn’t have much time, and his boss had made it clear that he would prefer that Brenton returned back to work sooner rather than later. Still, he takes his time. He breathes in the scents of the air all around him - the blooming flowers, the sweet summer wind - and for a moment, he’s able to forget that there is more to this world than cogs and gears and machinery.

    He doesn’t know where his feet carry him until his eyes meet one glaring directly back into his own. Brenton is startled for a moment, gazing at the window in curiosity, searching through his mind for why the symbol seemed familiar to him. Then he recalls where he had heard of it before - and more specifically, where he had heard of Dera McClery before. 

    He’s presented with two options now: keep walking aimlessly and go back to work, like he always does, or take a chance on curiosity and see where it leads. His hand rises of its own volition, fingers knocking firmly against the door - and it’s clear his body has already made up his mind for him. “Do you - uh - take walk-ins?” Was that how these things worked?

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Lucien Laviscount at the premiere screening of Crackle’s “Snatch” by Alberto E. Rodriguez

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