to create is to live twice

Fortune eventually sat down on the closest thing she could find–a rot iron chair painted white with a fluffy pink pillow sitting atop it. She just looked around, knowing full well that she was being stared at and not really caring. This was normal for her now, she couldn’t go anywhere without somebody staring. Fortune was sure that she must’ve looked like a fish out of water most of the time.

When the woman returned, hand full of paint cleaner as the label read clearly, Fortune let out a loud laughter. She appreciated the kindness, so rarely had she ever found it, but there really was no point in fixing her shoes. The old things were practically falling off her feet. To make this clear, Fortune shrugged before kicking her shoes off, the soles flopping and broken laces nearly falling out of their no-longer-secured holes. She had holes in her socks and was positive that the stink would damper the ambiance of the store. Freshly baked goods and rotted shoe-stink didn’t exactly go well together.

            no, the shoes weren’t in the best condition. they weren’t even together, for the most part, held in place by duck tape and probably some hope that they don’t fall apart. lena could guess this girl didn’t come from her side of the town, but that would be way too obvious just by the state of her shoes. still, the artist promised to clean the yellow paint off and so she went to work on it. first wiping off the not yet dried globs before taking her cleaning solution to the shoe. as lena worked, she refused to focus on the smell of the shoes and not embarrass this girl even further. she looked up at her with a smile. 

eddie: officer james knows all about my good company ;) we keep each other company all the time ;) ;)

eddie: the south end isn't full of rappers, lena

eddie: i mean okay there are a lot of people there who think they're rappers but that's a coincidence

eddie: i'm sure it's a good thing. it means they're taking their time and looking after her.

eddie: if calling her helps then do it

lena: Oh snap, you're dating right???? Totally called it.

lena: Even if you're "super straight", you're dating James.

lena: I just figured that's where a general consensus of rappers are from, the south side ... of like anywhere.

eddie: no. gross.

eddie: my company is pretty lovely. ask around. i get great reviews, lena.

eddie: you say that like i have street cred

eddie: what're my credentials, miss queen?

lena: I'll have to ask about those reviews. I'll start with officer James.

lena: Don't you have street cred? Lmao I don't know.

lena: ....So I'm having a terrible time comforting Maggie. They're taking forever to get this surgery going, which I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I'm worried but I'm trying to be strong.

        if she could, she would trade places with ava in a heartbeat. no doubt she wasn’t the first mother to sit in this chair & wish she could be going through the tough time for her child, and she wouldn’t be the last. she didn’t care about all of those other families, at least not in this moment. it was unfortunate, but maggie couldn’t take ava’s place & this was a battle she had to endure herself. battle was probably too strong of a word, as it was only appendicitis, but regardless of that, it was still surgery. surgery that she would have to go through herself, and maggie couldn’t change that. but maggie couldn’t quite have the trust that lena was suggesting she focus on.    ❝ it’s not that easy, lena. i can’t do that. ❞   the amount of people maggie trusted with her daughter was slim. it took serious time & effort to gain that kind of trust from maggie—— both of which she had not had time to gain with the doctor she had never met before today. lena was still insisting on her eating, and while she appreciated it, maggie’s stomach turned at the thought of eating something.     ❝ it’s not like i haven’t eaten in days. i’ve only been here a little while.  ———  the thought of even putting any food in my stomach makes me feel nauseous, so i’ll feel sick if i do. ❞

     she made it a point to be early to her coffee date with aj. lena’s nerves wouldn’t allow her to even be a little late, fashionably late, or anything of the sort. the nauseous feeling in her stomach would bubble and bubble until she was sitting down at a table in java junkie and sipping on her latte. so she arrived fifteen minutes early, the latest she would allow herself to be, which worked out since the line was a little long when she arrived. so when she would sit down at her table, she’d be right on time to watch for aj to walk through the door. 

          lena didn’t know what to expect out of this meeting of friends. aj is someone she’s still building a relationship with, becoming more than just artist & customer, but as friends. she also didn’t know what to expect of the pit. she’s heard about it, since growing up in oakland one tends to know all about the town -- no matter where the location is. but with her growing up primarily in the east and west ends of the town, the south end is a little bit more mysterious than she’d like to admit. lena didn’t act like she was a typical east ender, or tried not to, with how some of them could be so snobby. making fun of anyone who wasn’t like them. the artist simply isn’t that type of person, she kept her mind open to what she didn’t know. an open mind with an artist’s brain can lead to some creative ideas. the pit was a new experience, her mind has to be open, even if she was going without her sister to coax her to it. she’s going with a friend.

           with her mind open, lena did feel excited to find out about the pit. maybe it isn’t how people describe it, since aj owns it, it could be different. though she was anxious to see her art work. maggie has a couple pieces on the walls of sugar, a surprise to lena once she saw it, and it definitely helped change the way artist felt about her work. they weren’t failures like she thought they were, they weren’t something to be put in the trash but something that belonged on the walls of every establishment in oakland. maybe one day outside of oakland, too, that would be the dream. 

       he had tried, and while it had been a failure, he knew he could at least do something now.  she was now covered in boxes of cereal, the loudness of the event now causing quite a lot of attention. eli moved a little closer, trying to help uncover some of the boxes as quickly as he could so she’d be able to get up. he shoved them off to the side, not so concerned for restocking them on the shelves. no doubt that someone who actually worked there had heard the ruckus & would be there any moment. he was sure the people who worked there had some sort of system—— and in turn, this wouldn’t have happened if something wasn’t wrong on their end as well. cereal boxes don’t just fall for no reason. elias scanned over the boxes to see that a good portion of them were honey smacks.    ❝ danger to your health? sounds about right. i’m pretty sure honey smacks are one of the more unhealthy cereals.  ——  i was a little bit slow to the punch. that’s probably why i never played a whole lot of sports. ❞

AJ felt her broaden at the artist’s words. “Yeah?” She asked, feeling a fleeting moment of uncharacteristic shyness pass over her. “I’d like that. Thank you, sunshine.” She was internally blaming Lena - the girl’s demeanor was rubbing off on her. Certainly not that someone so good would still be okay with devoting time and resources to her. The girl’s time in the South End had resulted in a few of the town’s own writing her off as nothing more than trash. Not that she minded - she knew what she was getting into when she made Evergreen Acres home.

She offered the girl an easy smile, hoping to set her ease from what she suspected was embarrassment. “Any time for you, darlin. The bar is much less intimidating during the week, though. Business is pretty dead on Monday through Wednesday.”

            it didn’t go completely unnoticed, the way that aj seemed to become a little shy at the artist’s offer. which only brought a wider smile on lena’s face, but she didn’t press on the topic. “you’re welcome. this way it’s a bit mutually beneficial, i can work out some of the pent of muse i have and you can have a bit more of a personal touch to the pit. i think actually visiting there might make a couple of pieces spring to mind, now that i think about it.” she needed to branch out and she needed to get her art out there, to make money doing something she actually loves. aj is definitely someone who can help lena with that.

    normally, she didn’t think so negatively. she wasn’t quite at the level of ‘positive thinking’ that her sister was at ( which was why when it came to the matching sun & moon inked into their side, lena naturally was the sun ), but she hardly considered herself this much of a negative nancy. but there she was, absorbed in said feeling, because of the current situation. perhaps it stemmed simply from the fact that maggie had no hand in what was going to happen. she had to put her daughter’s well being in the hand of someone else, and that was a little frightening. while others had assisted maggie when it came to certain things, ava’s upbringing had rested upon maggie’s shoulders, and it made approaching this surgery rather difficult.    ❝ i don’t like there being any risks with my daughter. i’d rather be in a risk free zone, and right now, it’s not really that way. ❞   food was mentioned, which would usually make maggie’s stomach immediately start to growl, but it didn’t have the same effect today.  ❝ i’m not really hungry right now.  ——— my stomach is in knots. i’m too stressed out to eat anything. ❞

eddie: don't be gross

eddie: it is terrible that you laugh at my pain

eddie: no i didn't say yes. tempting because i could do with a bonus, but i had to decline.

lena: Genuinely curious, not gross.

lena: I'm sorry that I laughed. Still funny tho.

lena: That poor lady, she just wanted your lovely company.

She smiled and shrugged. “I’ve got a lot of wall space. And, it just so happens, an art budget.” Well… that last part wasn’t true. But the dark-haired girl would gladly start one if it meant she could display the other girl’s work. 

AJ raised an eyebrow at the word choice, trying her best to keep the smirk from playing across her features. If it were anyone else, she would’ve assumed it was a pickup line. But Lena was one of the very few people she had encountered in her lifetime that she would describe as pure. Far too good for AJ’s company, in her own mind. Of course, that had never stopped her from seeking out the other girl’s company. “Coffee and stimulation just so happen to be two of my very favorite things.” She said, playfully. Okay, so she wasn’t above a little lighthearted teasing. “Of course, pretty girl. That sounds wonderful.”

        it was nice to have a customer like aj, who was more friend than customer. she didn’t expect anything from lena, she didn’t demand everything from her either. which would make lena much more inclined to make more art for the pit. maybe visiting the place would give her some muse. “well, if you’re ever looking for more art, i can be your girl,” she couldn’t even fight the smile on her face if she tried. 

eddie: film it for me

eddie: the fight not the crawling into bed i don't want to see that

eddie: keep me updated

eddie: lena an old woman just asked me if she could persuade me to spend the night with her and showed me her credit card

eddie: rich people are fucked up

lena: I got worried for a moment that you wanted a nice video of a mother and daughter. But I'm not going to film that.

lena: Of course I'll keep you updated.

lena: ....Is it terrible of me that I laughed? Not loudly, I don't want to wake Ava up, but oh my gosh.

        visiting the market in oakland, whether it be for a prolonged trip or a quick in & out one, had the tendency to be hazardous at times. in a small town, it was likely you’d run into someone you knew. in a small town where you had been a teacher for several years before eventually becoming the principal, it was even more likely that you’d run into someone you knew. high school students either ducked & pretended not to see him, or they’d come right up to talk to him. the less desirable interactions were with parents——— but only a certain type of parent. in the short time that elias had been weaving through the aisles of the store ( only to pick up a few things that just happened to be spread throughout the store ), he hadn’t managed to run into anyone he knew. the most excitement so far had happened just in that moment, turning the corner & watching an avalanche of cereal boxes begin to fall on an unsuspecting individual       ❝ watch out——❞        too late.

     even as a grown adult, maggie hated hospitals. she had only been in a hospital bed once, and that was when she was giving birth to the little one that currently occupied the room’s hospital bed. she had lucked out in terms of ava’s health. sure, she had come to the doctor before, but it was always scheduled clinic visits, never hospital or emergency room visits. this would be her first surgery—— and god, maggie hoped it was her last. in the back of her mind, maggie knew that her daughter would be fine, but that wouldn’t stop her from worrying the entire time.    ❝ i keep telling myself that she’ll be fine. with how often this happens, it’s one of those routine surgeries. but then i did the stupid thing & looked up whether or not anyone had—— ❞     she pauses briefly, double checking that ava was asleep before carrying on. ❝ ——died during one of these surgeries. and, of course, i found some cases. ❞   at the mention of eddie returning, maggie really wasn’t too surprised.   ❝ i figured he would. ❞ 

eddie: deal

eddie: i'd like to see them try to convince her

eddie: any special requests?

lena: It might actually be entertaining to watch them try. She'll probably crawl into bed with Ava.

lena: I don't have any, I'll definitely ask Maggie when I have a chance.