winnie and faust are in a (boredpursuit) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-02-08 11:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | faust, rose red |
Who: Peter and Ainslie
When: Recently
Where: Botanica Ache~
What: Meetings and exploring some weird store
Warnings: None!
The day was cool and cloudy. Fifty degrees, and it still did not feel like home to the young woman standing in front of the Botanica Ache. There was not enough moisture in the air for home, and there was too much street and sidewalk, and hards grey beneath her feet. Too many parking lots, and too much wide sky, even with the mountains in the distancia. The shop at her back would feel like home once she stepped inside, but it would feel like a strange version that had been put in a stone building and relocated where it did not belong.
She tried to shake these thoughts away. She was normally not this person, but things had become difference since her return to this desert. She could not hear the voice of the girl in her cabeza, not as she had done before with the blonde girl that had been there before. No, she could not do this, but she could feel things. At first, it had been dificil to tell where her feelings ended and the other girl's began, but she was becoming better at telling this difference. It was still overwhelming at times, but it was better now that she understood this. The girl, Rosa, was angry and upset, and Ainslie had to remind herself that these were not her feelings, that these things belonged to the girl, and not to her at all. But the feelings were very close to the ones she had felt in the previous month, and the divider was not always easy.
But she was determined to find a way to deal with this new strangeness, and standing here, in front of the Botanica, was one of these attempts. She had messaged Peter with an address, and she would be lying if she said she was not looking forward to seeing his reaction to the shuttered place over her shoulder. If he believed religion was performance, then he would enjoy this, and she was secure enough in her own truth not to mind his cynicism.
She was dressed in a red dress that was almost as bright as the hair that tumbled to her waist, with a white ballerina shrug clinging to her shoulders. She looked younger than her twenty-three years, ands he did not look as if she should speak Spanish at all as she stood there, her feet turned out in a ballerina's third position.
Peter was the kind of man who sat in church, played with rosary beads and lit candles for the sole reason that it calmed his mind. There was no spiritual tingle down his spine, no fear of something above judging him for playing the part of a pretender. He could take the place of a pastor in New Orleans, read someone’s fortune with tarot cards and press his fingers to his forehead and guess how someone’s grandmother died. And, those who believed, those who saw the divine and not his swindling, were just as satisfied as if he were sincere. Showmanship always won. Showmanship was all he really knew. So, today he’d prove it to the girl who knew Olive and she’d either think he was amusing or become so deftly offended that she’d just have to unadopt him.
Dressed like a professor, he seemed like the sort of young man who was busy desperately trying to hide his age. Peter wanted to be some gray haired, hunched over old man who could say whatever he wanted loudly and everyone would find it amusing. Instead, he was a small, young looking thing with a straight back and an unnatural alertness. He didn’t spend much time in Spain or south of the border (his uncle wanted to drag him there, but by then the man who hated most things wouldn’t budge from the comfort of modern society), so he couldn’t say he had ever been to a Botanica. A couple versions of it in India and Africa which he found stuffy, pointless and expensive. Nothing that could really aid his performances could be found in little baggies filled with dried weeds.
He arrived by towncar, walking towards her as he checked over the journals briefly before looking up at Ainslie with small surprise. Peter knew she was younger, but somehow he expected her years of wild traveling would put more lines on her face. More than that, she was beautiful in an exotic way that matched what a Hollywood screenplay writer might think women in Europe look like. “Not the most inconspicuous spiritual building I’ve ever stepped foot into.” He said in a sharp British accent that was crisp from years of talking to people outside of the homeland. “My favorite was an Ethiopian restaurant that doubled as a psychic's.”
He did not look as she expected, which showed on her face immediately. She was not good at hiding things. She had never developed that space between truth and words spoken or expressions changed. Her bright blue eyes went from curiosa, to surprised, to accepting in flash of momentos. "You do not look as I thought you would," she said plainly, in case this had been missed in her gaze. "Mi institutriz, Anna, she spoke of you often, as did Olive, and you seemed bigger than life, as if you were something from a very exciting book and not a man at all." She said, and she sounded oddly pleased that he did not fit the fold she had selected for him in all the years when she knew of him, while he knew nothing of her. "I like real people better than things from books," she added. "You cannot touch heroes on pages."
She looked over her shoulder when he criticized the Botanica, but she was not ruffled, and she looked back at him in a whip of copper and a sun-bright grin. "We are not somewhere the tourists come, and if someone who should not be here walks in, then they will not remain for long," she said of the storefront at her back. "I think even you will appreciate the performance inside," she explained. She had never been to this Botanica herself, but they were all the same. The ones here, in this country, pretended to be harmless cosas, but they were all the same beneath the skin. "They will not like us at first," she explained. She did not look Cuban, not with her milk skin and her copper hair, and he could not have looked more European if he had tried. "They are secretive. You will not find their religion in books. There are no churches, no congregations. They do not want donations. They do not want outsiders at all," she said, though she knew he would not believe her.
He nodded at her surprise and confession that he did not look as she expected. Peter got that a lot, as did many people on the television. He was a man concerned with carrying weight and seeming impressive, but he couldn’t do it on physical appearance. The sooner he accepted that, the more successful he could be. “There’s got to be some benefit to being untouchable, don’t you agree?” Peter smiled easy at her, though it felt like he was looking at a woman from a different world. It wasn’t like Olive who was simply handicapped by their universe. No, at the end of the day, he and her, two house mice forced out into the real world, knew each other. Even agreed on important things. But, Ainslie. She was the sort of challenge he usually didn’t even bother with. But, loneliness was a powerful thing.
“These are the sorts of people my uncle taught me to avoid.” Peter said, grin turning encouraging. “They can’t give you any money, they aren’t impressed by your charm and they rarely have patience for ignorant white people gawking at their little packets of dried herbs.” His eyes caught on the contrast of her skin and bright red hair before he looked up at her eyes. “Promise you won’t tell them something in Spanish that might embarrass me.”
"I do not know if it is truly a benefit," she said of being untouchable. She had lived a largely untouchable life. Even now, having left the Giacoma behind, she was not a victim in the way Olive had been. She had a name, and she had money, and these things counted for much in her world. Her confidence and conviction did the rest, but none of this changed the fact that she felt very alone here, in this place, and maybe this explained her presence here, with an hombre that would not love what was behind this unimpressive door as she did. "Everyone wishes to be touched by someone, do you not think? Even if it is only to be touched, and not for any deeper connection? Where I grew up, people did not knock on doors, and everyone knew everyone else. It was a very different life from this country and its loneliness."
When she said his uncle taught him to avoid these places, she looked back at the door, and she began slowly backing toward it. "You do not like yerbas," she said with a smile, his repeated mention of herbs making her smile in an entertained way. "I almost wish to make this more dramatic for you than it is. I believe you might be more comfortable with that," she said, giving him a look that was more intuitive and smarter than her appearance might make a person expect.
"I will not do this," she promised, as she pushed the door open to reveal a narrow, dark store. The shelves were wood, lined with saints and dusty enough that it was likely no one had touched the figures since they had found their homes upon these shelves. The floor was spotless, but she did not notice the incongruity. There was an hombre behind a glass case, and he looked like he would have them be anywhere but where they were. He had tan skin and brown eyes like pennies, and beaded bracelets in varying colors hung over his head. "Would you ask him for a yerba?" she whispered.
No, he didn’t like yerbas. The same way he didn’t like candles on most occasions, especially those lit by other people. And, truly that was all he knew about this sort of place. Little packets of dried grass at higher prices than they should be that did nothing but temporarily bring peace to a troubled mind. He allowed himself to draw a comparison between himself and the herbs. He even entertained the idea of finally quitting in this terrible desert. Coming clean under the eye of every magician who hated him and starting over. If Liam could finally give up his fake name and write something real, surely Peter could do the same?
Still, he smiled and shook the thought from his mind as he followed her into the tiny, dusted shop. Peter’s whole expression changed into something eternally empathetic. As if suddenly he was taken over by a person who honestly gave a shit about this spiritual business. His eyes narrowed with a somber appreciation for the silly idols. He appeared to be an ignorant, however respectful, outsider. One that could be bullied for his faith in the almighty. Peter gave her a smile behind his back that seemed remarkably cunning, bordering on devilish and then snapped his expression back to something gentle. “Sir.” Peter said in a quiet voice to the stone and leather faced man. “I’m looking for something- something to help jealousy. I pray for grace every night, but nothing seems to help me.” He put his hand over his heart softly, his voice pained and pleading though he expected no empathy from the man. Not yet.
She could not keep the smile from her face. She knew his performance to be only this, a performance. It was exaggerated at that, and this is what made her smile. She had faith, si, and she had grown up with those that believed, but she had never seen a person do as he was doing, and it made her want to laugh as she had done when she was a small girl and the servants mocked her abuela's way of walking through the halls as if she ruled the world. But she did not laugh, and there was only the smallest of smiles to give her away as being entertained by all of this performing.
The man behind the glass case, he was not as entertained as Ainslie was with this behavior. Closer, his age became more evident. In his forties, and heavy set, he was a man who had the signs of sun and hard living etched in ink on his forearms. His shirt was open at the neck, and the telltale Cuban link lined his neckline in gold. His shirt had buttons and detailed work at the hem, and Ainslie knew he would smell like cigars if she came close enough to him.
"¿Qué cree este tipo?" the man called out, his tone conveying is this guy serious? without need of translation. When he looked back at Peter, he made a gruff sound, and he spoke in a voice that was heavily accented at too far West for someone who could tell the cadences apart. "You need a new woman," he said, laughing a brash laugh. "Or to be better en la cama," he added, making an obscene gesture, before he had a chance to notice the redhead stepping out from Peter's shadow.
And, really, the man’s gruffness only encouraged Peter. As a performer he was taught to give others respect and the attention they deserved, but he never followed any of those rules. He was the magician who found a way to upstage another even if it meant they’d hook him off stage. He fumbled an embarrassed look, eyes sad and desperate. “En la cama?” He asked and then appeared to slowly pick up on what the man was saying. Peter looked mortified. “No, no it’s nothing like that. This-” He stepped aside to show Ainslie off with a small sweep of his hands. “This is- she told me you might be able to help. That you might have some tea or perhaps some herbs to- do you eat them? Cook them with dinner?”
He stuttered nervously, completely eclipsing the confident young man that met her outside of the store as if he had never existed at all. He yanked on a cross inside of his jacket pocket and thumbed the thing as if it could give him more confidence. Peter quieted, his high pitched voice silenced by apparent shame. And, normally this would seem like enough to run such a man out of the store, but Peter stood his ground, looking up at the man behind the glass before back at Ainslie.
Ainslie did laugh then, and it was a happy laugh, one that did not fear laughter in public places, and that had never worried about being in the center of a spotlight. He was good at this, the hombre Olive had spoken of, but her amiga had never mentioned this about him. She wondered if this was something the other woman had not seen and had not known. Regardless, she thought it was amazing, and his lack of belief did not impact the strength of hers at all. She would believe, regardless of how many tarnished crosses he held between his fingers, and regardless of how many angry men stared at him from behind smoky glass.
She knew this lie of his would be discovered the moment she spoke. Every good Spanish person could tell where others were from by the cadence of their words. It was like the south, and the northeast, and the accents from these places to American ears. She was almost loathe to break the spell he had woven, and she shrugged her shoulders delicately in the ballerina's shrug, and accepted the fact that she would need to go outside the limits of the ciudad for a Botanica in the future if she did not intervene at that particular momento.
She did not, in fact, intervene. She leaned against Peter's side, as if she knew him much better than she did, and the movement made the man behind the counter believe he was dealing with a silly muchacha in love.
The man made a gruff sound, and he pointed to a shelf near the back of the shop, to where the statues of a woman in blue stood, dusty and untouched.
There was a hint of a keen look triggered by Ainslie’s laugh like a clown winking at the audience or an actor deliberately breaking character in the middle of some dramatic speech. It was gone in a blink, replaced with that bewildered, small man he was playing before with so little effort it was as if he had always been this person instead of the cynical, bitter thing that followed her in here. He looked at her as she leaned against him and was glad that this exotic woman was playing along with his charade instead of fighting him on it. Really, at the end of the day, his antics were harmless. A true believer would believe and those who could be thrown by him needed to rethink their own faith anyway. That was how he justified it.
“Th-hank you.” He stuttered and turned to the statue in the back, wandering towards it with his hands in his pockets and neck stretched out and tilted with curiosity. There were a lot of things he didn’t understand about this particular idol and the more he looked at its dusted blues and whites, the more unsettled it made him. Peter turned back to Ainslie with an honest look of confusion paired with a smirk. “So, that’s Mary. And, that’s baby Jesus.” He guessed. “But, why the boat of children? And, the cherubs?”
She knew her laughed played to his desire to be this showman he claimed to be, but she did not mind it. She would not change him here, in this dark and dusty place, and she did not expect to. She was not like this missionaries that came and peddled Jesus Cristo; this was not her way. Her faith would not be shaken by him, and she was not insulted. She was not aware of his justification, or she would have told him that not all faith was like that which she carried inside herself. Some faith was very serious, and he could find himself in trouble someday in a place that was much brighter and more mainstream than this place. But she did not know these things, and so she did not say. And, too, she felt she already knew him, this small hombre at her side. He was not as she had imagined, but he was not as other men either, and this made him interesante; she liked surrounding herself with these types of people.
"There is a story on my isla," she said, reaching a graceful hand between the dusty rows with careful precision, not a hint of skin touching any of the statues it passed, "about two hombres and their esclavo. They set out to look for salt in the bay, and a storm came. It was a terrible storm, and their small boat took on agua, and they were sure to die. The slave," she continued, hush and reverent as she selected the smallest statue on the shelf, well toward the back and long forgotten by anything that was like light, "had a medallo around his neck of the Virgin. He prayed, when his owners did not, and the skies cleared and they became dry." The man behind the counter gasped as she dragged the statue forward, and she smiled to herself. "In the distance, they saw something odd floating in the tossed waves. They rowed closer, and they found a dry statue of the Virgin Maria on a plank of wood. They believed her to be a doll until they took her into the boat, and on the plank of wood it said I am the Virgin of Charity." She held out the statue she had selected for herself, and set it upon her palm. "The natives use her to represent Oshun," she added, giving him a playful smile. "This is what you like, si? The stories?"
Peter wondered how Olive and Ainslie interacted. She moved with a light, airy grace that Peter could imagine Olive toppling around as if her shoulders were just slightly too heavy for her legs to carry. He wondered what they talked about, and if they ever got into heated arguments or if they were both too witty for that kind of thing. There was also a possibility that he wondered what Olive told her about him, but he decided to settle on the self imposed lie that his oldest friend only gave the most barebone details. Even if they both knew he would have proudly taken whatever sort of thing she had to say about him.
He looked over at her, hands respectfully in his pockets as she carefully pulled the statue free. Peter thought it was funny how humans could give a heart and a soul to anything they wanted. A rock in a river that was a different oval shape than the other rocks. A tiny statue hidden in the back where no one would ever touch it. People couldn’t help that sort of thing and eve he found himself feeling strangely attached to objects that didn’t move or talk back. “Yes.” He nodded after listening to her story with a respectful silence he didn’t seem capable of. “The stories are what make life interesting. Even scientists are overtaken by the stories. Imagine the person so mystified by Moses parting the Red Sea that he had to prove that if anyone was going to part a sea the only one that made sense was the swampy Reed Sea.” He wouldn’t have disproven anything. He was a cynic who prefered his escapes. “And, yet they keep in the small fact that someone did move a body of water so people could walk across it.”
"Why is this, do you think?" she asked of his theory of scientists and stories. In her hand she turned the statue respectfully. "Is it because the stories belong to other people, and not to ourselves? It is safe, si? To know the sea parted, and to look for a reason behind it, this is easier than being there, waiting for it to crash down," she reasoned, her fingers lovingly cupping the dusty statue against her chest a moment later. "This story you tell of the sea, it is old, and people still cling to the belief that an hombre did this to save people, and that a higher power intervened. This is not sciencia. What does it say of us that, by the millions, we need something larger to believe in?" she asked, though she did not truly expect an answer, not one that was true or serious. "My faith, is tangible. There are things I can see and touch, but this is not true of Christianity. What of those who believe blindly, with nothing to see? Are they not stronger, somehow, than us?"
And then, a second later, the frivolous girl was back. She smiled, and she nodded toward the man behind the counter. She was lowered voice, an intentional whisper that carried across the dusty darkness. "I believe he knows you are not what you said," she added, because the hombre had been listening, she knew, and he did not look pleased for being lied to. But then, she had no fear of being ousted from this (or any) place, and she carried that lifelong certainty upon her shoulders as only one born to it could. No, she was nothing like Olive, this was true. "Did you love her?" she asked out of the blue. "Olive. You wrote postcards, and this is not something any hombre I know would do. You said they were for you, si, but they still had an intended recipient," she said, over her shoulder and through a curtain of copper as she turned to pay for her santo.
Peter had always loved to hear people describe their faith and spirituality, but found himself deeply resenting it at the same time. It seemed like such a nice thing to have. A small appreciation for a flower or a statue and Ainslie didn’t have to feel lonely. Or maybe it made her feel more alone even though there was something there that pointed to a higher power. He knew a couple women like that in the Southern states. They weren’t anything like the preachers he emulated or the wiccans he fooled. It was all still deep-rooted bullshit to him, but he respected it in his own way.
He watched her cup the statue to her chest in some sweet embrace like a child with their teddy and smiled gently. Which made the next question come to a surprise. Peter’s eyes darted back up to her face. “Well I.” Peter looked at her a little longer than someone who just met her should. “No. I didn’t know Olive so how could I love her? I knew her when she was a child. I think I was just in love with being young and pointless.” It was clear he had given this a lot of thought. Peter was someone who spent a lot of time in his own head. And, while he was a romantic at heart, he tended to fall in love with time and places more than people.
“I’m getting sloppy.” Peter said and gave a look over her shoulder at the man behind the glass. But, the truth was he didn’t really care about being thrown out either. “Do you want something? Show me one last thing. Something about you.”
Her faith was something learned in summer, when the grasses were high and burnt at the tips from the isla's sun, and she knew that it replaced things for her that it should not need to replace, but she did not say this to him. She gave him a smile, one that was long nights and quiet confidence, and she dragged her fingers over the top of the santo's head unthinkingly as he searched for an answer to her pregunta. She did not mind that he looked at her long; she had been born in a blood-drenched spotlight that meant she was accustomed to being the center of an entire Familia's attention. The only heir to death and wealth, and everyone had always spoken her name, even those she did not know and would never meet. His answer made her smile. "I loved being a child," she admitted, and it was said with the reluctance of one who still tried to hold onto these things, even though they had already slipped from between her fingers. "I did not know Olive either," she confessed a moment later. "She was always there, older and quiet shadows. I have always sought the sunlight."
His admission to being sloppy was met with a smile as she set her santo upon the counter. "I want this," she said, not caring that both men could hear her response. "She looks like a harmless santo, si? A version of the Virgin, and with a harmless apellido - Charity. But she represents Oshun. Oshun is water, and love, and passion. She is uncontrolled and unbridled, and no one tries to change this in her. No one tells her she must grow and become something different, only because she has aged. She has a terrible temper, but she is kind. These things would not be put together out here, in this world, anger and kindess." She put money on the counter, and she reached for the bag the man held, fully aware that her words had silenced him into something like respect. She bagged her santo, knowing he would not touch it, and she began toward the door. She did not stop speaking. She expected Peter to follow her, and she quirked her head a little to indicate this.
Outside, she squinted up at the sun, which was too bright without green to silence it. "You would like my home," she said, a decision made in an hour. "When Olive spoke of you, as if you were something born without flaws, I did not think so." She looked at him. "I have changed my mind. I am fickle this way, and you will have to forgive me, for there is no other way that I can be."
He followed her out into the sun, gaze drifting off towards the endless sands and suddenly he felt parched. All this talk about ocean and untamed waters made him yearn for a quiet shore. It didn’t even have to be warm. He looked down and imagined tiny waves lapping at his toes and decided that when he got back to the hotel he’d go for a swim. Something he would never be prompted to do before. In fact he didn’t know if he even owned swimming trunks or if he could remember basic breast strokes. Maybe he’d just take a bath instead.
“The wonderful thing about being born without flaws is that you get to create your own.” Peter laughed something real at her and the fickleness. It was a quality Faust enjoyed in Rose and Peter suspected that he liked the same in Ainslie. His eyes finally adjusted to the sun and though he still craved water, he didn’t resent the sand so much anymore. “Next time we go to my arena.” He told her, deciding for the both of them that she wasn’t going to give up her adoption of him.
She had not yet figured out that she shared many things in common with the girl in her head; she would have been much more forgiving if she had. At present, Rose was nothing but feelings, and Ainslie had more than enough of these to contend with. She watched him look out toward the desert, and she did not know his thoughts, but she liked this about him. He was not an easy hombre, not one of the men who would agree with everything she said or proposed, and there were not many of these that had crossed her path in this life. She liked him better for it, and her smile when he spoke of flaws was genuine. Si, she did not seek perfection. She did not understand those who did. It seemed as if it would be boring for her, perfection.
"Esta bien," she agreed. "Next time, we may go to your lugar."