Crimson

Collector

Saturday, September 30th, 2006 was cold. Santos Caceres tapped his thick fingers on his desk. He wore his normally rolled up sleeves, all the way down and buttoned at the wrist. He couldn't afford a cold at his age, and his wife would kill him if their son got sick. He hated the cold.
A chia pet in the shape of a dog stood on his desk, well-watered and lush. One of the newer cordless phones sat right next to it, silent. The number of calls and messages read "zero". His face twists into a frown.
"MARCUS!" he shouted out of the open doorway of his second-story office. In rushed a nervous looking young man with a beard and glasses. He looked tough, but he was soft-spoken and shy. He was the leg-breaker of the firm. You'd never know it looking at him.
"Santos, yeah?" the young man said. He adjusted his glasses and straightened his posture upon entering the room.
"Haven't heard from Lupe. She hasn't sent anything in to her agent."
"How do you know?"
"I asked him."
"He just told you?"
"I asked him nicely".
He lit a cigarette, even though smoking indoors had been banned years before in East Cove, but no one was going to come into Santos' office and make him put out a cigarette.

"Have you tried calling her?"
Marcus shut his eyes, immediately knowing he had made a mistake in asking.
"I wouldn't waste my time talking to you if she had answered. Go get her. Bring her here."
He leaned forward in his seat towards the young man.
"Be gentle" he said, through gritted, yellow teeth.

Lupe Ferrer was an alcoholic. Twenty-five years old, with the liver of a sixty-five year old. She sat on her living room couch, her feet tucked under her thighs (Crisscross applesauce). She wore shorts and her paint-splattered denim shirt (her favorite), a shitty thrift-store t-shirt under it. She sat staring at an empty canvas.
She was arriving at minute six of her staring contest with the easel. Somewhere in the house, a phone begins to ring.
"Fuck you" she thought, her back in pain from sitting forward on the couch for so long.
Her eyes widen a small bit as she gains what could have been described as a spark of inspiration, and dipped her brush in a red and gently swabbed it against the canvas. She made a line roughly an inch in length and then stopped.
"That's how all masterpieces start, right? With a little fuckin' red?"
She wasn't sure if that made sense. It was probably just a series of words that had floated together in the flooded reservoir of whisky that was her mind.
Ring.
She brought the brush away from the canvas, stopping inches away, but not setting the brush down.
The staring contest now included a pointed, slowly drying brush.
The call goes to the voicemail box, with her voice blaring it's greeting.
"Hey uh, this is Lupe. I'm not in right now, but you can leave me a message or try my cell. But if I don't answer that, or get back to you, then I'm probably ignoring you. Have a nice day."
BEEP.
She always smiled listening to that.
"I don't even have a fucking cell-phone."
A voice came in immediately after the beep.
"Lupe? Lupe, I know you're home. Lupe, you need to answer! No ones heard from you in days, you haven't submitted any work and... Santos is having me pick you up. I'm gonna try your cell. Let me in."
"How the fuck does he know I haven't sent anything in?"
A bottle fell somewhere in the kitchen, and the shadow of a large man with a briefcase passed through. He ran through the kitchen, and into a doorway, a soft warbly whoosh echoing through the air. She looked over, shaking her head lightly. She paid it no mind.

"Probably the house just settling" she thought, less out of fear and more out of attempting to avoid procrastination.
She looked back to the canvas and sighed.

"I need a drink."