Celeste Lumière's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Celeste finds the building on Marker Street three days later. The holiday stall sits at street level with colored ribbons hanging across its awning. A metal staircase runs up the side of the building to a door painted green. Celeste climbs the stairs and knocks. A man opens the door and looks them up and down without speaking. His face doesn't change. Celeste can already feel the door closing before it moves. But someone is already inside. Through the doorway, Celeste sees a woman kneeling on the floor with a tape measure stretched across the room. She's wearing a pressed jacket and has blueprints rolled under one arm. Behind her, propped against the wall, sits a long surfboard painted in bright geometric patterns. The woman looks up and smiles at the owner like they've been talking for an hour. The owner steps aside and Celeste walks in without being invited. The space is bigger than they expected, with windows that face the street and a corner that gets full sun. The woman stands and extends her hand to Celeste, still smiling. She introduces herself as an art dealer looking to open a gallery. The owner crosses his arms and says he hasn't decided anything yet. Celeste reaches into their bag and pulls out a wooden sample board they sanded and painted last night. It shows three colors: deep purple, warm gold, and cream. They borrowed paint from the hardware store down from their apartment and returned the cans this morning. They hold the board up to the wall where the light hits it. The purple looks almost black until the sun moves and it glows. Celeste tells the owner this is what people will see from the street. A place that changes depending on how you look at it. The art dealer stops smiling. She says her gallery would bring serious buyers to Marker Street, people with money who matter. The owner looks at the board, then at the surfboard, then back at Celeste. He asks what exactly Celeste plans to do here. Celeste tells him about the salon. The chair, the music, the lighting that makes people feel like they own the room. They don't soften it or make it sound smaller. The owner listens without interrupting. When Celeste finishes, he takes the board from their hands and walks to each window, holding it up like he's checking something only he can see. The art dealer says she can pay three months upfront. The owner sets the board on the windowsill and tells them both he'll decide by tomorrow. Outside, Celeste passes a boardwalk made of bleached wood that runs between the buildings, bordered by blue and yellow ferns growing through the planks. They stop and touch one of the ferns. It feels paper-thin and dusty. Across the street sits the ruins of an old electronics store, its windows shattered and walls crumbling into the sand. Celeste looks back up at the green door and realizes they want this space more than they've wanted anything in months. That feeling doesn't scare them. It tells them the vision is still intact.