2019-06-16 - A Conversation in the Rain (Because it's always raining)

Dahlia had never set foot on a college campus. Never thought she would either. Nonetheless, here she was. Not to sign up for classes because higher education was not currently in her plans. No, it was to see about arranging some times to secure an auditorium-like room for the acting classes she wanted to teach. If she was stuck in this town, she was going to try and make the most of it after all. She had a manilla folder tucked under her arm with a pile of papers to fill out, and was checking her phone in the other for the time to make sure she wouldn't be late for a meeting with Byron later this morning. Her attire today is a strapless navy blue dress and a pair of black sandals. Her hair pulled back in a neat ponytail.

Eli walks a lot. As a result, he's often seen around the city in perhaps unexpected places. Today he found his way to the small college campus where he wanders down the paths and through the trees with little mind about the misty drizzle that fills the air. You live here for awhile and you just learn to ignore that level of dampness. He's dressed in comfortable blue jeans and sturdy running shoes, an unremarkable grey hoodie pulled over whatever he's wearing beneath to keep the damp at bay. It's still a quiet time of day on campus, so he finds himself looking up toward Dahlia when he passes by where she's standing. And he ends up looking her direction perhaps a bit more than is really socially acceptable - not so much staring as perhaps trying to place her, getting lost in his attempts and forgetting to politely look away.

As one is prone to do when looking at their phone, you get distracted by poking at other things. Now, Dahlia is used to a fair amount of being watched due to her line of work - but sometimes you just get a feeling. She slowly looked up from her phone, glancing around to find the culprit. Her bright green eyes landed on Eli - locking eyes briefly. Yep, it was him. Then her brow furrowed. He looked vaguely familiar but then again, so did most people in this town. "If you take a picture it'll last longer." She said, sliding her phone back into the top of her dress because that was a totally normal thing. The words were accompanied with a slightly amused look and a light smile though.

He blinks. Looking entirely uncertain what to do with himself having been caught in his gawking. The words don't help either, Eli taking half a step backwards and starting to stammer out some attempt at an apology, but he does catch the expression and is relieved that the woman doesn't seem to be actually upset. He regroups, pushing his hair back where the rain threatens to push it down over his eyes. "I'm sorry. You look familiar. You live somewhere long enough and most people start to fall into two categories - either you recognize them right away or you don't know them at all. You're somewhere in-between." His voice is quieter than one might expect from a man of his stature, but he does seem to be relaxing after his initial distress.

Dahlia takes a step closer towards the man, studying him, and doing her best to maintain a neutral sort of expression as he stammers and stumbles. "You look familiar too. If it makes you feel any better." Giving him a once over and then nodding. "I'll bet you know my brother Leon." The middle of her old brothers and roughly about Eli's age she would guess. A beat of pause before shifting the manila folder into her left hand and offering her right. "Dahlia Evergreen." The Evergreens did have something of a reputation for being nuisances in town. At least in their younger years.

"Leon Evergreen. Dahlia. Shit. Yes." Eli says, snapping his fingers by his side as the fuzzy details tighten into place a little bit. "It may just be that I'm going crazy, but not about this at least. I don't remember the last time I saw you - not a big surprise that I don't recognize you now." Indeed, Dahlia had likely grown up a fair bit since Eli would have had any incidental contact with her. "Eli Blake." He offers his name, blue eyes watching her when he gives the introduction. Not that he had a terrible reputation in the city, more that of someone who is always on the fringes. Those type of people often have stories made up about them for lack of better substance. "Have you been away from the city awhile? Off at school?" He asks. "Or have I simply managed to never see you around?"

"Eli, yes. Pleasure to meet you - a second time." Dahlia's handshake was quick but confident and that light smile maintained. "We're all a little crazy, aren't we?" A soft chuckle escaping. Yes it had been probably a fairly long time since they'd seen each other. "I've been in California." She doesn't elaborate as to whether that was for school or not though. "Just got back in town last week. It's nice to see you again. How've you been doing?" Brushing back a few loose strands of hair to tuck them behind her ear.

"California. That sounds nice. More sun, at least?" Eli suggests, looking up into the grey sky above with a small frown before settling his eyes back on Dahlia's face. "I've been fine, thank you. You know how this place is. Not a lot changes and I'm mostly content with that. Work is steady and I have plenty to keep me occupied. Hard to ask for much more than that." He's still reserved, but seems to get more comfortable in the conversation as the exchange goes back and forth. "What pulled you back here from the sunshine?" He asks, eyes briefly darting to the folder in her hands and then to the building behind her.

"Definitely more sun, less rain." Dahlia agreed. Though you would never guess by looking at her. Since she certainly didn't have a tan. A glance up towards the sky when he did. "Want to step inside?" Before the light drizzle turned into a downpour maybe. They were still pretty close to the admin buidling. She hadn't gotten too far out the door. "What is it that you're doing for work now?" When he asked what brought her back, the smile faded a touch. "Mom. She's not doing so well these days so I'l helping take care of her."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Eli says, the words sincere when Dahlia explains what has brought her back to the Harbor. He steps toward the door to the building and holds it open, gesturing for her to go in first before he follows. "I'm doing translation work. Mostly novels - fiction - these days. I'll do other things if they pay is right, but I prefer doing the novels. Been at it since I left high school, but really gotten into a good place the last few years. Takes awhile to get established and have people coming to me with contracts rather than chasing and hunting for work all the time." He explains.

Dahlia looks interested as she listens, stepped back inside the building with a little bit of a shiver. Going into the cooler building combined with already beeing a little went from the rain. "That sounds pretty amazing. How many languages do you know now?" She asked curiously. She vaguely remembered him being into languages but that hadn't been something she was particularly interested in herself back then. "I'm decent at Spanish and I know a little Russian myself. But that's about all I can do besides English." She laughed

"I work in mostly French and German. Though, I can get by in a lot more languages than that, those are the two I focused on enough to have fluency for translation. Still a bit gap between being able to speak a language and actually being able to capture the meaning and emotion that's presented in English and keep that same feeling in another language. I'm close with Spanish and it's something I'm working on to get good enough to pick up work there too." Eli seems happy enough to talk about work, actually giving a bit of a smile when Dahlia lists her prowess. "Russian is a very interesting language. How did you decide to pick that up?"

"French would be an interesting language to learn. Maybe German too. We can do a bit of a trade perhaps some time. You can practice your Spanish with me and in exchange you can teach me French or German." She suggested. "Well, I've been doing a bit of acting. I was trying out for a part and 'some Russian' was preferred. So I decided to learn some and try...didn't get the part in the end up it was still a fun experience, learning." Dahlia nodded. "I'm trying to secure some time in the Performing Arts center so I can offer some acting classes to bring in a little money while I'm up here."

"It's always fun to learn new things. Perhaps you'll have a chance to use it again somewhere down the line." Eli replies in what is perhaps surprisingly smooth Russian for someone that didn't list it amongst the languages that he knew. "I've always been a bit fascinated by the effort that actors have to go through to get themselves into a role. Studying a culture, learning a language, changing how they look. It's not so easy to just choose a role and act it out without all that preparation." He nods to her last words, looking off in the direction of where the Arts center is. "That's a good idea. I'm sure a lot of people might enjoy a chance to learn more about acting. Even if it's not a career for most, it's an engaging hobby."

Dahlia blinks a bit, looking surprised as he talks to her in Russian. "Perhaps I might." She responds back, tapping her chin lightly. "Yes, it isn't all it's cracked up to be. I'm holding out hope that one day I'll hit it big. Until then, well I'll just keep working at it." There's an odd little look that briefly had crossed her features when she talked about keeping at it but then it faded. "I hope so. I'm going to be helping Byron out a bit with his festival. So going to try and put up flyers and such around there too to drum up some exposure for them. Once I get it all sorted out."

"It's like many passions - more supply for the roles than demand, and it often doesn't have much to do with actual talent. It's a mix of talent, luck and who you know. I guess that's what they call it 'getting your big break'." Eli says with a small smile, nodding as she explains what she's going to be doing in town. "I'm sure being here isn't really helping to get you in the spotlight, but you never know what might happen. Get all kinds coming through here during vacation season. Besides, being home to help your family is important."

"Very true. It'll come. It just takes time and patience and networking. Which is unlikely to happen here but anything's possible." Dahlia agreed. "I'm trying to get my brothers to come back to town. If only just to spend some time with mom. I know they hung around longer than I did but..." Dahlia just shook her head. The unspoken words were there. She didn't know how much longer their mother had left. "Anyway." A little wave of her hand, as if pushing away the subject. "How's your family doing?"

This sends Eli's expression carefully blank while he gives a small shake of his head. "I've been mostly on my own since early in high school." He replies, not meeting her eyes for a moment. Clearly the topic of family on either side isn't a great direction to go. He swallows and presses onwards to less controversial subjects. "At least you're back here as the summer is coming into full swing. Tourist season will be starting and this place gets a little bit of a life. I'm sure it seems very sleepy compared to life in California. Was it all that they make it out to be? Television makes it look pretty glamorous."

Right. In the back of Dahlia's mind she had probably known that to some degree. Forever ago. Family was always a touchy subject. She was thankful for the change. "Honestly? It didn't look too much different on the surface from some place like Seattle." She admitted. "The only difference really is that there's more famous people." A little laugh. "But it's got homeless, it's not normal people. Shady spots and stuff...I do have a signature book that I kept on me if I did run into anyone big. I was shameless." And still was. Dahlia gave him a grin. "I did waitressing for a long time...it's funny when you see famous people come in and you just kind of remember 'oh yeah, they eat too I guess'."

Eli gives a soft laugh. "Yeah, I guess they do. They're still just people. Easy to forget they need to to the same things as the rest of us. I think the weirdest thought to me is them at the grocery store, just picking up some wonderbread and canned soup. Good to hear you got some autographs though, I don't think I'd be able to go up and ask anyone. I'm sure they get it all the time, but I'd feel like I was imposing." He shrugs, seemingly seeing that as a fault of his own. "Well, I don't want to keep you too long from what you're doing. Now that you're back in town, well, if you need anything I can help with - you know, with your mom or anything - let me know. I'm always around and I know it's a tough time. Community has to stick together, right?"

"Yeah. They do get it all the time, but a lot of them are pretty chill about it...which was surprising. Though I do have a good chunk pasted in the book that are just copies of signed receipts. " She admitted with a laugh. Nodding, "Yeah I probably should go and check on mom before my meeting with Byron later." Another smile was offered. "I appreciate it Eli. Really. I'll get in touch if I need your assistance. Or if I just want to pester you into teaching me a new language." She readjusted the manila folder lightly again. "Have a good day. I'm glad we ran into each other." And then would turn to head back out into the drizzle.