Tell us about...
Your place of birth.
I'm from Chicago. I'm really a sausage and beer kind of girl.
Your childhood.
We moved around alot. My parents were kind of distant. It wasn't very happy, but it wasn't terrible. I was provided for, and all that jazz. Just born to the wrong people.
Your parents.
Like I said, they were kind of distant. I have no doubt that they love me, it's just they have a funny way of showing it, and they don't always act like the adults they are.
Your siblings
I'm an only child.
Your (current) home.
It's cozy and cluttered. Not much room for anything but a bed and my computer desk.
I have a sweet claw-foot bathtub, though, which is really good for when I'm stressing.
Your favourite "hang out".
Home, actually. But failing that, there's a little bar called the Mallard over in Albany that I like to spend time at. It's my home away from home.
What is your favourite...
Season?
I like the fall. I miss the fall colors on the east coast and back in the Midwest.
I like the way the air gets crisp and cold.
Food?
I like cheddarwurst a whole lot. With spicy mustard.
Animal?
The fox is my favorite animal. Cute and cunning.
Colour?
Forest green.
Time of day?
Middle of the night, when nobody's awake and it's dark and quiet.
Weapon?
I'm a lover, not a fighter. But I guess I'd have to say knives. Shiny shiny.
[Ed. note: I am participating in National Novel Writing Month throughout the month of November. I have been doing some preliminary exercises in the form of character sketches that have been taking up time I would otherwise be writing here. So I've decided to post them. I have been using the "character questionnaires" available at the out_lines Livejournal community.]
1. Your Name
Lenore Maeve Bratten
Mom had a Poe fetish.
2. Your age
27 years old
3. Describe yourself
I'm tall, for a girl. About 6'1", to be exact.
Thin and wiry, I guess. What my mom calls "gangly". Shoulder-length dark red hair (dyed).
Blue eyes that don't see so hot. I dress like a boy, more often than not.
4. Describe your mate (if applicable)
Currently, I'm going solo. I just got out of a bad relationship, and I'm not quite ready to even dip my toes in the water, much less get involved.
5. Where (and when) do you live?
I live in a studio apartment on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, California. It's currently 2004.
6. What's your favourite sweet? (It is so a basic!)
I like dulce du leche flavored ice cream, and fudge.
The only thing I'm searching for's perfection.
Sometimes, it's just one little flaw that can do in the whole operation. One little piece of spinach in a tooth. One little braying laugh. One little misspelling. One conversational misstep.
You can't really blame me for having high standards. I was taught to never settle. It was stressed from birth that perfection was the only viable option. I was taught that you should get what you want in all circumstances. So you can't really blame me for tossing you away at the first evidence of flaw.
All I demand is perfection. If you cannot provide it, then you are nothing.
Note: Last year for National Novel Writing Month, I wrote a novel about Bunny Day, a stripper with a Cassandra complex, and her junkie cop boyfriend, trying to catch a particularly gruesome serial killer. Tonight I reread it and didn't hate it nearly as much as I thought I would. In fact, it charmed me quite a bit for something so large written in under 30 days. Charmed me enough to continue the franchise. So today's snippet is an excerpt from a new Bunny/Harlan story. Prepare your bladder for imminent release, and cheesy noir goodness.
Monique's sitting in her high-backed office chair, head tilted at a precarious angle to secure the phone between her chin and shoulder. She's got a startled expression on her face as she makes reassuring "mm-hmms" and "i sees" at the mouthpiece, scribbling notes furiously on a yellow legal pad with her right hand. Bunny leans over to make sure she's got Mo's attention and makes a questioning face at Monique like "what's this all about"? Monique stares back at Bunny, eyes wide, stops scribbling for a moment, and makes a corkscrew gesture at her temple. Clearly, the caller on the other end is completely loco.
Bunny paces across the tiles, her platform sandals clunking with every step. Harlan keeps telling her that she'd be better off with sensible shoes, but over her years at the Arrow, she'd grown used to wearing the heels and she feels short, stubby and insecure without them. They're the one remnant of her stripper lifestyle she can't seem to shake. She pours herself another cup of coffee and waits for inspiration to strike. When she'd agreed to take this job helping Harlan, she hadn't thought that most of her days would be spent poring over the details (both mundane and sordid) of cases involving estranged wives, cuckolded husbands, missing jewlery and insurance fraud. She's expecting something more like the case of the Angel Killer, but so far the work has been garden-variety private investigations--interesting and challenging, but nothing to write home about.
Bunny flips through some surveillance photographs on her desk, looking for some evidence she might have missed on the first go round, and catches herself rubbing her temples a little. Yeah, there's a headache there. A little one building--probably nothing she can't handle, but ever since the events surrounding the Angel Killer and her aneurysm, she gets a little nervous when she feels one coming on. So far, nothing's struck her so violently and nothing strange has happened, but she knows it's only a matter of time.
Bunny's cell phone rings, cutely belting out "Stormy Weather", and she answers it before it can get to the chorus.
"Bunnylove Detective Agency. Bunny speaking. How can I he--"
"Hey, it's me," Harlan's voice comes through as if he were in the next room.
"Hey, lover. What's the news?"
"Just calling to see if you'd like to join me for dinner at Chez Panisse. Say around...8ish?"
"Ooh, fancy. What's the occasion, sugarbutt?"
"It's just been a while since we had a romantic evening alone, and I thought we could use one. You gonna argue with that?"
"Nope. This is me, shutting up. How'd you manage to get reservations?"
"I pulled some strings. You with me or not?"
"With, definitely. I'll just take a cab over when Mo and I are done he--"
"Bunny?" Monique's voice comes rocketing through Bunny's reverie like a shot.
"I'll meet you there, Harlan. Sounds like something strange is afoot. Love you."
"Love you back, baby. See you at 8."
Bunny hangs up the phone and dashes back into the lobby where Monique sits at her desk, all the color drained from her face, slackjawed and nearly drooling with terror.
"What's up, Mo?" Bunny asks, but she thinks she already knows.
Monique doesn't answer, just presses play on the recorder attached to the main office phone. A low, threatening voice begins speaking, filtered by tape hiss and telephone distortion.
"It's started again," the voice says. "Eugene was weak. His flesh was not pure enough to hold the beauty within the beast. The time has come to bathe in the blood of the lamb. And you aren't ready, Bunny Day."
Suddenly, her headache can't come fast enough.
On the morning of the apocalypse I:
Got up
Took a shower
Brushed my teeth
Ate an apple
and went back to bed.
Things had been slow at work and there was nothing for me to do around the house so I figured bed would be the best possible place to be when the apocalypse came. I flipped on the TV and watched the whole world dissolve into panic as the firestorm got closer.
None of this seemed to bother me nearly as much as it should have. The air still seemed ripe with possibilities and there was so much hope floating around, despite the circumstances. The sun was so pregnant with it that it seemed to laugh in defiance at the giant balls of fire that were even then beginning to rain down upon the earth.
I got up from the bed and sat in the rocking chair, wrapped in a blanket, with the fan blowing my hair in whirling patterns as it oscillated back and forth in its tiny arc. I closed my eyes and imagined you there, with your hands on me in that way you always put your hands on me, the warmth of you surrounding me in the way it always did. I imagined your words as I bit your earlobe, biting down too hard. There was surprisingly little blood, but as the first of the liquid balls of fire slammed into my building, I could still taste its coppery song.