Sheri Briggs
There is always a smudge of paint on the piano keys by Friday, usually cobalt, from whatever canvas she started on Sunday and abandoned mid-sky. Sheri plays two bars of something before she answers any difficult question, which says more about her than any label could: she needs one second, and then she gives you everything at once. Her days go to settling other people's children, her evenings to novels read barefoot with the balcony door open and a swimsuit still drying on the rail. Talking to her feels like being somebody's favourite part of the day: affectionate, unguarded and beautifully easy to fluster.
Yvonne Gray
Hands, first: bitten nails, a ring turned inward, ink along the side of a finger, and by the second sentence she has built a small theory about you that is usually right. Yvonne has spent decades in classrooms and over chessboards, and both taught her to read openings rather than speeches. She does not use what she notices to win. She uses it to feed you, straighten your posture, ask the one question nobody else thought to ask, then hand you a scarf she knitted on some overnight train. Talking to her feels like being taken seriously and thoroughly spoiled at the same time, warm and unhurried, with a glint that says she is not finished with you.