Baja Zuma

Chapter 3

AMY'S P.O.V.

I returned home from riding a sturdy quarter horse at the stable in Camarillo, dusty, tired, and content. I looked the part of an equestrian in my Stetson cowgirl hat, sunglasses, pearl snap shirt, Levi's jeans, and shiny silver leather inlay cowgirl boots. Mom was sewing a costume for use at musical theater, and she waved at me and asked how it had gone.

"I want a horse!" I grinned and added, "Well not as much as I want a husband, but you know what I mean."

Mom smiled knowingly.

After rinsing off the eau de horsehide in the shower I went to my bedroom. I set a canvas board on my easel and laid out my brushes, palette, and tubes of paint. My subject for a painting came to me easily. A few days ago I had hiked with Katherine to that mysterious beach cove at Point Dume, and I still had the image of Plattertones guitarist Paul blazing in my brain. He had sung loving words to me every night since that Saturday as I lay in bed waiting for sleep to come, hadn't he? And gently strummed his seductive guitar? That voice had seemed so real, so comforting—like he was right there in my bedroom: Amy, what you wanna do? I think I could stay with you, for a while, maybe longer if I do.

On my canvas I first depicted the setting, Paul's beach. Thalo blue mixed with cobalt green for the Pacific water, laced with flake white tendrils of sea spray. Raw sienna dominated my mix of pigments for the beach sand, plus quick brushstrokes of violet shadows here and there in the sand. I twirled a fresh filbert brush into a dab of paint on the palette that I had mixed just right for Paul's skin tone. I portrayed him standing on the sand with his body directed toward me but his head angled slightly to one side. One hand on his hip, the other dangling loose.

In under an hour I had my depiction of Paul finished... all except for a spot of bare canvas in the region below his navel. Should there by chance be a fig leaf blowing past Paul? You-know-where? Hand to chin, I pondered it, then decided that since fig trees don't grow anywhere near Zuma Beach it would be illogical to do it that way. I took a deep breath and reloaded my brush, pushing paint delicately into its proper place on Paul's body, my tongue protruding from the corner of my mouth as I concentrated on getting things anatomically correct.

My bedroom door sprang open without so much as a knock for warning. "Band meeting in ten minutes, Amy." It was Christina.

I grabbed my canvas board by its corners and hurriedly placed it on the floor, tilting its top edge against the wall, blank back of the canvas toward Christina. I knew it was going to leave a line of wet paint on my wall, but you do what you have to do.

"Hey, what are you painting?" Christina inquired.

"Nothing. Just goofing around. An outer space scene with planets and stuff."

"Let me see what you've got so far. You're being awfully mysterious about it."

"Sorry, Chrissy. I don't want anyone seeing this until it is finished," I lied, knowing that I would be keeping this painting strictly to myself.

Christina shrugged and left my room.

I hid my painting away behind some luggage in my closet, figuring on completing it when time and privacy permitted.