The Midnight Tour by Laymon Richard

Author:Laymon, Richard [Laymon, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Publisher: Leisure Books
Published: 2007-07-02T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-nine

SANDY’S STORY—July, 1992

Reaching the beach ahead of Blaze, Sandy looked around.

Nobody seemed to be out on the water. She studied the rocky bluffs on both sides of the beach and saw no one. Good thing. Because this was such a secluded patch of shoreline, Blaze probably intended her to pose in the nude.

She lowered the easel and cooler onto the sand, then sat on the cooler to wait for him. She could see him a distance up the trail, making his way carefully down its switchbacks, the wind fluttering his white shirt and trousers.

“Be careful!” she called.

“I’m quite all right,” he called down to her.

A few minutes later, huffing and red, he walked out onto the sand. “Invigorating,” he said.

“Well, don’t invigorate yourself into a heart attack.”

He flung back his head and filled his lungs. Then he said, “Ahhhhh. Is this not delightful?”

She had to smile. “It’s pretty nice, all right.”

Blaze looked all around. “I see we have our privacy.”

“Nobody else is nuts enough to come all the way down here.”

“Let’s hope it remains that way. The sooner we start, the better.”

“I’m ready when you are.”

He laughed, then got to work setting up his equipment.

Sandy remained seated on the cooler, but swiveled around to watch him. She knew better than to offer any help. Blaze, very particular about the positioning of his easel and canvas, wanted no interference.

He set up on the firm, damp sand just beyond the reach of the waves, his canvas at about a forty-five degree angle to the shoreline.

“Where am I gonna be, in the ocean?”

He grinned at her. “Precisely! It promises to be brilliant! You’ll be trudging out of the sea, wet and bedraggled, half-drowned—as if perhaps your ship went down a mile or two offshore. I’ll call it, Sole Survivor.” He clapped his hands and blurted, “Ha! I’ll call it Soul Survivor, s-o-u-l. Or is that a bit too precious?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, I’ll think of something. We should get started.”

Sandy stood up. Fingering the front of her gown, she said, “You want this off?”

“I think not. You don’t mind getting it wet?”

“Whatever you want.”

“I’m afraid if we’re sans attire, we may loose the narrative. People will think you’re returning from a frolic. We’d have all the drama of a skinny dipping episode. No, no, we must have the gown! It will tell everyone that you’ve survived a mishap. You had no intention of taking a plunge. Perhaps your ship went down. Or you fell off a yacht, or leaped overboard to escape a madman. No one will quite know for sure why you were in the water. Do you see?”

“I see.”

“We attain elusiveness. Elusiveness, my dear, is what separates the artist from the mindless painter. We hint at mysterious vistas and depths.”

“So you want me to keep this on.”

“Precisely.”

“And wade into the water.”

“I need you to be drenched.”

“Including the hair?”

“Certainly!”

“My hair won’t look too great if its all wet and stringy.”

“Be that as it may... You’ve been swimming for hours, struggling to reach land, so of course your hair has to be.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.