Page 44 of Breaking All The Rules
Suzanne’s eyes went a little rounded at the offering. “Oh my.” She laughed. “I like your style, but I just finished a snack.” Then she picked up her brush and resumed painting.
Neither of them said anything until after Bea, who was studiously not watching Suzanne paint, had finished the cobbler. “I can’t get over this sky,” Bea said. “You can actually see it. Like, all of it. All day. Even early in the morning.”
It was usually midmorning in LA before the smog cleared enough to even tell what kind of a day was ahead.
“I know what you mean. I came from New York, and you could barely see the sky for buildings. The night sky is the best, though. I didn’t realize how many stars I wasn’t seeing till I moved here.”
“New York, huh?” Suzanne’s accent was far more subtle than Molly’s and Marley’s.
“Yep. Came for Christmas, stayed for love.”
They wiled away half an hour chatting about life while the sun moved overhead and the water sloshed around the pier footings and the lake dazzled like sequins.
“So you don’t know what you’re going to do yet, but you don’t want to keep doing what you’ve been doing?” Suzanne clarified.
“Pretty much.”
“Like, what’s an example? What wouldn’t you have done in LA that you’ve done here?”
Lordy…so much. Where did she start? The burnout, the red hair, developing an obsession for Dean Winchester. Missing even one of her daily despised workouts with the elliptical. Made bras optional rather than mandatory. Flirted with a guy ten years younger who curled her toes with one look.
“Plenty.” Bea laughed. It was impossible to choose just one.
“Okay then. What’s your most recent transgression?”
Well, that was easy. “I had cheese fondue for breakfast.”
Suzanne looked at her, startled, then she laughed. “Wow. That’s a lot of cheese for breakfast. I salute you.”
Bea smiled, very pleased with herself. “I’m not sure my doctor will be so forgiving during my annual triglyceride check, but thanks.”
“Some foods are worth taking statins for.”
Truth. Also, such a first-world problem. They lapsed into silence again and Bea, who had been ignoring the canvas until now, could ignore it no longer. Suzanne had taken the blobs of paint and brushed them across the canvas, shaping them into details—water, trees, sky. It was effortless and utterly mesmerizing.
She used to love watching her mother paint, almost as absorbed as her in the strokes and the colors and the ethereal way she smiled when she was creating a work. Bea might have been young, but she understood in a way beyond her years that art was her mom’s happy place. She’d spent a lot of time wishing that she could be that happy place instead, but also somehow aware that it wasn’t a conscious choice for her mother.
Maybe because, before she’d ruthlessly suppressed it, Bea had also felt that innate tug to create.
Not consciously aware of what she was doing until it was too late, Bea gestured to the basket between them. “Do you mind?” she asked, her pulse a low, slow beat through her head as she pointed to one of several sketch pads.
Suzanne’s brows rose. “You’re an artist, too?”
“Oh, no.” Bea blushed but, despite her denial, she remembered a time when she’d been good—not Suzanne good, not her mom good, but not bad. That had been a long time ago, though, back when her mother had been alive and her fledgling art hadn’t been…discouraged. “I’ve dabbled over the years,” she continued dismissively. “Sketching, really. Doodling. For work.”
“What’s your occupation?”
“Advertising. I did graphic design in college. Started in the art department as an intern.”
And she’d kept up with all the tech as she’d advanced through the company over the years, so she understood the processes and the kinds of things she was asking of the art department. It was that attention to detail that always made her campaigns stand out from the others.
But graphic design wasn’t art.
“Although…” A memory popped into her head. Something she hadn’t thought about in a long time. “I used to make hand-painted birthday cards with funny cartoonish characters. For my college friends and work colleagues.”
Not art, either.
“Sounds like fun.”
