Moondance Beach Read Online Free PDF

away the memory. She stepped into the mudroom off the back of her sunny kitchen, happy to spend another day “rattling around” in her oceanfront retreat. She didn’t care what people said—the size was not excessive and it certainly wasn’t for show. Lena required high ceilings and elbow room for her canvases. She needed lots of natural light and huge windows to observe the sea and sky. And being alone did not mean she was lonely—she got more than enough socializing during the gallery receptions, art shows, and media appearances that took up a full week of every month. At the end of each trip, she was relieved to trade the noisy, wine-sipping crowds of Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, or Boston and return to her sanctuary by the sea.
    A long, hot shower washed the sand from her hair and skin. She threw on a sundress, grabbed her second cup of coffee, and headed to the upstairs studio to greet the work of the day. The space spanned about two thousand square feet, which was most of the second floor, and the studio’s entire south-facing wall and most of the ceiling was constructed of “smart glass,” window panels with built-in tinting. With just the tap of a button on a remote control, Lena could optimize or block the light, whichever was needed, no matter the season or time of day.
    She worked barefoot that morning, her preferred state for all but the most brutally cold North Atlantic winter days. She’d learned long ago that if she wanted tostay focused, her feet needed to be in contact with the wood floor as she painted. It centered her to be bound to an earth element while her mind and spirit drifted away to the sea.
    Lena clicked on the studio’s speaker system, and the delicate sounds of Debussy danced in the sunbeams. She stood before her most recent commission and stepped into the world she had created—a voluptuous creature sunning herself as waves crashed against a rocky shore, her blond curls and curvy flesh glowing with life, her eyes flirty and laughing. It didn’t take long for Lena to detect an error in the play of light and shadow, of air and water. She loaded a fantail brush with a dab of sienna and a hint of crimson, then set about darkening the value of water-slicked mermaid scales.
    Here’s how she saw it: if a Seattle dot-com genius shelled out a half million dollars so that she could portray herself as a sunbathing sea nymph—and if Lena’s distinctive signature would be at the bottom-left corner—then
Rhonda on the Rocks
would be technically perfect.
    Lena accepted two such “vanity” commissions each year without a twinge of shame. Why shouldn’t she strike while mermaid-themed works were hot? The art world was fickle, and the fine-art economy testy, and she knew she had been extremely fortunate that her passion had any kind of sustained commercial value. Almost all of her friends from art school were bartending or bill-collecting to fund their painting habit. Lena was an anomaly—a working, wealthy painter, and she did not take her good fortune lightly. With the help of her business manager, Sanders Garrett, she was secure in knowing that every penny of outrageous profit from these vanity commissions would go toward paying off theMoondance Beach mortgage. At this rate, it would take only another five years before she would be free to do whatever she pleased for the rest of her life, without regard to the vagaries of Wall Street or the temper tantrums of art critics. All that from taking on two commissions per year. The rest of her paintings could sell for a fraction of the price, and she would have no worries.
    When she had completed the finishing touches, Lena selected a delicate rigger brush and cradled it between her thumb and fingers. She had raised her left hand to sign the finished painting with her stylized “A.S.” when suddenly, the colorful glass beads of her bracelet caught the light. They sparkled against the elaborately knotted black and white twine encircling her