Page 15 of Healing Home

They eventually drew back and he made a motion down the beach. “There’s a decent food truck down this way if you’re game.”

“Sure,” she said, gathering up her things. She shook the sand out of the towel, rolled it up and put it back into the bag.

They walked down the beach, side by side.

The food truck was as good as Lincoln promised, tender strips of marinated meat on tortillas with cheese and veggies. She had a fondness for Mexican food anyway, and he spotted that quickly. Reaching across the picnic table with a napkin he swiped at her lips while she chewed.

“You’re leaking salsa.”

Giggling, she chewed as quickly as she could, swiping at her own mouth with the napkin. “At least I can wipe mine off,” she shrugged, giving him a pointed look. She nodded at his chest.

Link looked down and groaned at the track of meat juice and stray cheese down the front of his t-shirt. “Aw, man…”

Shrugging, he grinned at her and took another bite, unconcerned.

BB reached into her bag and retrieved the sketchbook and roll of pens and pencils she took with her everywhere. With a few quick strokes she’d captured his nonchalant expression as food stained his shirt. Then in the next panel she drew him walking to the beach, a line of lettuce and other food in a trail behind him and seagulls swooping in to eat the food. In the last panel was a fat seagull laying on the beach. She smirked to herself and showed it to him. At first he seemed startled, then he laughed as he read the strip.

BB started a panel to capture Link saving the little boy. This one couldn’t be as funny, but a little more thought provoking. She drew him dragging the little boy out of the grasping waves of the sea. Then she drew a superhero panel where he was hunkered down in front of the boy, talking to him, and his ephemeral cape blew behind him.

A hero whether in uniform or not… she titled it.

That one he looked at a little longer.

“You’re very talented,” he told her softly. “Can I keep this?”

BB shook her head. “When we get back to the house I’ll cut it out for you.”

“Okay,” he said.

Then he began to flip through the other pages. He stopped on one of the Sonya panels she’d been working on. “Wait, I know this one,” he said, looking up at her in shock. “You do these?”

BB nodded, and he stared at her for a long moment, as if lining up thoughts in his head. “We had these things plastered across the FOB. One of the guys’ sisters sent them every week.”

Grinning, she nodded, though she had no idea what an FOB was. “I’m syndicated, so I’m in a lot of different papers.”

“Damn, girl,” he said softly, looking at her with new respect in his eyes.

BB had seen it happen before. Unless you had a well-known, household name, you would fade into obscurity. This was a tough business. And most people, when she told them she was a cartoonist, couldn’t even imagine what she did. ‘Oh, do you work for Disney?’ Yeah, no.

It was okay that people didn’t know who she was though. Kept her life simple.

The syndication contracts kept her in nice pens and paper and she was happy.

“How did you get started doing that?” He asked, leaning forward on his elbows on the table.

She shrugged, running her fingernail over the texture of the picnic table. “I was always doodling when I was a kid. Coloring. I would get so mad if someone colored with me and strayed out of the lines. Even then I took it seriously.” She gave him a lopsided smile. “I started sketching things that went on in our crazy household, then one of my sisters got married to this rich dude from college. Suddenly she was this corporate wife trying to be the perfect everything, and she had some glorious fails. She thought she had this beautiful story, and this beautiful love, but third-hand I could only hear the funny things. Luckily, she’s a good sport because she totally started my series.”

“Did you go to school for this?”

“I did,” she pushed some flyaway hair behind her ear. “Got a degree. Did my internship in New York. Worked on a few strips and made other people a lot of money when I realized what I had was just as good. So, I struck out on my own. Best thing I ever did.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “I want to say good for you but I don’t want it to sound condescending.”

BB laughed. “I understand.”

“No significant other in the mix?” He asked cautiously.

She shook her head. “Nah. There was an almost but Frankie said no.”