Chapter 13

Recovering from her reverie, Andy focused on the painting Barbara had taken from her artist's case. It was a nude painting of herself seated in a chair with Jack standing behind her and Kelly standing next to him. He had one hand on Andy's shoulder and the other resting on the glorious curve of Kelly's hip. Andy's hand was touching his.

She just shook her head and said, "Bobbie, that is utterly incredible! You have Jack and Kelly exactly right, but what did you do to me? I can't possibly look like that!"

Kathy said softly, "Andy, that portrait is absolutely perfect! I can feel your goodness radiating from the canvas. I can see the incredible love that you and Jack share as well as the intense mutual love among you, Jack and Kelly. It is unbelievable!"

"What is?" Ken Carlson asked as he came into the kitchen wearing a bathrobe.

"This is, darling," Kathy replied, showing him the painting. "What do you think?"

While he looked at it and made comments similar to his wife's, Barbara was studying the couple and then softly gasped. Then she asked Kathy and Ken to come with her into the library. Seating Kathy on the same chair Andy had posed in, she asked Ken to take off his bathrobe and positioned him in a manner similar to Jack's pose.

Sitting on the floor, she picked up the sketch pad she always carried in her case and began work on a charcoal sketch. Andy and Kris followed her in and stood behind her, watching. As she watched the girl's hand move so deftly, Andy realized how incredibly talented Barbara really was. Then her eyes widened as the girl added more and more detail to her sketch. Finally she was satisfied.

Tearing the sketch from her pad, she brought it over to Kathy and Ken. When Kathy looked at it, she gasped in amazement. When Ken looked, he did, too. First, she had caught the incredible love that the two people shared. She had caught Kathy's beauty and innate goodness and loveliness.

But there were a couple of details that caused them to shake their heads in incredulity. First, although they had been posed in front of a bookcase solid with books, in the sketch there was a shadow box. It was the contents of the shadow box that caused Ken to gasp: In it were three rows of medals. The top row showed two Medals of Honor side by side. The next row showed three Distinguished Service Crosses and a Legion of Merit. The bottom row showed three Silver Stars, two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart. In addition, on the table, which in reality was bare, an opened letter lay showing a single fold.

Bobbie said, "If I ever do this as an oil, of course the letter will be light-blue paper with blue ink."

"But what's in the shadow box?" Ken asked softly.

"Some medals. I don't know what any of them are but those are the medals that will be in it." The girl was thoughtful as she added, "I think the last one on the bottom might be the Purple Heart, but I have no idea what the others are. Do you?"

In a state of shock Ken softly told her that her sketch contained perfect illustrations of medals she had never seen and didn't even know existed! When he protested that he had only a couple of the medals shown, she just smiled and said, "You'll have them all before the end of the year."

By this time Kathy had recovered enough to ask if Bobbie would consider coming out to Los Angeles to do her sketch as an oil. The girl was stunned when Kathy asked for two: the one she had sketched with them both nude and a second with them clothed. She almost fell over when Kathy offered $25,000 plus expenses for the two paintings.

Turning to Andy, Kathy said, "This girl is incredibly talented. Did you have anything to do with it?"

Before Andy could reply Barbara said, "She had everything to do with it! Until I met Andy Taylor, I was a cheap whore. Seeing the goodness in her, I realized what a terrible person I was and vowed to change. I guess I've always had some artistic talent so I took the money she gave me and used it for art school."

Lifting her head she said, "Had it not been for Andy Taylor, by now I would be a two-dollar hooker rotting inside with sexually transmitted diseases — if I were even still alive."

Then she said nothing would give her more pleasure than to come out to Los Angeles to do the portraits. She tried to argue that covering her expenses was payment enough, but Kathy insisted on the fee.

While they were arguing Andy had gone to her desk and written a check. When she gave it to Barbara, the girl's jaw dropped. It was for $25,000. Andy told her it was for the portrait and for another clothed version.

"But I can't take this money," the girl protested. "I did this as an art assignment." Then she grimaced and added, "With luck, I'll get a D."

"You're kidding!" Kathy and Andy exclaimed in unison.

"I wish I were," the girl replied. "The professor is big on abstractions. He hates representational art — but it's all I like to do or can do." Then she shook her head and added, "I guess that's why Terry and I get along."

In response to the women's questions, they learned that Terry was Terry Williams, a paraplegic veteran who was also in art school. With a little grin, she added that she had to get going on her workout. In reply to more probing questions they learned that she intended to pose nude for Terry. He had not started on his final project which was going to be a reclining nude of her. Before she would pose for him, though, she wanted her body to look as good as it possibly could be.

"That's an interesting point," Andy said. "Since we're all naked, what's wrong with you? Let's see how you're doing." When the girl quickly slipped off her clothes, Andy softly whistled and said, "Well, I got my answer: Barbara Cumings, you are unbelievable! You are utterly gorgeous." For the first time it registered on Andy that Bobbie's hair was now cut short in a fashion almost exactly like her own.