Shrimp Read Free Page B

back of his leather motorcycle jacket.
    "What's that supposed to be?" I asked her. Ball Hunter man looked familiar.
    "It's this comic book I am trying to develop. It's about this senior citizen superhero who hangs out at the golf course at Land's End hunting for golf balls that get lost in the trees. And, like, maybe solves mysteries and stuff."
    "I've seen that guy!" At the top of the steep cliff that is Land's End, where the cliff overlooks the point at which the Pacific Ocean meets the Golden Gate (and where Shrimp and I first got together in his brother's hand-me-down Pinto, parked under the dripping trees at the crest of the windy road), there is a beautiful museum called the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. The museum is built in a neo-something or other design with a Rodin thinkin' dude sculpture in front. The Legion of Honor is also famous for being in some old Hitchcock movie starring some boss blond lady with freaked-out eyebrows who was not played by my namesake, that other Cyd Charisse, the fancy movie star-dancer with the long beautiful legs going on into forever. One time I sprang Sugar Pie from the home and we visited the museum together and she pointed out this gnomelike guy digging through the trees on the golf course outside. Sugar Pie said everyone in The
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    City knew the guy had some kind of supernatural power, and that's why he was never kicked off the course for hunting for the balls.
    Helen was my new sorta idol. Aside from the fact that Shrimp is an artist and so I am naturally inclined to dig painting-'n'-drawing types, I truly admire people who can create life on a blank page where only white space existed before. I can barely draw a stick figure. My talents are more in the economics, customer service, and cute-guy-finding areas.
    Helen said, "Well, the other thing I remember about you was that when your face wasn't attached to Shrimp's it was attached to a coffee cup. Wanna go grab a coffee in The Richmond, seeing as how you don't want to scope out Java the Hut for your boy?"
    Helen got up from the ledge and headed off toward the cliff up to Land's End on the road leading into The Richmond District, clearly expecting me to just tag along.
    I am a man's woman. I've spent seventeen years on this planet going from Sid-daddy's girl to ragdoll-toting tomboy to boarding school lacrosse captain's girlfriend to the one true love of the hottest pint-sized artist-surfer in San Francisco. Making female friends has never been a priority-- for them or for me. The only real female friend I've ever had is Sugar Pie, who is old enough to tell tales about spiking the punch at USO dances during dubya-dubya-two and then taking advantage of a few good men. But this past summer, my newfound favorite (only) older brother, Danny, had told me Sugar Pie only counted for partial credit, that I needed to branch out.
    So I got up from the ledge and followed Helen up the
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    cliff toward The Richmond, where the dumplings are better than the coffees, if you really want to know, but where apparently my first prospective friend who was a girl my own age was inviting me.
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    *** Chapter 3
    Sad fact: Surfers aren't just beautiful; they can be stupid, too.
    According to Helen.
    Helen says that the art teachers at school think Shrimp has the potential to be a great artist, but he lacks ambition and drive. She says important gallery owners have come to school art exhibits because they're friends with the teachers, and they have expressed interest in Shrimp's work, but Shrimp blows them off. According to Helen, a "real" artist would kill for an opportunity like that. Helen says Shrimp could probably go to the best art schools in the world if he wanted, but he won't pursue opportunities from people who could help him push his talent to the next level. He'd rather be chasing waves than meeting other artists and studying in New York or Paris.
    I don't know if I like that Helen knows things about Shrimp that I never knew. I knew