Read Online Blood Orange by Drusilla Campbell - Free Book Online Page B

in her arms and legs. Her hair was heavier,
thicker, and darker than it had ever been; and she wore it loose, not
tied as usual at the nape like a convent girl.
    They went back to the Uffizi three times so Dana could study
paintings rich in visual subtext. Da Fabriano’s Adoration of the Magi
transfixed her. In the faces of the crowd-suspicious, venal, goodnatured, Mary’s sly and gossipy attendants-she saw the emotions
of living people. She walked through rooms full of two-dimensional medieval virgins holding infant saviors with the wizened features of
old men, but in paintings of the Renaissance she saw faces as modern as those in the cafes and shops of Florence. This was the great
breakthrough of Renaissance art. It brought mortals into art where
before there had been only saints and gods.

    One morning as she put her hairbrush down on the table in the
bathroom she knocked a vial of pills to the floor. She picked it up
and tried to read the label written in Italian, but the only word she
recognized was depression. Hard to believe, easy to dismiss. During
the short time she’d known him Micah had been ebullient and lighthearted. No one who was depressed could have so much energy.
She thought about mentioning the pills but told herself it was none
of her business. Besides, these days doctors prescribed mood-altering
chemicals to almost anyone who wanted them.
    In the afternoon they bicycled out of town to the Villa Reale di
Castello, a sixteenth-century garden laid out with checkerboard formality. Descendants of plants gathered centuries before from countries as distant as China filled the garden with the scents and colors
of spring.
    They sat beside a fountain and ate a lunch of fruit and bread and
cheese; and afterward they found a secluded spot and fell asleep
until an ill-tempered guard rousted them and they hurried off, giggling like teenagers. Micah seemed so happy; she could not help
asking him if he still got depressed.
    “You know about that?”
    “Lexy told me.”
    “Thank you, sister dear.”
    “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
    “Did I say it was?”
    “Look, it’s none of my business-“

    “Hey, I’m glad you brought it up.” He did not sound glad at all.
“What else do you want to know? Do I hate my mother? Am I constipated?”
    She backed away from him, hands flattened in a “stop” gesture.
“I asked a simple-“
    “Yeah, well maybe it’s not so simple; maybe it’s so fucked up no
one can figure it out anymore.”
    She had no idea what he was talking about now.
    “Come on, Micah, I’m getting hungry. Let’s get some of that hot
chocolate at the bar… .” She held her hand against his cheek. “I’m
sorry I pried. I never want to make you angry.”
    “I’m not angry. Do I look angry?” He smiled, and she didn’t
know what he was thinking. “I used to take pills for depression, but
I don’t need them anymore. You make me happy, Dana. You make
me happier than I’ve ever been.”
    Another day they wandered through the Boboli Gardens in the
rain giving names to the feral cats, getting soaked, playing chase and
sliding on the wet grass. She remembered Lexy saying her brother
was not a laugher. How amazing it was that now Dana knew him
better than his own sister.
    And every day, when they were not in galleries and churches and
gardens and restaurants, they were in bed. Her vagina ached, and
walking from one gilt-framed painting to another, she felt her clitoris as if it had permanently grown.
    They made plans to visit Venice and Rome, Siena and Milan,
where Dana had to see, must see, Bellini’s The Preaching of St. Mark
in Alexandria.
    “There are camels,” Micah told her, almost bouncing with delight. “And a giraffe and all these guys in fancy hats, and you hardly
notice Saint Mark at all.”
    With his knowledge of Italian art, and his increasing under standing of what she was looking for, he plotted a trip that would
take them as far