who reluctantly played nursemaid until Danny was strong enough to manage on his own and go back to his rathole and his job. Blake Jackson barely knew Danny D’Angelo at the time, but he collected the man from the hospital because his daughter asked him to, and gave him a bed and took care of him for the same reason.
Alan Keller had first been attracted by Indiana Jackson’s looks: a healthy, well-fed mermaid. Later he was captivated by her optimistic personality; in fact, he liked her precisely because she was the polar opposite of the skinny, neurotic women he usually dated. He would never have admitted that he was “in love”—that would be tasteless, he felt no need to put a name on what he felt. It was enough that he enjoyed the carefully prearranged, slightly predictable times they spent together. During the weekly sessions with his analyst, who, like most therapists in California, was a New York Jew and a practicing Zen Buddhist, Alan had acknowledged that he was “very fond” of Indiana, a euphemism that allowed him to avoid using the word passion , something he appreciated only in opera, where violent emotions shaped the destinies of tenor and soprano. Indiana’s beauty inspired in him an aesthetic pleasure more constant than sexual desire, her freshness moved him, and her admiration for him had become an addictive drug he would find difficult to give up. And yet he was constantly reminded of the gulf that separated them. She was from a lower class. The curvaceous body and shameless sensuality he so loved in private was embarrassing when they were in public. Indiana ate with relish, sopped up sauce with her bread, licked her fingers, and always ordered second helpings of dessert, to Alan’s astonishment—he was used to the women of his own class who thought anorexia was a virtue and death was preferable to the terrible shame of a few extra pounds. You could tell a woman was rich if you could see her bones. Though Indiana was far from overweight, Alan knew his friends would not appreciate that unsettling beauty she had, like a Flemish milkmaid’s, nor the bluntness that sometimes bordered on vulgarity, so he avoided taking her to places where they might run into anyone he knew. On those rare occasions when this was likely—at a concert or at the theater—he would buy her a suitable dress and ask her to pin her hair up. Indiana always acquiesced with the playfulness of a child dressing up, but over time these tasteful little black dresses began to constrict her body and sap her soul.
Alan’s most thoughtful present had been the weekly flowers—an elegant ikebana arrangement from a florist in Japantown—delivered punctually to her treatment room at the Holistic Clinic every Monday by a young man with hayfever who wore gloves and a surgical mask. Another extraordinary gift had been a gold pendant—an apple encrusted with diamonds—to replace the studded collar she usually wore. Every Monday, Indiana waited impatiently for her ikebana; she loved the minimal arrangements—a gnarled twig, two leaves, a solitary flower. The diamond-encrusted apple, however, she had worn only once or twice to please Alan before storing it in the velvet case in her dressing-table drawer, since in the voluminous topography of her cleavage it looked like a stray insect. Besides, she had once seen a documentary about blood diamonds and the horrifying conditions in African mines. In the early days, Alan had tried to change her wardrobe, to teach her to be more respectable, instruct her in etiquette, but Indiana had obstinately refused. Given how much work it would take for her to become the woman he wanted, she argued, he would be better off looking for a woman more to his taste.
With his urbane sophistication and his aristocratic English looks, Alan was something of a catch. His female friends considered him the most eligible bachelor in San Francisco because, aside from his charm, he was rumored to be extremely wealthy.
Alan Keller had first been attracted by Indiana Jackson’s looks: a healthy, well-fed mermaid. Later he was captivated by her optimistic personality; in fact, he liked her precisely because she was the polar opposite of the skinny, neurotic women he usually dated. He would never have admitted that he was “in love”—that would be tasteless, he felt no need to put a name on what he felt. It was enough that he enjoyed the carefully prearranged, slightly predictable times they spent together. During the weekly sessions with his analyst, who, like most therapists in California, was a New York Jew and a practicing Zen Buddhist, Alan had acknowledged that he was “very fond” of Indiana, a euphemism that allowed him to avoid using the word passion , something he appreciated only in opera, where violent emotions shaped the destinies of tenor and soprano. Indiana’s beauty inspired in him an aesthetic pleasure more constant than sexual desire, her freshness moved him, and her admiration for him had become an addictive drug he would find difficult to give up. And yet he was constantly reminded of the gulf that separated them. She was from a lower class. The curvaceous body and shameless sensuality he so loved in private was embarrassing when they were in public. Indiana ate with relish, sopped up sauce with her bread, licked her fingers, and always ordered second helpings of dessert, to Alan’s astonishment—he was used to the women of his own class who thought anorexia was a virtue and death was preferable to the terrible shame of a few extra pounds. You could tell a woman was rich if you could see her bones. Though Indiana was far from overweight, Alan knew his friends would not appreciate that unsettling beauty she had, like a Flemish milkmaid’s, nor the bluntness that sometimes bordered on vulgarity, so he avoided taking her to places where they might run into anyone he knew. On those rare occasions when this was likely—at a concert or at the theater—he would buy her a suitable dress and ask her to pin her hair up. Indiana always acquiesced with the playfulness of a child dressing up, but over time these tasteful little black dresses began to constrict her body and sap her soul.
Alan’s most thoughtful present had been the weekly flowers—an elegant ikebana arrangement from a florist in Japantown—delivered punctually to her treatment room at the Holistic Clinic every Monday by a young man with hayfever who wore gloves and a surgical mask. Another extraordinary gift had been a gold pendant—an apple encrusted with diamonds—to replace the studded collar she usually wore. Every Monday, Indiana waited impatiently for her ikebana; she loved the minimal arrangements—a gnarled twig, two leaves, a solitary flower. The diamond-encrusted apple, however, she had worn only once or twice to please Alan before storing it in the velvet case in her dressing-table drawer, since in the voluminous topography of her cleavage it looked like a stray insect. Besides, she had once seen a documentary about blood diamonds and the horrifying conditions in African mines. In the early days, Alan had tried to change her wardrobe, to teach her to be more respectable, instruct her in etiquette, but Indiana had obstinately refused. Given how much work it would take for her to become the woman he wanted, she argued, he would be better off looking for a woman more to his taste.
With his urbane sophistication and his aristocratic English looks, Alan was something of a catch. His female friends considered him the most eligible bachelor in San Francisco because, aside from his charm, he was rumored to be extremely wealthy.
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