Free Best-Kept Boy in the World by Arthur Vanderbilt Page B

hands like the wings of birds
and a crown of pale poisonous-looking flowers.”
    “Good God!” I exclaimed. “It really is a
Picasso!”
    “Well, of course , it is, honey chile! Did you
think your old Aunt would tote a reproduction around? This is my
last and only souvenir of Europe.’” In the novel, the Condesa has
given it to Paul just before he left for the United States. “‘It
used to hang in her bedroom and I always liked to wake up with it
in the morning ...” 39
    Christopher and Paul go together on a ten day
retreat with Augustus Parr and twelve more of his followers to a
campsite near Palm Springs. With the group were two beautiful
teenage girls, one of whom, Dee-Ann, begins flirting with Paul,
wrestling with him, telling him: “Do you know what Alanna said
about you once? She said you were beautiful,” 40 riding
horses with him, swimming with him. On the last day of the retreat,
Alanna goes to her parents and tells them she has “seen Paul with
Dee-Ann, through the window of [Christopher’s] cabin, in an act of
sex.” 41 Paul then is seen speeding away from the site in
Christopher’s car. When he returns, Paul is confronted, and doesn’t
deny the allegations. Paul accuses Christopher of making his mind
up about what has happened based on what others have told him, even
before he has spoken with him. On the drive back to Los Angeles,
Paul tells Christopher that he hasn’t done anything. “But, Paul,
wait a minute—why did you tell them you’d done it?” Christopher
asks. “I did not tell them. I just didn’t deny it. And why the hell
should I? They all believed I did it from the word go. They were
just hearing what they’d been expecting to hear all
along.” 42 Dee-Ann’s sister later confesses that Dee-Ann
has fabricated the entire story.
    Paul, who has filed as a conscientious objector,
receives an order from his draft board directing him to report to
forestry camp. At the camp, Paul is a favorite of the others who
are fascinated by his tales of Europe and by his dog, Gigi, the
only dog in the camp, “huge and shaggy and
sloppy-tongued,” 43 but the Quaker directors of the camp
are quite concerned about Paul’s habit of playfully addressing the
others as “Darling ... and ... Lover Boy”; they are relieved to
discover he has a heart murmur, which they use as reason to have
him, after two years at the camp, reclassified as 4-F and
discharged.
    On their ride home from the camp, Paul questions
Christopher about whether he is still dedicated to the principles
of yoga and learns that Christopher is now taking a more relaxed
approach, meditating only on occasion, not following a strictly
vegetarian diet, and having sex whenever he feels like it. Paul
chastises Christopher for reverting to just what he was before he
began to alter his life, and tells him, “I know what I really want now. I discovered that up at camp. I don’t want
any more of this auto hypnotism and professional goodness. I’m sick
of trying to imagine I feel things. I just want to know .” 44 He tells Christopher he has decided to
become a psychoanalyst, that he has taken correspondence courses
while at camp and gotten his high school diploma, that he’ll be
starting a pre-med program in New York City in the fall, and that
he will be leaving in a few days. Christopher is astounded. “Paul,”
I said, and I meant it, “you’re the most amazing person I
know.” 45
    Augustus Parr also is astonished, delighted at the
news. “That will of his!” Augustus exclaimed. “My word! It would
move mountains undoubtedly.” 46 Christopher isn’t so sure
Paul will be able to follow through and complete the necessary
courses. “For I had just realized one fact about his motivations:
he could only do things—even altogether constructive things, like
getting a medical degree— against someone else. There always
had to be an enemy, whose role it was to lack faith in Paul and be
proved wrong. And Paul’s latest enemy wasn’t