Cleopatra and Frankenstein(109)

This was an exaggeration, but Cleo had slept with Danny on and off for over a year until, in what turned out to be the savviest move of his career, he began dating the daughter of one of the largest contemporary art gallery owners in New York. She brought her father to his graduate thesis show, and two years later Danny was the most commercially successful young artist in the city, selling a painting for a quarter of a million dollars when he was only twenty-six years old. But recently Danny’s career had taken a turn, and a series of strong-selling but critically panned shows had invited murmurs that he was becoming the latest example of how success too early can ruin the integrity of an artist’s career.

After Cleo had proven with a series of hastily pulled-up text messages that Danny had personally invited her, the clipboard girl grudgingly allowed them all to enter. They passed through to a cobbled dockyard lined by two large outdoor bars, along with food trucks and a photo station. In the center was an ice sculpture of Danny holding a bottle from one of the party’s liquor sponsors. The sculpture was comically petite, the size of a child, with only a few of his signature dreads sprouting from his head.

“They couldn’t splurge for life-size?” said Quentin, pointing at the sculpture. “I mean, they have gelato.”

As Cleo looked around, a liquid sensation of failure surged through her. What had she been doing these past years? She was already so far behind. Danny’s technique had been less developed than hers in school, yet he’d already achieved all this. She had done nothing, made nothing of herself.

“You know what I love about art parties?” said Quentin. “You can look around and see at least three people wearing black turtlenecks at any given time.”

“And at least one ridiculous hat,” said Audrey, as a man in a fez walked past.

“All right, let’s test this theory,” said Marshall. He craned around the crowd and then began laughing. “Yup, I’ve got three turtlenecks.”

Cleo looked around and counted one, two … And there, in the third, was Anders. She scanned the people either side of him. He was alone. No Frank. He looked, impossibly, younger than she’d ever seen him before, slim and tanned. Typical, Cleo thought. He was pushing through the crowd toward her. Then he was pulling her into him, wrapping his arms around her back and bumping his lips against the crown of her head. The smell of him. She couldn’t bear it. She pulled away. His arms fell limply to either side as a look of pained embarrassment passed over his face.

“I’m happy to see you,” he said, turning to her friends to greet them in his clipped Danish accent. “Hi, hi.”

“We were just seeing how many people in black turtlenecks we could count in this place,” said Quentin.

“Well,” said Anders, looking down at his torso as if only just realizing what it was clothed in. “You got me! What does it mean?”

“That you’re a cliché,” shot Quentin. “Just kidding.”

Cleo felt the familiar dual sensation of pride and humiliation; pride in Quentin’s protectiveness of her, humiliation in the snide way he went about demonstrating it.

“Have you ever noticed,” Anders said, turning to Cleo, “that whenever an American says ‘Just kidding,’ they are never really kidding?”

“Hello, I’m Polish,” said Quentin.

Anders took Cleo’s arm as he spoke to Quentin. “I am going to borrow your friend now.”

He pulled Cleo with him to a quiet area by the torches. They stood facing each other, firelight licking their faces. Up close, Cleo saw that beneath his suntan Anders’s face was not younger looking, in fact, but grooved by exhaustion. The light of the fire did not reach his eyes.

“How are you?” he asked. “You look good.”

“You too,” she said. “Very … Californian.”

“Ah yes,” he said, rubbing his cheek. “I live near the beach now. I even surf sometimes.”

“Jonah must love that,” she said.

“Actually, Jonah has not come out yet.” He looked down at his feet.

“Oh, I thought he—”

“It’s not a problem.” Anders waved his hand in front of him. “You know teenagers.” He slid his phone in and out of his pocket nervously. “But I love it out there. The fresh air … everything. And, you know, I met someone.”

“I heard,” said Cleo.

In fact, she had seen. She’d found out about his new girlfriend through some ill-advised googling. She was gorgeous, of course, a model. There were two photos of them together, both from the same event for his magazine in LA. The first was outside with their hands interlaced, heads cocked slightly toward each other. Then they were inside the party, holding flutes of champagne, both caught mid-laugh. Cleo had sat curled on Audrey’s sofa, bathed in the blue halo of light from her computer screen, the sound of Audrey and Marshall’s lovemaking permeating softly through the walls, and clicked back and forth between the images of them smiling and laughing, laughing and smiling …

“Is she here?” asked Cleo.

“No, sadly she travels a lot for work,” he said. “She’s in the Bahamas right now.”

Cleo gave him a thin smile. “Nice life.”

“I am only here for the weekend, in fact,” said Anders. “I had hoped to take Jonah to the movies tonight, but he wanted to see his friends, of course.” He avoided her eyes and looked over her head, registering the presence of someone else he knew in the crowd. He nodded at whoever it was and mouthed a hello.