Cleopatra and Frankenstein(113)

Cleo closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Zoe’s face was beside her own. She had scrambled onto the ground next to her, so they were at eye level. She put her hand against Cleo’s cheek and made little hushing noises. Above them, a security guard was telling her to get up. His voice sounded like stainless steel.

“Just breathe, Cleo,” Zoe said. “I won’t leave you. I won’t go anywhere. You’re safe.”

Cleo smiled into Zoe’s gold-flecked eyes. Everything she had ever wanted to hear from a man was hers from the mouth of a girl. Zoe’s eyes were the color of Lyle’s Golden Syrup. Cleo had adored it as a child and poured it on everything. The logo was old-fashioned, even by English standards, an illustration of a dead lion surrounded by a swarm of bees. Underneath it were the words “Out of the strong came forth sweetness.” That was what Zoe was like. A lion filled with bees.

“Beautiful strong Zoe,” said Cleo.

Zoe’s eyes creased into a smile.

“Beautiful strong Cleo,” she said.

“What the fuck is happening here?”

Danny’s white boots appeared in Cleo’s eye line. Not one scuff. Zoe scrambled to her feet.

“Sir, this woman just assaulted a man.” That hard male voice again. “We had to restrain her.”

“Assaulted?” said Zoe. “She poured a bucket of ice on him. Big fucking deal.”

“Who are you?” said Danny.

“Her sister-in-law. Who are you?”

“I’m Danny Fucking Life. Wait a minute, her sister-in-law’s a sister? I thought she married some old white dude?”

“I did,” said Cleo into the ground.

“Sir, we’re going to have to ask you to step aside so we can detain this woman.”

“Look, that’s not happening. I hired you guys. You’re not the police.”

“She could have injured—”

“No, she could not have.” Anders’s voice sounded flinty and resigned. “Just let her go.”

Cleo was lifted to her feet. She looked at Anders. Anders looked at her. She had cradled that face in her hands, kissed its eyelids, pressed its cheek to hers, circled the dark cave of its mouth with her tongue. She knew his face. He knew hers. There was no undoing that. Anders was opening his mouth to speak when the art critic from earlier ran toward them with a wild look in his eyes.

“The warehouse is burning!” he yelled. “The warehouse is on fire!”

Behind him the back end of the building was indeed funneling a black cloud of smoke into the air. Cleo saw a single orange flame lick the black sky.

“Oh shit,” said Danny, and ran toward his life’s work.



Twenty minutes later, the party guests were all gathered at the water’s edge on a bank of rubble and rocks. The fire trucks’ lights illuminated their faces in flashes of scarlet and blue. The fire had been quickly contained, but everyone had been evacuated nonetheless. Of course the drama of this would only make the party more legendary. Marshall went to search for Alex and Quentin in the crowd, leaving Cleo standing between Audrey and Zoe. They looked out across the inky East River to Manhattan. A gray blanket a fireman had inexplicably provided was slung over all three of their shoulders.

“Guess those paintings he made with gasoline aren’t going to survive this,” said Audrey, shivering in her tiny dress. “What do you think Danny’s going to do?”

Zoe shrugged. “Call it performance art?”

Audrey laughed.

“Start again,” said Cleo.

They watched smoke somersault across the water.

“So,” said Zoe. She put her arm around Cleo under the blanket. “You and Anders?”

Cleo looked at her feet and nodded.

“Girl, I’ve been there,” said Zoe.

“Me too,” said Audrey. “That man has had a bucket of ice coming for a long time.”

All three of them laughed. Cleo nodded at an Asian man in a business suit walking toward them with a hesitant expression.

“I think someone is looking for you,” she said.

“Who is he?” asked Audrey.

“Just a new friend,” said Zoe, laughing, and ran to meet him.

He whispered something in her ear, and she smiled.

“Enigma,” said Audrey, shaking her head. “I should probably go find Marshall. You okay here?”

Cleo nodded and turned back to the water. The sirens flashed on, bathing the river in light. Red. Manhattan was stretched out before her like a handful of jewels. Blue. The city that never wanted you to leave. Red. So it offered you everything, anything. Blue. It was time to go.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN


August


Not so miraculously, I no longer have a job. I was not, however, “invited to leave,” which is a step up from last time. In fact, I invited myself. Somehow, coming into the city every day to write about condo developments, body scrubs, and energy drinks no longer seems so important. My father is sick. Sicker than sick, he is dying. First he fractured his hip slipping on the linoleum floor of That Home. Then he got pneumonia. Parkinson’s doesn’t kill people, his doctors keep reminding us. Everything else does.

*

My favorite nurse at the hospital is Stacy from Trinidad. She wears colors like kiwi green and neon fuchsia and tells me all the best nurse jokes. What did the nurse say when she found a rectal thermometer in her pocket? Some asshole has my pen!