Cleopatra and Frankenstein(12)

“You mean one old, one young!” someone yelled to a sprinkling of cheers.

“But both young in spirit,” Santiago demurred. “Cleo and Frank, you two met in this very home—or, as I understand, my elevator. Now I see you both sitting here, so happy and in love, surrounded by friends, and I hope you do not mind if I permit myself a little pride of the matchmaker. And so I offer you these lines from Don Quixote that are much loved in my home country: ‘El amor mira con unos antojos que hacen parecer oro al cobre, á la probreza riqueza, y á las laga?as perlas.’”

Santiago looked around expectantly to a vague murmur of approval. “Ah, I see I have to translate for you gringos. It means ‘Love looks through spectacles that make copper look like gold, poverty like riches, and tears like pearls.” He turned back to Cleo and Frank with a warm smile. “But, of course, in my eye you are both already gold.”

The room erupted into cheers and a clatter of cutlery on glass.

“Now,” Santiago said, beaming, “let’s get drunk and dance!”

They moved the furniture to the walls, piling plates of half-eaten food and stubbed cigarettes onto the dining table. The sound of a jangling Brazilian band, hectic and happy, filled the room. One of Cleo’s friends, a Batsheva-trained dancer turned babysitter, performed a gymnastic sequence of moves that resulted in the upturning of several jars of peonies and a French make-up artist getting kicked in the face. Empty bottles piled up on the kitchen counter, the table, the windowsills. Everyone wanted to put the next song on.

Cleo was dancing with loose-limbed abandon with Quentin when Frank caught her mid-spin and led her down the hallway, away from the guests, into Santiago’s bedroom. The bed was covered in gifts. He closed the door behind them.

“I’ve barely seen you,” he said, drawing her toward him.

They kissed each other deeply, eagerly. Outside, they could hear people laughing. Someone changed the song, and the sound of an old soul track slid under the door, the familiar guitar riff filling the room. Frank took her in his arms and guided her around the bed. He was a surprisingly smooth dancer, with a confidence that came with age. It was one of the things she’d been most happy to learn about him.

“First dance.” Frank was laughing. “First married dance.”

He dipped her backward, low to the ground, and her heart seized. He was drunk. He would drop her. But he pulled her back up and pinned her to him, slowly swinging her hips in time to his. Then he was sliding down the straps of her dress one by one. She stood in a puddle of blue silk on the floor. She was wearing white lace underwear with a tiny pink rosette at the center, her only concession to traditional wedding attire. He stepped back to admire her. She felt very young, very beautiful. To delight in another, to be delighted in turn by them, that was what she had always wanted. Frank pulled her forward and kissed her ears, her neck, her clavicle, her nipples. He knelt to kiss her rib cage, her belly button, her hips.

“You taste,” he said, his mouth filled with her skin, “delicious.”

He picked her up and sat her on the dresser. Cleo rested her head against the mirror. Across from her the window framed a lavender square of sky through the window. He nudged her legs apart and knelt before her. Very tenderly, he slid her underwear to the side and pulled her toward his mouth. Her hands were in his hair, cupping the back of his head. Frank’s tongue was like a little flame. Cleo turned her eyes to the ceiling and exhaled. Then Frank slid his fingers inside her, moving them slowly while the flame of his tongue licked her, and there was only warmth, no more thought. She pushed her knuckles into her mouth. Too much. She threw her head back with a sharp cry.

Frank’s head bobbed back into view. His eyes were darting around her head.

“Are you okay?”

Cleo turned to see what he was looking at. It was a slim crack in the center of the mirror. Dangling from the fissure was a single strand of her blond hair. She touched her fingertips to the back of her head.

“Is it bleeding?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I barely felt it.”

Frank smiled.

“Well, you were otherwise occupied.”

He went to inspect her head and kissed her gently on her crown.

“What do we tell Santiago?” she asked.

“He won’t notice,” said Frank confidently. “Come on.” He lifted her off the dresser and handed her the dress from the floor. “Flee the scene of the crime.”

They left the bedroom to find Quentin languishing against the wall outside. He had a gift-wrapped box in his hands.

“I know,” he said, “what you two were doing.”

“You have her heart,” Frank said, and laughed. “Let me have her body.”

“Don’t be vulgar,” said Quentin. “Want to open your wedding present?”

Cleo untied the grosgrain ribbons and slid off the box’s lid, pulling away fluttering layers of tissue paper. Inside was a Fabergé egg. It was the cream and powder blue of Michelangelo’s painted skies, encased in a gold lattice studded with diamonds. Cleo carefully pulled it out of its box; it stood on four scrolled golden legs like a miniature carriage and felt surprisingly heavy in her hands.

“It’s so beautiful,” she breathed. “Oh, Quentin.”

“It’s not a real one,” said Quentin quickly. “From imperial Russia or anything. Those are like three million dollars. But this is from the same company. And, well, I thought you’d like it.”