Cleopatra and Frankenstein(127)

“By the skin of my teeth,” she said.

She guided him to her studio, which was cluttered and small, not exactly the light-filled factory space he’d been imagining. Low wooden ceiling beams, the chemical smell of paint thinner in the air, a dusty concrete floor streaked with dark red. Frank’s heart jerked. Was it blood? No. It was paint, of course. He spotted the same rust color on the canvases lining the wall.

Frank remembered Cleo’s work as florid and fleshly, the colors of a bruise in the ugly part of healing, sour yellows and dark violets and crimson-tinted creams. These canvases were much simpler, clean red lines on white or gray backgrounds. He looked more carefully and saw that the lines were abstracted parts of women’s bodies, twin spread buttocks, a roll of stomach, the heavy curve of a breast.

He had never really known if she was any good as an artist. She had certainly been unhappy enough to be good. But what did that mean? Talented people were often unhappy, but unhappy people were not often talented. Frank always thought that Cleo’s main gift was her way of being. She was uniquely attractive, not just in her looks but in her essence. She had a way of bringing the light into a room with her, like a window being flung open.

Cleo watched Frank as he knelt to examine a small square canvas and the subject, which before had been the curve of a bent knee brimming with human movement, became just a line. They were bodies presented as absence; as you drew closer, they retreated. She was proud of these paintings, which were less obviously figurative than her previous work, lending her the freedom and anonymity of abstraction. She watched his face, trying to decipher his thoughts.

Frank looked up and saw Cleo was watching him with that curious intensity of hers. She was expecting something from him, he knew, some response he didn’t know how to give. What he understood was language. Branding. What a dirty word that had become, but there was a straightforwardness to it verging on the sublime for him. All interactions were, at heart, transactional; at least advertising didn’t pretend. This subtle world of shade and lines Cleo occupied, ostensibly so full of meaning, potentially so meaningless … Frank felt like he was trying to open a package with the instructions written on the inside.

“It’s really smart, Cleo,” he said. “So … artistic.”

Cleo laughed. She could see he was mystified, but she was surprised to learn she cared less about his reaction than she’d expected. Regardless of what he thought, she was satisfied with the work.

“I’m having a show next month,” she said, unable to conceal the pride in her voice. “In a little gallery in Monti.”

“Do you have a title?”

“Life Lines,” she said.

“Appropriate.”

“How so?”

“Just appropriate,” he said again vaguely. “For you.”

“There’s an installation piece too,” she said. “I think it’s the best part. If you want to see it?”

She was so earnest, so hopeful. Frank felt for her. There was no guarantee she would succeed at this; in fact, most likely she would not. He remembered the first time he met her, walking along the streets of New York declaring she was an artist with a proud little flick of her head. He saw the same confidence in Zoe’s fight to become an actor, trading on her youth and beauty, wearing them away without return. They did not yet know what he did. That you could be gifted, hardworking, tenacious, even touched by a little bit of luck, and still not succeed, or if you did, not have it last. That never to experience achievements commensurate to your talent, never to receive adequate payment for your efforts, was a terrible, demoralizing thing.

Frank followed Cleo out to the courtyard that separated the buildings. The unseasonably warm Mediterranean breeze circled around them like a cat rubbing against their ankles.

“The installation’s in the shed,” said Cleo. “I just wanted to smoke a cigarette first.”

She rolled a cigarette and passed it to him, then made another for herself.

“I don’t smoke,” he said, putting it between his lips.

She smiled. “Everyone who quits drinking starts smoking, just a little.”

It was quiet except for the tinny sound of a radio from an open window above them. Cleo tucked the tobacco pouch into her back pocket and crossed her arms. It was time they talked about what he had come here to talk about.

“So,” she said. “Tell me about Eleanor. Not your mother.”

Frank coughed up the smoke he’d just inhaled. He’d assumed he would be the one to bring Eleanor up. He did not know that Cleo had heard about the relationship from Zoe weeks earlier. For Cleo, hearing that Frank was in love with someone else was like being stung by a jellyfish; after the first surprising pain had worn off, there was only a dull ache. It would never hurt as much again. And Cleo was determined to be happy for him—but first, they had to talk about it.

“I read your emails last year.” She shrugged, a movement equal parts contrition and dismissal. “It’s funny because I was so upset, but I was laughing too. I like her.” Cleo forced a grin. “Maybe even more than I like you.”

“I do too,” he managed. “Certainly more than I like me.”

What could he say about Eleanor? She was handsome, not beautiful, and didn’t attract the attention Cleo did merely by walking into a room. But she was made of deeper, sturdier stuff. The best sense of humor he’d ever found in a woman, in anyone really, except maybe his mother. But she was kinder than his mother, tenderer too, with a writer’s true capacity for empathy.