Cleopatra and Frankenstein(14)

Memorial Day. It felt like a long time ago now, but in fact it was only a few weeks. Cleo’s student visa was up at the end of the month, and the company she’d been freelancing for as a textile designer couldn’t afford to sponsor her. As a last hurrah, she’d presumed, Frank had taken her to his rarely used cabin upstate. Since neither of them could drive or were particularly domestic, it was three days of unmade beds, cereal for dinner, and pure, private bliss.

Frank moved to the far side of the roof and attempted to arrange a firework, propping it between two wine bottles. He lurched forward, sending the bottles scattering around his feet.

“Hey, man,” Santiago said, coming up behind to steady him. “Why don’t you let me do this. You go watch with Cleo.”

“Who has a lighter?” Frank yelled, ignoring him. He slapped the pockets of his trousers. Someone tossed him one, but it went wide, sailing over the side of the roof into the darkness beyond. Anders appeared through the doorway and, exchanging a long look with Santiago, managed to guide Frank back to where a crowd of guests had gathered to watch. Cleo took his hand.

It was on the train home from Hudson that he’d asked her. She was drifting in and out of sleep on his shoulder, his cheek pressed against the crown of her head. Cleo, my Cleo. A black ribbon of river rushed beside them, barely distinguishable from the dark fields and trees beyond. What would you think? She could see the chalky reflection of Frank’s face glowing in the window. He looked like a saint. What would you think of us getting married?

Santiago yelled for everyone to stand back as he and Anders lit the first fireworks. Bright flumes of light shot up behind them, suspended momentarily in the shape of stars. The sky crackled with light. Suddenly Frank shook his hand free of hers and darted forward across the roof, bent at the waist. He lunged for a rocket and lit it straight from his hand, sending it off at an angle that narrowly missed Anders’s shoulder.

“What the fuck?” she could hear Anders yelling as Frank ran back.

He took her hand again and squeezed it hard. Sparks showered down on them. The fireworks gained momentum, illuminating the faces of the crowd on the roof in flashes. Cleo watched Frank’s profile in the light. Boom, boom, boom. He was staring up ahead, jaw set, eyes wet and reflective.

She had not told Quentin what Frank’s actual vow was. He’d surprised her by requesting to say something at the end of the ceremony, after the usual script had been read. He was noticeably nervous, his usual gregariousness gone. When he finally did speak, it was a single sentence. When the darkest part of you meets the darkest part of me, it creates light.





CHAPTER THREE


July


Less than a month after Cleo and Frank’s wedding, Quentin and Johnny broke up. Cleo had stopped spending all her free time with Quentin, which meant he suddenly had a lot of extra energy to focus on Johnny—and find him wanting. Johnny, it turned out, was just another Irish Catholic queen with a drinking problem. He had Republican parents that he secretly adored, and the kind of body hair that could be described as a pelt. Quentin was better off without him.

Now that Johnny was gone and Cleo was always busy with Frank, Quentin had time to do whatever he wanted, like stay up all night watching anime, or chain-smoke in bed, or go to invite-only orgies—which was exactly the plan for that night. The invitation had been slipped inside his locker at the gym: “We Want You. Private Event. Email for Details.” He’d heard about these parties before, run by an underground network of gays whose mission was to bring back pre-AIDS-era group sex in safe yet glamorous environments. This was his first invitation, and the knowledge that he had been watched, been chosen, sent a ripple of pleasure through him.

Johnny would never have allowed this. He was too staid, too judgmental. Quentin had only ever meant to sleep with him once or twice anyway, but Johnny had ingratiated himself into Quentin’s life with his aggressive helpfulness. For Quentin’s French Revolution–themed birthday party, for instance, Johnny bought an antique French cookbook and offered to make Quentin any cake he liked. Quentin picked a pear tart comprised of hundreds of individually folded and glazed pastry petals, not because he particularly liked pear tarts but because it had looked the most labor-intensive. Johnny had made it for him without complaint, and when Quentin stood over the amber glow of his twenty-six birthday candles, staring down at those hundreds of individually folded and glazed pastry petals, he felt certain that the tart was evidence of a love so pure, so dutiful, that he would never find its equal.

But ever since admitting to Cleo that Johnny was stealing from him, he’d become increasingly suspicious that perhaps it was he, not Johnny, who was being taken advantage of. It had all come to a head a few days earlier when Quentin, who liked to keep his large brownstone apartment at a frigid sixty-five degrees during the summer months, went to put on his favorite orange featherweight cashmere sweater. After searching in vain, he’d traipsed downstairs to find Johnny wearing it.

“That’s my sweater,” he said.

“So?”

“You know it’s my favorite. I got it at the Barneys Warehouse sale with Cleo.”

Johnny rolled his eyes. “You’re a little obsessed, dear.”

“With Barney’s?”

“With Cleo.”

Quentin exhaled a soft snort caught somewhere between disdain and embarrassment. “She’s my best friend.”