Cleopatra and Frankenstein(15)

“Shouldn’t that be me?” asked Johnny.

He took a bite of Quentin’s organic chocolate cereal from Quentin’s ceramic bowl. A trickle of brown milk dribbled from his chin down the front of Quentin’s sweater. Johnny licked his fingers and stabbed at the stain. Quentin flinched. Johnny’s finger had only succeeded in grinding the milk further into the fibers of the fabric. A faint brown drip was still noticeable against the orange cashmere. Quentin could feel heat building behind his eyes.

“Take it off,” he said.

“What?” Johnny laughed. “No.”

Quentin raised his trembling hands to his temples.

“TAKE IT OFF!” he screamed.

Johnny’s mouth momentarily hung open. Brown flecks of chocolate had built up at the corners. He leaped up and ripped the sweater off to reveal his soft, freckled belly beneath.

“Jesus, Quentin!” He hurled the orange blur toward him. “It’s just stuff. Does it matter? Does it make you happy?”

“It doesn’t make me unhappy,” said Quentin.

“Things are not people, Quentin,” said Johnny with the smug satisfaction of the truly obtuse.

“Things don’t treat me like an idiot,” said Quentin. “Things don’t steal my identity.”

“Steal your identity?” Johnny clutched his bare chest and cast his eyes beseechingly around the room, as if performing for a daytime talk show audience. “Did Cleo tell you that?”

She hadn’t, in fact—she had always been diplomatically tight-lipped on the subject of Johnny—but it felt satisfying to make Johnny think she had.

“She’s just trying to protect me,” said Quentin primly. “That’s what best friends do.”

Johnny pinched his face into an unattractive scowl.

“British bitch,” he sneered.

“Would you like her better if she was from Ohio like you?” snapped Quentin.

“For the one hundredth time, Quentin, Cincinnati is one of the most European cities in America.”

Quentin could not contain his scoff.

“See!” Johnny exclaimed. “You’re a snob, just like her. The two of you left me alone for like an hour at her wedding. It’s obvious she doesn’t think I’m good enough for you.”

“Maybe that’s because you’re not,” said Quentin.

Johnny gasped dramatically. “All I ever did was love you,” he said. “You’re just too fucked up to know what that feels like.”

“Maybe,” said Quentin. He stooped to pick up the sweater and draped it over his shoulder, gathering all his pride with it. “But I’ll settle for knowing what Italian cashmere feels like.”

Quentin was proud of this line, which he thought sounded like something out a movie, striking just the right timbre between resignation and hope. He was proud of it right up until Johnny took a step toward him and smacked him square across the jaw. It felt like a firework going off in his face.

“You and her deserve each other,” he said.

Ordinarily, Quentin would have scornfully corrected him (you and she deserve!), but he was too stunned to say anything as Johnny proceeded to storm, still shirtless, out of the house. At the sound of the door slamming, Quentin surprised himself by bursting into tears. He cradled the side of his face with one hand and waited for them to pass. When they didn’t, he called Cleo.

Within half an hour, she was in his kitchen. She was wearing a traditional Mexican embroidered dress, her hair pulled into two long fishtail braids down her back and tied with white ribbons. He found her style too bohemian for his taste, but he appreciated that she always made an effort with her appearance. She put a bottle of his favorite Japanese soda and a packet of Advil on the kitchen table in front of him, inspecting his face with a look of concern.

“You’re bruising,” she said. “What happened?”

“He was wearing my sweater,” said Quentin sulkily. “And he’s a psychopath.”

“Do you have any frozen peas?”

She opened the freezer door to reveal a large frosted bottle of vodka and three cartons of Polish cigarettes. She raised an eyebrow at Quentin. He shrugged.

“Keeps them fresh.”

Cleo removed the bottle and wrapped it in a dish towel. She sat down across from him and held it gingerly to his jaw. His eyes would not stop leaking.

“Hurts?” she asked.

Quentin shook his head and wiped his face roughly with the back of his palm.

“I don’t know why I’m—” He stopped himself and rubbed his hands on his pants. He tried to laugh, but it escaped from his throat as a scrap of sob.

“It’s just tender,” said Cleo, cupping his cheek with her palm. “He got your tender part, is all.”

He bowed his head and pressed his forehead to hers. He was about to tell her that all of him was the tender part when her phone buzzed and she pulled away.

“I’ll tell Frank to meet us here, shall I?” she said.

Quentin felt a jolt of irritation.

“Or you could not?”

“Quentin.” She put on her stern maternal voice. “You know how much he works, and the weekends are our only real time together. Please don’t be difficult about this.”

“Can’t you just bail?” whined Quentin. “You bail on things all the time. It’s one of your greatest attributes.”