Cleopatra and Frankenstein(43)

“I learn in school.”

“Your accent sounds pretty good.”

“No,” he said, blowing smoke from his nostrils. “Is not.”

His nose was square and blunt but his eyes were velvety brown, with long, thick eyelashes.

“I see you at the hotel,” the boy said. “You wear a, how do you say, yellow …”

He circled his hands over his chest and exploded into laughter, doubling over and staring back at his two friends. They waved from their mopeds and yelled something in French that Cleo could not catch. They were still children, Cleo realized. She suddenly felt very old, when what she wanted was to feel the opposite.

“Right. Well, have a good night,” she said.

She rose partially from her chair and looked around as if to catch the waiter’s attention.

“No, no.” He shook his hands out, releasing the imaginary flesh they held, and gave her a look of exaggerated contrition. “I’m stupid. My friend ask me to tell you that you are trop belle. Beautiful. Understand?”

She stared at him. A breeze hurdled the stone wall, sending the trees into a rustle of applause. Lavender, earth, a faint tang of salt.

“You come to a disco with us?”

“No.” She stood up, brushed the ash off her skirt. “Where is it?”

“Not far,” he said. “A stone’s throw.”

Cleo laughed.

She left a note on the table, too much, but she could not wait, she was being carried on the breeze away from the café to the church, where the boy’s incredulous friends stood waiting, onto the back of a bike that shuddered to life beneath her, then zipped her down one cobbled street after another, out of the lights of the town and into the blue-black night. The ashtray lay forgotten on the table.

On the back of the bike, the world softened and smeared. She stretched her arms out either side of her and grabbed palms full of solid air. The night was a thousand black butterfly wings beating against her skin. Cleo understood why bikes were so often described as freedom; not for their ability to take you elsewhere, but for the way they transformed the place you already were.

They raced toward the lights at the foot of the hill and pulled up in front of an aging bar on the corner of a quiet residential street. A neon martini glass blinked blue, pink, blue, pink in the window. The boy jumped off and held his hand out for her to dismount. When she stood, she shook all over as though an engine was still revving inside her.

The bar had been turned into a makeshift club with the help of some loudspeakers, a spluttering smoke machine, and a disco ball that turned lazily overhead. Lozenges of silver light spun over the arms and faces of the bodies within. It was packed with mostly locals, teenagers who worked at the nearby hotels, busty women who ran the tabacs and patisseries in town, a couple of old fishermen types slouched over the bar, their white undershirts glowing against brown, sagging skin. The speakers were blaring the kind of music Cleo listened to as a teenager.

The boy brought his thumb to his lips and poured imaginary liquid down his throat, pulling her toward the bar. He squeezed her to the front and caught the eye of the bartender, who had unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a full-chest tattoo of a hawk holding a herring between its talons.

“Let me,” she said, reaching into her pocket for the remaining note.

“No.” He batted her hands away. “You’re guest.”

The drinks came in two tall frosted glasses with umbrellas and maraschino cherries stuck on the top. They seemed laughably juvenile to Cleo, who would have preferred a glass of wine or a beer. The cherry left a red stain like a bloody footprint on the cap of white froth. She pulled a sip through her straw. It tasted of coconut and cane sugar and soap.

“Good, no?” he said, puckering his face in barely concealed revulsion as he swallowed his own large gulp.

It occurred to her that he had ordered them for her benefit. They were probably the most expensive thing on the menu.

“Delicious,” she said.

She let him circle her in his arms and pull her forward into the crowd of bodies. His friends were already on the dance floor, crushing themselves against two long-haired girls, smooth and lithe as eels in tight spandex tops and skirts. Cleo stood, suddenly shy and stiff, against the body of the boy. She wished Quentin or Audrey were with her. They would know exactly what to do. The boy grabbed her waist and moved her side to side, matching the sway of her hips with his own. The music filled the room like water, seeping into every corner. She turned around and round, sloshing her drink over her wrist. The boy took her arm and slid his tongue from her elbow to the tips of her fingers, pulling them from his mouth with a wet pop. Cleo threw her head back in a silent laugh. He pulled her closer again.

“This song is cool!” the boy said.

“I’m married!” Cleo said.

“I don’t hear you!” he said.

“Married to a man!” she said. “Twice your age!”

But the boy just laughed and pointed to his ears.

In spite of the taste, they both finished their drinks quickly. Cleo went to the bar and bought them another round. The second tasted better than the first. A song they all knew came on, and they threw their arms over each other’s shoulders and screamed the words, turning in a clumsy circle. She was spinning out, unraveling like the ribbons of a maypole, caught by no one. One of the long-haired girls lit a joint and passed it around the group. Cleo waved her hands no. With one surprisingly forceful movement, the girl leaned forward and cupped the nape of her neck, pulling Cleo’s mouth to hers. Cleo could see clumps of blue eye shadow in the creases of her eyelids, sparkling in the light. She was too stunned to stop her as the girl exhaled into her mouth, filling her throat with the thick smoke. She pulled away, coughing. The boys all laughed.