Cleopatra and Frankenstein(44)

“Is okay,” her boy said. He patted her on the back.

Cleo tried to smile but coughed again, a wave of nausea rising in her throat. The room carouseled. She stumbled toward the door into the cool outside, just in time to vomit onto the street, clasping the wall of the bar to steady herself. There had been a seismic shift; she had moved from inside to outside without knowing how. The boy came outside and looked at the vomit, which was the same frothy white of the coconut drink, then lit a cigarette.

“You feel better now,” he said.

Cleo nodded and leaned her back against the bar window, wiping her damp forehead with her palm. She closed her eyes. A ballet of swans danced in front of her. The boy placed his hands on her shoulders. She saw Frank’s body, a curved comma in the air. The boy peeled her hair from her neck. Frank was diving toward the heart of the swans. She opened her eyes. The neon martini sign splashed across the boy’s face. Blue. Pink. Blue. Pink. He leaned toward her. Her mouth was sour from the vomit. Still, she could let him. It would be much easier to let him.

“Can you take me back?” she asked, turning her face away. “To the hotel?”

“Is early,” the boy said, pecking the side of her neck.

“Please,” she said. She pushed him gently back.

“S’il vous plait …” said the boy, mimicking her voice.

He grabbed for her waist again. His face was back in her neck. “Allez,” he murmured.

Cleo shoved him away from her. The boy stumbled backward, gave her a long imperious look, then threw his cigarette into the road. The orange ember rolled in the breeze.

“Non.” He shrugged.

“No?” Cleo repeated.

“You go,” he said. “I don’t.”

Cleo stared at him. Then she turned and began walking along the quiet street, past the row of streetlamps casting their sulfurous pools of light, toward the main road. The boy yelled something after her in French she didn’t understand. She stuck her middle finger in the air above her head and kept walking.

The exhilaration she felt in leaving quickly hardened to panic as she found herself trudging along the dark road that led back to the center of the town. What had taken minutes on the bike would take close to an hour on foot, she realized. The white balustrade glowed in the darkness. Along the side of the road, banks of lavender filled the air with their purple fragrance. A pair of headlights appeared ahead; Cleo steeled herself against its glare. Her heart hammered. It could be anyone. No one would know if they stopped and pulled her into the back. The car was just ahead. She clenched her fists and walked. An assault of bright lights, then darkness. It whipped past without slowing down.

Her breath was shallow. The lights from the top of town seemed no closer. It was interminable, unbearable. She thought about laying down amid the lavender to sleep until it was light. But it was chilly and damp in that part of the country at night; in the mornings the lemon trees’ leaves were covered in cool drops of dew that burned away in the sun. Another car was winding toward her. A new thrum of fear in her chest. It slowed as it approached her. She was pinned in the twin beams of its headlights, rigid with fear. A dark head appeared from the back window.

Frank’s curly hair was silhouetted against the purple hillside. Frank’s voice was calling her name. And then she was running toward the lights, and the door was flinging open with the taxi still moving and Frank was stumbling out toward her, and she catapulted herself into his arms, and his lips were pressing hot and quick against her face, her ears, her hair, because it was a miracle, against all the odds he had found her here on this dark patch of road, and now everything else was forgotten, forgiven, all that mattered was that he was here, holding her close against his familiar chest, and she knew what it was to be a miracle.

Later, as they lay naked in each other’s arms, the mosquito net breathing softly around them, Cleo turned to his profile.

“Frankenstein,” she said, tracing his nose with her finger.

“Cleopatra,” he said.

“Are you okay?”

“From the dive? Not a scratch.”

“No, I meant … Generally.”

He turned to face her.

“I’m just stressed about work. We’re over budget for the year already, and I’m being forced to hire this new copywriter because she’s a woman—”

“I wasn’t asking about work.”

“Then what?”

“Never mind.”

She turned to flick off the bedside lamp.

“Why did you take that bet?” she asked in the darkness.

Frank pulled her closer.

“The story, Cley,” he said. “It’s a damn good story.”





CHAPTER EIGHT


October


Miraculously, I have a new job. It’s a freelance gig at an ad agency as a copywriter. My contract is for three months, with the option to extend. They call this “temp to perm.” I love this phrase. Not only is it palindrome adjacent, it is extremely useful. All situations in life fall into one of these two categories. For example, the fact you are thirty-seven years old and currently live with your mother in New Jersey, I remind myself, is temp. But the shape of your chin is, sadly, perm.

*

Until recently I was living in LA, working in the writer’s room of a show about a clairvoyant cat, but due to creative differences I made my departure. In fact, I was departed. The exact words they used were “invited to leave.” Not even the cat saw it coming.