Cleopatra and Frankenstein(63)

“When was that?”

“That was when she and my dad got divorced. I had to go stay with him and Miriam in Bristol because she needed to live in the hospital for a while. Then she got better, and I came home. When she was well, she could tell what kind of day you’d had just by the way you said hello. She’d want to know everything about what I was thinking, what I was reading in school. I’d sit on the kitchen counter and chat to her while she made dinner. But she’d have these bad periods where she’d stop sleeping or eating much. She’d get so focused on a project you could say her name ten times and she wouldn’t hear you. I hated that. It was like you didn’t exist. She’d talk to herself and laugh. She had a lot of random men over. I’d walk in on them in the bathroom sometimes. The first time she tried to kill herself was during one of those periods.”

“I’m so sorry, Cley,” he said. “Fuck.”

“Then she got on a new medication,” she said, the words pouring out fast now. “And she was normal again for a while. She went back to work, and I moved out to go to uni, and she started dating this guy seriously, someone actually nice for a change. He was another architect. Then something happened, I guess they broke up, and she went off her medication again. I didn’t know that at the time, the doctors told me afterward. She died when I was in my final year. She had a little bit of money left, not much, and it all went to me. But I was depressed, like I told you, so that’s when I came here to do my MFA. I started taking antidepressants and making more art and things got better. And then I met you, and that was the best thing really, the best thing that had happened in years.”

Frank turned onto his side and wrapped his arms and legs around her. He held her as tight as he could without hurting her. He could hear the soft boom of her heartbeat beneath his ear.

“You’re not going to be anything like your mom,” he said.

Jesus leaped onto the bed near them and bounced off again, her tiny body barely leaving a dent in the covers.

“How do you know?” she said. Her voice in the dark was plaintive.

“Because you have me.”

“But what about if something happens to you? Or you go away?”

“It won’t. I won’t.”

“Promise?”

“I swear on Jesus.”



He didn’t deliberately avoid Eleanor at the office, but he was so busy working on the Kapow! pitch that their paths didn’t cross much. Frank loved the brainstorming process, loved the feeling of ideas orbiting around him, and he felt confident in what his team had created. On the night before the pitch, Frank had managed to drink just enough to dull his nerves and knock himself out without, he hoped, impeding his performance the next day. He was just drifting into sleep when Jesus knocked over Cleo’s book from the bedside table.

“Did you hear that?” said Cleo in the darkness.

“Mm,” said Frank. “Sounds like she’s having a grand old time.”

“Will you hold me?”

“I’m too hot,” said Frank. “My chest overheats. You hold me.”

“Okay.”

Cleo cradled herself around his back and tucked her nose into his hairline.

“My furnace,” she said. “It’s good to have you here.”

“I live here,” said Frank.

“You know what I mean,” she said. “You’re home more at the moment. It’s nice.”

He was almost asleep. He nodded with his eyes closed.

“Frank?” she murmured.

He stayed quiet. He really did need to sleep.

“Frank?” she said again, louder this time.

“Yuh-huh.”

“I’ve been lonely.”

He opened his eyes in the darkness. He could feel Cleo’s breath on the back of his neck.

“You have?”

“Mm. And Audrey, Quentin, you know, they’re no help. They’re so …”

“Fucked up?”

Cleo let out a tearful laugh behind him. “Yes. But darling, I hate to break it to you, so are we.”

“I’ll try to be less fucked up.” He yawned. “I promise.”

“How?” she asked.

“You want specifics?”

“Not anything so specific … Except, maybe one thing.”

He could feel her body stiffen into alertness behind him. Frank kept perfectly still and stared into the darkness ahead of him.

“Maybe, I don’t know, maybe you could drink a little less.”

“I could?”

“You don’t think?”

“Is that what you think?”

“Well, I just thought that it seems to be getting worse … And if you could, I don’t know, try to cut back a bit or try not to drink every night, it might, well, it might help.”

Frank sat up in bed. “You thought the night before my big meeting was the right time to bring this up?”

“Oh,” said Cleo. “Okay, I see your point. I just didn’t think it had to be a big discussion or anything. I just thought—”

“I’m sorry, I must be confused,” Frank interrupted. “Is there something I’m not providing for you?”

“What?”