Cleopatra and Frankenstein(86)

“You should move out here,” said Anders. “Everyone’s doing it!”

“But I would miss my friends,” said Santiago, treading lightly.

“It’s not that far,” said Anders.

“In fact,” he continued, “I saw Cleo just yesterday.”

He watched Anders’s face in the firelight for a reaction, but he remained stonily impassive.

“Oh yeah?” he said. “How’s she doing?”

“I think she’s struggling.”

“She’s an artist. She’s always struggling.”

“Who’s Cleo?” asked Yaayaa.

Anders opened his mouth to answer, but Santiago got there first. “His best friend’s wife,” he said.

Anders closed his mouth and gave him a tight-lipped smile. “I thought you were my best friend.”

“We both are.”

“How do you two know each other?” asked Yaayaa.

“We met a long time ago,” said Santiago. “Probably before you were born.”

“I’m older than you think,” she said. “I just have good genes.”

“We met back when I was modeling,” said Anders. “His wife Lila and I were cast in a photoshoot together for Paper about the downtown dance scene.”

“You were a dancer?” asked Yaayaa.

“She was. I was just there to look pretty.”

Lila and Anders had become fast friends. They were both outgoing, reckless, fun-loving. Santiago had initially been threatened, but he soon began to enjoy having another straight man around to talk soccer with, a rarity in Lila’s dance circles. The three of them frequented parties together during the ecstatic early period of the 1980s, when hip-hop, new wave, and dance music was colliding in clubs. In the dark years that followed, during which they navigated AIDs, the crack and heroin epidemic, and Lila’s death, Santiago and Anders stayed friends. In fact, it was Santiago who convinced Frank, a regular at the restaurant he became a chef at, to give Anders a shot as an art director.

“I still have those pictures,” said Santiago.

“Oh god, burn them.” Anders laughed. “I can’t believe how crap the style was back then. Those parachute pants.” He hid his face in Yaayaa neck at the memory.

“I’m not going to burn a picture of Lila,” Santiago said quietly.

Anders’s face reemerged with a look of genuine contrition.

“Sorry, that was stupid of me. Anyway, Lila probably looks phenomenal. She always did.”

Yaayaa, evidently bored by this turn of conversation, wriggled in her seat. “So … you’re a chef?”

“Right now, he’s the chef,” said Anders. “Aren’t you, big guy?’

“I have a small restaurant,” he said.

“Ever do free catering for photoshoots?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

Thor ran past them from inside the house and jumped onto Anders’s lap in a blur of golden fur.

“Hey buddy,” said Anders, beginning to play-fight. “You want some attention?”

“He probably needs another walk,” said Yaayaa. “Have you taken him out tonight?”

“He’s fine, aren’t you, buddy boy?” Anders gently pushed the puppy off the sofa. “He can shit in the cactus if he needs to.”

Yaayaa turned back to Santiago and looked at him again with her steady, serpentine gaze.

“And you are a model?” Santiago asked.

“Yeah. But I make clothes too.”

“She’s starting her own line of kaftans,” said Anders.

She nodded. “And crochet bikinis.”

“Right on,” managed Santiago.

“That’s why my girls are here. We’re heading out to Joshua Tree tomorrow to take mushrooms and do a photoshoot. Anders is lending us his car.”

One of the models looked up from her phone and emitted a lackluster whoop.

“This one’s actually one of her designs,” said Anders. “Go on babe, stand up. Show him.”

Yaayaa rolled her eyes, but a moment later she was spinning before him, her arms outstretched so he could see the shimmering material and, beneath it, her. What must it be like to be so unselfconscious in one’s body? His eyes traveled the long line of her tapered waist to the curve of her small breasts. The dark areolas of her nipples were just visible beneath the thin material. Anders was smiling like a pimp watching her. But in truth, Santiago was not attracted to her, nor to any of these women.

He thought of Dominique talking proudly about running her first 10K. Once, when she was bending forward, he had seen the pale stretch marks that streaked the surface of her ample breasts like fissures of lightning. Dominique’s body had character and a story. It was substantial like her, generous like her. Seeing the beauty in her made him feel like someone could one day see the same in him. Anyone could see the beauty in Yaayaa.

“What do you think?” asked Anders.

“Que linda,” he said softly.

“I wish I spoke Spanish,” Yaayaa said.

“What about Danish?” said Anders.

A wrinkle of her freckled nose. “A little less useful.”

“Did you grow up here?” Santiago asked.