“Do you remember when we were coming back from France, there was that couple in front of us at the airport?”
Frank opened one eye and peered at her. “From our honeymoon? Did we know them?”
“No. They were just this regular couple with two little kids, a baby and a toddler. They were going through security, trying to dismantle the pram and get their shoes off and remove the computer, all that shit, you know, and the baby was crying and the little girl was having a temper tantrum, screaming to be picked up.”
Frank shook his head.
“I don’t remember that.”
“Well, in the middle of all that chaos, the wife looked at the husband, they caught each other’s eyes over the heads of the bawling kids, and they started laughing.”
“Why?” asked Frank.
“Because it was such a nightmare, you know? They had to laugh.” Cleo thought about this for a moment. “Actually, that’s the point. They didn’t have to. My parents would have been screaming at each other.”
“My dad wouldn’t have been there to be screamed at.”
Cleo nodded. “Exactly,” she said. “But these two, they were in it together. They were laughing.”
“And you remember that,” said Frank.
“I do.”
“Because you want that?”
“Because I realized that that’s what life requires. When it gets messy and difficult and unglamorous. That kind of partnership.”
“And we don’t have that.”
It could have been a question, but it was a statement.
“I don’t think I can have that with anyone.” She smiled ruefully to herself, remembering what Quentin had said to her the day she hurt herself. “I’m not ‘those kind of people.’”
“Who told you that?”
Cleo shook her head. “I thought we could be happy again,” she said.
“I know.”
“I thought we could forgive each other.”
“I have nothing to forgive you for.”
Cleo looked into her lap. “You don’t know everything I’ve done.”
Frank sat up to search her face. She turned it away from him, so it was no longer illuminated by the fire.
“What have you done? You can tell me, Cleo.”
“I’m so ashamed,” she whispered.
“What is it?”
She bowed her head. She was thinking of Anders on top of her. Anders’s hands on her body, his cock in her mouth. How she’d begged for him to stay as he rushed out the door. The days after Frank returned from South Africa, sneaking calls to him that he never answered. The humiliating realization that he never would.
“Sometimes the shame,” she said. “I can’t bear—” She clutched her throat as if choking. “Have you ever felt like that?”
“I’m half Jewish and half Catholic, what do you think?”
Frank tried to smile at her, but he could see when she turned her face back to him that she was tormented.
“But what could you have to be ashamed of?” he asked gently.
Cleo wanted to tell him about Anders. She wanted to reveal herself exactly as she was, flawed as she was, and be forgiven. But the price of that absolution would be more pain for Frank. Even if he could bear it, she was not sure she could bear causing it.
In that moment, Frank felt intuitively that whatever Cleo couldn’t tell him was something he didn’t want to hear. It had to be some humiliating infidelity, what else? Another blow to his manhood. And, in spite of himself, he hoped she would spare him.
Very subtly, he shifted his body away from hers, turning back toward the fire. Cleo looked at his glowing profile, and she knew he did not want to know. She stayed silent, and they both sat in the absence of her confession, each understanding the other, each entirely alone in that understanding. Finally, he reached over and took her hand.
“You’re like ice,” he said. “Let me run you a bath?”
Cleo consented with the slightest nod. He dropped her palm and picked up one of the tapered candles, retreating to the bathroom. She stayed seated as she listened to the gurgle of water filling the tub. Outside, the darkness was absolute.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
April
Frank was sitting at a table by the window when Zoe arrived, sipping a Bloody Mary. She was relieved to see that he was already drinking, then immediately felt guilty for being relieved. It was she who had suggested they meet, though she had not mentioned her motivation. In truth, she was struggling. She’d lost her job at the boutique on Christopher Street earlier that month after the owner had run into her out one night wearing an expensive silk jumpsuit she’d borrowed from the store. But even before that regrettable encounter, Zoe had managed to rack up several thousand dollars’ worth of credit card debt, which was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Zoe hadn’t exactly been scraping by on instant ramen and turnstile jumping, but she’d hardly considered her behavior dangerously indulgent—or, at least, not more so than anyone else’s she knew. Her mistake had been forgetting that she was not like her other friends at Tisch. When they complained about being broke, they didn’t mean it literally. When they went to postrehearsal drinks and dinner, split the cost of an eight ball, took a fleet of late-night taxis from one party to the next, or got a $12 green juice with hangover-curing properties before class, they did so with the knowledge that there was always some parent or trust waiting just out of sight to carry them back to the safe shores of solvency. Zoe, meanwhile, was adrift.
Her plan had been to ply Frank with drinks over dinner, then do her best puppy-dog plea for money, but he’d thrown her by suggesting breakfast at Santiago’s new restaurant instead. Even as she’d agreed to the plan several days earlier, she knew she would be late. But really, what did he expect? It was before noon on a Saturday, after all.
She wove her way through the already full tables, looking around the restaurant appreciatively. The place was modern American with a traditional Peruvian twist, and this meeting of old and new culinary styles was reflected by sleek stainless-steel furniture juxtaposed with colorful Andean textiles. Overall the space felt fresh, open, and relaxed—the exact opposite, incidentally, of how Zoe felt.
Frank had cut his hair since the last time she saw him, the cloud of dark curls usually surrounding his face sheared to only a few coils on top. It left his head looking strangely exposed, she thought, like a newborn. He stood up to give her a hug, then pulled away, clutching at his chest.
“What’s wrong?” asked Zoe.
“Nothing.” Frank waved her off. “A little burn.”
“Heartburn? You’re turning into Mom.”
“Not heartburn. I … Well …” He paused, then exhaled loudly. “Fuck it. I was trying to dye some gray hairs there, but the stuff I bought was too strong, and it burned half my skin off.”
In deference to Frank’s embarrassment, Zoe swallowed the laughter that was rising in her throat.
“Let me see,” she said, pulling the shirt aside to reveal what did appear to be an angry red burn covering his chest. “It’s doesn’t look too bad,” she lied.
They sat down and eyed each other across the table in silence.
“So, you got a breakup haircut,” said Zoe.