“He’s not my ex,” Cleo said. “Yet.”
After they’d returned from upstate, they’d agreed it would be a good idea to spend some time apart. Cleo had since gone back on her antidepressants and was finally beginning to feel like herself again. It would be good for Frank to see her at something social where she could appear carefree and normal, more like how he’d first met her, Cleo thought. And Frank was certain to be there. He’d bought one of Danny’s early paintings and would never miss a party of this magnitude. Cleo undid her braid and began replaiting it. She hoped she looked pretty. She should have worn more makeup.
“Wow, it’s so suburban,” shrieked Audrey as they clambered onto the school bus.
Cleo scanned the seats. No Frank. He was probably on another bus. She followed Audrey and Marshall down the aisle, passing a man with a salmon-crested cockatoo perched on his shoulder. He was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of what appeared to be the same cockatoo printed on it.
“Cool shirt,” said Audrey as they passed him.
He gave her a disapproving look and then turned, in unison with his cockatoo, to stare back out of the window.
Quentin was already seated in the back, looking twitchy and sneaking drags of a cigarette out the window. Next to him was Alex. Cleo had spent most of the past two months staying with Quentin until Alex, the Russian lover he had met through some shadowy means Cleo had known better than to interrogate, appeared. He claimed he was being evicted from his apartment near Brighton Beach, and Quentin had promptly invited him to stay, which Cleo took as her cue to move to Audrey’s.
Alex was beautiful but ravaged, like opening a shiny mink fur coat to find a stained, moth-eaten lining within. He watched Quentin constantly with cautious, haunted eyes, accepting without thanks whatever drugs, drinks, or food Quentin offered to him.
“He’s not a stray dog,” Cleo had chided Quentin. “You shouldn’t have to feed him to keep him around.”
But that only prompted Quentin to nickname Alex Pies, the Polish for dog. Since Alex rarely spoke around her, Cleo never knew how he felt about his new name.
“Isn’t this fun?” said Quentin when she reached him. “Like going on a school trip. Except with drugs.”
Quentin was wearing a corset top under a leather jacket with slim black jeans and high-heeled motorcycle boots. His clavicle bones protruded sharply from above the top’s plunging neckline, and his naturally high cheekbones had a hollow, gaunt quality. She couldn’t believe he had shrunk so much in just a few weeks. Cleo had never seen him wear any of his women’s clothing outside of his house and was careful not to let her face register too much surprise.
“You look wonderful,” said Cleo. “Are you sure you’re going to be able to walk?”
“I’ve been practicing,” said Quentin and gave her a wink. His eyelids shimmered with black glitter.
Alex, Cleo noticed with some alarm, was dressed entirely in Quentin’s old boy clothes. Cleo met his eye and realized that he had been watching her register his outfit with satisfaction.
“Woof,” she said and took a seat by the window behind them.
The bus had created the ideal combination of childhood nostalgia and adult revelry; an atmosphere of almost frenzied excitement pervaded it as guests passed bottles up and down the aisles and unsuccessfully attempted group sing-alongs to 1990s hits. Cleo found herself, unfortunately, sitting next to Guy, a French makeup artist and old friend of Frank’s who had gotten so drunk at their wedding dinner, he’d wandered into the building’s trash room and vomited down the chute.
“Hi Guy,” she said, unable to resist pronouncing his name the American way, which she knew to be a particular peeve of his.
“Come on, it’s Guy as in gui-llo-tine,” he said. “How long we know each other now?”
“Long enough to know better.”
She smiled, pressing her cheek against his. She was careful to breathe through her mouth, since Guy smoked like a true Frenchman: constantly. But to her surprise she smelled only shampoo. She hoped he would not ask after Frank. It was not yet public knowledge that they were no longer living together. The best tactic, she knew, was to get him talking about himself.
“You look great,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “I am sober almost six month now.”
“Seriously?” Audrey craned around in her seat to look at him. “I thought the French were supposed to be able to drink and smoke the rest of us under the table.”
“I used to say the same,” said Guy. “But then I went on tour.”
As the bus turned onto the FDR Highway, he told them about the four months he’d spent doing makeup for a major rock band on a yearlong reunion tour through the States and Europe. The endless cycle of free booze and drugs that surrounded him, the bar fight in Amsterdam where he lost half his earlobe, the prostitute in Brussels who robbed him at knife point, and finally the time he’d woken up completely naked in a hotel hallway, with no idea what time it was, what room he was staying in, or even if he was in the right hotel. He staggered down the endless corridor, lost, naked, and panicked. Ahead of him he saw a light shining from the half-open door of a broom closet. As if in a trance, he walked toward the light. He opened the door. Inside, he found a white fluffy robe on a hanger. Inside, he found God.
“So that was it?” Audrey asked. “You put on a dressing gown and stopped doing drugs?”
“No.” Guy shrugged. “I flew to Mexico to take ayahuasca and trip for three days. Then I stopped doing drugs.”
“What was that like?”
“First,” Guy said, holding up a tobacco-stained finger, “you see the color orange. Then”—he mimed an explosion either side of his head with his hands—“you realize you’ve never really loved.”
“Wow,” said Marshall. “One moment can change your life forever.”
Quentin turned to look at Cleo and rolled his eyes.
“Now, I am addicted only to meditating,” said Guy.
“Meditation as medication,” said Audrey, evidently pleased with herself.
“Exactement.” Guy nodded. “My goal is to one day own only a loin-cloth and a singing bowl.”