She fought her way through the people surging toward the bars and walked into the first room of the warehouse. A coffin riddled with bullet holes spun in a slow orbit from a thick metal chain suspended above a mound of broken mirrors. She looked down and saw hundreds of fragments of her face reflected back, a sliver of cheek, of throat, of eye. Who was she? An artist who didn’t make art. A wife without a husband. A child with no mother.
“There you are!” Quentin grabbed her arm. His eyes were glossy black orbs. “Have you seen Alex?”
Cleo shook her head. Quentin’s grip was tight enough to bruise. She put her hand over his and pried his fingers away. “Are you okay?”
“Marvelous!” Quentin said in a British accent and threw his head back in a dramatic openmouthed laugh. He snapped his head forward, his face suddenly severe. His eyes reflected no light. “Need to find Alex.”
“What did you take?” Cleo asked, but Quentin was backing away from her into the crowd. She kept sight of the back of his head all the way into the warehouse’s main room before she blinked, and he disappeared into the swarm of bodies.
She passed a hallway where guests were delightedly ripping up the floorboards like scabs from skin. The dance floor was already packed, the crowd moving to a song Cleo didn’t know. She could feel the bass pulling at the hairs on her arms, vibrating against her skin. She saw Audrey and Marshall bouncing together by the wall.
“Over here!” called Audrey. She passed her a bottle of water. “Want some? We put a couple of hits in it.”
Yes, she wanted some. She wanted something that would roll through her like a flood, wash away whole years of her life. Those final hopeful months believing her mother was getting better. Gone. The night she met Frank, his smile, his compliments, his hand snaking its way under her dress to find a nest between her legs. Gone. Those weeks with Anders. Gone. Every man, in fact, who had burrowed his way inside her, kissed her and fucked her, come in her, on her. She wanted them out. She wanted a river heavy with men’s bodies sucked out of her. She wanted death by flood.
She took the bottle and chugged, dribbles of water escaping from either side of her mouth.
“Whoa, steady,” Marshall yelled. “This stuff is strong.”
“Good.”
She tossed the bottle back to him and pushed past them into the mass of dancers. She was being elbowed and shoved on all sides. Everyone felt taller than her. A man with a skull tattoo covering his shaved head grabbed her waist and began dancing with her, grinding his hips against hers. She steadied herself against him for a moment as he pulled her in closer, pushing his damp face into her neck. She grabbed his arms, then dug her nails into him as hard as she could.
“What the fuck!” he yelped, thrusting her away from him. She could hear him yelling as she slipped back into the crowd. Crazy bitch.
She found her way to the edge and ducked into a side room filled with tall glass candles painted with images of the Virgin Mary. The whole room glowed yellow. And there, at the center of the light, was Danny Life. He was wearing all white, a tailored boiler suit and pristine leather work boots. With him was an art critic Cleo recognized. He was eagerly holding a recording device in front of Danny, though he appeared to be doing most of the talking.
“To what extent is your work autobiographical?” the critic asked.
“What do you mean, autobiographical?”
“You know,” said the critic. “How have your own experiences with street violence informed your work? Do you—”
“Listen, man,” Danny interrupted. “I grew up in Pound Ridge. My mother’s an epidemiologist. Look it up if you don’t know what that is.”
“But the guns …”
Cleo stood behind him and mimed shooting herself in the head with her eyes crossed. Danny’s handsome face cracked into a smile. His white teeth glowed.
“If you’ll excuse me.” He pushed past the critic and gave Cleo a hug. “Cleo the cat. I hoped I’d see you.”
“Look at you.” Cleo smiled. “The hottest thing in town.”
“That’s me.” He laughed. “How are you?”
The critic gave Cleo a withering look and skulked away.
“Homeless.” She shrugged. “Unemployed. Single. You?”
She could feel something inside her coming loose, like the first cracks in the walls before an earthquake.
“Shit, man. Doing better than you, that’s for sure.”
Cleo laughed. Danny wasn’t prone to sympathy, something she’d always liked about him. Fondness was the best word she could think of to describe what they felt for each other. Fondness was warm but not tepid, the color of amber, more affectionate than friendship but less complicated than love. Back during their school days, they’d lie together twisted in his sheets, flicking ash from their joints into a Coke can by his bed, and chat comfortably about their work, the artists they were researching, the other people they were sleeping with.