“It’s good for her,” Cleo said. “She’s exploring, you know. And—” She looked at him shyly, proudly. “I have a therapist now too.”
“You do?”
“She’s a Buddhist lesbian from Ireland, but she’s lived in Italy for years.”
“I couldn’t imagine a better description of a therapist for you.”
“I trust her,” she said. “She’s the first person I’ve trusted in a long time.”
“I get it,” said Frank. “That’s how I feel about my sponsor.”
“Wow, Frank,” said Cleo. “Look at us forming healthy relationships.”
They regarded each other in silence for a moment, both so familiar and unfamiliar to one another at the same time.
“I’m happy to see you,” he said eventually.
Actually, he felt a swirling mix of elation and terror and relief upon seeing her, as did Cleo seeing him, but neither felt ready to get into that yet.
“Me too,” she said. “I didn’t think we would until next year.”
“Why’s that?”
“Santiago and Dominique’s wedding.”
“Oh yeah, of course! Can you believe that’s happening?”
“I can. He’s written me two letters so far, and they’ve both been odes to his love for Dominique, plus a pasta recipe.”
Frank laughed. “He’s the last living romantic. Remember the speech he made at our wedding?”
“I do. He said we were both made of gold or something.”
“I don’t know about me, but you certainly are.”
Cleo smiled. She really did look golden to him.
“Want to see my studio?” she asked. “It’s in the other building.”
Frank followed her out of the room and down the hall. He watched her liquid, soft-footed walk.
“Has anyone else been here to visit you? Quentin?”
“We don’t speak anymore,” said Cleo quietly.
Frank waited for her to elaborate. She stopped walking and turned to face him.
“Meth,” she said. “I guess Alex got him onto it. He’s not doing well.”
The last time Cleo saw Quentin, she explained, he had invited her to a cheap hotel in midtown. When she arrived, there were three other hollow-eyed men pacing the room with him. Quentin was half naked and manic, his thin, pale body jolting as if with electricity. He needed money, he’d said. He’d run out of the substantial monthly allowance his grandmother provided, and there was still a week left in the month. When she tried to get him to leave, he had attacked her. Don’t you dare judge me, you fucking cunt. Cleo fled the room and called Johnny, but he was no help, and she didn’t have the number of any member of Quentin’s family. There was nothing to do but leave him there. Frank shook his head as she recounted this.
“I had no idea.”
“He gave us cocaine as a wedding present. You didn’t think he might have a teeny-tiny drug problem?”
“He’s a character?” offered Frank. “I just didn’t think it would get that bad for him. I mean, if doing a bit of blow and drinking too much makes you an addict, then everyone we know—” Frank stopped and pinched his brow. “Jesus, Cley. Everyone we know in New York is an addict, aren’t they?”
Cleo nodded grimly. “Looking like it.”
“You haven’t tried to reach him again?”
She gave him a pained look.
“I did, of course I did. Countless times. I called rehabs and found free beds, but he refused to go. Then his number got disconnected. At this point, I’m not sure who I’d even be getting in touch with.”
“You mean someone else got the number?”
“I mean, I don’t know who he is anymore.”
“Are you okay?”
She looked up at him with her exhausted smile. “One of us has to be.”
“You’re lucky you got out of New York when you did.”
“By the skin of my teeth,” she said.
She guided him to her studio, which was cluttered and small, not exactly the light-filled factory space he’d been imagining. Low wooden ceiling beams, the chemical smell of paint thinner in the air, a dusty concrete floor streaked with dark red. Frank’s heart jerked. Was it blood? No. It was paint, of course. He spotted the same rust color on the canvases lining the wall.
Frank remembered Cleo’s work as florid and fleshly, the colors of a bruise in the ugly part of healing, sour yellows and dark violets and crimson-tinted creams. These canvases were much simpler, clean red lines on white or gray backgrounds. He looked more carefully and saw that the lines were abstracted parts of women’s bodies, twin spread buttocks, a roll of stomach, the heavy curve of a breast.