Cleopatra and Frankenstein

“You didn’t pick someone like me.”
“No. Eleanor’s not like either of us.”
“How is she different?”
“You really don’t mind talking about her?”
“I’m curious.”
“Okay, well, Eleanor has this mother. She intimidated me at first actually because she just—she’s fierce. Fiercely loving. And Eleanor grew up in a house in the suburbs with a garden and something called a visitor’s couch and, you know, three different types of bird feeder.”
Cleo nodded. “The height of domesticity.”
“Exactly. And it wasn’t perfect—her parents divorced when she was young, and she had this weird relationship as a teenager with an older guy—but I could tell she felt safe in that house. She grew up feeling safe and fiercely loved.”
When he looked up, he was surprised to see that Cleo’s eyes had glazed with a thin film of tears. “That sounds nice,” she said quietly.
“And you and I didn’t get that, not because we didn’t deserve it, we just got dealt something else. But the people who did get that love, they grew up to be different from us. More secure. Maybe they’re not as shiny or successful as you and I feel we have to be. But it’s not because they’re not interesting. They just don’t feel they have to do the tap dance, you know? They don’t have to prove themselves all the time to be loved. Because they always were.”
Cleo smiled sadly. “But how do you stop tap dancing if you’re like us?”
“I just got too tired, Cley,” he said. “The shoes didn’t fit anymore. And when I stood still, Eleanor was there standing with me. And I think you deserve to be with someone like that, who can provide that safety and that stillness for you in a way I never could. Even though God knows I wanted to, Cleo. I really wanted it.”
Cleo took his hand across the table. Frank’s freckled hands. She remembered them always in motion, flitting across surfaces, adjusting his glasses, accentuating words in the air with an emphatic, flared-palm gesture that was, just, him. She squeezed his fingers between hers.
“I know you did,” she said. “I wanted to do that for you too.”

Frank began to laugh. Cleo had once mentioned offhandedly that it was a tradition in England on the first day of the month to say “Pinch, punch, first of the month!” As long as the victor declared “And no returns!” afterward, they were free to enact these pinches and punches without retaliation. The loser then had to wait a whole month before having the chance to say it first again. Frank, who had a taste for the nonsensical, had sprung upon this game with a fanatical competitiveness, waking up early on the first of every month and hovering over Cleo’s sleeping figure until, at the slightest sign of awakening, he would launch his attack, screaming the singsong rhyme with the kind of zeal that, Cleo was sure, caused middle-aged men to have heart attacks.
“I forgot about that.” He chuckled. “You sucked at Pinch Punch.”
“Because I didn’t want to set my alarm for the crack of dawn on the first of every month like a maniac!”
Frank looked at her seriously. “That’s what it takes to be a Pinch Punch champion, Cleo.”
He tried to maintain a straight face, but they were both quickly reduced to laughter.

“I never thought I’d be able to visit Rome and not drink,” he said, as the beaded glasses were placed before them.
“Wine is the least interesting part of Rome,” Cleo said. “And of you.”
Frank gave her a defenseless smile. “Thanks, Cleopatra.”
“You’re welcome, Frankenstein.”