Cleopatra and Frankenstein

Everyone Frank knew was the greatest something in the world.

What is a wedding, Cleo wondered, if not a private dream made public, a fantasy suspended between two worlds like a cat’s cradle? But Cleo had never dreamed about getting married. What she fantasized about was her first solo show as an artist, a day dedicated solely to her.

“I think men are taught to buy things for women, yes. Not because we want to own you or control you, but because it’s a way to show we’re interested or we care that doesn’t require much, I don’t know, vulnerability. We’re not taught to communicate the way you are. We’re given these very limited, primitive tools to express ourselves, and, yes, buying a fucking meal is one of them. But women also expect that from us—”

“You think I’m trying to buy you?”
“Aren’t all men trying to buy women, deep down?”

Her mother died in Cleo’s last year of university at Central Saint Martins. She still had not found a way to talk about it.

just treat my misery the old-fashioned way, with large doses of alcohol and repression.”

Frankenstein sounds about right. Creator of monsters.”
“You make monsters?”
“Sort of,” said Frank. “I make ads.”

“Cleopatra, the original undoer of men.”

“You’re easily undone,” she said.

Let’s not hurt each other if we can.