Cleopatra and Frankenstein

Frank is in his office talking to his mother on the phone. He’s worried about Cleo, who seems unhappy. Frank is planning to travel more for work and is concerned about leaving Cleo on her own. His mother advises him to get Cleo a pet. Frank and his mother have a complicated relationship. He loves her, but as a child, she had often left him alone.

After the call, Eleanor walks into his office. Frank is immediately put on guard because “his response to her was titanic. Everything in him rose to meet her” (160). Eleanor recommends that he get Cleo a sugar glider as a pet. Frank finds sugar gliders for sale online on Craigslist and travels to the Bronx to buy a baby girl sugar glider for Cleo. When he goes home to Cleo, he finds her angry about an ignored female painter. He gifts her the sugar glider and Cleo is thrilled. Cleo and Frank go to Petco to buy pet supplies, and find out that sugar gliders are illegal in New York City.

They nickname the sugar glider Jesus and commit themselves to taking care of her. She’s nocturnal, so Cleo convinces Frank to let Jesus out of her cage in their bedroom at night. Frank asks Cleo if she wants to have children. Cleo isn’t sure she wants to because she’s worried that she won’t be a good mother; she knows that her own mother could have done a better job taking care of her, even though she loved her. Frank surprises himself by saying that he wants kids. Like Cleo, though, he doesn’t want to end up like his parents.

One night, as they’re cuddling in bed, Cleo tells Frank that she’s been feeling lonely, and that she wishes he would drink less. This incenses Frank. He yells at her, accusing her of not being grateful for the lifestyle he provides for her. Cleo spends the night crying in the bathroom.

The next morning, Frank tells Cleo he’ll try to stop drinking. Frank’s agency wins a huge account that will bring in a lot of money to the agency and requires a long shoot in South Africa. He takes the agency out for drinks but sticks with water until he talks to Eleanor. Their hands brush up against each other, and he can tell that she wants to tell him something. He wants to know, but doesn’t ask her, if she feels the same energy between them, the same joy at their email exchanges. Instead, he asks Eleanor to keep an eye on things for him while he’s dealing with the new account. Eleanor leaves the party disappointed, and Frank gets drunk.

Frank gets back home late and drunk. He goes to the bathroom and accidentally pees on the sugar glider, who has gotten caught in the toilet bowl and drowns. Frank flushes her down the toilet.

Anders attends a benefit auction at an art gallery, where he tries to avoid running into women he’s slept with. Anders has started getting tired of his bachelor lifestyle. One of Cleo’s paintings is up for auction, and Anders bids on it to give it a boost. Anders ends up winning the painting.

Cleo calls him about the painting, the first time they’ve spoken without Frank present since the night they spent together a year before. Cleo stayed behind in the city while Frank went to South Africa. Anders invites her over to his apartment to find the perfect place for her painting. At his apartment, they have sex. He asks her why she didn’t go to South Africa with Frank, and all Cleo says is that Frank is a drunk. Anders asks her if having sex with him is a way of getting back at Frank, and Cleo says she genuinely desires Anders.

In the following weeks, Cleo and Anders sleep together every day. They fall into a domestic pattern, spending time with each other, not just having sex. On the day Frank is returning from South Africa, Cleo tells Anders that she thinks Frank is in love with his co-worker Eleanor. Anders finds this absurd, but Cleo has seen their emails and is convinced that they’re both in love with one another. Cleo wants to move out of Frank’s apartment, and Anders is nervous that she’ll tell Frank about their affair. Anders is torn: He has been friends with Frank for 20 years, but his attraction to Cleo transcends that loyalty. The more he thinks about it, the more he’s okay with the idea of hurting Frank if that means that he can be with Cleo.

Anders spends the day with Jonah, an ex-girlfriend’s son whom he’s still close to. While at lunch with Jonah, Anders ignores a call from Frank. Frank leaves a voicemail telling Anders to come out with him and Cleo; Anders is devastated because it sounds like Cleo has not broken up with Frank. Anders has been offered a job in Los Angeles. He now considers taking it so he can move away from New York.

Cleo and Frank’s home life has dramatically worsened. Frank comes home drunk often, and they get into huge fights. Cleo has broken things, thrown things, and hit him. They’ve stopped having sex. A new level of humiliation comes with a note from their neighbor, revealing that other people can hear their fights.

Quentin and Cleo go to an apartment to buy a used vacuum. They pretend to be a couple. Quentin likes to make people feel uncomfortable, and tells the seller about doing drugs. But Cleo is tired of making people uncomfortable, a typical by-product of her relationship with Frank. Cleo is upset that Anders never spoke to her after their affair, and that he moved to Los Angeles. Cleo believes she’ll never be happy with anyone.

Cleo creates a faux garden in her living room. She stacks dirt into a pile large enough to lay on. She swallows her wedding ring. She takes the black orchid Frank had given her, which she had broken in a fight, and places it on top of the pile. She takes a knife from the kitchen and lays down naked on the pile of dirt. She travels back through her memory to being 10 with her mother.

Frank’s friend Santiago, the restauranter who had hosted Cleo and Frank’s wedding reception, attends meetings at an overeaters support group. He’s thrilled that he’s lost 15 pounds already, but his joy is curbed when he hears the news about Cleo. Frank tells him that Cleo attempted death by suicide. She’s had 30 stitches put her in arm and has been hospitalized in the psychiatric ward. Frank asks Santiago to visit Cleo because he needs to take care of some things at work.

Santiago cooks a comfort meal to bring to Cleo in the hospital. Recently, he’s been dreaming more about his deceased wife Lila, and wonders if Lila has been trying to warn him about Cleo. Lila was a dancer who died of an overdose, and Santiago still wonders if the overdose was an accident or not.

At the hospital, the dish he’s prepared for Cleo is confiscated. Cleo is surprised to see him. Santiago tells her about Lila’s beauty and her talent for dance. He asks Cleo if what happened to her was an accident. Santiago tries to tell her that a lot of people love her and mentions Anders, which makes Cleo angry. As Cleo drifts back to sleep, she calls out for her mother.

The next day, Santiago travels to Los Angeles to open a pop-up of his restaurant. He stays with Anders in Anders’s new house. They go on a hike together, and Santiago asks him what happened between him and Cleo. Anders ignores him until Santiago tells him about Cleo hurting herself. Anders’s emotional response to this news reveals their affair. Santiago is moved by Anders’s uncharacteristic tears, even though it shocks him that Anders could have had an affair with his best friend’s wife.

Anders tells Santiago that he’s in love with Cleo. Santiago advises him to keep his feelings to himself until Cleo and Frank figure out what happens next, because they’re both already in so much pain.