Super Host

by Kate Russo

  “Emma, what have you done?”

  “I can’t stop,” she said, sobbing. “It hurts.”

  The next week they put down the first and last month’s rent on a tiny house in suburban Pawtucket.

  * * *

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  When she enters the master bedroom again, she sees the box of colored pencils and a large white eraser sitting on top of the dresser. She stuffs the eraser in the front pocket of her jeans, but lingers in the room, her back to The Crack. On the floor, barely visible, is the thin indigo line she drew yesterday. She hasn’t heard from Theo yet today. Maybe if she knew Charlie didn’t overdose last night . . . If Charlie could start to help himself, then maybe Emma could get to work on the drawing she’s supposed to be doing, instead of what she’s about to do. Rather than close the lid on her pencil box, she picks it up and sets it on the floor. Sitting down next to it, she removes the indigo blue.

  * * *

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  By the time Theo finally calls, she’s already traced twenty floorboards with thirty colors. “We’re nearly in Manchester,” he says.

  “Manchester is a big city. Do you know where he is?” she asks, tracing in walnut brown.

  “I think so. I found his mate on Facebook. Doubt we’ll be back tonight. I’ll call once we’re booked into a hotel.”

  “Yeah, okay,” she says. “Have fun.”

  She chooses light purple-pink as the thirty-second color. She probably wouldn’t have picked it if Theo hadn’t distracted her. She should have picked grass green.

  “‘Have fun’?”

  “Good luck, I mean,” she says, propping herself up on her knees. The purple-pink line hugs the walnut brown. She goes around each plank in four steady lines, twirling herself around on her knees every time she needs to change direction.

  “Am I bothering you?”

  “I’m working on my drawing.” Not a total lie. “I don’t just sit around waiting for you to call.”

  “Emma . . . I gotta go, Mum is waiting.”

  Hanging up without saying goodbye, she drops the phone on the floor and shoves it, like an air hockey puck, under the bed. With nothing obstructing its path, the phone glides, twirling, all the way to the opposite wall, where it bounces off the skirting board and continues to spin about six inches before finally stopping. She continues tracing the herringbone pattern with the light purple-pink, holding the grass-green pencil in the other hand so she doesn’t forget which color she wants next. After that she picks deep cadmium yellow because it reminds her of Bennett’s canvas, followed by Venetian red, then juniper green, ultramarine blue, orange glaze, pink carmine, and raw umber. She mumbles the numbers of Einstein on the Beach to herself as she traces the floorboards: “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 2, 3, 4, 2, 3, 4.”

  When she hears her phone vibrate, she gets to her feet for the first time in hours and hobbles to the other side of the room to retrieve it.

  It’s a text from Theo: I’ve told Mum that I’m spending tomorrow night with you. Nonnegotiable XXX.

  She stares at The Crack and then down at the rainbow floorboards.

  “Fuck.”

  She can’t let him see what she’s done. She kneels down before the traced floorboards, running her fingers over one of the planks, caressing the rainbow of colors, forty lines deep. Pulling the large white eraser from her jeans pocket, she twirls it between her fingers. What are the chances that Theo really is coming back tomorrow night? He’s made promises like this before and broken them. It’s probably best she erase it now, before things get really out of hand. She rubs the eraser along a cross section of the forty colors, which causes them to bleed into each other. She examines the bottom of the eraser, streaked with color. This time she presses harder, but the rubber acts more like a squeegee, moving the color around instead of lifting it. Fuck. She hasn’t even considered what to do about The Crack.

  She lies down on the floor and picks up her phone. It’s okay, she types. Stay with your mum tomorrow. She needs you. She tries to think practically. On her phone, she searches for nearby hardware stores. The nearest one is more than a mile away.

  Sitting up straight, she shimmies over to the window, where she rests her arms and chin on the sill. From here she can watch Bennett while he paints. He holds his brush to the canvas, makes a stroke, steps back to look, his head cocked to one side, and then steps in again. It’s nothing like the way Emma works, hunched over a table, making small marks, forgetting to breathe or stretch until it feels like her back might split in half. Bennett paints like he’s going for a leisurely walk in the park. Emma’s drawings are more like marathons where she tries to cover the greatest distance in the shortest amount of time, never stopping to sniff a single rose along the way.

  Back when Emma was a nervous kid, her older sister tried to convince her it was impossible for anyone to count to a million in his or her lifetime. This theory terrified little Emma: How many seconds had already passed and how many more were left? As she got older she continued to puzzle over it. Deep down, she understood her sister’s claim was bullshit, but it came with a profound message: her time on earth was quantifiable. It would be possible to count her life away. What if she started counting and couldn’t stop?

  She wonders what it’s like to not think about these kinds of things, to have the kind of brain that’s like a walk in the park. Doesn’t it bother Bennett that his life can be broken down into a number of seconds? That some things can’t be quantified at all? She thinks again of Einstein on the Beach:

  How much do I love you?

  Count the stars in the sky.

  Measure the waters of the oceans with a teaspoon.

  Number the grains of sand on the sea shore.

  Impossible, you say?

  Looking over at the traced floorboards, she wishes Bennett could understand all this. She can’t help it, but his process, his competency, it fills her with rage. She wants it to be as hard for him as it is for her. Across the way, he puts on his coat and checks his hair in the studio window. While she was daydreaming, he must have changed out of his studio clothes. Dressed now in his going-out clothes, he reaches back into the studio to hit the lights, turning the space dark before locking the door behind him. She’s surprised by the disappointment she feels at knowing that he’s gone for the rest of the day and possibly the night. She wants him to keep working. If he kept working, then maybe she could get back to her drafting table and do the real work she needs to do. They both need to work. He needs to finish that painting, sell it, and fix this crumbling house, the bastard. She’d like to chase after him with the tainted avocado. She’d like to tell him that if he doesn’t go back to work on his painting, she’s going to smear it all over his precious fucking hair. And fix the damn crack in his wall. And tell her that he’s sorry for touching her avocado. She knows then and there that she’s through fighting it. She’s going to trace every damn floorboard in his bedroom. The dickhead deserves it.

  * * *

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  It takes her all day and night. She moves the dresser first, tracing the boards underneath with the same forty colors she used earlier, then moves it back into place. Next she pushes the chaise lounge out of the way and traces that area. Her wrists and elbows ache, but she finds a rhythm, shaking out her arms after every board. The left side of the room is nearly finished by seven. When she allows herself to get up for a drink of water, she sees that Bennett’s studio is still dark. She tells herself that when she’s a famous artist, she won’t let it slip away like he has. When she can afford a house like this, there won’t be any cracks.

  She lies flat on her stomach and shimmies under the bed with a flashlight she found in the laundry room. Starting at the head, she works her way down. Theo calls while she’s under there, so she tells him she’s curled up in the bed. He says that Charlie is with them at a Travelod
ge. He sounds so relieved, it breaks Emma’s heart. Relieved to find his brother alive, Theo has forgotten that nothing’s changed. There’s still no rehab, and Charlie still doesn’t believe he has a bad enough problem to warrant it. He’s just not dead. The bar of success keeps getting lower.

  A couple hours later and she’s out from under the bed, tracing faster now, feeling the need to finish by sunrise. She’s memorized the order of the colors by now, racing around each herringbone plank. She’s not even shaking out her arms after every board, anymore. She’s gotten used to the pain.

  By two a.m. she’s made it to the other side of the room. Bennett definitely never came home. She imagines him fucking Claire in some dank apartment in the center of town. She’s not sure why, but Claire just seems like someone who might have a tiny, crowded flat full of knickknacks.

  It’s 4:37 a.m. when Emma traces the last floorboard. She stands up, her legs numb and wobbly. At the entrance of the room, she takes in what she’s accomplished. It’s not as striking as she imagined. It’s more like a light hum emanating from the floor, subtle and rhythmic. She looks over at The Crack, bulging and pulsing like a rupturing varicose vein, even more garish and grotesque than before. She recalls the image of the ink-poisoned skin that so haunted her in Providence, capillaries running thick with brown rot. The Crack is like that, its veins raised and full of blood. The room beats around her like a stethoscope against a guilty heart.

  * * *

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  She wakes up under the covers of the master bed. She remembers lying down just for a second, but that was eight hours ago. Looking left to right at the sketchy lines drawn on the floorboards, she’s perplexed. What she thought was delicate and cadenced last night, just looks manic and messy this morning. She looks up at The Crack, which is not gaping and oozing like it was last night, just thumping, stupidly, like the headache after a night of too much drinking. She puts her head in her hands, thinking a hangover would be preferable to the feeling she has right now. A hangover, she could wait out, whereas none of this will go away until she fixes it. She starts to weep, knowing that even if she can fill The Crack and paint the walls and floor, that won’t erase them from her mind. The Crack will still pulse. The floorboards will still hum.

  She stumbles over to her phone, which is resting on the windowsill. She’s missed five calls from Theo; he left two voicemails. The first is an update; they are on their way back to London. Charlie is reconsidering Crossroads if “it’ll make Mum happy.” The second, two hours later, is a little more panicked. “Emma—you haven’t called me back. I’m getting worried. Call me.” She takes a deep breath before hitting the callback button. As it rings, she rests her chin on the windowsill. Bennett has returned and is back in his paint clothes. She wipes the tears from her eyes, happy to see him.

  “Hi, babe,” she says when Theo answers, trying to sound chipper.

  “I’ve been worried, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Sorry. I left my phone downstairs and didn’t realize.”

  “You must be working really hard,” he says, his voice relieved and proud.

  “Yeah.” Her heart sinks.

  “I started panicking, thinking maybe Bennett had poisoned your avocado after all.”

  “No,” she says, chuckling. “You were right, I think he’s harmless. Are you back?”

  “No. Right after I called you we stopped at a service station and Charlie did a runner.”

  “Shit.”

  “Took us a while, but we eventually found him in the little M&S buying discount Valentine’s Day sweets . . .” Emma can hear his voice choking. “He wanted to do something nice for Mum.”

  “That’s heartbreaking.”

  “She doesn’t want any bloody sweets, Emma, she just wants him to get better. He can’t see it. He can’t fucking see it.”

  “I know, babe.” She feels herself choke up, too.

  His voice crackles and waivers. “I’m so tired, Emma.”

  She’d take him in her arms, if she could. “You need to take care of yourself,” she tells him. “You’re no use to anybody like this.”

  “I know. I’m trying.”

  She can hear her husband chewing something on the other end of the phone. “Are you eating the discount candy?”

  “I haven’t had Love Hearts in ages,” he says, laughing through tears. “They’re so chalky.”

  She laughs, too. “Yeah. They’re disgusting.”

  “What did we do for Valentine’s Day?” he asks.

  “Nothing. I was working at the restaurant and you said we’d celebrate once we got to London.”

  “Shit. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” she says, rubbing her socked foot along the colorful floorboards, hoping to remove some of the pencil, but it doesn’t even smudge.

  “I don’t think I’ll make it back tonight.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m going to make this up to you.”

  After hanging up, she goes down to the kitchen, pours herself a bowl of granola, and sits down at the kitchen island. She watches Bennett work, fleshing out Claire’s breasts on canvas. She smiles, wondering if they’re that perky in real life or if that’s just wishful thinking on Bennett’s part. The yellow from a few days ago is nearly gone, covered up, hardly a trace of it left on the canvas. It’s just a memory now, the painting’s origins—an unintentional secret she’ll share with Bennett. As though he can feel Emma’s eyes on him, he turns around. This time, she waves first, catching him by surprise. Turning back to contemplate the painted tits, he runs a hand through his hair before turning back to Emma and offering a goofy grin. She gives him a thumbs-up. There’s something different about him today, something oddly comforting about his consistency. He’s there painting every day. Maybe it’s not easy for him, maybe it’s just practice? He’s resilient. She’s going to fix the mess she’s made in his master bedroom.

  Still exhausted from staying up all night, she resolves to take a quick nap before heading to the hardware store to get the paint and brushes she’ll need to paint the walls and floor. It’ll probably take two trips to get everything, but she tells herself that’s fine. She can do this; she can fix this. Now that Theo isn’t coming back tonight, she’s got time. She’ll paint through the night, when Bennett’s asleep. By morning, everything will be back to normal. Maybe not for her, but for everyone else. “Not everything is about you, Emma,” she tells herself, thinking that Dr. Gibson would be pleased with that conclusion. She writes it down on a slip of paper and adds it to the fact jar.

  But the nap isn’t quick. She falls asleep in the small guest bedroom, where she moved her drafting table the day before. She curls up under the covers and falls asleep before she can even set an alarm. She dreams of Theo. He’s wearing a nice shirt and tie and he smells good, like he did when she met him, clean, like cucumbers and mint.

  “Emma?” He’s there, sitting on the edge of the bed and tucking her crazy brown curls behind her ear.

  “Hi!” She wakes, startled to realize he’s not a dream. “What are you doing here?” She blinks a couple times; he’s actually wearing the nice shirt and tie. His green eyes are beaming down on her.

  “I wanted to surprise you,” he says, distracted and maybe a little angry. He pulls back the duvet and looks at her legs, but she still has her jeans on.

  She sits up, confused and groggy.

  “I went upstairs to look for you.”

  The Crack pulses again in her mind. “You did?”

  “Give me your arm,” he says.

  “I know what you’re doing, Theo. It’s fine.”

  “GIVE IT TO ME!”

  She holds out her arm to him and he rolls up the sleeve of her shirt above her elbow, checking for bruises and ink lines.

  “Other one.”

  “Theo, I haven’t been doing th
at, I promise.”

  He looks her in the eyes, but rolls up the other sleeve, anyway.

  “I’m going to fix it,” she says. “I was going to go to the hardware store this afternoon. I must have slept too late.”

  “I never should have dragged you to London.”

  “You didn’t drag me!” She throws off the duvet.

  “I can’t worry about you and Charlie both. Maybe you should go back home. I’ll talk to Bennett about getting a refund on this place.”

  “No!”

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, her mind races, thinking about all the things Theo might tell Bennett: “My wife is ill,” “Wife suffers from anxiety,” “Wife is OCD,” as though there’s nothing more to her than these facts. She cringes at the thought of Bennett knowing any of it. Making fists, she says, “You don’t get to make decisions for me, especially when you’re not even around!”

  “That’s our bedroom, Emma,” he says, pointing to the stairs.

  “OUR bedroom? You’re. Not. Here. Your bedroom is at your mother’s house.” She points in the general direction of Theo’s mother’s house, but she has no idea if she’s pointing the right way.

  “Okay, I get it.”

  “No, you don’t. You’re spending all your time there and you’re just enabling your brother. He’s no closer to admitting he needs help. No closer to rehab. Did you even search his bag for Vicodin? He wouldn’t have left Manchester unless he had a good supply.”