Super Host

by Kate Russo

  As he approaches the cafe, he can see Mia through the large window, reading a book by someone called Zadie Smith. He’s seen that name on Claire’s bookshelf and he thinks Claire and Mia would probably get along.

  “Why are you in your paint clothes?” Mia asks as soon as he enters. He blends right in with the rest of the clientele, builders covered in paint and dirt.

  “Well, hello to you, too,” he says, leaning over and kissing her on the head, before taking a seat across from her. “What’s good?”

  She just looks at him, cocking her head a little to the side with confusion.

  “Full English for me, I think. I’m peckish.” He taps his fingers on the Formica table and looks up at the menu board. “Do they have something vegetarian for you?”

  What are the chances she’ll answer the vegetarian question and let the rest go?

  “Dad.” She squints at him. “What are you doing here?”

  Zero.

  “Are you dating someone?” she asks with a half-smile.

  “Possibly,” he says with a smirk.

  “And she lives nearby?”

  “Stoke Newington.” It feels like a role reversal, answering her questions like an awkward teenager.

  “Does she have a name?”

  “Claire.”

  “Come on, Dad. More dirt.”

  “Alright, but one for one.” He leans forward, pressing against the table, as if to say, Game on.

  “What does that mean?”

  “For every question you ask me, you have to answer one yourself.”

  She looks up at the menu board. “Yeah, there’s something vegetarian.”

  “Great, let’s eat.”

  They order and spend the next few minutes talking about the Picasso exhibition at Tate Modern.

  “I just don’t understand why they’re still giving shows to misogynist wankers,” she states with fiery indignation.

  “Being a wanker doesn’t make him a bad painter,” Bennett argues, but he beams with pride: not everyone’s got a kid with principles.

  When the food arrives, Bennett’s done with the Picasso conversation. There are more pressing issues on his mind. “So, is Calum on your course?”

  “No.” Mia takes a bite and finishes chewing before asking in return, “Where did you meet Claire?”

  “At the Claret. She’s a bartender.” He stabs his fork into a sauteed portobello mushroom. “Is Calum a Tory?”

  “What?! No!” She drops her fork, so outraged she forgets it’s her turn to ask a question.

  “Sorry. He looks a little, you know, conservative,” he says.

  “We can’t all be as hip-hop as you, Dad.”

  Shit. The gig. He’s forgotten all about it. “Speaking of. I got invited to a Roots Manuva gig tonight. Think I should go?”

  “Why wouldn’t you?” she asks, biting into her toast. “You’re obsessed with the guy.”

  “I don’t know. Think I’d enjoy him live?”

  She gives him a shrug with the toast still in her hand, like How am I supposed to know?

  “It’s with this guy I met back at the Royal College. Not sure I like him well enough to spend a whole evening with him.”

  “So? Just listen to the music and ignore him,” she says, dropping the crust of her toast on the plate. “Honestly, you’re always looking for problems. You and Mum, both.”

  Ouch.

  “Does Claire find you this infuriating?”

  * * *

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  On the train home he thinks about what it would be like to introduce Claire and Mia. He imagines taking Mia to the Claret so she could see Claire in her element, then taking them both out to dinner, maybe at the expensive vegetarian restaurant that Mia likes. Claire would like it, too, he’s pretty sure. They’d like each other, actually. They’d probably start off by talking about books and art, but by the end of the night the two of them would be united in a common goal: taking the piss out of him. Eliza and Mia always teamed up against him. Does he really want to be outnumbered again? He likes his one-on-one time with Mia, same with Claire. He can’t help thinking, if the two of them get together, he’ll be the loser.

  He gets a lot of thinking done on the long train rides from East to West London. Honestly, though, he’s not sure he likes thinking. He often feels heavy and burdened by the time he reaches his back gate in Chiswick. Another reason to move east, maybe—fewer trains, fewer thoughts. Plugging in his earbuds, he turns up the volume high, bobbing his head as he stares out the window at London racing by.

  Hither to! Bear Witness . . .

  The brute!

  The birth of the brute . . .

  Bennett mouths along to the lyrics, really feeling them this morning. Maybe Claire thinks he’s a brute. Maybe Eliza did, as well. Maybe he is. Maybe he doesn’t care.

  And furthermore

  The Brute . . . shall stay . . . Brutish!

  Yes . . . Yes . . . and Furthermore . . . Yes

  His phone vibrates in his pocket, shocking him out of his personal brute assessment. A message from AirBed: Hello, Bennett! Have you forgotten about Kirstie? For the best possible guest-host relationship we suggest responding within twenty-four hours of the original request. Make Kirstie’s day! Let her know that your Four Bed Detached House in Leafy West London is available!

  Make my day, you cocksuckers.

  He has thirty minutes to respond to Kirstie, but he’s no closer to deciding what to do. He can probably live in the studio for a few months. This Kirstie chick will probably let him use the laundry room. That’s his biggest concern, though, really, it shouldn’t be. Maybe he could offer a discount if she lets him do his laundry in the main house. He doesn’t have to make a decision about his relationship with Claire right away. If she really likes him, she’ll be patient with him, surely? He looks again at Kirstie’s picture—her on the beach, in a low-cut wrap dress tied tantalizingly at the side.

  Hi, Kirstie, he types. Sorry for the late reply. The AirBed rules are changing in London such that I am only allowed to let through the site ninety days a year. We can talk about a potential letting by other means over the phone. He adds his phone number, putting a space between the digits, so the website can’t detect it and block it. I look forward to hearing from you. Best wishes, Bennett.

  “Best wishes.” Hardly the language of a brute.

  Just as the train docks at the next station, she sends him a text: I’m in London today and tomorrow. Would it be possible to come by and look at the house?

  He checks his watch. It’s late morning. He needs to do some painting today.

  Certainly, he types back. Another word he’s pretty sure he never used previous to AirBed inquiries. How about this afternoon, around five?

  Perfect! X, she replies almost instantaneously.

  A kiss? Interesting.

  Great! he writes back, trying to match her energy. I’ll look forward to meeting you then. No kiss. You can’t be too careful these days. It’s possible her kiss was an accident. He sends her the address and gets comfortable in his seat for the remaining seven stops on his journey and tries not to think about anything.

  * * *

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  The painting of Claire stares at him, suspiciously, as he opens the door to the studio. He knows it’s impossible for the painting to have changed expression overnight, but this morning, Claire’s smile looks more skeptical. You’re an idiot, Bennett, it seems to be saying. The bleach-stained duvet that she ruined the first night she stayed over in the studio is curled up in a ball on his futon. The mattress looks hard, like a sack of potatoes. Claire has one of those soft egg-crate mattress pads on her bed. He’s been getting used to that. Will she want him to come over tonight or will she want him to stay away until he’s made a decision about moving in?

>   All the lights are off in the empty main house. It looms over him, like a giant question mark. He’d sooner enter a haunted house than his own at the moment. Too much thinking. He plugs his iPod back into the dock and hits Play.

  He still hasn’t replied to Carl about the gig. He should just go, he tells himself. Claire is probably still angry with him and won’t want him to come over tonight, anyway. He pulls the giant block of mature white cheddar out of the fridge and sets it on the counter, eyeing the severed phone cord that sent him out on yesterday’s adventure from which he’s only just returned. He decides to forgo slicing the cheese and instead takes the entire block, the size of an old videocassette, and sits down in his rolling chair across from the painting of Claire. He takes a big bite out of the cheese, swiveling from side to side, staring at her painted breasts. The tits are done, he thinks. Her milky-white skin and perky pink nipples are perfectly rendered. As usual, it’s her face that needs work; her expression isn’t quite right. What was she thinking, he wonders, that day she posed for this painting? Was she skeptical or content? Was she comfortable? Warm? Why didn’t he ask her any of these things? She was sitting there for five hours, most of it silent; she had to have been thinking lots of thoughts. He sets the brick of cheese next to his palette of flesh tints; the gnawed corner of the cheese dips into the titanium white paint. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and starts typing a text message.

  What were you thinking about when you posed for this painting? he asks.

  The bubble pops up quickly, indicating Claire’s responding. That’s a strange question.

  I’m trying to read your expression.

  I thought you knew exactly what I was thinking the whole time.

  Fuck. Walked right into that.

  That’s one of the things I liked about you, she adds.

  Liked? he writes, hopeful for a correction, but she doesn’t respond.

  He grabs the cheese and wipes the paint-coated corner onto his jeans, before digging in for another bite.

  He stares at the painting. She stares back—cold, arrogant, and unfamiliar. Not Claire. Fuck. Maybe it is classical. He thinks again of his renter Emma’s comment, then he remembers something a tutor told him at the Royal College, “All portraiture is self-portraiture.” Is that true? Is this actually a painting of Bennett Driscoll on his pedestal? Was it his personality Emma saw in the painting? Was she trying to tell him he’s pompous? Even ancient?

  He eyes the three small canvases, the ones he stretched almost in rebellion a few weeks back, perched behind the easel. He picks one up and flips it around in his hands, while continuing to contemplate the big painting. Getting up, he rests the small canvas on his chair, then takes hold of the large one and marches it outside into the garden, propping it up against the front of the studio. “Just for now,” he assures the Claire in the painting, though he’s not sure he can bear to bring that judgmental stare back indoors. Back at the easel, he places the small canvas on the bar and grabs his phone. Scrolling through his photos, he finds one he took of Claire a few weeks back where she’s naked, sprawled out on her duvet. The light streams in through her second-story window onto her torso and hips. She looks away with a slight smirk, all too aware of her photo being taken. He remembers she didn’t shrink up like so many women would have, wasn’t ashamed of her own exposure. If anything, he’d swear she stretched herself out longer to let the sun drench even more of her skin, willing Bennett to just go ahead and take the photo, while simultaneously reminding him that he was on her turf now. He sets the phone on the easel next to the canvas, which he then coats in a light wash of brown umber. With his eyes on the photo, he begins to sketch her form in a peach-hued flesh tint.

  His phone vibrates on the easel. He squints to read the message, hopeful for Claire’s reply, but it’s from Carl. Lads nite, 2nite?

  Bloody hell. He doesn’t want to be antiquated, he wants to be relevant. Yeah, he responds. Let’s do it.

  Didn’t expect that, did you, Emma?

  I knew you’d cave, mate. Meet me at Krafty Hops. Solid boozer.

  * * *

  ||||||||||||||||||||||||

  Kirstie pulls up to the house at five in a dark blue Mercedes. Typical, Bennett thinks. Eliza had the exact same car before she moved to America. He watches her through the front window of the house as she steps out of the driver’s seat in yet another low-cut wrap dress like the one in her AirBed photo. This one is white with bold pink flowers. As she makes her way to the front door, he follows the line of the dress from her right shoulder, across her chest, and down to her left hip, where the two sides of the wrap meet. Two strings, tied in a bow, keep the whole operation together. Pull those strings, he thinks, and she’s naked.

  As he opens the door, she pushes her sunglasses up to the top of her head, lifting back her blond fringe and revealing her shiny Botoxed forehead.

  “Bennett!” she says, smiling, like he’s an old friend she hasn’t seen in years.

  He holds out his hand, which she accepts, pulling him in and kissing him on both cheeks. He attempts to keep up, each of his kisses a second behind hers.

  “Please, come in,” he says, stepping aside and running his hand through his hair. He took a long shower in the master bedroom en suite before she arrived. He’d forgotten how wonderful the water pressure is up there. He even used one of those little Molton Brown soaps he leaves for the guests, and he now smells like a grapefruit. After thirty minutes of hemming and hawing about what outfit would work best for meeting a wealthy divorcée and going to a hip-hop gig, he settled on his favorite dark wash jeans and a black cashmere V-neck jumper.

  “This is lovely,” she says, crossing the threshold into the open-plan living space. “Do you have good taste or an ex-wife?”

  “I can’t have both?” He smirks, closing the door, then stuffing his hands in his pockets.

  “Good for you,” she cheers him on.

  “Downstairs is all open-plan, as you can see”—he directs her eyes—“chef-quality kitchen.”

  “I’ll be sure to bring my chef’s hat,” she quips.

  Maybe it’s because of her blond hair or the low-cut dress, but he hadn’t expected her to be so sarcastic. Sexist thought.

  He wanders into the living room area and opens two cabinet doors, behind which is a large flat-screen television. “Telly is here. It’s got Sky, Netflix, all of that stuff.”

  She looks off in the distance, regarding his studio out the window, where the naked painting of Claire is still propped up against the outer wall of the studio, her breasts glowing in the afternoon light. He probably should have brought it inside, but he forgot about it until just now.

  “Well, well. You keep busy over there, don’t you,” she says with a raised eyebrow. She wanders over to the window for a closer look. “Will you be in the studio much of the time?”

  “I’ll be in and out,” he says. “My girlfriend lives in North London, so I’ll be there a lot, too.”

  My girlfriend?

  “What does your girlfriend think about you painting naked ladies in your garden?”

  “That’s her,” he clarifies, stupid grin on his face.

  “Well done, you,” she says, like she’s awarding him an “A” on a test.

  “Would it be a problem for you?” he asks. “If I am in the studio a lot? I do sleep there sometimes.”

  Possibly all the time, if Claire dumps me.

  “Of course not!” She sounds almost offended by the question. She saunters back to the living room area, the back of her dress clinging to her thighs. “Heck, you’re more than welcome to stay here. We can be housemates!” She laughs. “Might be fun!”

  What kind of fun? Only one type comes to mind.

  He’s standing with one hand on the bannister, meaning for her to ascend the stairs behind him, but instead she sits down on the sofa, taking care to make sure
her upper legs are covered by the flaps of her dress—the flaps which so naturally want to part. “Does it get easier?” she asks, hopeful. “Divorce?”

  No.

  “Yes, a little. I’m still working through it.”

  “But you’ve got a lovely looking girlfriend. That helps, I’m sure.”

  He smiles. “She’s very patient with me.”

  I hope.

  “Would you like to see the rest of the house?” he asks.

  “Yes, let’s. I’m sure you’ve lots of things to do.”

  Pulling herself up from the couch, she smooths the fabric of her dress, as though she needs to collect herself. Bennett catches her eye and sees the tears welling up.

  * * *

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  An hour later they decide that Kirstie will let the house on a monthly basis, until either she or Bennett make a decision about buying or selling property. She confides she’s relieved to hear that he has also become more indecisive after his divorce. It’s not just her. If Eliza were here she’d say Bennett’s chronic indecisiveness was one of the grounds for the divorce, but Kirstie doesn’t need to know that. It’s almost as though she sees Bennett as a potential role model, as well as landlord, helping her navigate the complicated emotional stages of divorce. Maybe he’ll write a self-help book. Maybe call it, Yes, You Do Need to Change Your Underwear.

  He calls Claire on his way to the Tube. She’ll be on her shift, but he wants to leave her a message, tell her he’s decided to let the house. He wants to tell her he’d like to keep things as they are for now, that he’s looking forward to exploring all possibilities in the coming months, that he hopes she’ll explore them with him.

  “Hi,” she answers.

  “Oh,” he says, surprised. “I wasn’t expecting you to pick up. I thought you’d be working.”

  “I am. Just on a fag break.”