Super Host

by Kate Russo

  “That’s a good best friend she’s got.”

  Bennett is surprised to find himself in full agreement. “She claims Calum never hit her.”

  “He probably did everything but . . .” Kirstie says, quietly. She taps the sofa, again, encouraging Bennett to sit back down.

  He remembers his own father, the way he used to torment his mother emotionally, and how bloody proud of himself he was for never actually hitting her. Bennett flops back on the sofa like he’s just finished a marathon. Kirstie puts a hand on his shoulder and strokes it. He’d love to curl into her right now. He’d like her to stroke his hair the way Eliza used to when he was worried about something.

  “She’s a smart girl for getting rid of the bastard. Guys like that don’t get better. They get worse.”

  Bennett recognizes the expression on Kirstie’s face as she says this. He’s seen it before, not long ago, back in January when his guest Alicia was staying. He recalls her striding across the garden to his studio door, distraught. When he joined her in the garden that morning, she told him she had to go home early. At the time, he thought he was looking at someone who was profoundly lost. But she wasn’t just lost, he realizes, she was broken. He knows that now, looking at Kirstie. He swallows hard, remembering the tears in Kirstie’s eyes the first day they met and how she clearly wanted to linger and talk. She was broken, too. And he’d been pushing her away. How had he not understood she was hurting? Or worse, had he understood and not cared? Turning to her now, he asks, “Your husband. He hit you?”

  She rolls her eyes, then looks away, unwilling or unable to meet his eye. “No. He was too smart for that. Didn’t want to damage my face, one of the few good things about me. Mostly he berated me. A few times, when he was particularly angry, he tried to strangle me.”

  “Jesus.” Without thinking, he reaches out to take her hand.

  And what of Mia, he wonders. How much damage did Calum do? Will she ever have to move across the country or travel halfway across the world just to repair the damage that bastard did?

  Kirstie smiles, resolutely, fighting back tears. “Anyway, it’s all over now.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I should have realized.”

  “Don’t be daft. How on earth could you know if I didn’t tell you?” She squeezes his hand. “No need to apologize, just keep making me smile.”

  He makes a mental note to do exactly this. Until she mentioned it just now, it hadn’t occurred to him just how much he enjoys making her smile. No easy task, though, making someone smile, day in, day out. In fact, it might be the hardest thing in the world.

  “Your girlfriend wouldn’t be happy about this, either, would she?” she asks, looking down at their clasped hands.

  “No. I guess not.” He removes his hand. He hadn’t even been thinking about Claire and now he feels bad about that, too. “We’re not really talking. I have to decide between moving in with her or ending it.”

  “Okay.” Kirstie sits up, looking him in the eyes, now. “Which is it?”

  He stares at her, blankly. Doesn’t have the answer.

  “Oh, poor Bennett.” She shoves him. “You have no idea what you want.”

  He rolls his eyes. “That’s what Claire says.”

  “That’s alright, you know? Not knowing.” She sits back again and stares out into the garden. “I don’t know what I want, either.”

  They sit quietly for a moment and Bennett thinks that what he wants more than anything is not to feel stuck anymore, to feel like he’s moving toward something. He’d like to have more nights like this one, enjoying the breeze. He also wants to eat pizza.

  * * *

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  The next morning, after his run, he resolves to do something he thought he’d never do: go see Richard at the coffee shop. He owes the kid, because Kirstie was right—having a best friend like that is rare. Bennett knows that well enough, because he doesn’t. Last night, in the back garden with Kirstie, he wondered if maybe she could be that friend for him. It feels like she’s looking out for him, and he thinks he’d like to look out for her, too. There’s just one problem. He’s worried he might be falling for her. In bed last night, he fell asleep thinking about how soft her left hand was and wondering if the right one is the same.

  There are so many reasons to banish his feelings for Kirstie, all of which he lists to himself on the Tube journey to Soho. One: Their relationship is still, technically, a business one, and you shouldn’t fancy someone who’s paying you. Two: He has no idea how she sees him. If he tells her about his feelings and she doesn’t reciprocate, that could be bad for both their business relationship and their budding friendship. Three: Even if she does have feelings for him, her divorce is very recent and he doesn’t want to be her rebound. Four: He’s worried that he only finds her attractive because she’s more damaged than he is. Five: She reminds him a lot of Eliza, and Eliza left him. Six: She’s a pain in the arse. Seven: Claire. Claire. Claire. Remember her?

  Sitting across from him on the train, a little boy smiles every time Bennett lifts a finger, counting. The child shifts himself to the end of his seat in eager anticipation of the conclusion—the eighth, then the ninth, then the tenth (Jackpot! Ten fingers!). When Bennett drops both hands in his lap at seven and slouches back in his seat, the kid frowns and buries his head in his mother’s breast.

  Bennett reaches into his coat pocket and turns up the volume on his iPod:

  I got the sudden urge to miss behave

  I want to take you away from all the stresses

  Buy you nice flowers and expensive dresses

  You don’t believe me, you think I’m cheesy

  Last night, after they finished their pizza, Kirstie asked if he wanted to come in and watch a movie, but he declined. He’d probably have felt like teenage boy on his first date at the cinema, so he lied, saying he wanted to call Mia to check in on her again.

  He hasn’t seen Kirstie yet today, probably because it’s been drizzling all morning. The heat of the past few days has finally been broken by a cloudburst. He glanced in her windows a couple times this morning, hoping to catch a glimpse of her moving around in the kitchen with her hair tied up in a high, messy ponytail and her tummy compressed by her tight spandex top. There we go, eight: The spandex. (The little boy has given up on Bennett and is playing with his own fingers, now.) If Kirstie actually fancied him, she’d go back to those sexy wrap dresses.

  * * *

  ||||||||||||||||||||||||

  It’s midday when he enters the coffee shop on Berwick Street, the spitting rain coats his blazer. His leather boots, light tan when he left the studio, are now a medium umber. He’d passed by the Claret on the way, though on the other side of the street, and he’d only half-glanced inside the pub from under his large umbrella. There was a silhouette in the window that looked like Claire’s.

  The coffee shop is small, only a half dozen tables, all white Formica, each decorated with a small terrarium of succulents. More plants hang in baskets from the ceiling, their leaves and vines dangling. Bennett has to duck under one to get to the counter, where Richard is sulking behind the large espresso machine, not at all his usual chipper self. He doesn’t even look up as Bennett approaches.

  “Hello, mate, what can I get ya?” says the girl behind the register with a bull ring in her nose and a thick Australian accent.

  “Can I have a flat white, please?” He leans over the counter to get a better look at Richard’s black eye, which confuses the Aussie.

  “’Course, mate. We can do that for you. Anything else?”

  “Make that two, actually. One for Richard here, as well.”

  When Richard looks up from scraping espresso grinds out of the filter, he’s wearing the expression of one of those sad, abused children from the NSPCC ads—the ones that aren’t really sad or abused, just paid to act like they are on T
V. His left eye is puffy and purple, the lid swollen. “Mr. D!” he shouts, brightening considerably. He comes out from behind the counter at a trot to give Bennett an enormous hug. “You came!”

  “How’s the eye?” Bennett asks, trying his best to loosen Richard’s death grip and get a better look at the bruise.

  Richard steps back, striking a silhouette pose. “Do I look tough?” he asks. The purple eye is shiny like the butt end of an aubergine. Richard puts up his fists and growls.

  “Terrifying.” Honestly. “Does it hurt?”

  “Fuck, yes! I got it, Misty,” Richard hollers when his coworker leaves the register for the espresso machine. “I want to make Mr. D’s coffee. And I’ll take my lunch break now,” he adds, putting his hand on Bennett’s shoulder. “So we can catch up.”

  Oh, Christ.

  While Richard makes the coffee, Bennett takes a seat at one of the white Formica tables by the window, where he can watch the rain. Outside, the market men of Berwick Street huddle under their plastic tarps, checking their phones, likely for evidence that the rain will let up.

  Richard arrives, smiling ear to ear, with two coffees.

  Bennett gets right to the point. “I wanted to say thank you,” he explains, when Richard sits down.

  “What for?” Richard says, brushing off the gratitude.

  “You’re a really good friend to Mia. I appreciate you looking out for her. I’m sure it’s not easy for her to come to me with these types of problems.”

  “Omigod! Are you kidding? You’re the best dad ever, Mr. D!”

  Well, maybe.

  “That’s very kind . . . But the boyfriend stuff is hard to talk about, so I’m glad you’re around. Thank you.”

  “We make a good team, you and I,” Richard says, looking at Bennett, seductively, through his one good eye.

  Gotta hand it to him, Bennett thinks, sipping his coffee. Richard’s commitment to flirtation, despite his face looking like an exploding vegetable, is admirable.

  Bennett taps his finger on the white Formica that’s chipping away to brown at the corners. “So do I have to worry about this guy coming around again?” Because last night Kirstie had wondered if Richard and Mia might need a restraining order.

  Richard waves that off. “I don’t think so.”

  Bennett groans, unconvinced. “How’s she doing? I haven’t heard from her yet today.”

  “Omigod, she is moping like you would not believe. But yeah, she’s totally fine.”

  Wonder where she gets that from?

  “Should I call her or let her mope?”

  “Are you asking me for parenting advice, Mr. D?!”

  “I’m asking you your opinion, Richard, as her best friend.”

  Richard puts his hand on his heart, like it hadn’t occurred to him before that this is what he might be. “I’d leave her for a bit. I bet she calls you later tonight.”

  “Alright,” Bennett says, taking a deep breath. “I’ll try to back off. One more question?”

  “Anything,” Richard says, reaching across the table to graze Bennett’s hand. “Anything.”

  Bennett pulls back his hand, clears his throat. “Has she told her mother?”

  “I don’t think so. I mean, you’re the one she tells things to, Mr. D. She hates the idea of her mum discussing her personal life with that tosser, Jeff.”

  Bennett grins. “Thank you, Richard. I needed that.” He surprises himself by reaching across the table to grab Richard’s hand this time, just for a moment.

  “Rumor is, there’s trouble in paradise,” the boy says, then covers his mouth in pseudo shock, like he hadn’t expected the words to come out.

  At this, Bennett swallows hard, fearing his flat white might come up. “What do you mean?”

  “Mia says Eliza is on this American visa that’s about to expire. She was expecting to be married with a green card by now, but Jeff has yet to put a ring on it.” Richard flashes his ring finger for emphasis.

  “Right,” Bennett says, sweat gathering at his temples. Under the table, his legs begin to twitch violently. It’s been a long time since he’d considered that Eliza’s relationship with Jeff wouldn’t last.

  “You alright, Mr. D?”

  Bennett runs his hand through his hair. “I didn’t know any of that.”

  “Yeah. According to Mia, Eliza might be headed back to London.”

  * * *

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  Five minutes later, Bennett is back outside in the rain. He sits down on a bench in Soho Square, ignoring the rain that’s pooling on the wooden slats. Burying his head in his hands, he tries to calm his churning insides. His jeans are quickly becoming soaked, but he doesn’t care. For months after Eliza left, he dreamed of this exact scenario—his wife coming home with her tail between her legs. Now that it could actually happen, he feels sick, like a sudden onset of the flu. He’s not an idiot; he knows that if she comes back, it won’t be for him and he hates the idea of having to share London with her again, having to share Mia with her. The best thing about their divorce was that she went far away. If he can’t have Eliza then he wants an ocean between them. He rubs his face in his hands, trying to collect himself, then glances over at a Tudor-style hut in the center of the square. When Mia was little, he convinced her that it was made entirely out of gingerbread and frosting and that every year the best behaved children in London were allowed to eat it from the inside out. In the months that followed, Mia behaved like a saint, hoping to earn a piece of that hut. Finally, of course, he’d had to tell her he was kidding, which made him feel so terrible he’d gone to Fortnum and Mason and bought her a gingerbread house to make up for it.

  Don’t call her.

  Mia has her own struggles right now, he reminds himself. When Richard gets home later, he’ll tell her about the visit to the coffee shop and she’ll surely call him after that. He just has to wait until then. His phone vibrates in his pocket. Maybe that’s her now, so he pulls it out.

  It’s a text from Claire: Was that you walking by earlier?

  He doesn’t even reply, pulls himself up from the bench, and heads back in the direction of the Claret, wiping the wet off the back of his jeans as he walks.

  * * *

  ||||||||||||||||||||||||

  “Are you stalking me?” she wants to know, when he walks through the entrance. She’s behind the bar, her expression halfway between a smile and a panic attack.

  Would stalking her be a good or a bad thing?

  She’s wearing the same red shirt with the ruffle sleeves she wore the day they met, though it seems to hang on her differently now.

  In the back of the bar a group of tourists have pulled together most of the tables and are spreading out a giant folding map of London. Otherwise, the place is empty.

  “No.” He smiles at her, sweetly, he hopes, because she really does look frightened. As if over the last couple of weeks she’s managed to convince herself that he’s a monster. “Mia’s best friend works at a coffee shop nearby. I needed to thank him for something.”

  “What?” she asks, clearly not believing this story.

  “He took a punch for Mia. She’s been dating a creep.”

  “Oh, wow,” she responds, looking guilty now for doubting him, maybe even a little disappointed that he hasn’t been stalking her after all. “Is he okay?”

  Bennett stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, fine.”

  “And Mia?”

  “She’s alright.” He moves closer to the bar. “A little heartbroken.”

  “Yeah,” she says, letting her voice drop, like heartbreak is something she knows all about. “You want a glass of wine?”

  “No.” Though he takes a seat at the bar, his wet jeans squishy.

  “They’re not drinking, either,” she says, rolling her eyes to the tourists in the back.
“They ordered Cokes.”

  Her annoyance with the tourists reminds him of just how easily irritated she can get and how charming he finds it, until, of course, it’s directed at him. “I’ve missed you,” he says.

  “Not now,” she says, looking down at the bar.

  Just that quickly, he’s confused. “What, not now?”

  “We can’t talk about us right now. Not while I’m working.”

  “That’s all I wanted to say,” he tells her. Feeling unwelcome, he rises from the stool. “I’ll let you get back to work.”

  At the door, he stops, turning around to look at her. Her face is heavy and tired in a way he’s never seen before, even after she’s worked a busy shift. He senses that whatever is causing this exhaustion, it isn’t something you can just sleep off.

  “What?” she asks, as he stares at her, trying to work it out.

  Though he knows he probably shouldn’t, he says, “You look different.”

  She nods. “But you don’t know why?”

  You look knackered and heavy. Can’t say that . . .

  “No.” He wishes he could understand her. Wishes he wasn’t always letting her down by requiring an explanation. He thinks about Kirstie last night in the garden, how effortlessly they seemed to intuit each other’s needs. “Don’t make me guess, Claire, please.”

  She turns, showing him her profile. He remembers their first meeting in this very bar, when he sketched her standing behind that same counter. He thinks about his hand drawing the contours of her body, the thinness of her neck, the slight lift of her breasts, the curve of her hips. His eyes stall at the slight curve of her belly.

  Wait.

  He swallows hard before meeting her eyes. He can’t possibly tell her what he thinks he sees. That it might be the same thing he saw for the first time twenty years ago, a sight that changed every little thing in his known universe. Life growing because of him, in spite of him.

  “It’s yours,” she says. “Just in case you’re stupid enough to ask that question.”