“Mr. Host,” said Benna, trying to smile.
In the bathroom there was only one towel, the size of a bathmat. It was stained a brownish gray and was draped at a careless angle on an aluminum rod.
“Louis, do you have another towel?” Benna called out the door.
“No, I don’t.” Louis’s voice cracked sheepishly from the living room. He had turned the TV on, a basketball game.
“Oh.” Benna poked her dripping face out. “Do you have paper towels?”
“Yeah. In the kitchen,” he grunted.
“I’ll get them.” She dripped out to the kitchen, tore sheets of toweling from a roll on top of the refrigerator, and dried her face and hands with them.
“Ah, good.” She found herself smiling self-consciously at Louis, who had come out to the kitchen to watch. She threw the towels away in an open brown grocery bag, next to the overflowing one.
“Where you wanna eat?” he said.
They put on coats and walked five blocks to a dark Italian steak house called The Charcoal Lounge. It was full of piped-in Christmas music and festoons of garlands, red and green. Louis kept announcing that the dinner was on him. “All right, already,” she smiled, finally. She liked to say that. It was something which growing up upstate she had never heard anyone say.
Louis suddenly seemed edgy, his voice loud. “Get what you want, get what you want! Drinks? You want a drink first? Get a drink.”
The waiter looked at Benna. “A drink?”
“A scotch and soda, please,” she said. She put her napkin carefully in her lap.
Louis ordered a beer. “So this friend of yours who died, he was a good friend?”
“Yes,” said Benna. She thought about Gerard for a minute, imagined him in a floaty pastel heaven where there was no opera, only church and church music, and knew he’d hate it there. “It’s so weird to talk about somebody who’s died. It seems to make them more dead,” she said.
“It’s rough,” said Louis, shaking his head again. He reached across the table, took her hand, held it for a while. They were long minutes. She squirmed, then gently slipped her hand from his and put it in her lap with her napkin.
When the food came — salads, veal cutlets, spaghetti — Louis ate quickly. When he finished he leaned back and belched, said excuse me, and then talked about his bookkeeping job, how much he made, what it was like having a woman for a boss, how much he thought he’d make in three years, how much the government took out of his paycheck in taxes. “When we get back home,” he said, “I’ll, I’ll show you a check stub. Three hundred dollars they take out. Three hundred dollars!” he squeaked and his eyebrows went up. His eyes rounded and his glasses slipped a bit on his nose.
“Wow,” said Benna, chewing.
“Would you like another scotch?” asked the waiter.
“God, no. It’ll go right to my hips,” she said, although no one laughed. Louis ordered a second beer and the waiter nodded and left.
“Yeah, I’m thinking of becoming a Big Brother,” announced Louis, lighting up a cigarette. Louis was the sort of person who, when changing the subject, lit up a cigarette and started his sentences with a long, drawn-out Yeah.
“The organization? Where you sort of adopt a little kid?”
“Yeah. I go, go for the interview next Monday.”
“Well, Louis, that might be great for you.” It was curious to her, this announcement to a younger sister that he was off to try to become a Big Brother, this announcement of loneliness and terror, of failure and of hunger for the most meager redemption — that of brother, even fake-brother. Benna thought of something she’d heard on a nature documentary once, something called The Stone Egg Theory, which said if you put a stone egg in the chicken’s nest, it’ll be encouraged to lay a real one.
“Yeah, I think it’d be good for me.”
“I take it you don’t hear from Annie or Fran much.”
“Christmas card,” he sighed. “I’ve sort of given up on them.”
“Perhaps it’s better.”
“Yeah.” He dragged deeply, looking at his cigarette as he did, appearing almost cross-eyed.
Some people came in and Louis looked suddenly toward the door. “I think there’s someone here I know,” he said, and his face went brilliant with hope and recognition. He began to stand. Benna looked over her shoulder. There was a group of people standing at the door. None of them was looking Louis’s way. Benna looked back at her brother. A hesitant flicker appeared in one dark iris and then he scowled and sat back down, shaking his head. “Wope. Mistake. A case of mistaken identity.”
“Oh,” said Benna, and she felt disappointed for him. Someone should have been there. Someone should have waved and strode over, shook his hand, slapped his back, and said, “Louis, hey, howsit goin? — Merry Christmas, guy.”
They ate cheesecake and then walked home. Two blocks from his apartment he put his arm around her. “My little sister,” he said, and hugged her close to his side. She could smell the nicotine and onion sweat of his armpits, the damp heat of him beneath his coat.
· · ·
Louis continued drinking beers. He showed Benna the paycheck stub. They sat in front of the television for a while silently watching a bad sitcom about two people who meet when one locates and adopts the other’s lost poodle. The two “owners” battle it out for possession, the poor dog yanked and pet-knapped and shuttled back and forth, abused and as miserably beside the point as a baby brought to Solomon. Her mind wandered. She thought of pets growing tired and committing suicide, what notes they would leave: “Dear Benna: It’s all a crazy game. Farewell, Max, Your Schnauzer.”
“I’m sleepy, Louis. I’ve got to call the cab place tomorrow at six-fifteen to make sure I’m at Kennedy by seven-thirty.”
Louis got up. “Well, I put brand-new sheets on the bed. I went out and bought them today.”
“You bought new sheets? You shouldn’t have done that.” Benna thought it odd that he’d have brand-new sheets yet no towels.
“Nothing but the best for my sister.” He lifted her hand and kissed it, wetly, several times, like some hideous courtier, looking out at her from over his glasses.
“Louis.” She pulled her hand away. He’s confused. He’s bought a woman dinner and now he’s confused: He’s forgotten who I am. “Listen, I can sleep on the sofa, if you’d rather. I can sleep here, no problem.” She bent over and patted the thatchy plaid of the couch cushion. Then she straightened and backed away from him.
“Hey, you know your brother loves you, right?” He grinned drunkenly, arms wide, coming toward her. She was supposed to hug him. She attempted it, lightly, briefly, but his arms clamped around her stubbornly. She wriggled her arms free and began pushing him away. “Come on, Louis,” she said, and twisting to get out of his hug, she found herself trapped, the small of her back against his spongy gut, his arms still locked now pressing against her breasts. She squirmed and pushed down hard on his arms. He let go.
“Well, hey,” he said, and stepped toward the TV and turned the volume down.
“See you in the morning, Louis,” she said.
“Of course, of course,” and he kissed her hand again.
“Well. Good night,” she said, and he followed her into the room with the double bed and the window facing the blocked wall. She went over to the dresser, set his alarm, turned off the lights. Her bag sat by the blocked window, unopened. Louis stood in the doorway and watched. She kicked off her shoes and got into bed with all her clothes on. The sheets were rough and canvasy; Louis had bought them, but he hadn’t washed them. They had the chemical popcorn smell of five-and-dimes.
“I’m going to sleep now, Louis, thanks for everything. I’ll see you in the morning.” She tried to act as if he weren’t there still in the doorway, stubborn and lonesome and pushing up his glasses. But she could feel his largeness and breathing still close, and she pulled the covers up to her neck, squeezed shut her eyes, and retreated to someplace very far back in her head, and when she got there she sat in it like a child in a far place and said to herself over and over again, “Please, God, please.”