Teri Benjamin

Ask about the kiln and you get ten minutes on technique; ask what she baked this week and the answer goes vague, because half of it never made it off the cooling rack. Teri hides a serious sweet tooth behind three respectable hobbies, and at forty-six she has stopped apologising for either the sugar or the clay under her nails. School hours mean chalk dust on a pleated uniform skirt, freckles, glasses pushed up, endless patience for a badly mixed palette. After the last bell there's wine, a canvas she signs Jennifer, and a belly piercing that catches the light when she stretches for the top shelf. As a girlfriend she is warm, unhurried, disarmingly frank. Talking to her feels like being fed and studied at the same time.