Chapter Five #3
“Great.” Louise claps her hands together as if she’s accomplished a great task.
“Well, look at you two. Getting along already.” She turns to Arthur.
“You know, Aubrey hasn’t had a chance to see much of Lunenburg yet.
I keep her too busy, I reckon. But she has to get out there and see everything, yeah? ”
Arthur gives a solemn, grave nod. “It’d be a crime if she didn’t.”
“I’ve been here a week,” Aubrey interjects. “Plenty of time to explore still.”
“No, no, I know,” Louise says. Aubrey wishes she knew her aunt a little less—then maybe she’d buy into her casual act.
But the tone of her voice is just a little off, her smile just a tad too wide.
It makes Aubrey’s ears burn. “I just thought, you know, it might be more fun exploring with someone who isn’t your washed-up old aunt. ”
Arthur’s “Ah, okay,” betrays something like uneasy surprise.
Now, Aubrey wishes she knew him a little better so she could find the right thing to say to ease the odd tension creeping in between the three of them.
But all she does is stand there with her hands at her front, avoiding everyone’s eye and trying to remember what a normal facial expression feels like.
“There’s this really cool café you guys could visit, or even—if you’ll hang on a second, I could get you the address to this new place I’ve been hearing so much about. Aubrey, you like French food, yeah? Arthur loves French food, don’t you, Artie?”
Aubrey stills and hopes, very deeply, that Louise is just being nice. That she doesn’t want her niece to be lonely. That she wants to help Aubrey make friends, even if this is a clumsy way to go about it. This is what Aubrey chooses to think.
“Probably, yeah,” Arthur offers pitifully.
Aubrey says, , “I should get ready for our first check-in, actually. Arthur, great meeting you. Enjoy the rest of the party.” She says nothing to Louise but their eyes meet, just for a second, and it’s enough.
Enough for Aubrey’s silent let’s talk later, for a slightly louder I’m not sure what you mean in return.
Something’s shattered now in the reflection Aubrey seeks in Louise, a crack in the mirror she thought reflected much of herself.
Her ears are hot, her throat tight. She hopes Arthur didn’t notice. She hopes maybe Louise did.
After this, the crowd thins out to only a handful of people, and Aubrey counts down the minutes to the event’s end.
She avoids their guests’ attention by checking in on Maggie, who’s responded to her earlier update with her own paragraph: tales of getting her first lash lift and it changing her life, the new guy at her office she’s not sure is single, how she might get into plants.
When their first guests finally walk in with their luggage and tired smiles, Aubrey pulls up her hastily scribbled check-in list with shaky fingers as she welcomes them, and hands out key number three from the little key display behind her.
It’s hard to pinpoint the two guests’ ages, as though their eyes and smiles tell a different story from the lines in their complexions.
Aubrey takes them up to the second floor.
She unlocks the door to room number three, which she’s carefully shielded from the party.
She goes through the routine she’s carefully rehearsed: in this corner you’ll find fresh linen, the bathroom is down the hall to your right, if you need anything do let us know, breakfast will be served at your preferred time tomorrow morning.
They smile and nod, and the way they look at one another brings a twinge to Aubrey’s chest. She pretends not to notice and tries not to stare too much.
“Later we’ll bring you a bottle of champagne, on the house,” she says.
“We’ve also got brochures and a Lunenburg binder if you’d like more information on the town.
” She looks at the two of them and wonders how they met, what their years together have been like.
She’s fascinated by what brings people together, the unlikely situations in which love weaves its way in and catches them off-guard.
Maybe they were colleagues. Maybe they met in the produce aisle.
After being told so many times that she’d find the right person when she least expects it, she craves testimonies that would prove or disprove it once and for all.
She’s not sure what she hopes, that it be true or not.
Part of her finds it incredibly romantic, this idea that love escapes all predictions, but the rest of her is terrified of a reality where there’s no controlling it at all.
Because at this point, she’s not sure she could ever stop expecting it.
So, what then? Would she stay stuck in an increasingly hard to romanticize loop of loneliness, identical dating profiles, and failed meet cutes with no escape in sight?
“Will you be dining in with us tonight?” she asks on her way out the door.
“Oh, actually, we’ve got a reservation in town,” the man answers. His hand rests on his wife’s waist.
“Well, enjoy your night out, then.” Aubrey smiles and wishes for a second that she could stay here and chat with them. Instead, she adds, “And happy anniversary.”