Chapter Nine
It’s a late August afternoon when a knock on the back door steals Aubrey’s attention away from her phone. She sits at the small kitchen table, the cleaning supplies she’d set down before taking a break waiting patiently at her feet. Two couples will be checking in soon. It gives her a headache.
“Coming,” Aubrey calls on her way to the door. Outside, the sun is bright and a cicada is desperate to steal the show. Standing back from the entrance, Arthur is waiting with a tower of crates by his side. His face, familiar now, is hidden behind the rim of a navy blue cap.
“Sorry I’m late,” he says.
Aubrey teases, “You better be,” and sets the door stopper down to keep it propped open. She doesn’t mind the heat in the kitchen. Most of the windows are already open, and the breeze keeps late summer at a respectable distance inside the inn.
“How’s it been?” Arthur asks as he picks up the first crate and steps into the kitchen. Aubrey opens the door to the pantry and tries to catch a glimpse of what they’ll be eating over the next week. Absentmindedly, she replies, “Fine, yeah.”
He doesn’t look over but nods along to her answer. His hair is a mess at the nape of his neck, and his clothes need a wash, like he’s been out in the dirt. “Is that the real answer?” he asks.
He often does this. Aubrey can’t remember when he figured out that she answers without really thinking most of the time. She laughs and says, “I think so, yes.”
“Things have been good with Louise, then.”
“Mm. They’d be better if she stopped with this weird thing she’s got for the two of us. Do you know when I told her I went on a date the other day, she said, ’Oh, so you’ve gone out with Arthur. I knew that was coming.’ And the look on her face when I said it wasn’t you.”
Maybe she shouldn’t tell him this. Maybe this only feeds into the crack in her chest when she thinks of her aunt. But it’s been hard, the way Louise has been acting since Aubrey arrived. She clings now onto her moments with Arthur if only to feel a little bit less alone. She misses Louise often.
Arthur wears a hint of an amused smile. “She’s not so bad,” he offers, but he doesn’t seem to mean it.
“She’s not, it’s just not how I thought she’d be when I agreed to come here. She must mention you in conversation at least once a day, and you should see the way she checks for my reaction.”
With his arms full, Arthur looks over with an unusual expression, raised eyebrows, and pinched lips. “Like this?”
“Uncanny.” Aubrey moves the crates a little closer to the pantry and takes out a few items she carries to the fridge. The vegetables are fresh and smell like dirt and the sun. There are courgettes, aubergines, Brussels sprouts. “I don’t know, I guess we’re less similar than I thought.”
“You should talk to her about it.”
“A dreadful idea.” Aubrey can’t risk fraying things further. She still clings onto the possibility that Louise is just playing a very odd prank on her.
Arthur pauses on his way out. He leans for a second against the door frame with his hands in his pockets and says, “You know what else you should do, is come out with me and a few friends tonight.” He smiles softly, like asking this is easy and not a stressful endeavour.
“It won’t be just the two of us. Louise won’t get any satisfaction out of it. ”
“Oof. Very tempting.”
“It’s at a nice bar, and with friends who won’t mind if you lay low. But there’s a girlfriend of mine I think you’d get along with.”
He says a girlfriend of mine, which is certainly not how people refer to their significant others. Aubrey wonders who this new character in Arthur’s life is.
She asks, “Why’s that?”
Arthur shrugs, his back turned to her. “You’ve got things in common, is all.”
“Things in common,” Aubrey echoes. When he turns to look back, their eyes meet for a second.
Arthur has known for a while now that she’s never dated anyone.
She’d blurted it out a while back, in the early days of July.
When he’d joked that she must truly find him hideous if she thought the idea of going out with him was so troubling, she’d said of course not, that she enjoyed his friendship more than most, actually, and liked chatting with him when he dropped by for deliveries, and that she wasn’t the best at dating and would prefer the chance to keep him around and not risk failing again with the one person she happened to actually find pleasant these days.
Obviously she’d considered whether dating him was an option, but the idea, while interesting, left Aubrey rather tepid.
He was nice, and somewhat funny, but that was it.
She wasn’t sure why. Maybe she wasn’t into blondes.
Whatever it was, she decided not to read too much into it, for risk she might discover there actually was something wrong with her.
To Aubrey’s sheepish, rushed confession about her dating history, Arthur had simply nodded and said, “Okay, great.” Then, “Good for you, for being so patient, knowing what you want.” It was a little clumsy, but sweet.
“I don’t,” Aubrey had corrected. But his comment was flattering, and she liked it.
Arthur had hummed and conceded, “Neither do I, I don’t think.
Seems every time I think I do, my gut’s led me astray.
” They’d shared a smile. Then he’d added very quickly, “Not that I’m going around town dating everything that moves, y’know.
I mean, I date a normal amount. Which is to say, not a lot at all.
I’ve been single for a while now, actually, I think it’ll be three years?
Who keeps track of that, anyway. Other than you, I mean.
And rightfully so. Not that—I’m just saying, I get how you feel. It’s rough out there.”
“It’s rough out there?”
“You know what I mean,” Arthur had grimaced. “Let’s just get this over with.” Then he’d vanished back to his boxes. They hadn’t talked about it again.
Now, he purses his lips and says, “Some general, vague things you both could relate to.”
“You mean she could give me some advice, maybe.”
“Mm, no. I mean, she’s the one who could use your wisdom.”
Aubrey makes a strangled sort of noise. Then she says, “Okay,” in a way she hopes hides her surprise.
Arthur drops the last crate next to the others and wipes his forehead. His blonde hair is curling where it pokes out of his cap. “Anyway, I’ll text you the address. If you come, you come, yeah? After you’ve closed up tonight.”
His expression is hard to read, and Aubrey is scared to ask if he actually wants her there. She decides she’ll think it over, but really, she knows she wants to go. Already she wonders what she’ll wear.
And what sort of advice could this stranger possibly need from her?
She doesn’t have much figured out. When she tries to help Maggie, all she has to offer are generic words of comfort and promises that she’s there to listen.
Her wisdom rests so heavily in the familiarity of their friendship.
With other people she feels more like a sponge, who nods and smiles and says, “I totally get that.”
To Arthur, she offers, “Sure. I can do that.”
On his way out, he pauses and asks, “So, you found yourself a nice gentleman to go out with in Lunenburg, then?” He says it very casually, like he’s only joking.
Aubrey feels compelled to say, “Well he’s ghosted me entirely, but yeah, sure.”
“Mm.” He frowns and says nothing.
Aubrey adds, because she feels embarrassment creeping in, “It’s fine, really.”
“Right. Still sucks, I reckon.”
“Obviously I didn’t get to where I am today by lining up consecutive wildly successful dates.”
Arthur hums again, and he’s looking away like he doesn’t know what to say. His mouth twitches. “I’m sure something good’s just around the corner,” he volunteers, but with a hint of a grimace, like he knows it’s shitty advice. It’s almost comforting to see him struggle.
“You know what the thing is—I’ve pictured the details of my first romance so many times, in so many ways, that I’m terrified now that in the end it may never live up to any of it.
” Aubrey exhales sharply. It feels good to confess that painful truth aloud, even if now her ears are burning red hot.
“So it’s almost better he ghosted me, I think. ”
Arthur is smiling a little wider now. When their eyes meet, Aubrey feels they agree on something, though she’s not sure what. He nods, slowly to himself, as he backs up out the door. “Well, it’s good you see it this way. I’ll keep my thoughts to myself, then.”
Aubrey wants to add something, like how she does want to hear what he thinks. But then he’s waving and kicking the door shut, and she’s left with the delivery of food to date and organize for Louise, who’ll be home soon.
Half an hour later, their first check-ins arrive, two women carrying only backpacks and little straw hats adorned with matching bows.
They’re so sweet that it’s a little easier to listen to them gush about how excited they are for this romantic getaway, how lucky they are to have each other, how many years together they’re celebrating.
“How did you two meet?” Aubrey asks as she hands their key over and notes down their credit card information.
It’s her favourite question to ask now. One of the two is always excited to tell the story, and the other blushes and adds in the little details only they could remember, and it takes the attention off of Aubrey for a few minutes.
She’s found that if she doesn’t ask the questions first, guests tend to question her a little too intently about her presence at The Beauchamp and her time in Lunenburg.
Anyway, origin stories are always a comfort all on their own, promises that if Aubrey keeps stopping by the supermarket or looking lost around town or starting the same online conversations over and over again, she might actually get one of her own.
There’s a sour taste in her mouth. She smiles around it.