Chapter Nine #2
“Let me show you to your room,” she offers, somewhere in the jumble of her guests’ memories—two high school best friends reuniting in the midst of divorces and belated coming-outs.
By the time she returns downstairs, the light is on in the kitchen and Louise is kneeling on the floor, going through the nonperishable items still sitting in the crates.
“Hey, there,” Louise says without looking up.
“Hi.” There’s a short pause as Aubrey tries to come up with something to say. She settles on, “I might be going out tonight.”
Louise looks up so abruptly that Aubrey warns, “Don’t ask.”
A smile splits her aunt’s face in half. Her laughter is thinly veiled by irritation, but she seems to take it well. “Fine,” she concedes. “It’s no problem with me.”
“No, I know. I just mean, I won’t be coming in, is all. I’ll leave after we’re done closing up.”
“Mm.” Louise sits back on her heels and presses her hands into her thighs with a small raise of her shoulders, as if she’s weighing her options. “How’s this—let’s get dinner ready and set up, and then after we’re done cleaning up you can leave early and head out.”
“Oh, no, it’s fine. I don’t mind sticking around, it’s not a big deal or anything. I wasn’t even sure I’d go.”
Louise says, “Aubrey,” very firmly, and she sounds like Aubrey’s mother then. “Let me do this for you. I’m not giving you my kidney or anything.”
Aubrey wants to argue. She doesn’t want Louise to hold anything over her, doesn’t want to owe her aunt any answers or explanations. Saying yes feels vulnerable, for some reason.
Still, she allows herself an “Okay, fine,” and even a little smile.
Arthur texts her the address sometime during dinner, followed by a smiley face and an I’ll buy you a drink.
Aubrey’s phone vibrates in the back pocket of her jeans and she pretends not to notice while she asks the guests if all is well with their food.
At this hour, the last bits of sun soak through the dining room.
Someone asks for a refill of tea. In the kitchen, Louise is humming.
Aubrey notices all of these things because she’s trying not to think too much about her phone.
The pub is a three-minute walk from the house.
She almost wishes it was longer. She loves walking around town, navigating the hills and looking at the sea and feeling like she’s doing something, spending a year here.
Sometimes she stops and takes a picture of the view, and she thinks she’s in a movie, that there’s no way this is real and surely something ought to happen to bring her back to her old routine, where she did nothing much and expected the twist in her gut to disappear.
She thinks this is how Louise must’ve felt when she first moved here.
It makes her feel closer to her aunt, even though they’ve been growing distant.
She walks through streets lined with century-old homes that promise a kind of life she hardly ever allows herself to hope for, with deep roots and a family of her own. Recently it’s been a little harder to feel lonely and miserable. Still, at times she finds a way.
She turns one corner, then a second, and finds herself on the main road. She heads downhill past a pottery studio and a home decor shop that sells a lot of old vases and bundles of olive tree branches.
The place sits at a busy intersection and looks like a cartoonish drawing of an old pub. Hidden behind tall trees and climbed wildly by relentless vines, it sits lit up by sconces that cast an eerie glow on the building’s aging facade.
On her way in, Aubrey takes her phone out to let Arthur know she’s here. He writes back terrible instructions on how to find them, and she weaves her way apologetically through the crowd until she spots him waving her over in a horseshoe-shaped booth in the back corner.
Six or seven people sit on worn, dark-patterned cushions. Their eyes fall on Aubrey one by one. She smiles and raises a hand in a silent greeting, and everyone says “hey” in a mismatched sort of chatter before returning to their conversations.
“Sorry, yeah, let me out,” Arthur says to a man with an impressive beard and a girl with two long braids as he scoots down and out of the booth. “Look who’s made it,” he says to Aubrey.
She tries very hard not to smile. “Let’s not make a big deal of it.”
He wears a simple dark t-shirt and jeans, and he looks freshly showered. “Have a seat, here. What am I getting you to drink?”
“Sorry?”
“You like gin and tonics?”
For a second Aubrey wants to say no, just so he’s wrong. Almost with a sigh, she concedes, “Yeah, I do.”
“Good. Have a seat here. I’ll be right back.
Don’t try to order anything at the table, service will take an hour.
You see that girl there? That’s Florence.
She knows who you are, I’ve told her about you and all.
You should say hi.” He touches the back of her arm and then vanishes in the crowd, toward the bar.
Aubrey stands there for a second before turning to the woman with the braids. “Florence?” she ventures.
She’s very pretty, with thick brown hair and a nice, soft smile.
Her eyes are big and her cheeks high, and she seems intimidating in the way women can be, like she’s figured out things Aubrey couldn’t even hope to understand.
Like she’s got a really long and complicated skincare and wellness routine she has no problem sticking to, or a natural sense of style she hardly ever worries about.
She wears a white top that ties at the front and jeans that fit perfectly, the kind made from good denim.
Florence smiles wide and scoots over to make space to her left. “Aubrey, yeah?”
A few people at the table glance over at them but only for a second, without pausing their conversation. Empty glasses already crowd the middle of the table. A window over the booth overlooks the street, where people are passing or gathering in small groups for a smoke.
“How do you know Arthur?” Aubrey asks, because it’s the only thing she can come up with.
Florence leans back against the wall. “School,” she says simply, her attention lost to the rest of the bar. Then, she returns to Aubrey and asks, “Can I pick your brain about something, actually? It’s a little personal.”
The question rings odd but somehow natural. Aubrey doesn’t even hesitate to reply, “Oh, yeah, sure,” as she settles in more comfortably. She hopes Florence finds her just as cool as she finds her.
“Well, sorry. It’s more than a little personal.
” Florence drops her head side to side, like she’s weighing her words.
“It’s just, I’ve known Artie a while, so he knows a lot about me.
And I’ve been informed—I swear he didn’t mean to tell me, he just blurted it out, you should’ve been there—but it turns out we’ve got something in common. ”
Aubrey realizes then she’s holding her breath, and she tries to smile and nod along. She only says, “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. So, I’ve also never been with anyone.”
Obviously, Aubrey’s met other people who’ve never been in a relationship before.
But only a handful, and always they confessed with a grimace and a little shame, as if it were a dirty secret they had to force themselves to say out loud.
Florence says it a little differently, casually, as if it were a simple fact about herself, though her hands twist in her lap and her knuckles pale a shade.
For a second, Aubrey is no better than anyone else.
The realization sits tight in her throat.
She wants to gape and say, “You can’t be serious,” and point out how beautiful Florence is, and how surely there’s no way.
The thought nearly comes out on its own.
Instead, she says, “Ah, well. What a fun club to be in.”
Florence laughs with her head thrown back and her shoulders rounding in. “I find it pretty miserable,” she says.
Aubrey finds this incredible to hear. She lowers her voice and leans in, because it feels easier to say things this way.
“Don’t you feel we’re not really meant to say that?
Like we’re supposed to be entirely fulfilled without a partner, and happy with our own company, and very conscious at all times that some people have it worse? ”
“Jesus, yes. Or what about when you tell someone you’ve never been with anyone and they go, ’Oh, you’re so much better off being single, honestly. I miss it every day.’ As if it’s so crazy I could ever want a relationship simply because they’re miserable in theirs.”
“Oh, so we’ve met the exact same people.”
Florence watches Aubrey expectantly. “What about your family? How do they feel about it?”
“About as terribly as you can imagine. My grandmother once had a package delivered to my place because she thought her delivery man was cute and she hoped I might get the same one.”
“You’re kidding.”
“My aunt’s tried to set me up with Arthur, too. Last month she scheduled two orders in the same week so he’d have to come by twice. God, I don’t know. It’s so weird saying that. She’s been single for a while herself, so. I’d come to hope she knew better.”
“Yikes.” Florence shifts in her seat, then says, “I should say Artie’s not a bad pick, at least.”
“Ah, yes. That’s why you’re all over him,” Aubrey jokes.
Florence covers her mouth with her hand and looks up to the ceiling before reaching for her pint of beer. She takes a long sip, then says, “Right. He’s not the one for me is all I’ll say. No real reason for it, I guess. He really is a good guy. I’m sure you get it.”
“I do.” Aubrey is surprised at how much she does get it. She watches Florence for a second. “Do you ever feel like maybe no one’s meant for you at all? Like it just won’t ever click?”
“Oh, yes. All the time.”
“How do you feel about that?”